literotica all about sex-positivity. So why such moralizing comments on Loving Wives?

[SavannaT]

Short answer.. insecure men

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Are you obtuse, or just trolling?

I gave a list of things other than PIV sex. Most of my stories include at least the wife going down on the husband, and I take my chances when anyone reads my story that they might find that offensive.

The POINT is that such deviations from just the category description carry their own plus or minus on the reader's checklist.

And if you REALLY piss someone off, then you asked for it.

Here is my problem with your reasoning. Every single category on this website has stories, many of them actually, that cross into other categories. SciFi&Fantasy, for example, has plenty of stories that have only a sprinkle of fantasy in them, but they feature plenty of extreme kinks related to domination, extreme fetish, rape, violence, you name it. Yet no one really goes mad there and rages because the focus of those stories isn't on fantasy but on some extreme kinks. Or because they weren't properly warned. No one complains about it or punishes such stories. And there is a fuckload of such stories in SF.
More or less, the same can be said about most other categories as well. Yet, according to you, only in LW authors are supposed to step lightly in order not to insult or hurt an LW reader with content that isn't strictly LW. I mean, I would understand if you were simply shrugging and stating that readers are like that in LW and there is no helping it, but you are so clearly defending such mentality and you yourself are asking for red alerts and warning signs for any content that doesn't fit your narrow field of sexual interests. As @SimonDoom said, it's a snowflake mentality, plain and simple, and if anything, it shouldn't be justified by authors here, even if we have to accept that readers in LW are like that.

 

[Lifestyle66]

More or less, the same can be said about most other categories as well. Yet, according to you, only in LW authors are supposed to step lightly in order not to insult or hurt an LW reader with content that isn't strictly LW. I mean, I would understand if you were simply shrugging and stating that readers are like that in LW and there is no helping it, but you are so clearly defending such mentality and you yourself are asking for red alerts and warning signs for any content that doesn't fit your narrow field of sexual interests. As @SimonDoom said, it's a snowflake mentality, plain and simple, and if anything, it shouldn't be justified by authors here, even if we have to accept that readers in LW are like that.

You and Simon are trying to put YOUR words in my mouth!

I'm not saying stories can't be complex and cross boundaries. They usually do, and in other categories too, and even my own stories in LW do.

But when the author goes to too many extremes from the category definition, the more extreme the story, the worse the audience response!

Read my more recent post here about the LW audience in particular. It's a split crowd, with a little less than half looking for FUN extra-marital sex stories versus the other more than half looking for cheaters facing consequences. Those readers coming from broken marriages have no other category in LitE to go to when looking for such a "Loving Wife faces consequences" story.

I write Loving Wife sharing stories which trigger them (some more than others). Try reading my story "Pavlov's Dog - 750 Words." I was surprised that it rose to 2.19! But I don't come to the forums deriding those readers as hateful trolls, and question WHY they bother reading stories in LW! They have their own demons to deal with, and if you're deliberately going to poke them, then grow up and take their reaction!

OR ... if you want the larger audience provided by LW (that Pavlov story has 12K views and 631 votes!), ... AND ... if you want a better reaction, then try writing to address their needs (ie. "Quiet, Don't Wake Him" (750 words) has 31K views and 3.85 with 1,475 votes.)

 

[LMWM321]

Every single category on this website has stories, many of them actually, that cross into other categories. SciFi&Fantasy, for example, has plenty of stories that have only a sprinkle of fantasy in them, but they feature plenty of extreme kinks related to domination, extreme fetish, rape, violence, you name it

Agreed.. And one person's trigger - which therefore needs a warning - may not trigger the next person in the least. To that persona a trigger warning or presaging what is coming might ruin an enjoyable surprise.

I truly did NOT see the complaints about Maria's "Prove you're not angry, go down on me" demand coming. I was more certain her saying "By the time the 5th guy was finished I was so sopping wet and so delightfully squishy between my legs, it felt absolutely divine." would get a rise from people. Or when she told her husband she was so "squishy" she slid all around the leather drivers seat of his Lexus as she drove home - which I included just for a laugh.

I also half-expected someone to say, "Feet, again? ..Why did so many of you have have to mention the guys being into her feet! Feet are gross! Blechhh!!!!"

I don't care about people not liking my story - no story is for everyone - but people shouldn't suggest it was inconsiderate to omit a trigger-warning or that it was a diberate attempt to Rickroll them into seeing something offensive.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You and Simon are trying to put YOUR words in my mouth!

I am pretty sure those are your words.

"Loving Wives" is "Married extra-marital fun: swinging, sharing & more." (See. I can read.) So, when I open one of those stories, those are the first things I'm expecting.

Now that "and more" is what's leaving that category open to such abuse by authors, and thus we might get some shitty responses from many of the readers.

WHEN the author throws in other sexual activities (other than married extra-marital fun, swinging and sharing) such as oral, anal, water sports, cum swapping/eating, domination, pegging, bondage (including cock cages), humiliation, breeding, lesbian, gay, incest, gangbangs, inter-racial, horror, scifi, or toys, ... THEN ... those of us looking for just married extra-marital fun, swinging and sharing go down our checklists of what we might find offensive, seeing it as bait & switch.

My point in the previous posts is that when an author chooses a category, that's an assumed first tag. Then the title and description need to show any other sexual deviations other than PIV which might elicit a negative reaction.

If the author decides to throw any of those other things into the mix, then take the audience reaction you asked for! You wanted their views, now take they reaction!

It seems to me that you are saying that anyone who publishes a story in LW and puts anything in it that isn't strictly LW content or doesn't put clear and dramatic warning signs at least, should just accept abuse as a normal consequence. You even said "those of us", which to me implies that you are one of those readers who expect strict content, or clear and visible warnings for anything that isn't strict content.
It's not a good mentality for a place where we should have freedom of sexuality and kinks without judgment, which includes freedom to mix the kinks and categories as we desire, without being bombed or abused by the feedback. Once again, I am not complaining here really, LW are what they are and everyone posting there should know what awaits them, but it's not good if authors go along with such mentality or justify it even.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I am pretty sure those are your words.


It seems to me that you are saying that anyone who publishes a story in LW and puts anything in it that isn't strictly LW content ...

I ... SAID ... that can happen in any category, not just LW!

I posted a story in Romance 2 years ago, "A Different Proposition - 750 Words". Here are some of the comments I received:
***********
I don’t think being manipulative and abusive has anything to do with being empowered. More like… immature. I wouldn’t have married her.
***********
Really stupid. I’d been out the fucking door so fast.
A beginning to quick end.
Maybe not if she keeps playing him. Cheat away.
Not happening
***********
Cheating is coming and she will hopefully not use too big a dildo while routinely sticking it up your ass.
***********
Never knew romance meant cuckolding. Any how....
***********


What the fuck? Why do those Romance readers have to be so abusive and hateful? Don't they see the Romance?

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

It seems to me that you are saying that anyone who publishes a story in LW and puts anything in it that isn't strictly LW content or doesn't put clear and dramatic warning signs at least, should just accept abuse as a normal consequence. You even said "those of us", which to me implies that you are one of those readers who expect strict content, or clear and visible warnings for anything that isn't strict content.

It's not a good mentality for a place where we should have freedom of sexuality and kinks without judgment, which includes freedom to mix the kinks and categories as we desire, without being bombed or abused by the feedback. Once again, I am not complaining here really, LW are what they are and everyone posting there should know what awaits them, but it's not good if authors are going along with such mentality or justify it even.

I mean, yeah, this place is advertised as a kink-positive site to share fantasies and stories, and it would be absolutely awesome if that would actually work out... but, really? Does anyone above the age of twelve actually expect that to ever happen?

We all know what kind of audience sex sites, of any kind, attract. And here it's especially bad, since that audience isn't even confronted with the absolute minimum of a barrier before they can spill their deranged thoughts into the comments sections. So, I still kinda agree with Lifestyle.

- If you put yourself out there, you kinda just have to be prepared for people to not agree with you AND feel entitled to tell you that they don't agree.
- If you do it in a place where people don't have to fear reputational damage, they will act accordingly.
- If you then present them with something that has the potential to cause VERY emotional responses, you will get VERY emotional responses.

Either deal with it or don't provoke emotional responses in a place like this.

 

[LMWM321]

We all know what kind of audience sex sites, of any kind, attract. And here it's especially bad, since that audience isn't even confronted with the absolute minimum of a barrier before they can spill their deranged thoughts into the comments sections.

I agree with you - I shouldn't be surprised by what I get from anonymous commenters. But fellow Lit Authors saying they were offended by an element of a story and I should have provided a trigger-warning or presaged in some obvious way does surprise me. sorry.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I ... SAID ... that can happen in any category, not just LW!

I posted a story in Romance 2 years ago, "A Different Proposition - 750 Words". Here are some of the comments I received:
***********
I don’t think being manipulative and abusive has anything to do with being empowered. More like… immature. I wouldn’t have married her.
***********
Really stupid. I’d been out the fucking door so fast.
A beginning to quick end.
Maybe not if she keeps playing him. Cheat away.
Not happening
***********
Cheating is coming and she will hopefully not use too big a dildo while routinely sticking it up your ass.
***********
Never knew romance meant cuckolding. Any how....
***********


What the fuck? Why do those Romance readers have to be so abusive and hateful? Don't they see the Romance?

I am with you on this one. It does happen in other categories too, but I think you will agree that the reaction in LW is incomparable to that of any other category. Still, LW is LW, I was just reacting to your justification of that approach. Maybe you didn't mean it that way but it did come out like that.

 

[SimonDoom]

And if you REALLY piss someone off, then you asked for it.

This is the crux of my disagreement with you.

Readers are perfectly free to dislike a story for whatever reason, and to give it a score that fairly reflects their genuine dislike of a story based on its contents, whatever their criteria are.

It's this idea of reader grievance that I cannot agree with. It's one thing to say, "Your story was fine until the end when the husband ate cum, and I didn't enjoy that, so I'm going to downgrade it from a 5 to a 4."

Fine.

It's another to say, "You added cum-eating, and you tricked me, and I'm angry, and now I'm so pissed I'm going to downgrade it from a 5 to a 1."

That's just childish, IMO. I don't know if that's exactly what you're saying, but it sounds like it, and I don't agree with that. This concept of baiting and switching, and being tricked. I see a lot of this in the Loving Wives category from readers who claim they were surprised that the wife cheated and didn't get punished, even though the signs are there a mile away, and they claim a right to be angry. I just think, come on. Be an intelligent reader. It's perfectly fine to give a story a score that genuinely reflects your like or dislike of it, but super-charging the negativity based on phony accusations of trickery and ginning up phony grounds for being aggrieved? No way.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I mean, yeah, this place is advertised as a kink-positive site to share fantasies and stories, and it would be absolutely awesome if that would actually work out... but, really? Does anyone above the age of twelve actually expect that to ever happen?

We all know what kind of audience sex sites, of any kind, attract. And here it's especially bad, since that audience isn't even confronted with the absolute minimum of a barrier before they can spill their deranged thoughts into the comments sections. So, I still kinda agree with Lifestyle.

- If you put yourself out there, you kinda just have to be prepared for people to not agree with you AND feel entitled to tell you that they don't agree.
- If you do it in a place where people don't have to fear reputational damage, they will act accordingly.
- If you then present them with something that has the potential to cause VERY emotional responses, you will get VERY emotional responses.

Either deal with it or don't provoke emotional responses in a place like this.

See my response to Lifestyle. I see the reality clearly and I am not complaining about it. I never even complained about commenters in any category. People are who they are. It's just the justification of it that triggered me.

 

[NoTalentHack]

I agree with you - I shouldn't be surprised by what I get from anonymous commenters. But fellow Lit Authors saying they were offended by an element of a story and I should have provided a trigger-warning or presaged in some obvious way does surprise me. sorry.

I have a rule of thumb: if a piece of content, especially sexual, would have seen the story shoved into a particular category 20-odd years ago, I include it in the tags. "Creampie-eating" would almost certainly qualify.

I'm gonna be the last person to tell you what to write; shit, I love seeing more people taking a stab at the category. But I also think that, while you can write for yourself, you should publish for your readers, you know? That doesn't mean changing it, but it does mean tagging appropriately and thinking hard about what category it goes into. I think LW is a fine fit for this, given the nature of the category, but I also think you've got ten tags, so use them.

As to what the story is "about," well... You can intend for it to be about something, but that doesn't mean it is for the reader, or for each reader. I've beaten this comparison to death, but Bradbury thought he was writing a story about television causing illiteracy in the future with Fahrenheit 451; to everyone else, it was "about" censorship. Blink 182 thought they were writing a clever parody of romantic pop punk songs with All the Small Things; they ended up writing the sort of defining version of that type of song instead.

Write what you want to write, but understand that readers will read what they read, and neither of you is wrong about what it's "about" necessarily.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I am with you on this one. It does happen in other categories too, but I think you will agree that the reaction in LW is incomparable to that of any other category. Still, LW is LW, I was just reacting to your justification of that approach. Maybe you didn't mean it that way but it did come out like that.

I see two fundamental problems with LW:

--Some authors come to these forums espousing their expert opinions that the LW audience are a bunch of misogynistic, women-hating, incel trolls, and they've convinced many others to take to heart their uninformed bigotry.

--And more than half the LW audience come from broken marriages, with an ex-spouse who cheated on them, got away with it, and the reader is looking for stories of Loving Wive's facing dire consequences!

Perhaps I should write my own "Loving Wives Lessons Learned" Review & Essay. But it still wouldn't stop the bigots from shouting "They're women-hating misogynist incels," because they know it all.

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

But fellow Lit Authors saying they were offended by an element of a story and I should have provided a trigger-warning or presaged in some obvious way does surprise me. sorry.

Honest question: Why?

Why would you think that the authors here are somehow different than the readers? We are all human beings with kinks, turn-offs, and things that appall us. And, even if we have registered accounts, we are still hiding behind our pen-names. The only thing we have to fear that readers don't is that, if we take it too far, we risk having our stories removed. But, other than that, we react like any other human being.

And you have to remember that none of the other authors in this thread told you to place trigger warnings for their peace of mind. You should place them for the readers to reduce the amount of people reading your story and getting pissed off over finding something they didn't like. We're sharing our experiences regarding posting stories and reader interaction with you, but it seems to me that you take it all as some kind of insult or personal attack, and keep complaining about people not "getting you".

 

[yowser]

--And more than half the LW audience come from broken marriages, with an ex-spouse who cheated on them, got away with it, and the reader is looking for stories of Loving Wive's facing dire consequences!

I don't see how it is possible to make this claim. Commentary and voting are data, but there is no way to know with the slightest accuracy the profile of this readership. Noise is not necessarily representative of the overall group.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I don't see how it is possible to make this claim. Commentary and voting are data, but there is no way to know with the slightest accuracy the profile of this readership. Noise is not necessarily representative of the overall group.

My observation comes from reading hundreds of LW stories of various types, reading the comments on those stories, writing my own LW stories with various couple relationships, and watching the scores and reactions to those.

The patterns I've observed over the past several years doing this provides me with the basis for my claims.

Now, if you'd like, start reading the dozen 750-word stories I wrote in February, and you may see the "tip of the iceberg". I listed two above as the extremes: Pavlov and Don't Wake Him as initial indicators.

Pavlov is about a wife who is knowingly going out to fuck a bigger cock once or twice per month, and returns to her angry husband, always placating him with loving blowjobs and other sex.

Don't Wake Him is about the tired and frustrated husband who has been neglected by his self-absorbed wife for at least ten years, and with the kids finally out of the house, he has already set the plan in motion to have an affair, then deal with his angry wife afterwards and the consequences afterwards.

There are other like A Perfect Marriage, told from a swinger/lover's POV of the "Loving Wife" who allows and puts up with her husband's self-delusions by playing with those delusions. She'll suck and fuck other guys, knowing her delusional husband's mind refuses to see them!

And there's "I'll Handle It" about a loving wife who will do ANYTHING to see that her husband can save face with his family, which she also loves, and she's willing to take on home repairmen to save the family budget.

I provided a range of relationships to glean some insight into the audience reactions.

EDIT: The know-it-all claims of incels in the LW audience is dispelled by the reactions to my story over a year ago, "A Gathering of Trolls", in which a band of four 30-year-old incels are disparaging their successful classmate/neighbor for his cuck position watching his wife being gangbanged. Then they lustfully talk about what they might do to get a chance with her. I expected the incel audience to 1-bomb it so much as to keep the rate close to 2.0. But it's at 3.09 now (after some one-scraping. And the comments don't show indicators of incel backlash. (Read but ignore dmallord's comment as an indicator, since I prompted him that I was looking for the hate, and he "patted me on the head.")

 

[LMWM321]

but it seems to me that you take it all as some kind of insult or personal attack, and keep complaining about people not "getting you".

I'm not feeling attacked or insulted... I'm just not in agreement with you. Still, if I rewrote the story I'd soften the way in which Maria asks to be orally ravished - make it more of a shy request than a demand. Not b/c I care that people were grossed out, but only because I would never want to characterize her as a Dominatrix. That's not her at all. Maybe change it to, "Honey will you do something I've always fantacized about? Go down on me while I'm still dirty from another man?" Sure, it'll still upset people, but at least it will more accurately describe the Maria I was trying to portray.

And I suppose I'd add a tag. But not cream-pie or cum-eating.. Because it isn't that. Not that I've seen a lot, but i've never seen either that is anything but immediately after the other guy cums - it's still wet (ewww!). In my story, it's 8 hours later - at which point it's a dried film or absorbed altogether. As her husband Doug, I could bring myself ignore the later, but not the former. So, to me, they aren't quite the same. Maybe I'd create tag called "Dirty Oral"

As a funny aside, it's gathering "Favorites" faster than my other stories. ..So people must be thinking, "This is awful and disgusting. How could he? In fact, this is so gross and offensive that I just might want to re-read it a few more times. Guess I'll make it a Favorite. But first, I'm gonna give it 1-star 'cause it sucked so bad - it's unreadable."

 

[Lifestyle66]

I'm not feeling attacked or insulted... I'm just not in agreement with you. Still, if I rewrote the story I'd soften the way in which my Maria asks to be orally ravished - make it more of a shy request than a demand. Not b/c I care that people were grossed out, but only because I would never want to characterize her as a Dominatrix. That's not her at all. Maybe change it to, "Honey will you do something I've always fantacized about? Go down on me while I'm still dirty from another man?" Sure, it'll still upset people, but at least it will more accurately describe the Maria I was trying to portray.

And I suppose I'd add a tag. But not cream-pie or cum-eating.. Because it isn't that. Not that I've seen a lot, but i've never seen either that is anything but immediately after the other guy cums - it's still wet (ewww!). In my story, it's 8 hours later - at which point it's a dried film or absorbed altogether. As her husband Doug, I could bring myself ignore the later, but not the former. So, to me, they aren't quite the same. Maybe I'd create tag called "Dirty Oral"

As a funny aside, it's gathering "Favorites" faster than my other stories. ..So people must be thinking, "This is awful and disgusting. How could he? In fact, this is so gross and offensive that I just might want to re-read it a few more times. Guess I'll make it a Favorite. But first, I'm gonna give it 1-star 'cause it sucked so bad - it's unreadable."

IMO, It's the midnight yoga scenario that's catching their interest. That's rather a unique way of almost a "female gloryhole" style porn video, where women make themselves available with their upper half concealed.

I sent you a contact email asking if you'd mind me taking that scenario with a different spin.

 

[policywank]

The whole argument about stories in LW being in the wrong category and therefore deserving of vitriol doesn't hold up. I can see that people will have differences of opinion about whether some stories might fit into another category better. But that isn't the only screening tool. There are also story tags. Some authors will put a warning or qualifier at the beginning of the story. And many authors (like me) write stories consistently in one genre that people may not like.

I do all of these things. The titles of my stories and the tags are more than enough to let the reader know what they are in for, but the haters still show up and complain that it is in the wrong category. For a while I started opening each story with a strong warning. That didn't change anything. And most of my stories are on the same theme, yet certain people come back time and again to shit on them.

It is comical really. Imagine if you read a Stephen King novel, but hated horror stories. Hard to see how you would make that mistake, but let's suppose the bookstore put his books in the wrong section. Would you keep going back and reading all of his books being appalled every single time and ranting about how it is in the wrong section. Even if you think that and the store doesn't move the books......wouldn't you just stop buying his books and move on with your life. What kind of idiot would keep going back, having the same experience and throwing the same hissy fit over and over again.

 

[LMWM321]

@policywank
Very apropos analogies PW, thanks.

@Lifestyle66, I didn't receive any emails, but I'm fine with you taking the premise and running with it. I'm flattered you're interested.