What are the Demographics of Lit?

[NotWise]

Here is at least one poll I dug up from Em’s thread. But to a few people’s point people could be dishonest. But i would think they would be dishonest claiming to be younger? So hence the poll even weights towards older

My take was that we're pretty evenly distributed from 20-70 and there's a dropoff above 70.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

While I assume that demographics by country can be inferred from the IP, I don't see how they can have gender data? One can assume they take the declared sex of the registered members as valid, which is faulty on its own, but how the hell can they guess the sex of all the anonymous readers?

 

[Sx4u]

As I think about some content I see posted here, interact with folks on the forums, and think about my future as an erotic author, I’m curious. What are the demographics (age wise/generational) here on Lit? My perception from the discussion here in AH, and the reaction to many types/styles/themes of stories here is that the general user/readership is older here. By that I mean 35 and up.

I obviously have no hard facts to go on other than impression. But if I am correct, is this indicative of written erotica being less popular with younger people today? Or is it specifically this site?

Interested to hear people’s perspectives/experience on this.

For myself, I've always been an avid reader. Pictures and videos are somewhat ephemeral, fading away over time, but I find literature much more lasting (and the pictures are better in the mind). I'm in my 60's, btw.

 

[djrip]

It seems like you're trying to convince yourself that the world is flat. Our extensive use of smartphones is unrelated to the current subject.

There is no valid excuse to alter the reality that a significant portion of the readership here is over 40 for a reason. Unfortunately, some of them experience loneliness even within their relationships. Additionally, capable twentysomethings who are free to do whatever they want yet choose reading over the real thing likely face social and mental obstacles.

By the way, when did you change your signature to onehitwanda?

Why do you seem to think one must either have sex or read about sex? Why not both? Hell, why not both at once?

 

[djrip]

My take was that we're pretty evenly distributed from 20-70 and there's a dropoff above 70.

As in life.

 

[NotWise]

While I assume that demographics by country can be inferred from the IP, I don't see how they can have gender data? One can assume they take the declared sex of the registered members as valid, which is faulty on its own, but how the hell can they guess the sex of all the anonymous readers?

I doubt the gender they've declared for Lit has anything to do with it. It's probably inferred by mining things like a search history and other preferences they can eke out. The gender break down isn't a very hard number.

To put it another way, they make it up.

 

[Priscilla_June]

My take was that we're pretty evenly distributed from 20-70 and there's a dropoff above 70.

I guess my take is there is a third more people 45 or older. So on the old/young scale thats my perception.

 

[NotWise]

I guess my take is there is a third more people 45 or older. So on the old/young scale thats my perception.

45 or older is 2/3 of the age range, so I guess that shouldn't be surprising.

 

[NotWise]

So that makes the AH crowd older than a random selection of people from the US. If we're evenly distributed from 20 to 70, then that would follow. The general populations is not evenly distributed from 20 to 70.

 

[Priscilla_June]

I regret to agree tho, I think thats why there is a lot of negative attitudes towards themes in stories that break traditionalist sensibilities and the lack of appreciation for themes that younger people would understand/enjoy.

 

[Voboy]

I've been reading for over twenty years.

So my age demographic has meant different things at different times.

 

[NotWise]

I regret to agree tho, I think thats why there is a lot of negative attitudes towards themes in stories that break traditionalist sensibilities and the lack of appreciation for themes that younger people would understand/enjoy.

For instance...

 

[Bramblethorn]

While I assume that demographics by country can be inferred from the IP, I don't see how they can have gender data? One can assume they take the declared sex of the registered members as valid, which is faulty on its own, but how the hell can they guess the sex of all the anonymous readers?

The similarweb stats? It's unlikely they're using Literotica profiles at all. They produce the same kind of estimates for sites which don't collect user demographics at all, and they're not going to be taking the time to do a bespoke estimate for every website out there.

They provide a writeup here https://support.similarweb.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001631538-Similarweb-Data-Methodology but it's light on detail. The gist of it would be that they partner with some large organisations that have ways to collect demographic data from a large number of users (Facebook, loyalty programs, etc. etc.) and then use various technical methods to link activity on other websites to those known profiles.

So for instance, Bob Smith creates a Facebook account and provides his age and gender. Later Bob sets up a Twitter account named bigboobsluvr, without giving his real name to Twitter - but he gives Twitter the same phone number and contact email as he used to set up his FB, and he regularly logs on to both of them from the same IP and using the exact same version of Firefox. Somebody else on Twitter posts a link to their new story on Literotica, Bob clicks on that, and Google Analytics tells Twitter that bigboobsluvr just followed a link to Literotica.

Put those all together and you now have a record of a 40-year-old guy visiting Literotica. I may not have the technical details exactly right, but that's the rough shape of it. The idea of linking profiles across different spheres of life to build up detailed profiles of potential customers has been big business for a long time - that's why things like loyalty cards and frequent flyer programs get pushed so hard, they're as much about obtaining that valuable data as about getting you to buy plane tickets. It's also a big part of why orgs like Facebook push "real name" policies - forget abuse prevention, a lot of that is about getting verifiable data they can on-sell.

In some cases you might not have such a direct link, but you can still make some informed guesses by linking activity across sites. The users you can link back to demographics will tell you that websites about bodybuilding and WWE have X% male readership, and then when you find some other user who reads those sites and also Literotica, you can make an estimate about how likely they are to be male.

It's very hard to know how accurate those estimates would be. They're not just made up, but there's a lot of educated guesswork going into it, not to mention questions about how these ratios are even defined. (If Bob visits Literotica nine times a month and Jane visits once a month, is that a 90/10 ratio or a 50/50 ratio? What if I tell you that Bob only reads one story each time he visits, but Jane reads a dozen?)

 

[Bramblethorn]

As in life.

Yes and no. In developed countries, death rates are pretty small below 70, but population growth means the younger cohorts still tend to be larger. With that in mind, the data em posted looks older than the distribution I'd expect for the countries most of us live in.

Here is at least one poll I dug up from Em’s thread. But to a few people’s point people could be dishonest. But i would think they would be dishonest claiming to be younger? So hence the poll even weights towards older

People lie in both directions. In particular, for any "adult" site, there will be people under the legal age claiming to be older.

 

[Bramblethorn]

(re. "negative attitudes towards themes in stories that break traditionalist sensibilities and the lack of appreciation for themes that younger people would understand/enjoy")

For instance...

I don't know if this is what Priscilla had in mind, but my for-instances there would include themes of female non-monogamy, trans/non-binary identities, and gay (especially GM) outside their designated enclaves. Other sites where I hang out are a lot more relaxed about that kind of thing, and I suspect user age is part of that.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Lies, damn lies, and statistics...

Although the sample size of self reported ages here is very small, logically it makes sense at the older end of the scale where people have retired and write as a hobby.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Lies, damn lies, and statistics...

Although the sample size of self reported ages here is very small, logically it makes sense at the older end of the scale where people have retired and write as a hobby.

Nothing to do with readers though. The AH isn't a subset of anything other than itself, and I don't imagine for a second that we're representative of anything at all.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Nothing to do with readers though. The AH isn't a subset of anything other than itself, and I don't I imagine for a second that we're representative of anything at all.

So I'm a figment of my own imagination? That explains a lot.

 

[NotWise]

I don't know if this is what Priscilla had in mind, but my for-instances there would include themes of female non-monogamy, trans/non-binary identities, and gay (especially GM) outside their designated enclaves. Other sites where I hang out are a lot more relaxed about that kind of thing, and I suspect user age is part of that.

I'd take "female non-monogamy" off that list. It's a problem for the vocal BTB crowd in LW, but the other part of the LW population is there for hot wives and cuckolded husbands. Non-monogamy is universal in group (or at least it's a very complex concept), and it's common elsewhere. I skimmed my catalog, and I think at least half the stories have non-monogamous female main characters--even my Pink Orchid story in Romance.

I'm not sure how polarizing some of the gay and non-binary content really is. Lesbian relationships are common outside that category. I was surprised a few months ago when searching for tags to find a lot of stories outside GM (for instance) tagged for bisex or gay content.

Age could lead to some fairly rigid thinking, but it could also be attributed to Lit's 20-something-year-old category system, which lets readers get complacent in their chosen category. The category system could be scrapped completely in favor of tags (though I'm not entirely sure how that would work), but every little change here earns complaints, so I don't expect to see any change that sweeping.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'd take "female non-monogamy" off that list. It's a problem for the vocal BTB crowd in LW, but the other part of the LW population is there for hot wives and cuckolded husbands. Non-monogamy is universal in group (or at least it's a very complex concept), and it's common elsewhere. I skimmed my catalog, and I think at least half the stories have non-monogamous female main characters--even my Pink Orchid story in Romance.

Yeah, I don't mean to overstate things here - I think the majority of Literotica readers are fine with those topics. But the vocal minority who are anti- those specific things feels louder here than elsewhere.

Also not to say that the other sites are all harmonious utopias. They have their own hot-button topics, but it's more likely to be younger-people things "how dare you suggest BTS didn't invent K-pop?" or "can't believe people don't realise how problematic Reylo is" as opposed to the ones people get agitated about here.

I'm not sure how polarizing some of the gay and non-binary content really is. Lesbian relationships are common outside that category. I was surprised a few months ago when searching for tags to find a lot of stories outside GM (for instance) tagged for bisex or gay content.

What were the comments like, though?

I posted a lesbian story in Romance. It did pretty well, most of the response was positive, but I also got a "this doesn't belong here" - I may have misinterpreted, but I took that as response to the lesbian angle. Another story that I beta-ed involved a relationship between a cis woman and a post-op trans woman; the trans angle wasn't a big part of it, and it was posted to Lesbian Sex, where again the reaction was mostly positive but with some "this doesn't belong here". Those comments were very much minority opinions, but on the other site where I mostly post, it'd be a minority of zero.

Age could lead to some fairly rigid thinking, but it could also be attributed to Lit's 20-something-year-old category system, which lets readers get complacent in their chosen category.

True, and when you have users who've been on the site for all of those 20 years, influencing the category expectations which in turn influences which of the newcomers leave or stay, I don't know if it's possible to draw a clear line between user age and category cultures.

 

[Priscilla_June]

I don't know if this is what Priscilla had in mind, but my for-instances there would include themes of female non-monogamy, trans/non-binary identities, and gay (especially GM) outside their designated enclaves. Other sites where I hang out are a lot more relaxed about that kind of thing, and I suspect user age is part of that.

Yeah this is pretty much where I am at. Also, the general lack of fanfiction on lit or stories that associate with movies/videogames younger people would identify with also strikes me as odd. I know its may be more of a site thing but I think there is also a general lack of enthusiasm.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Are you sure you don't mean craniotomy?

I think the word you're looking for might be lobotamy.

 

[NotWise]

Yeah this is pretty much where I am at. Also, the general lack of fanfiction on lit or stories that associate with movies/videogames younger people would identify with also strikes me as odd. I know its may be more of a site thing but I think there is also a general lack of enthusiasm.

I can see that, but if Lit is lacking fanfiction or references to movies or videos that younger people would identify with, is that because there are no writers to produce that work, or have writers produced that work and found no audience for it? Who's old, the readers or the writers?

If Em's age survey is right (and AH represents Lit authors at large) then Lit should have authors of an age to produce work for younger readers, and even older writers (well, one I know of) can succeed writing to younger audiences.

Or maybe those things just aren't that erotic.

 

[Priscilla_June]

I can see that, but if Lit is lacking fanfiction or references to movies or videos that younger people would identify with, is that because there are no writers to produce that work, or have writers produced that work and found no audience for it? Who's old, the readers or the writers?

If Em's age survey is right (and AH represents Lit authors at large) then Lit should have authors of an age to produce work for younger readers, and even older writers (well, one I know of) can succeed writing to younger audiences.

Or maybe those things just aren't that erotic.

id also argue that Lit rules are prohibitive of fanfiction as well. I think in story idea discussion I was poking at possibly doing a Pokemon story and it was met with some pushback because people recommended I make my own original setting instead or said that I would HAVE to post it in fanfiction (a very under viewed category).

 

[alohadave]

id also argue that Lit rules are prohibitive of fanfiction as well. I think in story idea discussion I was poking at possibly doing a Pokemon story and it was met with some pushback because people recommended I make my own original setting instead or said that I would HAVE to post it in fanfiction (a very under viewed category).

There is a celebrity/fan fiction category. Don't ask others what to write, just write what you want.