Has anyone ever written a story to deliberately antagonize the LW hate readers?

[Bamagan]

Writing with the goal of antagonizing strikes me as a bit irresponsible. Kind of like how runoff into lakes and even oceans can carry so many nutrients into them that some of the critters living there go haywire because of the feast. They use up all the oxygen while metabolizing the food and/or reproducing rapidly, and then nearly everything in the area suffocates, including most of the critters' resulting offspring. Feeding hateful people more things to hate is not likely to make the environment there more habitable to anything else.
That being said, there's a distinction between writing something that one knows will be antagonizing to certain people versus just trying to be antagonistic as an end in itself, even if the results are indistinguishable.

 

[StillStunned]

I wrote a story in E/V ("Love at First Sight") which, although not intended to deliberately upset readers, probably wasn't what they expected. It's told from the point of view of an obsessive and possessive voyeur. Not very sexy, "disturbing as fuck" in fact. Opinions seemed to be polarised between readers who appreciated what I was trying to do and readers who were either disappointed or felt personally attacked.

The same with "You Know You Shouldn't": it's all about the wrongness, and doing it anyway. It probably made some readers feel guilty.

 

[MajorRewrite]

Antagonizing isn’t much of a challenge. The challenge is to write fun stories about extramarital sex and get the majority of LW to LIKE IT!

Both of my LW stories were written with that goal and have the good old red H. Much more satisfying than just trying to irritate people.

My “Intervention Wife” story features a couple of wacky religious zealots, and that triggered a few fundamentalist types but most readers enjoyed the humor. It has a 4.73 rating but only 87k views, which isn’t very high readership for that category.

 

[Duleigh]

I have an idea in my head that I wanted to try but the whole atmosphere over there is just nasty sometimes, I'll tone the idea down and put it somewhere else

 

[dadadadiox]

Hate readers would imply the one-star cucks are actually reading the authors they stalk. I doubt they do more than scroll to the end to drop their one.

I wrote an epilogue in four scenes to end my first series. In one scene I had my characters discussing critics who seek out art they don’t appreciate just so they can shit on it. Because the story already contained a conflict between the MC, a musician, and a critic who hated him, as well as an author and a critic in a personal fued the MC was attempting to resolve, it was a thinly disguised slap that fit into the story. It was for the haters who hit every chapter I write with one star but I doubt they read it.

I would not waste my time writing a whole story for the haters, but a scene was not too much effort. That epilogue has the red hot flag.

 

[Jorunn]

I tried a "Not Loving Wives" story a while ago, at 750 words. It was about a cheating wife who's husband is writing his first erotic story. She tries various things to get him to change the story from LW to another category because of the feared reputation of LW readers, and she poked her jabs at them. When he finally submits it, she reads the story after he leaves for work. At the end of the submitted story, the husband discovers his wife was cheating and sneaks back into the house. A bit of Hitchcock here as the door alarm is found to be off (etc). Afraid, because she was cheating on her husband, she locks herself into the bedroom, and hears someone kicking at the door. It turns out to be her husband, returning with coffee and bagels. He kicked the door because his his hands were full.

It got hammered, settling just over 3 stars, either because of the jabs, or that I tried to cover too much in 750 words, that there was no 'burn' at the end. I pulled the story, and might try again with more length and story development.

 

[SimonDoom]

Deliberately antagonize, no, although I'm sure some LW readers have seen some of my stories that way. I've written two stories that satirize some of the themes in that category: BTB, Incorporated, and Cuckolds and Incels. Some of the responses were quite hostile. I had as much fun writing those two stories as any other stories I've written, so I regret nothing despite the nasty comments and downvotes.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I wrote a story in E/V ("Love at First Sight") which, although not intended to deliberately upset readers, probably wasn't what they expected. It's told from the point of view of an obsessive and possessive voyeur. Not very sexy, "disturbing as fuck" in fact. Opinions seemed to be polarised between readers who appreciated what I was trying to do and readers who were either disappointed or felt personally attacked.

The same with "You Know You Shouldn't": it's all about the wrongness, and doing it anyway. It probably made some readers feel guilty.

It’s funny, but I think you’ve described how LW took its first steps towards what it is now. People had a bunch of extramarital fun stories in there, then someone probably wrote one that was extramarital fun, but then, “oh no, actual consequences!” And it did well ( I know there are early stories like that with a green E attached), and people kind of took that and ran with it.

 

[StillStunned]

It’s funny, but I think you’ e described how LW took its first steps towards what it is now. People had a bunch of extramarital fun stories in there, then someone probably wrote one that was extramarital fun, but then, “oh no, actual consequences!” And it did well ( I know there are early stories like that with a green E attached), and people kind of took that and ran with it.

Well, as long as I haven't ruined E/V and I/T now.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Actually, there was no Catholic Church prior to 300 or so AD. There was only the church, and it wasn't an organized religion; it was only a sect. At that time, there was the Roman Empire and it was divided between several different belief systems.

marriage and monogamy are a fairly recent concept, primarily North American Judeo Christian. Over 2000 years ago, the Roman Catholic Church addressed this issue directly, understanding the passions and the weakness of the flesh. They did not recognize divorce, and specifically said that adultery was NOT grounds for annulment, the church's version thereof. What they were telling us is that marriage is for society, the children, and the next generation, and that it is not about you. Be an adult, and deal with it

 

[NoTalentHack]

Actually, there was no Catholic Church prior to 300 or so AD. There was only the church, and it wasn't an organized religion; it was only a sect. At that time, there was the Roman Empire and it was divided between several different belief systems.

Piggybacking on this, monogamy existed in various cultures across the world that had no influence from Judaism or Christianity.

It's true that some very wealthy or powerful members of society had something like concubines, harems, or additional wives--although only rarely additional husbands--but that had more to do with one rule for the rich and one for the poor, no different from how a samurai or a knight could lop a commoner's head off for disrespecting them. In the West, Christianity had little to do with monogamy's enforcement, other than as a continuation of both pre-Christian Judaic and pagan traditions. In addition, in non-European cultures, we also see monogamy as the target for literal millennia.

One theory is that a shift from nomadic hunter gatherer lifestyles to agrarian ones drove monogamy; from Wikipedia:

...anthropologist Jack Goody's comparative study utilizing the Ethnographic Atlas demonstrated that monogamy is part of a cultural complex found in the broad swath of Eurasian societies from Japan to Ireland that practice social monogamy, sexual monogamy and dowry (i.e. "diverging devolution", that allow property to be inherited by children of both sexes).[59] Goody demonstrates a statistical correlation between this cultural complex and the development of intensive plough agriculture in those areas.[60] Drawing on the work of Ester Boserup, Goody notes that the sexual division of labour varies in intensive plough agriculture and extensive shifting horticulture. In plough agriculture farming is largely men's work and is associated with private property; marriage tends to be monogamous to keep the property within the nuclear family. Close family (endogamy) are the preferred marriage partners to keep property within the group.[61] A molecular genetic study of global human genetic diversity argued that sexual polygyny was typical of human reproductive patterns until the shift to sedentary farming communities approximately 10,000 to 5,000 years ago in Europe and Asia, and more recently in Africa and the Americas.[11] A further study drawing on the Ethnographic Atlas showed a statistical correlation between increasing size of the society, the belief in "high gods" to support human morality, and monogamy.[62] A survey of other cross-cultural samples has confirmed that the absence of the plough was the only predictor of polygamy, although other factors such as high male mortality in warfare (in non-state societies) and pathogen stress (in state societies) had some impact.[63]

Covert illegitimacy (having another man's child) is also much rarer than I've seen some people suggest. Also from the wiki:

The detection of unsuspected illegitimacy can occur in the context of medical genetic screening,[39] in genetic family name research,[40][41] and in immigration testing.[42] Such studies show that covert illegitimacy is in fact less than 10% among the sampled African populations, less than 5% among the sampled Native American and Polynesian populations, less than 2% of the sampled Middle Eastern population, and generally 1–2% among European samples.[39]

Admittedly, lifelong monogamy as a goal is relatively rare until the last 1000 years, but that's probably due to the brutal nature of most of humankind's past. Women died in childbirth; men died in wars. Both died from plagues and accidents, with fires being a huge source of danger for both.

Anthropologists characterize human beings as "mildly polygynous" or "monogamous with polygynous tendencies."[80][81][82][83] This slight inclination towards polygamy is reinforced by the low rate of polygamy even in polygamist societies; less than five percent of men marry more than one woman in approximately half of polygynous societies.[84] This slight inclination towards men reproducing with a small number of women is also seen in genetic evidence. Depending on the period of history, the average man with modern descendents appears to have had children with between 1.5 women (70,000 years ago) to 3.3 women (45,000 years ago), except in East Asia. This rate varied dramatically by era, possibly due to male mortality, environmental conditions, food availability, and other influences on mortality, and migration patterns.[85][86] These rates may be consistent with a society that practices serial monogamy. However, there was a temporary but sharp decrease in the ratio during the start of the Neolithic resolution, where the average man with modern descendants had children with 17 women (circa 8,000 years ago).[87][88] Given the dramatic cultural shifts towards sedentary agriculture at the time, this is speculated to represent a dramatic change from a community-based society towards the hoarding of power and resources more consistent with a harem model; however, the rapid movement back towards 4.5 women per man after this dip, accompanied by evidence for the move towards monogamy as the agricultural revolution progressed, may suggest a dramatic, unknown factor such as catastrophic male mortality.[89]

TL;DR: "Polygamy" in ancient societies was only rarely polygamy, and was more often some warlord deciding to hoard all the resources, including the women.

cont.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Most likely, and this is just me speaking as a nerd who reads too much stuff from too many different sources, what the attitude of "everyone cheats, you're just lying to yourself" that I see from some folks is similar to what I see in the research on sociopaths.

I am NOT saying they're the same thing; let me be clear on that. Please note that I'm also not talking about folks that participate in ethical nonmonogamy; that's a different thing, too.

However, I see a lot of parallels between sociopathy and other forms of neurodivergency (and I KNOW other neuordivergents are going to hate me lumping us in with them) that are, to me, striking.

Some sociopaths know that they're different and adapt as they can to seem normal, while still not actually having the same internal moral compass that tells the average non-sociopath "it's wrong to hurt others because it's wrong." On the other hand, some literally think everyone, or almost everyone, is just like them, but that they won't admit it to themselves. They think that everyone who answers the "right" way on tests about what is correct and proper is just a better liar than they are, either to themselves or to others.

One of the theories about why ADHD, autism, etc. exists, along with sociopathy, is that it's just another adaptive strategy for surviving, from an evolutionary standpoint. Folks with ADHD (some flavors, like mine) have: excellent pattern recognition; the ability to hyperfocus in emergency situations; strong skills in synthesis of information; and a bunch of other features that are REALLY good if you are either a hunter or a gatherer, but kinda shittastic in an agrarian or industrialized society. There's a reason so many of us go into STEAM fields: they reward those particular quirks.

Sociopathy is similarly great if you can find (or make) a structure that rewards it. In prehistory, being the warlord douchebag willing to sacrifice anyone, betray pacts without guilt, etc. could be a pathway to massive success. In modern life, the four places we see a higher than average (often twice as high as the norm) incidences of sociopathy are in the military, prison, high levels of business, and high levels of government.

Sociopaths manage to get away with being sociopaths because most non-sociopaths have trouble believing the people around them are sociopaths, even when they're being harmed by a sociopath. There's a reason we're encouraged to think that stupidity is more likely than malice as a motive for a wrongdoing, because it usually is. Sociopaths, like any other parasite in a system, exploit that tendency.

Assume that being (for lack of a more neutral term) a serial cheater is the same way, albeit with less overall malice. Like the self-deluding sociopath, it's more convenient/comforting to think that everyone else is like you, but they just won't admit it. "Oh, you just haven't been tempted enough yet; that's all it is."

Which, maybe? I'd like to believe that I'd never, ever cheat on my wife and she'd never, ever cheat on me, but I've also never had a supermodel fall in my lap and beg me to ravish her. However, I'd like to think that, if that did happen, I'd at least be hesitant about it due to an internal moral struggle, and not just due to fear of potential repercussions.

That's the thing that I think might be the missing link. I know there are scenarios where I'd kill someone, or betray them, or do all sorts of other antisocial things, but they're few and far between: to save someone's life, if my family's survival were at stake, etc. It would take a lot for me to kill someone; for a sociopath, it would only take a reward big enough and a lack of punishment. It's a matter of scale that they don't see, or don't believe that others are being honest about.

"You haven't been tempted enough." Like I said, maybe. But "enough" for me and the serial cheater, the one that I'd hypothesize exists as another survival/evolutionary trait like what we broadly place under the umbrella term "neurodivergence," is like the difference in how willing I would be to kill or steal: it would take a lot for me to do it, and "enough" isn't just "available, attractive, and unlikely to get caught."

Serial cheaters tend to cheat with other serial cheaters as well; I think that reinforces their perceptions somewhat. If you walk into a bar putting out signals that you're available and a wedding ring doesn't matter, and you go to bed with someone who does the same, and you both do it regularly with different people, why wouldn't you believe that everyone who doesn't is either lying to themselves or brainwashed by the Church or society as a whole?

 

[MillieDynamite]

My father suffers from ADHD and, way back in the past, might have been a serial cheater. He hasn't admitted it to me, but from some of the things his first two wives have said, he fooled around. His first wife, a truly beautiful woman physically and internally, would laugh it off and say she knew who he was when she married him. The second one, not all that beautiful on the inside but better than pretty on the outside, can't talk about Dad without criticism and biting remarks.

Once he married Mum, he'd already changed. Fourteen years of being single and playing around with women who were much like him changed him. Once I came along, they had been married for five-plus years. They were a perfect match and still are.

My Mum told me, "Women flirt with him, he flirted back when we were first married, but it stopped around the second year. I don't believe he's ever cheated on me. I know he hasn't since the first or second year."

So, I guess @NoTalentHack, old dogs can be taught new tricks when they want to learn them.

 

[madelinemasoch]

I've written one (Dark Love) in which the intro is basically a "fuck you, this is a cuckold story, you have no power here" but that's the furthest I've gotten to making what any of these subaudiences think into a factor in my creative decision making. I resent and repel the urge to make the whims and wishes of the audience a factor in making artistic decisions.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Just opened it up, well read and be back.

I've written one (Dark Love) in which the intro is basically a "fuck you, this is a cuckold story, you have no power here" but that's the furthest I've gotten to making what any of these subaudiences think into a factor in my creative decision making. I resent and repel the urge to make the whims and wishes of the audience a factor in making artistic decisions.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I saw, I read, I loved, I voted, and commented. Job done, now what?

I've written one (Dark Love) in which the intro is basically a "fuck you, this is a cuckold story, you have no power here" but that's the furthest I've gotten to making what any of these subaudiences think into a factor in my creative decision making. I resent and repel the urge to make the whims and wishes of the audience a factor in making artistic decisions.

 

[madelinemasoch]

I saw, I read, I loved, I voted, and commented. Job done, now what?

Thank you for the 5 stars and more, Millie.

 

[RetroFan]

Well, they surely can't get mad at me for my next Loving Wives story. I'm taking them for a holiday on a luxury ocean liner, who could get angry about that?

The only slight problem might be is that the ocean liner in question is travelling from Southampton England to New York via Cherbourg France and Queenstown (Cobh) Ireland in April 1912.

 

[OnlyHappyEndings]

I’d love to read it some time!

I won't publish it but I will give you the last lines:

“Happy ending? That’s bullshit! Crappy story, poorly written. Not even remotely believable. 1 * and you should give up writing forever.” He said aloud to no one.

 

[Rob_Royale]

My work in that category is limited to a nice open marriage story what managed a red H and a cheating 750 word story. I'm not trying to piss anyone off. I'm trying to entertain. I have more stories for that category and they will ignite the torches and pitchforks crowd. But I'll post despite them, not because of them.

 

[Lifestyle66]

My work in that category is limited to a nice open marriage story what managed a red H and a cheating 750 word story. I'm not trying to piss anyone off. I'm trying to entertain. I have more stories for that category and they will ignite the torches and pitchforks crowd. But I'll post despite them, not because of them.

You would be providing the torches and pitchforks crowd with THEIR favorite form of entertainment: a reason to 1-bomb. And for some of them, their comments are their only form of writing! Some even get quite imaginative in their suggestions.

 

[OnlyHappyEndings]

I should know better than to poke the bear but I commented on my own recent LW story that even though a LOT of people hated it, a LOT of people apparently liked it a LOT. If I'm writing to please those readers and myself then the haters can't bully me into thinking it isn't a good story.