Code of Conduct ?

[FrancesScott]

Okay, but that's not what I said.

If I refer to "brown dogs", do you interpret that as an assertion that all dogs are brown?


Plenty of the torture-porn stories I referred to also strove for realism.

I have to say I am struggling to follow your argument here. But it’s probably me, so I’ll drop it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I have to say I am struggling to follow your argument here. But it’s probably me, so I’ll drop it.

The distinction I was making is between:

1. stories which minimise the harm of rape with "she learns to love it" type tropes
2. stories which present male-on-female rape as something traumatic (which I'm happy to call "realistic") and which treat this as a Bad Thing (which I summarised as "feminist"; I don't think it's controversial to suggest that feminism generally considers rape to be bad, though I'll grant it's a pretty low bar)
3. stories which present male-on-female rape as something traumatic (realistic) and which take sadistic delight in that trauma (not feminist).

You seem to have interpreted my reference to "feminist take that treats rape in a realistic manner that acknowledges the trauma rape causes" as an assertion that "feminist take" = "treats rape in a realistic manner".

But it was actually a reference to stories which are both "realistic" and "feminist", without suggesting that either of those attributes implies the other.

 

[FrancesScott]

The distinction I was making is between:

1. stories which minimise the harm of rape with "she learns to love it" type tropes
2. stories which present male-on-female rape as something traumatic (which I'm happy to call "realistic") and which treat this as a Bad Thing (which I summarised as "feminist"; I don't think it's controversial to suggest that feminism generally considers rape to be bad, though I'll grant it's a pretty low bar)
3. stories which present male-on-female rape as something traumatic (realistic) and which take sadistic delight in that trauma (not feminist).

You seem to have interpreted my reference to "feminist take that treats rape in a realistic manner that acknowledges the trauma rape causes" as an assertion that "feminist take" = "treats rape in a realistic manner".

But it was actually a reference to stories which are both "realistic" and "feminist", without suggesting that either of those attributes implies the other.

That was unclear from what you wrote. But elucidating it as above makes sense.

All rape causes severe trauma. Some stories bemoan that some celebrate it. On Literotica she just has to have a jolly time of being raped and all is well.

I agree it’s a feminist stance to not celebrate rape-induced trauma. But I don’t think it’s only a feminist stance. Some men could have very traditional views on gender roles and still see rape for what it is. I might disagree with them on many things, but that doesn’t mean that they see rape as non-traumatic, or somehow OK (written or actual).

It was the use of ‘feminist’ I found out of place. But your triage above is correct.

 

[cw5523729]

I agree it’s a feminist stance to not celebrate rape-induced trauma. But I don’t think it’s only a feminist stance. Some men could have very traditional views on gender roles and still see rape for what it is. I might disagree with them on many things, but that doesn’t mean that they see rape as non-traumatic, or somehow OK (written or actual).

That was very generous of you to acknowledge that there are possibly one or two "traditional" men out there who don't believe that rape is fun and should be designated the national past time.

 

[cw5523729]

To be clear, I'm not one of those men. I'm all about the rape, rape, rape. Can't get enough of that rapin', yes-sir-ee.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

That was very generous of you to acknowledge that there are possibly one or two "traditional" men out there who don't believe that rape is fun and should be designated the national past time.

Well, it's quite a stretch because modern feminism relies on painting anyone not in 100% agreement with them as terrible human beings, and of course masculinity is the root of all evil.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, not a single one of the traditional masculine men I know (and it's a pretty large sample size) sees rape as anything but vile and evil. They'd feed rapists feet first into a wood chipper without a moments hesitation.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

To be clear, I'm not one of those men. I'm all about the rape, rape, rape. Can't get enough of that rapin', yes-sir-ee.

That's exactly what we'd expect a rape apologist to say.

 

[cw5523729]

and of course masculinity is the root of all evil.

Agreed. In fact, I just punched myself in the crotch while reading your post to assuage my masculine guilt.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Agreed. In fact, I just punched myself in the crotch while reading your post to assuage my masculine guilt.

And then you had to come here and mansplain to me that you did it!!!!
Do better!!!!!

Screeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

 

[TheLobster]

I agree it’s a feminist stance to not celebrate rape-induced trauma. But I don’t think it’s only a feminist stance.

It is a feminist stance insofar that it is pro-women, i.e., in the most basic and uncontroversial meaning of the term.

 

[cw5523729]

It is a feminist stance insofar that it is pro-women, i.e., in the most basic and uncontroversial meaning of the term.

Wait, are you mansplaining feminism to @FrancesScott ???

And then you had to come here and mansplain to me that you did it!!!!
Do better!!!!!

Screeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f923.png

 

[TheLobster]

Wait, are you mansplaining feminism to @FrancesScott ???

Incidentally, "the most basic and uncontroversial meaning" excludes exactly this kind of fanciful 69th wave nonsense like 'mansplaining'.

 

[cw5523729]

Incidentally, "the most basic and uncontroversial meaning" excludes exactly this kind of fanciful 69th wave nonsense like 'mansplaining'.

That's exactly what we'd expect a rape apologist to say.

 

[Erozetta]

The one thing I think is largely overlooked in this debate is the cathartic notion of a writer processing the event of being raped by someone they deeply care about and having to reconcile the act with their view of that person vs their view of themselves.

It's a horribly complicated situation to be in and one I've been in multiple times. It feels disgusting, but you can't always just not care about a person that you care about even if they harm you. Sometimes it makes you care about them more because you start questioning if you did something wrong to cause them to act the way they did. You examine your interactions and obsess over what clues you gave them that made them think x instead of y.

This is the dynamic I would explore in any true noncon story I wrote. There would be an element of enjoyment because of caring about the person even if you don't actually want the sex part of things. The entire act of sex can come with pleasure and tears of regret and pain and fear all at once. You can not want to have sex with someone, but want to be there for someone even if it's not in a way you want to be there for them.

It can be terrifying to face the fact that a friend raped you, still loving that friend, and finding you can't fault them even if you would fault them if they had done that to anyone except yourself.

As it stands, many of my stories have noncon elements in varying degrees, only one involves rape and it is only implied, never acted out on the page, it is because of that implication and the forced marriage situation that I put this one in Noncon. There is no sex depicted in this story at all.

Of my stories on Lit with noncon elements:

1. Dark Fairytale where the rape is not mentioned merely implied, and the rapist gets what's coming to him. The other element of noncon in this story is that of a girl who finds herself accidentally married to death against her will, but a sexual element is not forced. Patience and care is exerted over the otherwise forced situation. This is in R/NC as the accidental/forced marriage is the driving force behind the story. A mix of nonconsent and consent on varying levels. No rape is depicted, but one is implied.

2. Erotic Horror where there's an element of unconsenting physical violence between a demon prince and the first soul he chooses to torture. She's very into it and by the end is giving as much as she's receiving. It's significantly more violent than any of the others and both characters are fully consenting, but consent would be impossible given the situation of a power dynamic between a demon torturer and a soul to be tortured. It's a fully consensual situation that *can't* be consensual. No rape happens, but again, consent is not possible in this dynamic.

3. Erotic Horror where a woman lures in a would-be rapist and lets the demon under her bed feast on the depraved fella who basically signed his life away by being an absolute shit of a human being. It's a consensual situation that looks nonconsensual.

4. A seeming power imbalance between a young woman and her brother-in-law's boss. The sister-in-law and brother-in-law are carrying on an affair, his boss finds out and threatens to tell his wife/the girl's sister. The sister-in-law has the upper hand through the work she's been doing, which outs the boss's nefarious accounting practices, so while the boss set up the situation to be a noncon encounter she had to give in to, she has a clear out. She fucks the boss anyways because the entire reason she's there is to prove her brother-in-law is cheating so her sister can divorce him without guilt. But she doesn't want her sister to know he's cheating with her, so she fucks his boss in front of him at a work convention to piss him off enough to go get drunk and fuck some random woman she can then record and present to her sister as evidence of his cheating. This entire story is consensual even though some parts *seem* nonconsensual. No rape happens. This is in First Time.

5. An encounter between a woman and her sister's boyfriend that is very much on the verge of sexual assault, but never quite crosses the line beyond simple assault. It gives her reason to stay with her older neighbor, as he interrupts the assault. It's not a clear cut case of "he's wrong and she's a victim" as she goads him along and she's uncertain if she wants him to push back against her or roll over and submit to her pushing. Parts of this are consensual, parts are not, but nothing crosses the line into rape. This is in Mature.

6. A girl forgets to turn off her webcam and her friends end up watching her masturbate without her realizing. Definitely not consensual, but not rape, either. Erotic Couplings.

7. Elements of nonconsensual touching between friends in a highly sensual moment. It's not unwanted, but it's not consented to, either. This story won last year's Halloween contest through some fuckery I'm still not certain of. This element alone should've kept it well away from placing. No rape happens. Erotic Couplings.

8. A story between co-workers where sex is very much consensual, but the relationship dynamic wanted by one is unwanted by the other and is used as a way to harm the one who wants the relationship. It is an element of nonconsent that does not involve rape or force so much as it involves denial of a wanted thing. No rape happens. BDSM

9. Nonconsensual touching on a subway. It's not rape because it's not unwanted and it actually plays right into the person being touched's fantasies, though no consent is ever established between the pair. Hell, they barely say a few words to each other beforehand and they are complete strangers to one another. No rape happens, though the MMC does have a concern that she might see it that way and he has no way of knowing and acknowleges that risk before continuing anyway. Fetish.

and

10. A cuckolding situation where the "bull" mark is convinced the "cuck" boyfriend wouldn't interfere in the event the chosen mark pushes the girl past her accepted limit of a " humiliating blowjob in the muck of a dirty alley behind a seedy bar" and proceeds into a CNC situation with her permission, where she actually sees her boyfriend join in and get off on the force being shown to her. She leaves with the "bull" mark at the end. This one is in Fetish because it is ultimately about a cuck fetish being acted out for the boyfriend. The nonconsent aspect is a lie, it is a situation agreed upon by two participants while the third gets off on the image of it appearing real. No rape happens. Fetish.


Nonconsenting touch does not explicitly denote rape. Unwanted physical contact is rape or sexual assault depending on the degree and regardless of whether the person consented or seemingly consented to that touch or not. Nonconsenting touch that is wanted or desired is not rape or sexual assault.

Figuring out which is which is easy to do in written fantasy thanks to handy dandy mind reading friendly POVs.

In real life? Don't risk either the harm of such an interaction or the accusation of being a perpetrator and err on the side of "No consent = rape."

 

[CalBishForNow]

I almost posted this in the active thread about eliminating the Reluctance/NonConsent category, but I think it would go marginally better here. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I know how to address everyone's concerns:

1. Carve out most of the bullet points of the Content Guidelines in a separate section. The bullet point against AI can stay, because fuck Skynet; the bullet point against visual representations can stay, because Lit can run on a Commodore 64 and it's nice to keep it that way; and the bullet points about advertisements, outside links, teasers, and partial works can stay, because no one should profit off Lit except Laurel and Manu, whoever they are. But the stuff about rape, whether the victim enjoys it or not? Underage content, bestiality, snuff, non-con fanfic, politics? Carve it out into a new list. More on this below.
2. Eliminate the following categories: Reluctance/NonConsent, Taboo/Incest, Mind Control, and Loving Wives. This doesn't mean get rid of the stories already there, just redistribute them into other categories as appropriate.
3. Use the category Non-Erotic as a catch-all for most of the above. It's not being used for much, and it puts a reminder front and center of how people should feel about what they're reading. Some examples:
   1. LW stories about happily monogamous couples can go in Erotic Couplings or Romance. LW stories about willing swinging/sharing/cuckoldry can go in Group Sex or Fetish as appropriate. LW stories about cheating that put all the focus on misery, therapy, and legal proceedings can go in Non-Erotic.
   2. R/NC stories about a romantic relationship involving a violent asshole can go in Romance if he/she/they technically respect consent, or is shown to be wrong by both characters and the narrative when he/she/they don't. MC stories might go in Sci-Fi & Fantasy depending on the individual story, and Non-Erotic can have all the rest, such as blackmail, physical coercion, and most of the stuff currently disallowed by the Code of Conduct.
   3. Taboo/Incest stories can go in Erotic Couplings or other categories as appropriate as long as the pairings are step-relatives, in-laws, or cousin-to-cousin. They'd probably fare better there anyway. Any brothers/sister or parent/child relationships, though, should clearly be considered Non-Erotic.

I'm sure there are no downsides to this modest proposal and it will solve everything.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Yeah, right, sure! NOT! No censorship beyond what already exists.

 

[cw5523729]

I almost posted this in the active thread about eliminating the Reluctance/NonConsent category, but I think it would go marginally better here. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I know how to address everyone's concerns:

1. Carve out most of the bullet points of the Content Guidelines in a separate section. The bullet point against AI can stay, because fuck Skynet; the bullet point against visual representations can stay, because Lit can run on a Commodore 64 and it's nice to keep it that way; and the bullet points about advertisements, outside links, teasers, and partial works can stay, because no one should profit off Lit except Laurel and Manu, whoever they are. But the stuff about rape, whether the victim enjoys it or not? Underage content, bestiality, snuff, non-con fanfic, politics? Carve it out into a new list. More on this below.
2. Eliminate the following categories: Reluctance/NonConsent, Taboo/Incest, Mind Control, and Loving Wives. This doesn't mean get rid of the stories already there, just redistribute them into other categories as appropriate.
3. Use the category Non-Erotic as a catch-all for most of the above. It's not being used for much, and it puts a reminder front and center of how people should feel about what they're reading. Some examples:
   1. LW stories about happily monogamous couples can go in Erotic Couplings or Romance. LW stories about willing swinging/sharing/cuckoldry can go in Group Sex or Fetish as appropriate. LW stories about cheating that put all the focus on misery, therapy, and legal proceedings can go in Non-Erotic.
   2. R/NC stories about a romantic relationship involving a violent asshole can go in Romance if he/she/they technically respect consent, or is shown to be wrong by both characters and the narrative when he/she/they don't. MC stories might go in Sci-Fi & Fantasy depending on the individual story, and Non-Erotic can have all the rest, such as blackmail, physical coercion, and most of the stuff currently disallowed by the Code of Conduct.
   3. Taboo/Incest stories can go in Erotic Couplings or other categories as appropriate as long as the pairings are step-relatives, in-laws, or cousin-to-cousin. They'd probably fare better there anyway. Any brothers/sister or parent/child relationships, though, should clearly be considered Non-Erotic.

I'm sure there are no downsides to this modest proposal and it will solve everything.

Not gonna lie - I got waaaaay to far into this post thinking it was serious. Maybe I should have drank more caffeine at lunch.

 

[CalBishForNow]

Not gonna lie - I got waaaaay to far into this post thinking it was serious. Maybe I should have drank more caffeine at lunch.

Thank you! I was on the verge of reposting it in the other thread, edited to make the phrase "modest proposal" more prominent and maybe to have some explicit references to cannibalism and/or the Irish.

 

[cw5523729]

Thank you! I was on the verge of reposting it in the other thread, edited to make the phrase "modest proposal" more prominent and maybe to have some explicit references to cannibalism and/or the Irish.

Hey, hey, no need to bring those poor cannibals into this debate!

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'm serious as a heart attack about no new censorship.

Not gonna lie - I got waaaaay to far into this post thinking it was serious. Maybe I should have drank more caffeine at lunch.

 

[cw5523729]

I'm serious as a heart attack about no new censorship.

Is this like that whole "no new taxes" thing?

 

[CalBishForNow]

I'm serious as a heart attack about no new censorship.

1. I wasn't suggesting censorship! The first point of my modest proposal was taking a lot of stuff currently against the content guidelines, i.e. censored, off that list! My proposal would be a reduction of censorship!
2. I feel like if Jonathan Swift can joke about eating babies, I can joke about censorship.

 

[cw5523729]

1. I wasn't suggesting censorship! The first point of my modest proposal was taking a lot of stuff currently against the content guidelines, i.e. censored, off that list! My proposal would be a reduction of censorship!
2. I feel like if Jonathan Swift can joke about eating babies, I can joke about censorship.

I got to this line "R/NC stories about a romantic relationship involving a violent asshole can go in Romance if he/she/they technically respect consent," when I said to myself,

"Hey, wait a minute, that's not a good- oh, fuck me."

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Thank you! I was on the verge of reposting it in the other thread, edited to make the phrase "modest proposal" more prominent and maybe to have some explicit references to cannibalism and/or the Irish.

Only two things I hate, intolerant people and the Irish.