Loving wives - WTF, or is it me or them?

[LetsMisBehave]

I published a story earlier today called The Break-up in Loving Wives. I knew and accepted the trade-off—more views, more favourites against one bombing. Hell, in twelve hours, it has had more views than 80% of my stories here. I just wasn't expecting this story to be bombed more than any other story I have written.
Although it may err on the morally ambivalent side, I think it is a good story. I think it is clear that the cheating girlfriend is self-destructing and antagonising her friends. I would be grateful for feedback on (a) what in the story wound up readers and (b) where would have been a better place to put it. Or indeed (c), is it just crap.
Alternatively, is it just that Loving Wives has more self-appointed gatekeepers about what is acceptable than it did a year ago?
By the way, two of my best-rated and worst-rated stories are liked stories in mature and loving wives (Grampa's Last Hurrah and Losing Inhibitions). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the worst-rated and most-read two are in Loving Wives and the best-rated and least-read in Mature. I have written two-thirds of the next stories in both series, but I have to resist the temptation to wind up those who expect the young and honourable wife to betray the older husband.
I must add that I am not complaining because I knew that here be dragons, but I am honestly puzzled.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Loving Wives...

I never touch the stuff. Sometimes I think the main purpose of that spot is to act as a magnet for the malevolent and crazy, thus keeping them safely corralled.

 

[DrPope]

I just wasn't expecting this story to be bombed more than any other story I have written.
Although it may err on the morally ambivalent side, I think it is a good story. I think it is clear that the cheating girlfriend is self-destructing and antagonising her friends. I would be grateful for feedback on (a) what in the story wound up readers and (b) where would have been a better place to put it. Or indeed (c), is it just crap.

They 1 bombed it because basically ...Jill was a cunt, she treated Alan like shit (even more so towards the end) and nothing bad enough happened to her to make up for it. LW will always kill narratives like that.

It wasn't crap ...it wasn't particularly easy to read either and it definitely needed more of a set up then the small introduction paragraph..... but I did get diverted into thinking about a threesomes with the Bucks Fizz girls so that was something....

 

[MillieDynamite]

Well, I don't post there at all any more.

 

[SimonDoom]

If you want somebody to respond to your story, you should provide a link to it in your thread post.

I wrote a Loving Wives story in 2017. It received many savage, nasty comments. I was somewhat shocked. One reader said, "Here, eat my condom." Another wrote, "What a load of shit."

But I received positive comments, too. The story today has a score of only 3.73, but it has over 97 thousand views and 53 favorites.

 

[WCSGarland]

All of my LW stories are holding pretty steady in the 3-4 star range. I'm pretty happy about that.

 

[DrPope]

Well, I don't post there at all any more.

Given your track record there I'm not surprised...neither of your efforts were going to go down well with the baying mob ....

 

[onehitwanda]

Here, eat my condom.

That's... a disturbing mental image.

 

[SimonDoom]

That's... a disturbing mental image.

Even more disturbing, to me, was trying to imagine the state of mind that would motivate somebody to write that.

That was my third story, published 8 years ago, and it quickly thickened my skin here and that thick skin has served me well ever since.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I'm only talking about loving wives, not the website. I'm not sure what you mean by my track record.

Given your track record there I'm not surprised...neither of your efforts were going to go down well with the baying mob ....

 

[DrPope]

I'm only talking about loving wives, not the website. I'm not sure what you mean by my track record.

You only had 2 stories posted to LW and both were likely to attract the usual LW suspects .....

 

[RetroFan]

If you want somebody to respond to your story, you should provide a link to it in your thread post.

I wrote a Loving Wives story in 2017. It received many savage, nasty comments. I was somewhat shocked. One reader said, "Here, eat my condom." Another wrote, "What a load of shit."

But I received positive comments, too. The story today has a score of only 3.73, but it has over 97 thousand views and 53 favorites.

I'll give the LW readers credit because they actually do read the stories posted there, and you do get some useful comments too.

 

[LetsMisBehave]

They 1 bombed it because basically ...Jill was a cunt, she treated Alan like shit (even more so towards the end) and nothing bad enough happened to her to make up for it. LW will always kill narratives like that.

It wasn't crap ...it wasn't particularly easy to read either and it definitely needed more of a set up then the small introduction paragraph..... but I did get diverted into thinking about a threesomes with the Bucks Fizz girls so that was something....

Thanks for that. I know one problem is that a whole load of previous stories give context, but an extra five thousand words summarising then would have its own problems. Bucks Fizz will reappear in the next story, which will be in Group Sex.
On the nothing bad happening, I thought it was pretty clear that she was self-destructing, but maybe it needed the context of the other stories to make it clear.
Perhaps things have changed, but I thought she was left barely wholly on to the illusion she was any better than Amber. (which sh isn't)

 

[LetsMisBehave]

Sorry, barely holding on to the illusion that she was any better than Amber (which she isn't)

 

[DrPope]

On the nothing bad happening, I thought it was pretty clear that she was self-destructing, but maybe it needed the context of the other stories to make it clear.

Nowhere near enough, they want (sometimes literally) blood on the floor. If a character is like that she (and it's almost always a she) must be made to and be seen to suffer .... I think that particular story was upside down ...you kind of started with the end result (the break up) it needed to start long before Jill's indiscretions ...that 5000 words was needed here I think..... but that's not why it got bombed ... they wanted retribution for Jill and a positive ending for Alan ...they got neither. More realistic yes but not what the baying mob wants to see .... she was a genuine nasty piece of work of a character and they wanted her to meet a nasty end.

 

[Lifestyle66]

As DrPope said above, it's tough to read. I'm only have way through the first page and finding it difficult. (I don't leave comments on the story or rate it unless I read the whole thing. But you're hear asking, so...)

You're starting the story within the first few paragraphs basically telling me how it's going to end: Her fiancée dumps her after she cheated on him on Monday evening, and his willing to make up some story and their breakup which doesn't blame her. When trying to read this, I'm having difficulty knowing where I am in their timeline.

Now regardless of what you might think of her self-destructing, the LW readers won't care. Her former fiancée was cheated on, and he didn't burn her. So, you're getting 1-bombed by that. And for those of us who LIKE swingers and sharing and don't mind the flameless break-ups, we're not coming to your rescue with 4s or 5s because it's hard to follow.

EDIT: And jumping to the end to read the comments, I noticed you have a Author's postscript where you're trying to tell us which other stories to read to better understand this character. Uhhh... NO! If I don't like this story, then I'm not researching WHY I should by reading something else. It must be integral to the story I'm currently reading.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Oh, they did that. It was the reason I stopped posting there.

You only had 2 stories posted to LW and both were likely to attract the usual LW suspects .....

 

[MollyTanager]

Would someone mind giving me the tl;dr on what Loving Wives is about and why it's so gnarly? I'm new

 

[MillieDynamite]

It is stories about wives spreading love around. Which you already know!

Would someone mind giving me the tl;dr on what Loving Wives is about and why it's so gnarly? I'm new

 

[OverconfidentSarcasm]

Would someone mind giving me the tl;dr on what Loving Wives is about and why it's so gnarly? I'm new

Loving Wives is about stories featuring extramarital fun. However, over the years, people somehow started dumping all their fetish stories in there, featuring cuckold and humiliation themes. Readers don't appreciate it and started heavily downvoting those themes, getting more and more hostile towards cheating in general, causing authors, who fail to understand basic human behavior, to cry and moan about ungrateful and toxic males in the comment sections.

 

[MillieDynamite]

From my understanding, it was always about cuckolding. But I wasn't here way back when.

Loving Wives is about stories featuring extramarital fun. However, over the years, people somehow started dumping all their fetish stories in there, featuring cuckold and humiliation themes. Readers don't appreciate it and started heavily downvoting those themes, getting more and more hostile towards cheating in general, causing authors, who fail to understand basic human behavior, to cry and moan about ungrateful and toxic males in the comment sections.

 

[NoTalentHack]

From my understanding, it was always about cuckolding. But I wasn't here way back when.

Not in the way that current "cuckolding" stories are, i.e., the typical "cuck chair" stuff on the softer end and up from there. Before, it was much more of a stag/vixen dynamic, where the hotwife was doing it as a thing to bring the husband and wife closer together, or at least as a way to excite both of them with the understanding that they'd reconnect later. To use a (poor) analogy, if earlier stuff had been mild bondage, newer stuff often strays well into CNC and sometimes straight up NC/R. Even the folks there for swinging/sharing/swapping level their hate at the newer "hard cuck" stories.

 

[NoTalentHack]

Would someone mind giving me the tl;dr on what Loving Wives is about and why it's so gnarly? I'm new

I wrote a rather long essay a while back about the challenges and joys of writing there, if you're looking for a deeper dive, but here's the TL;DR on your specific question:

One thing I see a lot on the forums is a wish for the category to "go back to what it used to be." It's always been messy in there, though, with a lack of focus that one doesn't usually see outside of "genre" categories like Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Erotic Horror, or catch-all categories like Fetish, Novels and Novellas, and Erotic Couplings. The messiness is baked into the category, because it's never had the strong focus of something like Anal or BDSM.

It's also the only category where, during its natural evolution, factions sprung up with diametrically opposed tastes. The explanation for that can be seen in the evolution of some of the other categories on the site.

...

Back when the site was founded, anal sex culturally occupied roughly the same spot that oral sex did for the generation before it: your girlfriend or boyfriend might balk at doing it, but they wouldn't think you were an awful pervert just for asking. These days, oral sex is pretty much mandatory, and anal is a thing that's not particularly transgressive. Now, pegging and analingus occupy that same liminal space between transgressive and accepted that "regular" anal sex did in the late 90s and early 2000s.

In Interracial, the transition to mostly cuckolding stories has largely been embraced, but that's partially because the BBC type of story--the one where a sexually dominant black man comes in and "claims" a white wife or girlfriend--was always a part of that category's DNA. And because people wanting to read "sweet" interracial stories can basically go anywhere reading materials exist--since interracial romances are thankfully no longer taboo to any but the most assbackwards of people--it leaves a void to be filled in the Interracial category.

Loving Wives never had that kind of transition. Instead, it just became more crowded and, eventually, contentious. In the early days of the site, softer swinging and sharing stories, those with enthusiastic participation by both husband and wife, were the norm. "Cheating" stories--stories where the wife was unfaithful without the husband's approval--existed, but they stayed in the minority, and they often transitioned into a swapping or sharing structure, to make things "fair" between the couple. "Harmless" infidelity, the kind where everyone was eventually on board, was the order of the day.

One of the most compelling things, to me, about Loving Wives is how much it exists as a conversation with itself. Most of the "kink" sections of the site simply became "more" of what they were before. "Oh, anal sex isn't cutting it? How about pegging?" "BBC not doing it for you? How about a Black New World Order story, where a conspiracy exists to wipe out white men?" And, no, I'm not making that last one up. Go do a search for the "bnwo" tag."

In Loving Wives, however, the answer to, "Oh, so willingly sharing your wife isn't doing it for you anymore? How about being forced to share her?" was, at least in part, "No."

 

[gunhilltrain]

Would someone mind giving me the tl;dr on what Loving Wives is about and why it's so gnarly? I'm new

Oh, "too long;didn't read." Somehow it's become a clown show of malcontents who hate women who cheat and then don't suffer the consequences, however they define that. I suspect different members have various psychological reasons for what they think. They are certainly vocal about it. However, they're sort of like Miggs, the guy in the cell next to Hannibal Lector. Just don't get too close to their cages when passing by.

Oddly, the scores are sometimes better than the comments would suggest.

 

[MollyTanager]

I wrote a rather long essay a while back about the challenges and joys of writing there, if you're looking for a deeper dive, but here's the TL;DR on your specific question:

Thank you for this! I'm super new here and I had no idea there was a whole complicated ecosystem going on, so this is all fascinating for me. "BTB" sounds like it's definitely not my cup of tea

And thank you to everyone else who chimed in, as well!

You mention at one point in your essay, which I read! It was good! about the popularity of categories? Is there a way to rank all the categories by popularity? Just idle curiosity on my part.