Adultery in the "Loving Wives" category

I submitted a story in the “Loving Wives” category called “An Angel on My Shoulder”. It dealt with adultery, as I take it most stories in this category must. A husband and his loving wife having lawful wedded sex are doing something wonderful and estimable, but nobody is interested in reading about them.

My own story was inspired by the discovery by a relative of a pile of old letters. Her father had been separated from his mother by service in WWII, and had cheated on her. Their marriage wasn’t a casualty of war, and survived more than fifty years until her father’s death. I tried to think of other stress factors short of a world war which might cause an otherwise decent and loyal husband to stray. I settled on unemployment for him and breast cancer for his wife. I was particularly interested in exploring the thought processes leading to choosing infidelity, where exactly the moral syllogism jumps the rails.

I was rather astonished at the outpouring of vitriol against the protagonist in the story, and by extension against anyone wicked enough to write such a thing. I thought I made clear my own attitude towards cheating on your wife: it is not only immoral, but something which tarnishes your soul and your very identity. In real life I believe it to be a sin against God as well as the wronged wife. However I evidently failed to be as religious as some of my critics.

I gather from other commentators such as the estimable “luedon” that I wasn’t being singled out, but was just the latest target in an ongoing “Loving Wives” imbroglio. I’d therefore like to explore, I’m sure not the first time, just why readers of pornographic fiction are so moralistic about marital infidelity.

I’d like to present the following questions:

1. Under what circumstances may infidelity be treated in a Literotica story? Are we subject to a revival of the Hollywood Production Code, which allowed depiction of adultery only if the guilty parties die a horrible death in the last reel?

2. A significant number of readers on this site switch their mouse from the dominant hand to the weaker in order to better appreciate what these stories have to offer. What right do these wankers have to whine about adultery? Would they refuse to watch “Double Indemnity”, where the cheaters are also murderers? Would they be willing to read Madame Bovary?

3. If sexual fidelity is vital and indeed definitional in marriage, how can my critics tolerate gay marriage, where fidelity seems to be the exception rather than the rule?

Thank you.

Sorry, but this is just another one of those unanswerable questions being asked on the forum about the reader/voter/commenter views on the story file. There are potentially hundreds of thousands of readers of a story here with thousands of different views on everything and a hit or miss combination of those who actually do read the story and react to it. It's simply impossible for you to get more than a handful of responses to this question form the forum, which has absolutely no chance of comprehensively giving you a useful answer and therefore any opinion give you here is totally meaningless beyond that one-opinion only response. Just post the responses you want to get on a dart board and fire away.

RamosWashington said:

1. Under what circumstances may infidelity be treated in a Literotica story? Are we subject to a revival of the Hollywood Production Code, which allowed depiction of adultery only if the guilty parties die a horrible death in the last reel?

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If you browse comments on other LW stories, you'll find that some LW readers would like exactly that. There are a lot of "wimp, he should have [creepy revenge fantasy here]" comments. For whatever reason, some people are so obsessed with adultery that they seek out stories about the topic they claim to hate; LW is notorious for toxic commenters.

You certainly may post infidelity stories on Literotica - I mean, you already did. The question isn't whether you're allowed to do it, just whether you're willing to put up with the assholes who flame that kind of story, and that's not something anybody else can answer for you. Certainly you're not going to get a coherent discussion with people whose thought process is "I hate these stories, so I will read them".

2. A significant number of readers on this site switch their mouse from the dominant hand to the weaker in order to better appreciate what these stories have to offer. What right do these wankers have to whine about adultery?

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I'm not sure I understand the question; are you saying that masturbation and adultery are morally equivalent? If so, well, I think many would disagree.

3. If sexual fidelity is vital and indeed definitional in marriage, how can my critics tolerate gay marriage,

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What on earth makes you think they do?

I can't recall seeing any of the foam-at-the-mouth-LW-commenter crowd expressing support for marriage equality. They always struck me as insecure rage-filled poster boys for toxic masculinity, which goes hand in hand with homophobia.

where fidelity seems to be the exception rather than the rule?

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[citation needed]

LW has become a disorganized wilderness of stories involving any sort of extramarital sex. Swinging, cuckold fetish, open marriage, evil cheaters, all in the order they're posted, with no way to tell in advance what a story is about unless the author sees fit to tag it or write an intro that explains what the story will be about. Things are made even more complicated by the fact that stories for which there are already separate categories, such as fetish, BDSM, group sex, etc., are being posted to LW rather than the places they really belong, because their writers know that LW is the most read category and the place where they'll be read by the most people. Even though a lot of those people will despise them and will not hesitate to express their feelings in the comments.

The real solution would be to create a category for stories about cheating, enable readers to report stories that are posted to the wrong category and to act on those reports by moving the stories to the place where they belong so that people can more easily ignore the stories they dislike. But the site owners lack either the resources or the will to do so.. And so there is not likely to be any change in the status quo.

Re: "I was rather astonished at the outpouring of vitriol against the protagonist"

Ramos, I am astonished at your astonishment. You've been here since 2008. Surely by now you can't still be surprised by the sorts of comments made by the Loving Wives commentariat?

My theory is that everybody's here for their own entertainment. Some write stories, some make comments, some do both. That's certainly the way I approach Literotica. I write stories for myself, but I am fascinated by the responses they elicit from those who are motivated make comments.

I respond to other authors' stories and the comments on those stories with the same mind set. If that engages other commenters in a discussion or a debate, that adds to the entertainment.

The interesting commenters are those who claim to hate stories about wives having sex with men who aren't their husbands, but then read them anyhow and state how much they hated the story. Two groups here seem to be the Moral Brigade who read them so that they can tell everybody how wrong it is, and the Walking Wounded who have personal experience of being 'betrayed'. It seems to me these are the dominant groups among the LW commentariat and the only acceptable stories to them are those where revenge and retribution is exacted on the wrongdoer.

Ramos, your recent story was interestingly different in that it was the husband who 'cheated' and the two female characters were the ones who behaved rationally and gave hope for a positive future. This tests the double standard, because in most LW stories the wife is the wrongdoer and the husband is a paragon of virtue. But the Moral Brigade feels the need to at least make a token objection.

The other aspect of the commentaries brought out by your story was the inability of many LW commenters to distinguish between the story topic and how wll the story is constructed and written. To these readers, if it's a story about people behaving in a way they don't like, it's a bad story no matter how well it's written. May they never read King Lear or any of Shakespeare's dramas.

Lue

You can post any variation you like, but you should expect certain reactions.

If you post a story where a cheating wife is simply divorced, you will be castigated by the RAAC (Reconciliation At All Costs) crowd as a misogynistic Neanderthal who wants women chained in the kitchen and beaten through the streets if she strays.

If you post a story where the husband DOESN'T BTB (Burn The Bitch) the BTB crowd will call it fag cuck shit.

My problem with your story wasn't with the story itself, but the general reaction by the commentariat. Generally, if a wife cheats on a husband fighting cancer, and has a happy reconciliation, it will be like waving a red flag in front of a bull, where here he got all sorts of understanding.

The bottom line, write what you like, don't worry about the scores, and try to accept CONSTRUCTIVE criticism in the spirit it is intended. While there ARE thoughtful Anons, you can avoid the Trolls by blocking Anonymous comments.

Well Ramos, the Pilot is technically correct in that there is no way to get a comprehensive reason for why people here react to a story the way they do and there are too many variables etc.

But here at Lit LW is a universe of its own. Sometimes I just go to that category not to read a story but just to read the comments after the story, in many cases much more entertaining than the story itself.

If LW was broken up into sub-genres and there was a cheating story category for the most part I could see the majority of the "You're a cuck wimp, here, eat a condom," crowd following wherever the cheating stories went and dishing out the same type of comments. Why Lit is this way I'm not sure. Other sex/erotic story sites have cheating stories and they aren't attacked the way they are here and though most sites will have some moralizers about stuff it is way out of proportion here in LW.

If you really want to know I suggest PMing some of the registered users who made comments (though majority are anonymous) and asking. Whether it would be edifying I don't pretend to know but it might be funny to here what they say.

And Bramblethorn while I don't presume to speak for the OP I took his comment about the dominant hand to mean that they are switching hands so they can masturbate with the dominant hand and that people coming to a site to stroke to sex stories shouldn't be on their high horse about content, not saying adultery and masturbation are equivalent.

The problem the "cuck wimp" folks have isn't the cheating, it's the ACCEPTANCE of the cheating, the willing cuckoldry if you will. When I first came to LW I was fan of the stories where the wife cheated, the husband found out, and exacted revenge on the wife and/or her lover. Initially, I probably leaned towards BTB, though usually not "scorched earth." Now I consider myself "Cheating and Consequences," where the cheater pays SOME sort of consequences for the cheating. Luedon questions why the consequences can't be positive. I can't see how a negative act (cheating) can have anything other than a negative consequence.

I have nothing to add to this other then:

LOVING WIVES IS THE MOST READ CATEGORY????

Are you kidding me? Is this the Vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavor because no one hates it? It seems everyone hates Loving Wives.

This blows my mind.

Cheating and Consequences

Of course, SBrooks, as soon as you use the word 'cheating' which is a pejorative, the 'consequence' must automatically be negative. Or so you may think.

But if I say instead "sex with a man who is not her husband", which is neutral, the consequence may be positive or negative. It puts a different slant on the situation.

In the case of Ramos' story, it was 'sex with a woman who was not his cancer-suffering wife'. It was, perhaps, the worst form of 'cheating'. Despite this, the consequences were not negative. This was due to the rational behaviour of the two women involved.

For those who follow the ideas of Transactional Analysis, theirs was Adult behaviour, not Child (petulance) or Parent (censorious).

Lue

luedon said:

In the case of Ramos' story, it was 'sex with a woman who was not his cancer-suffering wife'. It was, perhaps, the worst form of 'cheating'.

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I only skimmed it, but by my reading his wife gave him written permission to have an affair, he stayed within the rules she'd set, he continued to support her, and the only dishonesty was that his other partner faked a STI scare to break off the relationship.

I know some folk are incapable of getting past "adultery, wife with cancer" but calling it the worst seems like a massive stretch.

(In my book, not cheating at all, but that's another matter.)

Soma99 said:

I have nothing to add to this other then:

LOVING WIVES IS THE MOST READ CATEGORY????

Are you kidding me? Is this the Vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavor because no one hates it? It seems everyone hates Loving Wives.

This blows my mind.

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Incest is the most read category. See here - almost all of the most read stories are incest stories.

Wow. Hadn't looked at that in a while. I wonder when that changed, and if it has anything to do with the fact that writers who do "cheating/consequences" stories have been producing less output lately compared to writers who produce "willing cuckold/wife sharing" stories.

luedon said:

Of course, SBrooks, as soon as you use the word 'cheating' which is a pejorative, the 'consequence' must automatically be negative. Or so you may think.

But if I say instead "sex with a man who is not her husband", which is neutral, the consequence may be positive or negative. It puts a different slant on the situation.

In the case of Ramos' story, it was 'sex with a woman who was not his cancer-suffering wife'. It was, perhaps, the worst form of 'cheating'. Despite this, the consequences were not negative. This was due to the rational behaviour of the two women involved.

For those who follow the ideas of Transactional Analysis, theirs was Adult behaviour, not Child (petulance) or Parent (censorious).

Lue

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lue, you're talking apples and oranges. Obviously (I hope!) consensual extra-marital sex can have either positive or negative consequences.

I'm talking specifically about cheating, and you adding "or so you may think" doesn't make "cheating" neutral and the consequences somehow positive.

I write about adultery all the time. Sometimes they attract vicious comments that I have to ignore.

Y'all are overthinking this.

LW generates the kind of comments it does because it hits so many in their emotional ass end. Be thankful for the comments, even the nasty ones. It shows reader engagement.

To the OP this isn't a literary session with a bunch of Masters/PhD Degrees sitting around debating the merits of...... Most are here to find a stroke story and beat off. Take your thinking down to that level and you'll understand your feedback.

Now let's all go mudwrestle.....

For all the fear of troll comments and 1-votes for adultery stories posted in LW, the fact is that many of these stories do quite well, both in terms of scores and, especially, views. If you scan the LW 12 month toplist you'll see plenty of adultery-themed stories that have done very well. Sure, they get more than their share of vicious, nasty comments, but those obviously are outweighed by the many positive votes they get.

LW is (I'm not 100% sure of this but I think it's true) the second most-viewed category here after incest (which is, by far, number 1). So if you want readers, it's a good place to post a story. You just need to take a thick skin with you when you go.

As has been said many times, if you are going to write in LW, you must develop a thick skin. If you want to get even nastier comments, describe the married couple as white and the other man as black.

As for what else you said, that kind of story can be found in "Romance" or sometimes "First Time."

SimonDoom said:

For all the fear of troll comments and 1-votes for adultery stories posted in LW, the fact is that many of these stories do quite well, both in terms of scores and, especially, views.

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That would be because Lit deletes all the 1 votes every week. The scores are no where near an accurate indication of what the readers think.

gordo12 said:

That would be because Lit deletes all the 1 votes every week. The scores are no where near an accurate indication of what the readers think.

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I don't think it's been established that Lit. erases all 1 votes or does sweeps as often as every week.

sr71plt said:

I don't think it's been established that Lit. erases all 1 votes or does sweeps as often as every week.

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Agree this, I reckon sweeps run once every 3-4 weeks, from movements I've seen in my story file; ramping up to weekly and even daily when competitions are running.

Boxlicker101 said:

As has been said many times, if you are going to write in LW, you must develop a thick skin. If you want to get even nastier comments, describe the married couple as white and the other man as black.

As for what else you said, that kind of story can be found in "Romance" or sometimes "First Time."

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I picked one hell of a category for my first story, and indeed the interracial cheating spouse theme seems to be quite a trigger. Skin is thick enough to handle the trolls, I just find it amusing that sharing a free story gins up so much anger. Seems far too many people think literotica is short for literal-erotica.

Adultery

I'm a little confused.

Since the VAST majority of LW stories involve wives who cheat, i.e. commit adultery, adultery is common in LW.

.....

sbrooks103x said:

I'm a little confused.

Since the VAST majority of LW stories involve wives who cheat, i.e. commit adultery, adultery is common in LW.

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Yes, but the critical issue for a significant number of trollish reader-voters is whether the adultery goes unpunished. These readers will approve an adultery story in which the cheating wife gets her just desserts, but will savagely downgrade any story in which she does not.