Story rejected for rule I’m certain I didn’t break

[Voboy]

See, you're doing it again. That thing where someone talks about stuff other people do, and you taking it as another accusation that you're doing it.

Well, I did use the term "you." I meant it generically, not personally, but I'd skimmed a great many responses and I think I missed the tone of the thread. OP is more frustrated than I might have appreciated.

It's always useful to reinforce these ideas for casual lurkers, I think. This is not an uncommonly encountered rejection. Hopefully the OP will solve the problem.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Apropos of nothing, Buffy was a high school senior when she first slept with Angel. I guess he was in the Mature category.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Apropos of nothing, Buffy was a high school senior when she first slept with Angel. I guess he was in the Mature category.

Actually - season two. She was a junior .

 

[EmilyMiller]

Actually - season two. She was a junior .

Maybe vampires don’t Count.

[I’m so very sorry for that joke]

 

[SkyBubble]

Things like "high school" can do a lot of work for you, but simply "school" can suffice.

I've heard many people refer to college as "school." "Which schools is she looking at?" will mean colleges. Perhaps Husky's suggestion would help you.

 

[SkyBubble]

All in the context of me being unable to get a more specific response from the moderators other than "no underage" but they won't say what passage triggered the censor.

All along my issue has been the lack of clarity. The "rules as written" and what several commenters have said the rules are simply do not match.

Yes, more transparency would be helpful, but that's even more work for Laurel.

 

[SkyBubble]

Maybe vampires don’t Count.

Good one!

 

[TheLobster]

Or maybe 61 for 16? "But teach, it's in 'Mature!'"

To be safe, always make sure the other party is at least 81.

 

[Husky_Embrace]

As I wrote above, the quarterback character is described as flirting with her and pursuing her after she also turned 18. I don't even describe him trying to hold her hand or smile at her before she's 18.

The character is called by her name a lot and most of the time she's called "girl" it's by someone saying "good girl" to her; if that phrase is banned the whole BDSM section will have to be deleted off this site and probably big chunks of others too lol.

I turned 18 before graduation and a lot of my class did too. I do not think Texas schools are on a totally different schedule or starting age than the rest of the US.

And I'm not going to apologize for being irritated at people accusing me of trying to "sneak" a "child porn" or "teenybopper" story through. I wrote a story about a legal adult having sex with other legal adults. The main character is described as 5'9" tall and with physically adult features. This is absolutely not a case of some childlike character who's called legally 18 but is meant to create a fantasy of an underage sexual partner.

I'm seeing little chance of anything more productive coming out of this thread. A few of the rational people have kindly offered to review the story. I'm going to take some time and think because honestly at this point, doing more work on the awful U/I here and no idea if there's any hope the story will ever get approved just has me more inclined to revise it to a college setting but post it elsewhere or just share it with friends. This shit is supposed to be fun, y'all. Keep your crankiness and misery and lectures to yourself. I am uninterested and not ashamed of the story I wrote.

I understand the feeling of being attacked. However, others as well as myself try to offer you advice on changing the story. I have by no means said you have written, or meant to write a story about teenbopping. We haven't gotten the luxury of reading the story, so we can't offer more advice.

All I've said is that to certain readers it might appear as under age. As the mod has said, saying they are 18 is not enough. If they look/act/are described in a way that can be under age it'll be treated as such. Otherwise I can make a story of an obvious 5yo, build a story around that, and start with "it was their 18th birthday" to "comply" with the rules.

Going from the information given I've suggested a friendly way to try to remedy your situation. Just as I try to do now. I mean no harm.

Read the story again and look if it can easily read as an under aged girl instead of an 18yo woman. It can be easy to miss it from your own perspective, so try to adopt others. It might even be the men that look under age. Change it where it feels under age. That is my suggestion for making it through the mods.

 

[Bazzle]

Then. The. Mods. Should. Say. That's. The. Rule.

I searched through threads here to find an answer, saw a lot of discussion of not being allowed to have characters described as looking underage, adult characters describing sexual activities they had before they were 18, or adult characters being attracted to underage characters (even if waiting until they're 18). I didn't find anything saying high school was verboten and people are trying to attack me for it.

Zero apologies for not knowing unwritten rules. "No high school" is not on the FAQ. It's not in pinned threads.

Its why I set most of my coming of age stories in THAT summer. The one we all go through.
The one when you finish schooling and potentially head off to university or work.

Don't go earlier!

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I'm obviously not mad about the kind people who offered to read the story. I appreciate them, I've said so here and in messages to them.

I'm irritated at the people who accused me of being some sort of deviant or trying to sneak kiddie porn on the site. I'm not sorry at all for saying I didn't appreciate that and I'm not taking it back.

I repeat myself on this frequently, but here goes...

Context matters more than content.

As I mentioned when I offered to read your story, I have several stories here with underage main and sub characters. THAT is not ever the issue when a story gets rejected.

My first story published here in 2014, "His Daddy's Car", had the MCs meeting their junior year of high school. They teased each other, kissed passionately, spent the night together in a sleeping bag, and eventually had sex their senior year after they had both turned 18. It won a "Readers Choice" award and remains popular.

In a more recent story here, a 14 year-old daughter falsely accuses a man of masturbating in front of her in order to get her mother in trouble. REJECTED! Simply changing the word "masturbating" to "playing with himself" got it accepted. The context of his act, while false, needed to have a purpose that was not enticing, titillating, or arousing. The same with later scenes where the daughter and her friend are abducted and stripped below the waist before being rescued.

Embrace the rules, but learn how to write so that they work for you instead of against you. I'm still willing to read your story and give you suggestions.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Don't go earlier!

Any age-based rule is arbitrary. Forget about porn, I grew up in PA. The age of consent is 16 there. What is the difference between a person being 15 years and 364 days and 16? Nothing.

But I fully endorse both the need to protect vulnerable young people IRL and to have rules around the content of porn. I’m not arguing that I should be able to write about 16 yos here. I’m fine with the 18+ rule.

But, if we are to have these age-based cut offs. Then 18 years and zero days is OK to write about. You can’t have it both ways, have an arbitrary, age-based rule and then say “oh but that doesn’t matter, it’s X instead.”

If I come up with a story which needs an 18 yo character, I’ll write it. I have no such stories in mind, most of my characters are mid-twenties to mid-thirties nowadays, but I reserve the right to write one in the future.

 

[SkyBubble]

if we are to have these age-based cut offs. Then 18 years and zero days is OK to write about. You can’t have it both ways, have an arbitrary, age-based rule and then say “oh but that doesn’t matter, it’s X instead.”

This is why the enforcement around here seems arbitrary to some people.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Any age-based rule is arbitrary. Forget about porn, I grew up in PA. The age of consent is 16 there. What is the difference between a person being 15 years and 364 days and 16? Nothing.

But I fully endorse both the need to protect vulnerable young people IRL and to have rules around the content of porn. I’m not arguing that I should be able to write about 16 yos here. I’m fine with the 18+ rule.

But, if we are to have these age-based cut offs. Then 18 years and zero days is OK to write about. You can’t have it both ways, have an arbitrary, age-based rule and then say “oh but that doesn’t matter, it’s X instead.”

If I come up with a story which needs an 18 yo character, I’ll write it. I have no such stories in mind, most of my characters are mid-twenties to mid-thirties nowadays, but I reserve the right to write one in the future.

This is what's making me mad about the reaction of some authors in this thread. Content guidelines are not meant to be a code of morality for all writers to follow. Content guidelines are meant to protect the website. Literotica reserves the right to host the content they feel it's best suited for the platform, but clearly some authors here have issues, yet they don't even dare to look at themselves in the mirror. Remember how we discussed censorship and how many authors were there applauding that censorship and monitoring was good because it leads to better art and weeds out the stuff they are not okay with? Remember that? Because sure as hell to see that in a forum for AUTHORS/ARTISTS will haunt me until I die.

I hate cuckolding stories. Fuck, I hate everything about LW. I hate T/I. I hate R/NC. I hate MC. Incest is illegal pretty much everywhere, and sure as hell there's a lot of stories here. Most sexual abuse cases are intrafamilial, and people have been killed for unfaithfulness. Do these categories make my hairs stand up? They certainly do. Do I want these categories down? No! Why? Because they have an audience, and to understand why, I've written stories around the theme of these categories. Heck, Reluctance and CNC is something that I've incorporated in some of my published work.

This is not even about the age rule to me, really. I'm also fine with the 18+ rule here, and some authors who have written stuff that isn't 18+ have went out of their way to publish that stuff into platforms that are okay with that type of content while still remaining inside Lit. That is the beauty of decentralized platforms, and that's why I love decentralized Internet: we get to choose what we create/consume without stepping onto other people's right to make fiction about whatever they want.

If you don't like some of us writing about 18-year-old seniors, fine! If you don't like that content, fine! Freedom of choice! But I am not going to tolerate the hypocrisy of someone policing the content that OP, I, or anyone else has written just because its against THEIR content guidelines, while sure as hell they've written even more questionable stuff. Freedom of choice. I'm not asking you to enjoy what we do, I'm asking you to stop policing our work, especially when I never told you to not put stories in those categories above. The content is not moderated through YOUR content guidelines, the content is moderated through LITEROTICA's content guidelines.

In other words: you are not Laurel. Stop acting like you are.

 

[Writer61]

The story was rejected with the reason given that it included underage characters.

It absolutely does not.

I had a rejection in very similar circumstances. I opted for a minor rewrite to make it extra clear that the MC was 18 before anything happened and it passed at the second submission.

It's frustrating but I think prefereable to an endless sequence of rejections.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This is why the enforcement around here seems arbitrary to some people.

I believe enforcement of the underage policy only seems arbitrary to those who:

1. Think that Literotica established the laws on legal age in the USA
2. Think that they should be allowed to stretch the rules, or
3. Are unable or unwilling to comprehend the rules

 

[PrimalDual]

I'm nt sure that's a problem. I have one story where the characters are described as knowing each other since first grade and it mentions that that's fifteen years ago. (You can do the math yourself.)

I would flag that. What if they were very precocious toddlers when they entered first grade?

 

[SkyBubble]

That was put in to clarify that they were "of age." Friends since first grade, never sexually involved with each other, but such longstanding friends that she trusts him implicitly.

 

[SkyBubble]

I believe enforcement of the underage policy only seems arbitrary to those who:

1. Think that Literotica established the laws on legal age in the USA
2. Think that they should be allowed to stretch the rules, or
3. Are unable or unwilling to comprehend the rules

It seems arbitrary because some people push the line and get their work through and others push it and don't, like the OP. It sounds like she needs to be clearer that everyone's 18+, but she did say so.

It seems arbitrary because a number of human-written stories get flagged as AI, while other stories get posted in an hour or two.

A little more transparency would be good for teh site, but I know Laurel's overwhelmed as it is.

 

[PrimalDual]

Here's the link. Read it yourself and see if you still think you'd flag it:

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-girl-next-door-64

I was totally teasing, from the first word to the last. I hoped the smiley face would spell that out, but in any case no offense was intended.

 

[Writer61]

I think most of us, probably including the OP, accept the rule.

What we have is a 'false positive'. Such things happen.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Pussy or Dick?

Dude.

That guy SUCKS.

 

[Djmac1031]

Look, not trying to be an asshole here. But your claim that you didn't break the rules is obviously incorrect, otherwise it wouldn't have been rejected.

Im not going to assume the content of your story or your intentions while writing it.

Ill just say the rules here about underage are strict, and with good reason.

Maybe you didn't "break" the rules, but you obviously danced too close to the edge.

Go back, reread your story with a critical, honest eye and I'm willing to be you'll figure out where the red flags are.

Good luck with it.

Im not sure how the OP or anyone else perceived this advice but to clarify, there was no condemnation on my part of @TexasKatie or their story.

My advice was simply to go back and take a more objective looking at the writing to try and find the parts that got it flagged.

One of my earliest stories here was a coming of age / first time story with both main characters just turning 18.

They'd both known each other long before 18, and I had to dance around the idea that the male character had found his life long friend attractive long before they turned 18 but of course without getting graphic about it.

Something in Texas Katie's story sent up a red flag. I believe them when they say it was unintentional.

Instead of constant complaining I just suggested reevaluating their story with a more honest and critical eye.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The - all characters are over 18 rule - is not about the legality of 18 yos having sex. That’s legal in every state (and it’s 16 in most places). If this debate was about legality / immorality, then it should be extended to cover the felonies that people write about in other stories.

The issue is rather the site’s legal liability. That - just like porn vids - is that all people partaking in sexual activity are 18+.

Please stop making writing 18 year olds a moral issue unless you want to change the entire paradigm of this place. Hey, I’d even support some paradigm shifts in the uglier, crueler categoiries, but that’s not my call. I can set up my own more restrictive version of Literotica if I want to do that.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

It seems arbitrary because some people push the line and get their work through and others push it and don't, like the OP.

I respectfully disagree, at least where the underage policy is concerned. To my knowledge from the hundreds (if not thousands) of threads on the subject, the rule has been enforced pretty fairly and consistently over the years. Characters under the age of 18 exposed to sexual activity will not fly here. Keep the two separate and there's nothing to fear.

Now, how a writer presents their characters relative to any sexual activity can vary, and those who go too far get zinged. The choice of words in the narrative, settings, and even dialogue can be delivered in a context that Laurel takes exception to, as in the example I gave earlier when I used the word "masturbating" in the context of what a fourteen year-old girl falsely accuses a man of doing. Changing the wording was all it took to gain acceptance.

With hundreds of stories being reviewed each and every day, it isn't realistic for anyone to expect Laurel to provide detailed editing suggestions that would get a rejected story approved, regardless of the reason. If you're told that your story has violated one of the rules, it's up to you to delve into the reason(s). There are no short cuts.