Why are Furries a problem in the NonHuman Category?

KeithD said:

Privately owned, yes, but the two operators of the Web site are doing it for personal profit, I think. They are taking whatever profit there is, using product provided to them by the site users for free (and the privilege of having it published to the net).

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I seriously doubt this site generate any disposable income, it likely pays for itsel but that's it. At least the stories and forum portions anyway, the affiliated cams portion might make a coin or two, but most probably exists with the exact goal for cross-subsidising the stories site itself. Then, I'm not really an expert so might be surprised by the true numbers.

Yes, you most probably would be surprised by the real numbers, I think. Whatever profit there is goes to the site owners and is generated from product freely provided to them. I don't see where your post fits into the discussion.

themightyxloph said:

Granted. However, the legal liability lies with them, too. If they publish a story involving underage sex, bestiality or what not, first and foremost the buck stops with them, not with the author.

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There is no legal liability in publishing underage sex, bestiality, or what not. It's not against the law to deal with it in fiction. You'll find it freely flowing in the mainstream. That's not the issue. Site owner preference is the issue. Which is fine; they have that right.

SimonDoom said:

I don't see what the big deal is. I don't understand why the owners of this site set the rules they do about what's acceptable and not acceptable, but the rules have never seemed to me to be that difficult to follow, and following them seems like a small price to pay to enjoy the site's benefits. There are plenty of other sites to post stories that aren't allowed here.

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Laurel is trying to avoid criminal and civil liability, having her site blocked, her family endangered. (That last bit may sound melodramatic, but there are still people who come after distributors of pornography). She has to navigate “communications decency” laws from across the globe, and many of their statutory schemes have irrational requirements and boundaries.

This site is a big target. I’m sure she has had to deal with questions from the authorities and the occasional litigious or even violent nutbar.

KeithD said:

There is no legal liability in publishing underage sex, bestiality, or what not. It's not against the law to deal with it in fiction. You'll find it freely flowing in the mainstream. That's not the issue. Site owner preference is the issue. Which is fine; they have that right.

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That’s wrong. Let me do some digging...

Oblimo said:

That’s wrong. Let me do some digging...

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Ah, yes, here it is: Red Rose Stories was shut down by the FBI.

And the site owner was prosecuted for hosting purely textual stories of child rape. Not a single visual depiction on her site. She plead guilty. This was in 2008.

And the case law is crystal clear: "Obscene material in book form is not entitled to any First Amendment protection merely because it has no pictorial content." (Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115 (1973))

And that’s just the United States, one of the most permissive markets for pornography in the world.

Oblimo said:

Ah, yes, here it is: Red Rose Stories was shut down by the FBI.

And the site owner was prosecuted for hosting purely textual stories of child rape. Not a single visual depiction on her site. She plead guilty. This was in 2008.

And the case law is crystal clear: "Obscene material in book form is not entitled to any First Amendment protection merely because it has no pictorial content." (Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115 (1973))

And that’s just the United States, one of the most permissive markets for pornography in the world.

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I'm game. Cite multiple court cases based on this--specific instances of what was charged and what happened. If this is only happening rarely, it's not something that's really happening.

KeithD said:

I'm game. Cite multiple court cases based on this--specific instances of what was charged and what happened. If this is only happening rarely, it's not something that's really happening.

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You just like disagreeing with me.

It definitely a rarity, but the FBI has gotten a bug up its ass and prosecuted text-only obscenity cases before, even in the 21st Century.

Likewise, people are prosecuted for having loli hentai, or drawing of Bart and Lisa Simpson getting it on — but (thus far) only in the context of such art being seized in conjunction with honest-to-goodness child pornography.

There’s some legal/business consortium magic about beastialty, but I can’t remeber it off the top of my head, other than a hedgehog can never be buggered at all.

Oblimo said:

You just like disagreeing with me.

It definitely a rarity, but the FBI has gotten a bug up its ass and prosecuted text-only obscenity cases before, even in the 21st Century.

Likewise, people are prosecuted for having loli hentai, or drawing of Bart and Lisa Simpson getting it on — but (thus far) only in the context of such art being seized in conjunction with honest-to-goodness child pornography.

There’s some legal/business consortium magic about beastialty, but I can’t remeber it off the top of my head, other than a hedgehog can never be buggered at all.

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No, I just like to be realistic. Fantasy is fine unless it's a matter of fooling yourself.

KeithD said:

No, I just like to be realistic. Fantasy is fine unless it's a matter of fooling yourself.

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I think Laurel’s policies aren’t paranoid fantasies but reasonable business decisions, especially now that the safe harbor of the Communications Decency Act has been pierced.

I can certainly understand the frustration with inconsistent judgment calls about those policies, however. It’s not like she’s a Federal court judge with clerks who can help her maintain consistency with precedent.

Just my two cents.

I wasn't referring to Laurel's fantasies, whatever they are.

Oblimo said:

Ah, yes, here it is: Red Rose Stories was shut down by the FBI.

And the site owner was prosecuted for hosting purely textual stories of child rape. Not a single visual depiction on her site. She plead guilty. This was in 2008.

And the case law is crystal clear: "Obscene material in book form is not entitled to any First Amendment protection merely because it has no pictorial content." (Kaplan v. California, 413 U.S. 115 (1973))

And that’s just the United States, one of the most permissive markets for pornography in the world.

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There's also the Frank McCoy case, which we discussed a while back, I think in Author's Hangout. Excerpt from the appeal judgement, which affirmed McCoy's conviction:

...based on our independent review of McCoy's stories, we conclude that they lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. The stories graphically describe sexual acts, incestuous relationships, molestation, masturbation, sexual abuse, rape, intercourse, violent acts, and arguably the torture and/or murder of very young children. The stories contain tenuous plots at best. Simply put, the stories are precisely the type of "'hard core' pornography" that the Supreme Court has made clear is unprotected under the First Amendment. See Miller, 413 U.S. at 29.

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The stories graphically describe sexual acts, incestuous relationships, molestation, masturbation, sexual abuse, rape, intercourse, violent acts, and arguably the torture and/or murder of very young children.

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I suspect a significant portion of Lit’s readership would click to see a story with that description, depending on the salaciousness of the title, of course.

Nezhul said:

I'm actually becoming really annoyed with that argument.

There's A TON of unreasonable bullshit on literotica. But this argument is thrown every time for whatever reason.

Technically, yes, it's correct. But I think that YOU, as a reader/writer should not apologist the site owners for them.

blah blah blah

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Bro, are you vegan? cause this is such a vegan move, coming to a free dinner and then browbeating people over the lack of vegetarian entrees.

Visa and MC

Of course, this is an assumption but I’d presume the decision just has to do with keeping the site live on the host server. Service providers, payment platforms etc are all subject to Visa/MC branding and product rules. Bestiality (and anything smattering of it) runs far afoul if those rules. It’s not a free speech issue, it’s a commercial contract agreement.

Which is really too bad IMHO because one of my favorite oneshot stories was the exceptional author PiperBelle’s “Pack Master Daddy” (father/daughter, werewolf/human woman, dubcon) which may have pushed the envelope too far on her account here...

At the end of the day it's almost certainly more of a business decision than a moral or literary one. And I get that. I don't like it, but I get it.

But what keeps burning my ass is that in the guidelines as they are still being published, the only rule is the "no under 18 sex" restriction. So you write something that conforms with that, and it get rejected for other reasons that are, apparently, unwritten rules. And that sucks.

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=175666

Covers most of the rejections.

RejectReality said:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=175666

Covers most of the rejections.

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That's my point. These should be in the guidelines (http://literotica.com/subguide.shtml) but most of them aren't. I just had an erotic horror story rejected because some of the characters were turned to stone and this was considered "snuff". Where's that sort of thing in the Author's Guidelines? There are obviously a lot of unwritten rules here.

Laurel's final post in that thread is the most important one. Not every rejection is final.

Being turned to stone hardly meets any bar I'm familiar with for snuff in the Erotic Horror category. I've written much worse and passed it without issue. I've written much worse and had it pass in the slightly more restrictive Sci-Fi & Fantasy category.

If that's the only death, and you haven't left out some gory detail, then odds are it was a mistaken rejection. In the erotic horror category, that type of death is likely acceptable even if it was caused by sex ( which is the actual definition of snuff ) where it might not be in any other category.

In many cases, it's as simple as resubmitting, and adding a note to the moderator's notes section of the submission saying that you believe the rejection for snuff was in error.

I'll make the same offer to you that I made to the OP of this thread. If you'd like me to give your story a quick review, looking for red flags that might cause a rejection or mistaken rejection, drop me a PM and I'll be happy to do so.

When you're walking on the edge, you have to find out where the line is. It never hurts to have someone more familiar with that give you a little guidance.

If it truly is beyond Lit's content bars, I also know of a place with different content rules where it will certainly pass, and has solid ( if nowhere near Lit's size ) readership, giving you a place to post work that can't be posted to Lit. I'll be happy to pass that information along as well.

RejectReality said:

Laurel's final post in that thread is the most important one. Not every rejection is final.

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Which is why I asked what the problem was, exactly, but I never received a response.

RejectReality said:

Being turned to stone hardly meets any bar I'm familiar with for snuff in the Erotic Horror category. I've written much worse and passed it without issue. I've written much worse and had it pass in the slightly more restrictive Sci-Fi & Fantasy category.

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Exactly. Which is the reason why I still don't understand why it was rejected.

I can deal with having a story rejected, as long as it is clear to me WHERE the lines are that have been crossed. At this point in time it's anything but.

RejectReality said:

If that's the only death, and you haven't left out some gory detail, then odds are it was a mistaken rejection. In the erotic horror category, that type of death is likely acceptable even if it was caused by sex ( which is the actual definition of snuff ) where it might not be in any other category.[/QUOT]
That was my impression. I remember several succubus-themes stories where the protagonist ended up as a dessicated corpse. And that was published with no problems. And no, I haven't left out any gory details.

RejectReality said:

In many cases, it's as simple as resubmitting, and adding a note to the moderator's notes section of the submission saying that you believe the rejection for snuff was in error.

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Tried that. No go.

RejectReality said:

I'll make the same offer to you that I made to the OP of this thread. If you'd like me to give your story a quick review, looking for red flags that might cause a rejection or mistaken rejection, drop me a PM and I'll be happy to do so.

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Thank you. I appreciate that. But by now I've rewritten it [toning it down further than I really wanted] and it's now been accepted. I'm not too happy with the way it went but I'm now moving on to new and more productive endeavours.

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