Did I Use the Wrong Category for My Story?

[KristinKailey]

So the story was moved to Non-Con. Oddly a few of my other stories were moved there too including a fully consensual bdsm story which had zero non-con elements at all so weird for sure. Either way my issue is resolved.

My hope is that the story will get a better reception at non-con but its too early to tell. No comments have popped up since the move so at least the negativity has stopped but the positivity has not begun.

This thread was a super good experience for me and I really learned a lot so thank you so much to everyone for a great discussion.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You did say that, B. And yes, it hurts my feelings. You cannot pretend you did not say it by putting it in quotes.

I'm not a fucking idiot. I think you know that. I don't understand why you feel it necessary to talk that way. I don't. Or, I try not to, even when I strongly disagree with people. We disagree, and it's a disagreement that intelligent people can have. It's a disagreement that people can have without hurling personal insults at one another.

You have very much missed the point. I will rephrase what I said in the following lines of that post, which you haven't acknowledged.

"Don't call somebody a 'fucking idiot'" and "don't surprise people with rapey content" are both norms. More specifically, they're both "courtesy" norms. They exist because they protect people's comfort, and while keeping people comfortable isn't always the most important thing, it is a good default position. You would like not to be called a fucking idiot; other people would like not to encounter surprise rape in their recreational reading material.

Ordinarily, I'd aim to respect both those preferences. Where we have disagreements, I'd much prefer to stick to the issues than go ad hominem.

But.

From this and previous discussions of a similar nature, you appear have a very inconsistent attitude towards norms. The norms that protect your own comfort are sacrosanct; should somebody violate those norms you'll tell us how hurt your feelings are and question whether it was necessary to be so mean. Norms that exist to protect other people's comfort, OTOH are "ridiculous", obstacles to the sacred freedom of expression.

I have tried to point you at this dissonance before, and it hasn't gotten through. So this time I deliberately violated one of the courtesy norms that does affect your personal comfort, in the hope of reminding you why such norms do matter. I don't enjoy hurting your feelings, but I'm not sure how else to highlight that particular dissonance.

Are other people's feelings important? Should we strive to avoid unnecessarily upsetting others? Tell me yes or tell me no, but don't tell me "depends on whether that person is Simon".

 

[KeithD]

I think you're just being unnecessarily nasty.

 

[SimonDoom]

You have very much missed the point. I will rephrase what I said in the following lines of that post, which you haven't acknowledged.

"Don't call somebody a 'fucking idiot'" and "don't surprise people with rapey content" are both norms. More specifically, they're both "courtesy" norms. They exist because they protect people's comfort, and while keeping people comfortable isn't always the most important thing, it is a good default position. You would like not to be called a fucking idiot; other people would like not to encounter surprise rape in their recreational reading material.

Ordinarily, I'd aim to respect both those preferences. Where we have disagreements, I'd much prefer to stick to the issues than go ad hominem.

But.

From this and previous discussions of a similar nature, you appear have a very inconsistent attitude towards norms. The norms that protect your own comfort are sacrosanct; should somebody violate those norms you'll tell us how hurt your feelings are and question whether it was necessary to be so mean. Norms that exist to protect other people's comfort, OTOH are "ridiculous", obstacles to the sacred freedom of expression.

I have tried to point you at this dissonance before, and it hasn't gotten through. So this time I deliberately violated one of the courtesy norms that does affect your personal comfort, in the hope of reminding you why such norms do matter. I don't enjoy hurting your feelings, but I'm not sure how else to highlight that particular dissonance.

Are other people's feelings important? Should we strive to avoid unnecessarily upsetting others? Tell me yes or tell me no, but don't tell me "depends on whether that person is Simon".

This is a somewhat more serious expression of what you wrote before, rather than the previous insulting version. I will respond.

I think this is bad moral reasoning. It doesn't make you an idiot. I know to a certainty you are not. There is a big difference between being an idiot and being a smart person engaging in bad reasoning.

You may think that something I say is so wrong that you think, "God, that's idiotic." That doesn't entitle you to call me an idiot. I know I'm not an idiot and I know I have not said anything that justifies someone to call me an idiot, so if you call me an idiot you are being hyperbolic and not being real.

This has nothing to do with my personal comfort any more than it has to do with yours. My personal comfort isn't implicated at all by the subject matter of this discussion. I've been writing here for almost five years and none of my writing is implicated by this discussion at all. I'm pretty savvy about understanding categories here. I personally agree with the distinction between non-con and BDSM and in any event it hasn't affected anything I've written. I've written one BDSM story, and consent was a central element of that story. Personally, if consent was questionable, I'd put it in Non-con. For you to suggest that this boils down to, "I, Bramblethorn, am concerned with other people, and you're just concerned with your personal comfort" is completely wrong. There's no basis for that whatsoever. It's presumptuous and obnoxious to suggest that.

I think there are three issues here, where we may disagree. I say "may" because I'll let you speak for yourself.

Number 1, I don't think it's appropriate to call other people at Literotica "fucking idiots." You did that. RubenR did that. I think you are wrong to do that, period. Always. I never do that. When you do that, what you are really saying is "My values are so important and so obviously correct that I don't have to be thoughtful or kind if you disagree with them." That's a common attitude in social media. I totally disagree with that attitude, always. I think it's uncouth. Also, it's a bullying tactic. You're smart enough to dispute the point that I made, but instead you use insults and profanity. I think that's wrong, always. I don't ever behave that way in social media. I never have.

Number 2, I am not insensitive to rape victims. You don't know enough about me to even suggest that I am. But there are other important values at work beside being sensitive to rape victims who read Literotica stories. Inteliligent, thoughtful people can have different opinions about the relative weight of those different values. Modern culture and entertainment have an extraordinary amount of material that could be triggering -- far more so than anything published at Literotica. Consider the beloved TV show Game of Thrones. There were no trigger warnings for GOT. It had an astonishing number of scenes that surprised viewers with shocking, awful material. Rape. Murder. Incest. Burning children at the stake. Was that bad? I don't think so. Most people don't think so. The shock was part of the fun. Were some people triggered? Maybe. But are their feelings any more important than those who enjoyed the fun? In my opinion, no. Your comments suggest you think that some people's feelings are privileged above others. I do not believe that. What's the operating principle that makes Literotica stories different from any other form of media where people generally do not observe the norms you seem to want them to observe? I don't see it. Culture is rough. Just turn on the TV. People have to live with it. Literotica should be no different. You may disagree with me. That's fine. But I'm not an idiot to think what I think.

Number 3, there's an important distinction between on the one hand saying that Non-Con and BDSM are different things and that prudent authors should be aware of that and categorize their stories appropriately (I agree with this -- there probably is not that much difference between our mutual positions on this), and on the other hand insisting that BDSM authors must conform their stories to the values and so-called rules of real-world BDSM practitioners. I reject that. I am a firm believer that the erotic imagination should not be restrained and that authors should be allowed to write what they want without being lectured and berated. If an author has an idiosyncratic and crazy view of BDSM, in my opinion that they should feel free to write a story that expresses that view. And if some people are offended by that, that's too bad. I don't care. You may think that makes me insensitive, but I don't agree with you. I think it's a matter of balancing competing values differently. In any event, it definitely does NOT make me idiotic. And I don't think you are an idiot, either, just because you disagree with me.

 

[AlinaX]

... insisting that BDSM authors must conform their stories to the values and so-called rules of real-world BDSM practitioners. I reject that. I am a firm believer that the erotic imagination should not be restrained and that authors should be allowed to write what they want without being lectured and berated. If an author has an idiosyncratic and crazy view of BDSM, in my opinion that they should feel free to write a story that expresses that view. And if some people are offended by that, that's too bad.

Sure... but put consensual BDSM in the BDSM category, and non-consensual BDSM in the Non-Consensual category. Where's the argument?

 

[KeithD]

Yes, where is the argument? SD posted all the way up in post #7 that he'd put the thread story in NonCon.

The real argument here seems to be about posters who want to impose their own set of rules on what can be posted/written where. At Literotica, that belongs to Laurel and only to Laurel. No external club rules.