The Anomaly called Loving Wives

[Comshaw]

Everyone knows about the denizens who frequent the Loving Wives category. A den of adamantly opposed factions with extremely conflicting views on what constitutes a story appropriate to that category. So when I dropped one in there during last years 750 word challenge, I figured I was in for a rough go, low score, few votes with acidic comments and maybe a few reads. It didn't do too badly at the time, which surprised me. I wandered over a bit ago to take a look at my story stats. I was gob-smacked with what has happened to the little story.

I've put several others in the LW category. They do okay, except for some pretty damned nasty comments at times. But this little 750-word work has blown (pun intended) them all away. My view-to-vote ratio for all my stories is 111.4 to 1. The story with the highest vote tally has 2457, was published in 2020 and has a view-to-vote ratio of 71.2.

Here's the kicker: that little 750-word story was published 4/2025, has 1541 votes and 22,274 views with a view-to-vote ratio of 14.45 to 1. WTF???

It's a story about a wife giving her husband a thank-you blow job for being a good husband. As said in one of my comments, "...good old wholesomeness, or as wholesome as a cock in a mouth can get." Of the 53 comments I got on this story, most lauded it. There were a few who complained that the wife or husband didn't cheat, but most were supportive.

The readers surprised the hell out of me on this one. I figured it was Loving Wives, so I put on my asbestos underwear thinking I'd need it. I didn't. From my perspective, it highlights how little I know about the motivation of the readers. Ya'll got an opinion on this?

 

[Rob_Royale]

Well, LW is specifically for stories featuring non-monogamy so it sounds like your story is in the wrong category.

 

[norafares]

I've tested the LW waters quite a bit. If you write well, they will forgive just about everything. I've posted one about a husband and wife, no cheating. But I dressed them up as drug smuggler and hitman, and threw in a fake marriage, an adventure across the Middle East, and it just worked. I've dropped long, depressing stories about two people who don't end up together. I've written a short one featuring a woman who catches her fiance cheating, so she gets back at him by sleeping with the other woman's husband. That one is quite popular with 4.5k votes. So, I'll say this. If you entertain them with a great story that holds their interest, your comment section will be praise, and nobody will care that there isn't a cheating wife in the mix.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Everyone knows about the denizens who frequent the Loving Wives category. A den of adamantly opposed factions with extremely conflicting views on what constitutes a story appropriate to that category. So when I dropped one in there during last years 750 word challenge, I figured I was in for a rough go, low score, few votes with acidic comments and maybe a few reads. It didn't do too badly at the time, which surprised me. I wandered over a bit ago to take a look at my story stats. I was gob-smacked with what has happened to the little story.

I've put several others in the LW category. They do okay, except for some pretty damned nasty comments at times. But this little 750-word work has blown (pun intended) them all away. My view-to-vote ratio for all my stories is 111.4 to 1. The story with the highest vote tally has 2457, was published in 2020 and has a view-to-vote ratio of 71.2.

Here's the kicker: that little 750-word story was published 4/2025, has 1541 votes and 22,274 views with a view-to-vote ratio of 14.45 to 1. WTF???

It's a story about a wife giving her husband a thank-you blow job for being a good husband. As said in one of my comments, "...good old wholesomeness, or as wholesome as a cock in a mouth can get." Of the 53 comments I got on this story, most lauded it. There were a few who complained that the wife or husband didn't cheat, but most were supportive.

The readers surprised the hell out of me on this one. I figured it was Loving Wives, so I put on my asbestos underwear thinking I'd need it. I didn't. From my perspective, it highlights how little I know about the motivation of the readers. Ya'll got an opinion on this?

My first story on this site in Feb 2021 was "He Missed You -750 Words", and it's similar in that the Loving Wife returned from a business trip to her husband picking her up at the airport. He's so horny he can hardly wait, and she takes care of him in a parking lot.

Similarly, it receive some negatives saying there's no extramarital sex so wrong category. But with now 36k views, it has over 1,200 votes for 3.86 average. And there are some appreciative comments saying "great, there's no cheating!"

So the real bigots are those judgmental types who stick all LW readers with their "misogynistic incel" label. It's a much wider variety of readers.

 

[TheLobster]

You took the category name too literally. This isn’t the usual fare that gets the infamous LW trolls so riled up, so it is no wonder that they didn’t tear into your story.

 

[lovecraft68]

Everyone knows about the denizens who frequent the Loving Wives category. A den of adamantly opposed factions with extremely conflicting views on what constitutes a story appropriate to that category. So when I dropped one in there during last years 750 word challenge, I figured I was in for a rough go, low score, few votes with acidic comments and maybe a few reads. It didn't do too badly at the time, which surprised me. I wandered over a bit ago to take a look at my story stats. I was gob-smacked with what has happened to the little story.

I've put several others in the LW category. They do okay, except for some pretty damned nasty comments at times. But this little 750-word work has blown (pun intended) them all away. My view-to-vote ratio for all my stories is 111.4 to 1. The story with the highest vote tally has 2457, was published in 2020 and has a view-to-vote ratio of 71.2.

Here's the kicker: that little 750-word story was published 4/2025, has 1541 votes and 22,274 views with a view-to-vote ratio of 14.45 to 1. WTF???

It's a story about a wife giving her husband a thank-you blow job for being a good husband. As said in one of my comments, "...good old wholesomeness, or as wholesome as a cock in a mouth can get." Of the 53 comments I got on this story, most lauded it. There were a few who complained that the wife or husband didn't cheat, but most were supportive.

The readers surprised the hell out of me on this one. I figured it was Loving Wives, so I put on my asbestos underwear thinking I'd need it. I didn't. From my perspective, it highlights how little I know about the motivation of the readers. Ya'll got an opinion on this?

You hit the sweet spot of a good husband (because all men are pure and good, dammit!) and a loyal dutiful wife who knows she needs to reward her amazing husband.

I'm surprised you had a few people doing the opposite of where's the Loving wife and actually looking for some extra marital action, seems like that's a minority there. '

Congrats on the good numbers

 

[Lifestyle66]

You took the category name too literally. This isn’t the usual fare that gets the infamous LW trolls so riled up, so it is no wonder that they didn’t tear into your story.

But they did tear into it with over 1,200 votes. It's just that the majority of that tearing was a net positive response.

 

[Comshaw]

Well, LW is specifically for stories featuring non-monogamy so it sounds like your story is in the wrong category.

And yet it did surprisingly well. That's what puzzled me. Why? If I could only figure that out...


Comshaw

 

[Comshaw]

You hit the sweet spot of a good husband (because all men are pure and good, dammit!) and a loyal dutiful wife who knows she needs to reward her amazing husband.

I'm surprised you had a few people doing the opposite of where's the Loving wife and actually looking for some extra marital action, seems like that's a minority there. '

Congrats on the good numbers

Thanks. Most were supportive comments, some saying it should have been in Romance. Maybe. There were a few though like these guys:

by Anonymous user on 02/04/2025

Wrong category. You don't do your story any favors by setting expectations that it doesn't actually meet.
To be honest, based on the category and how the story started, I expected it was going to be the mother-in-law saying thank you. When that didn't happen and he started washing her car, I expected him to find a "smoking gun" while cleaning out any trash. You know, I kept expecting it to be a Loving Wives story...

by inka2222 on 02/15/2025

Wow, a so-called "loving" wife who only wants to be intimate with her husband because he wasted 12 hours of his life on the useless relative in his life (including hers). The fact that he's brainless enough to do this just because she's "pretty" makes it the worst non-cheating story I ever read on LW. Hell, I'm half convinced she's either already cheating or soon will be.

It just surprised me. I expect more like the ones above or worse. Like I said, it just goes to show how much I DON'T know about the motivation of the readers.

Comshaw

 

[lovecraft68]

Thanks. Most were supportive comments, some saying it should have been in Romance. Maybe. There were a few though like these guys:

by Anonymous user on 02/04/2025

Wrong category. You don't do your story any favors by setting expectations that it doesn't actually meet.
To be honest, based on the category and how the story started, I expected it was going to be the mother-in-law saying thank you. When that didn't happen and he started washing her car, I expected him to find a "smoking gun" while cleaning out any trash. You know, I kept expecting it to be a Loving Wives story...

by inka2222 on 02/15/2025

Wow, a so-called "loving" wife who only wants to be intimate with her husband because he wasted 12 hours of his life on the useless relative in his life (including hers). The fact that he's brainless enough to do this just because she's "pretty" makes it the worst non-cheating story I ever read on LW. Hell, I'm half convinced she's either already cheating or soon will be.

It just surprised me. I expect more like the ones above or worse. Like I said, it just goes to show how much I DON'T know about the motivation of the readers.

Comshaw

TBH this is what confuses me about the people who clamor for "Loving wives" stories. At that point they are simply romances or maybe erotic couplings. Most categories here explore a kink/niche. Incest, Non con, group etc...

LW was originally created for 'stories of adventurous wives" and later the slug saying extra marital affairs. Its niche would be hotwife/cuck, open marriages hall passes etc, not a husband and a wife and...that's it.

But now you have people calling out what I said where its usually the whiny "where's the loving wife?"

The category has more factions than politicians have lies.

Me, on the other hand, will always get killed there because my take on hotwife cuck is seeing it as a version of dom/sub and the top does as they please and the sub is humiliated but at the same time enjoys it. There isn't much audience for that, my last one sits at 3.35

 

[metropolinational]

Me, on the other hand, will always get killed there because my take on hotwife cuck is seeing it as a version of dom/sub and the top does as they please and the sub is humiliated but at the same time enjoys it. There isn't much audience for that, my last one sits at 3.35

Well, my sense is that there is a huge audience for that in LW. It's just that you will get one-bombed to oblivion by the BTB crowd.

For Botched, there was a fairly large contingent of e-mailers who were very unhappy with me when the story did not go in the full-on cuckold direction they were hoping for. I was even offered a nice chunk of money to write an alternative version. So, that group is also there for sure.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

It's like the audience of LW are not looking for cheating...

 

[lovecraft68]

It's like the audience of LW are not looking for cheating...

Then they're in the wrong category but act as if they, not the site, decided on the category.

The issue is that they see cheating even when the husband is fine with the wife being with another man and also couple swinger situations. They're moralists, if a woman looks at someone not her husband its cheating to them or some of them, or one of the 113 factions there.

@metropolinational is right in its the BTB faction that I upset the most and they're a large and nasty faction.

But I'm nasty too so no harm no foul

 

[IWroteThis]

It's like the audience of LW are not looking for cheating...

No, it's like the audience of LW is looking for cheating AND the ensuing drama, followed by an ending they enjoy. The cheating is necessary as the crisis of the story, without which there cannot be the desired climax. The fact that they prefer a story with no cheater over one where the cheater wins does not mean that is what they want in LW.

To try to help you understand, or perhaps help me understand you, let me ask a couple of questions:

1. Do you think more people read murder mysteries because they enjoy murder, or because they enjoy the process and consequences that follows?

2. Why are murder mysteries most commonly written with the murderer being the bad guy and getting punished in the end, rather than them being the good guy?

 

[metropolinational]

I think we might be able to infer group membership and power of the various factions in LW based on what appears to be the ceiling for scores for each story category:

Cheating is hinted at but does not happen, allowing reconciliation: 4.5 and up
Cheating happens followed by BTB: 4 to 4.5
Cheating happens followed by reconciliation: 3.5 to 4
Cheating happens followed by RAAC: 3 to 3.5
Hotwife story: 2.5 to 3.5
Cuckolding story: 1.5 to 2.5

Obviously, there are many exceptions and these are huge generalizations, but this is what I have observed.

From this, I have concluded that the RAAC crowd in LW is smaller than the BTB crowd AND also less willing to vote. They are also less vicious with the 1s.

The BTB crowd is slightly larger than the RAAC crowd but far more energized.

The anti-cuckolding crowd is much larger than the BTB crowd.

The moralist crowd is even larger than the anti-cuckolding crowd, but not as energized.

The pro-cuckolding crowd is substantial, but they dont vote as an anti group. So, they dont exercise power nearly as effectively as the other groups. The stories they like get one bombed to hell, and they are just... well... a bit cucked about it.

Obviously, a bunch of over-extended inference based on crap assumptions based on no data, but I think it has some amount of truth.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

No, it's like the audience of LW is looking for cheating AND the ensuing drama, followed by an ending they enjoy. The cheating is necessary as the crisis of the story, without which there cannot be the desired climax. The fact that they prefer a story with no cheater over one where the cheater wins does not mean that is what they want in LW.

To try to help you understand, or perhaps help me understand you, let me ask a couple of questions:

1. Do you think more people read murder mysteries because they enjoy murder, or because they enjoy the process and consequences that follows?

2. Why are murder mysteries most commonly written with the murderer being the bad guy and getting punished in the end, rather than them being the good guy?

You really took it way too far on asking the crime writer those two questions. I'm just merely pointing at what the numbers are saying.

Then again, these three metrics are never in harmony, and authors don't earn any money here.

Pink Himalayan salt... Just a tablespoon.

 

[metropolinational]

No, it's like the audience of LW is looking for cheating AND the ensuing drama, followed by an ending they enjoy.

this is the @NoTalentHack theorem, as explained in his treatise.

 

[IWroteThis]

this is the @NoTalentHack theorem, as explained in his treatise.

I never claimed to be the only one to figure it out. I don't recall reading that particular treatise, probably because I mostly ignore that category, but I've talked to others who recognize the patterns.

 

[IWroteThis]

You really took it way too far on asking the crime writer those two questions. I'm just merely pointing at what the numbers are saying.

Then again, these three metrics are never in harmony, and authors don't earn any money here.

Pink Himalayan salt... Just a tablespoon.

It wasn't anything personal. To be honest, I don't really pay much attention to who writes what here. Even in the Loving Wives threads where I pay more attention, I don't go out of my way to see who actually posts there.

The thing is, the numbers aren't saying it either. If the audience truly didn't want cheating wives in their loving wives stories, BTB wouldn't be so popular.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

It wasn't anything personal. To be honest, I don't really pay much attention to who writes what here. Even in the Loving Wives threads where I pay more attention, I don't go out of my way to see who actually posts there.

The thing is, the numbers aren't saying it either. If the audience truly didn't want cheating wives in their loving wives stories, BTB wouldn't be so popular.

Maybe I got it wrong when I wrote my post as it implied I was talking about the whole category. It's not what I truly meant, so that was my bad. Salt, please.

This story is an outlier, and it really got my attention because the three metrics are never in harmony, especially for 750-word stories, so I looked into the comments. There is an audience of people who don't want cheating in LW. In fact, by experience outside of LW I've found that there's people who want descriptive fiction rather than actual stories (you know, stories that have conflict on it?) in the whole site, but I got bored of writing them too quick. But I digress.

Again, people not looking for cheating in LW. I know: that's against what the category is about according to the description, but they refuse to explore other places for some reason.

It's like that chunk just got tired of it and want to see what the name of the category is rather than what the description is. As for my thoughts? I believe Comshaw is a genius for not giving them what they expected, and giving them what they unconsciously wanted instead.

Sometimes the murder victim isn't truly dead.

 

[IWroteThis]

Maybe I got it wrong when I wrote my post as it implied I was talking about the whole category. It's not what I truly meant, so that was my bad. Salt, please.

This story is an outlier, and it really got my attention because the three metrics are never in harmony, especially for 750-word stories, so I looked into the comments. There is an audience of people who don't want cheating in LW. In fact, by experience outside of LW I've found that there's people who want descriptive fiction rather than actual stories (you know, stories that have conflict on it?) in the whole site, but I got bored of writing them too quick. But I digress.

Again, people not looking for cheating in LW. I know: that's against what the category is about according to the description, but they refuse to explore other places for some reason.

It's like that chunk just got tired of it and want to see what the name of the category is rather than what the description is. As for my thoughts? I believe Comshaw is a genius for not giving them what they expected, and giving them what they unconsciously wanted instead.

Sometimes the murder victim isn't truly dead.

I understand what you're saying, but I interpret the data differently.

Obviously, you can't do this with Anonymous, but if you look at the named accounts, I believe I've seen a pattern. On stories like this one with a true loving wife, they comment positively about the lack of cheating. However, if you look at their comments on stories with cheating wives, they don't attack those stories for having a cheating wife. They either praise the story for how they dealt with the cheater, or they lambast it for letting them get away with it.

So, yes, they don't like cheating wives. However, from my analysis, it's not the cheating that makes them dislike a story, but what happens after the cheating.

 

[Lifestyle66]

And yet it did surprisingly well. That's what puzzled me. Why? If I could only figure that out...


Comshaw

It did surprisingly well because the "misogynistic incel" audience is apparently NOT.

There's a smaller portion of audience who are the haters. They just happen to vote and comment more than any other reader audience in EVERY category. And those authors who have a thin skin can't handle that type of personal reaction. It's those authors who naively believe that "if you don't LOVE my story, then you shouldn't rate it!"

 

[Britva415]

Everyone knows about the denizens who frequent the Loving Wives category. A den of adamantly opposed factions with extremely conflicting views on what constitutes a story appropriate to that category. So when I dropped one in there during last years 750 word challenge, I figured I was in for a rough go, low score, few votes with acidic comments and maybe a few reads. It didn't do too badly at the time, which surprised me. I wandered over a bit ago to take a look at my story stats. I was gob-smacked with what has happened to the little story.

I've put several others in the LW category. They do okay, except for some pretty damned nasty comments at times. But this little 750-word work has blown (pun intended) them all away. My view-to-vote ratio for all my stories is 111.4 to 1. The story with the highest vote tally has 2457, was published in 2020 and has a view-to-vote ratio of 71.2.

Here's the kicker: that little 750-word story was published 4/2025, has 1541 votes and 22,274 views with a view-to-vote ratio of 14.45 to 1. WTF???

It's a story about a wife giving her husband a thank-you blow job for being a good husband. As said in one of my comments, "...good old wholesomeness, or as wholesome as a cock in a mouth can get." Of the 53 comments I got on this story, most lauded it. There were a few who complained that the wife or husband didn't cheat, but most were supportive.

The readers surprised the hell out of me on this one. I figured it was Loving Wives, so I put on my asbestos underwear thinking I'd need it. I didn't. From my perspective, it highlights how little I know about the motivation of the readers. Ya'll got an opinion on this?

I don't have an opinion on what you experienced, but I do have an opinion on the appropriateness of that category for the story you described.

Some people expect cheating, some people expect BTB, some people expect RAAC, and if a LW story isn't even going to have any of those, then I for one would expect it to at least have what's on the category description:

Married extra-marital fun: swinging, sharing & more.

Yes, I get that the category's title is "Loving Wives," but a story about a loving wife with no extramarital content at all is not in the spirit of the category in any way, not even in the off-label way which has come to comprise most of the content there.

I'm not surprised that that crowd appreciated the story, I just think it should have been somewhere else.

 

[Britva415]

It's like the audience of LW are not looking for cheating...

You'd think they would at least be looking for extramarital stuff, though. That's what it says on the category description.

Granted, it seems like a lot of them define any extramarital stuff as cheating no matter how the people in the story regard it. "Ethical, consensual nonmonogamy my ass! Cuck a duck!"

 

[metropolinational]

I never claimed to be the only one to figure it out. I don't recall reading that particular treatise, probably because I mostly ignore that category, but I've talked to others who recognize the patterns.

definitely did not mean it as a dig - I was linking your statement to a piece of writing that has been widely quoted by the LW cognoscenti as having some degree of truth. sort of like an endorsement, but bathed in the coldness of academic pretentiousness.