sr71plt
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2006
- Posts
- 51,872
Ah, the old why can the mainstream do it and I can't do it here question again--which is really just spitting into the wind, because discussion doesn't either resolve it or make it go away. It just irritates and frustrates folks--again and again and again.
This doesn't have to be seen as a legal issue to have an explanation. Writing about all of these "taboo" or "nearly taboo" subjects isn't what's illegal. Doing some of them is what is illegal. But a large glop of the population sees writing about them as leading to doing them--and they shine spotlights on folks who write about them and otherwise make life uncomfortable.
What you have in both mainstream publishing and in Web sites like this are multiple levels of people who can turn the production valves on and off based on their ownership rights, their personal views, and their relative willingness to risk trouble (and loss of income and standing in their communities).
Publishers can--and do--publish anything up through the nastiest porn as they choose--or they can choose not to publish it. They make their decisions on the basis of profitability and, if they want, convenience and personal or perceived morality edges. And in turn distributors can choose to distribute this or not.
I've just finished reading Greg Iles's Turning Angel, which has underage sex, rape, and murder at its foundation. You couldn't post that on Literotica. But this isn't because of legality. It's because of the differing willingess of the book publisher and Lit.'s owners to put up with the fallout.
Fact is that there is more fallout to face on Internet publishing than print publishing. With all of the sleazebags actually doing stuff who roam around on Web sites like this, there's less of a tolerance factor for what appears on the Internet and what is available in a published book.
Whether or not it's legal, Literotica is a privately owned Web site. It can--and does--choose it's own level of risk of being hassled along with its own selection preferences. So does the host company of its Web site.
And in the step above that, so do the e-book distributors like Amazon.com--which has decided not to distribute incest (to the extent it knows about it or someone complains).
Fictionwise went through a phase of tossing out incest too.
One of my own e-books has the back-side, computer generated image of a Spartan soldier on the cover with his butt bare (in keeping with Spartan soldiers). Smashwords made my publisher put a skirt on him. That was their call. No other distributor has made the demand (yet).
Web sites that let everything hang out are at high risk of official scrutiny, yes--because the sleazebags actually acting some of these extreme sex acts can be traced--and put on lists and maybe prosecuted--through these Web sites.
I don't mind Lit's rules and attempt not to be one of the highly scrutinized Web sites, because I don't want to be on any of these lists.
I publish my explicit erotica under pen names with cut-out interfaces even with my publishers because I don't want to be publicly linked to this writing. And I don't put explicit sex in my mainstream novels. I wouldn't even write something as explicit as Greg Iles has in Turning Point. I just today put an MMF threesome in a mainstream novel I'm polishing up--but it's just the fact there was one; I didn't put an explicit sex scene in. My publisher wouldn't have published it.
You want to do the whole nine yards? You probably can do it legally. That's not the point. The point is that you aren't the only one involved. Those who control and pay for and take the risks of the production process have veto power.
You can do whatever you want to do with your own money and your own publishing platforms right up to the point where someone else has to shoulder risk as well. You have your own Web site and server? You have your own printing press and distribution mechanisms? Go ahead and write and publish your book on your fourteen-year-old brother/sister team being menage fucked by a horse and then beaten to death. Your problem won't be a legal one--it will be in finding anyone else necessary in the process to risk their own pocketbook and reputation on it.
But "whying" and whining about it on this forum is a total loss of effort.
This doesn't have to be seen as a legal issue to have an explanation. Writing about all of these "taboo" or "nearly taboo" subjects isn't what's illegal. Doing some of them is what is illegal. But a large glop of the population sees writing about them as leading to doing them--and they shine spotlights on folks who write about them and otherwise make life uncomfortable.
What you have in both mainstream publishing and in Web sites like this are multiple levels of people who can turn the production valves on and off based on their ownership rights, their personal views, and their relative willingness to risk trouble (and loss of income and standing in their communities).
Publishers can--and do--publish anything up through the nastiest porn as they choose--or they can choose not to publish it. They make their decisions on the basis of profitability and, if they want, convenience and personal or perceived morality edges. And in turn distributors can choose to distribute this or not.
I've just finished reading Greg Iles's Turning Angel, which has underage sex, rape, and murder at its foundation. You couldn't post that on Literotica. But this isn't because of legality. It's because of the differing willingess of the book publisher and Lit.'s owners to put up with the fallout.
Fact is that there is more fallout to face on Internet publishing than print publishing. With all of the sleazebags actually doing stuff who roam around on Web sites like this, there's less of a tolerance factor for what appears on the Internet and what is available in a published book.
Whether or not it's legal, Literotica is a privately owned Web site. It can--and does--choose it's own level of risk of being hassled along with its own selection preferences. So does the host company of its Web site.
And in the step above that, so do the e-book distributors like Amazon.com--which has decided not to distribute incest (to the extent it knows about it or someone complains).
Fictionwise went through a phase of tossing out incest too.
One of my own e-books has the back-side, computer generated image of a Spartan soldier on the cover with his butt bare (in keeping with Spartan soldiers). Smashwords made my publisher put a skirt on him. That was their call. No other distributor has made the demand (yet).
Web sites that let everything hang out are at high risk of official scrutiny, yes--because the sleazebags actually acting some of these extreme sex acts can be traced--and put on lists and maybe prosecuted--through these Web sites.
I don't mind Lit's rules and attempt not to be one of the highly scrutinized Web sites, because I don't want to be on any of these lists.
I publish my explicit erotica under pen names with cut-out interfaces even with my publishers because I don't want to be publicly linked to this writing. And I don't put explicit sex in my mainstream novels. I wouldn't even write something as explicit as Greg Iles has in Turning Point. I just today put an MMF threesome in a mainstream novel I'm polishing up--but it's just the fact there was one; I didn't put an explicit sex scene in. My publisher wouldn't have published it.
You want to do the whole nine yards? You probably can do it legally. That's not the point. The point is that you aren't the only one involved. Those who control and pay for and take the risks of the production process have veto power.
You can do whatever you want to do with your own money and your own publishing platforms right up to the point where someone else has to shoulder risk as well. You have your own Web site and server? You have your own printing press and distribution mechanisms? Go ahead and write and publish your book on your fourteen-year-old brother/sister team being menage fucked by a horse and then beaten to death. Your problem won't be a legal one--it will be in finding anyone else necessary in the process to risk their own pocketbook and reputation on it.
But "whying" and whining about it on this forum is a total loss of effort.
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