A New Contest: Your Input Needed!

[electric1]

I've enjoyed the Earthday contest but then I use it as a protest contest. I write stories that protest the things that are being done around the earth without thought for the next generation who has to live here.

That's what I like about the Earth Day contest: the challenge of making politics sexy!

 

[_Lynn_]

That's got potential. Defining it as encompassing romance "games" opens it up a lot.

I do suspect there would be an avalanche of truth-or-dare stories, though *laugh*

Just thought I would add it to the other ideas.

 

[Hypoxia]

Some definitions of game:

I have a more encompassing definition. Game-playing is how humans structure and occupy their time when they're not being productive. Participating in or observing sports; performing or observing or discussing arts, politics, religion; enthusiasm for such activities -- these are all Games. Games incite our emotions, provoking violence -- and sex. (I discuss certain Games in WHAT IS CHEATING?, linked below.) Perhaps a floating GAMES contest theme could focus on different Games, different TYPES of Games, in different years.

 

[Sammael Bard]

I'll like to vote for The Glaringly obvious

*April Fool's Day Theme*

Provides a huge ground for Humor/Satire stories and also for the other categories including Erotic Couplings to the Incest/Taboo and so on.

With a funny theme for the story, I think it'll be a fun challenge for the aithors to cook and serve their wit before their readers. Since, everyone has different tastes in Humor/Satirical stories, this competition will be pretty tight.

I can't imagine any category being left out.

Hell, even letters and transcripts could be included, with funny anecdotes to share amongst the people.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I imagine historical fiction is too challenging for most LIT writers, present company included. Done right historical fiction requires its writer lose self-consciousness she has for the times she writes of.

I'm reading a fictional account of Germany invading Russia. The principal characters mission is the assassination of Russian political commissars, the folks who intimidate and persecute Russian/Ukrainian peasants. The principal character has a crisis of guilt when he discovers he's murdering Jews. But here's the thing: Almost all of Stalin's villains were Jews. He used Jews to deflect hatred from himself. But IRL Hitlers SS Special Commando Teams, tasked to murder communist commissars, would experience no angst for killing commies. So the author plays his PC card a lot.

 

[DG Hear]

I'll like to vote for The Glaringly obvious

*April Fool's Day Theme*

Provides a huge ground for Humor/Satire stories and also for the other categories including Erotic Couplings to the Incest/Taboo and so on.

With a funny theme for the story, I think it'll be a fun challenge for the aithors to cook and serve their wit before their readers. Since, everyone has different tastes in Humor/Satirical stories, this competition will be pretty tight.

I can't imagine any category being left out.

Hell, even letters and transcripts could be included, with funny anecdotes to share amongst the people.

I've been reading all the suggestion (and there are some good ones). My mind keeps coming back to something rather simple. I keep thinking call it "April Contest"

You have the month of April, all the suggestions that you have in April in different parts of the world. Those who want a historical event, find one that happened in April and there is always the woman named April.

I write stories fairly regularly and when a contest rolls around I try my best to make the story I'm writing fit the category. At other times I may write strictly for the contest.
Just my nickles worth
DG

 

[Sammael Bard]

I've been reading all the suggestion (and there are some good ones). My mind keeps coming back to something rather simple. I keep thinking call it "April Contest"

You have the month of April, all the suggestions that you have in April in different parts of the world. Those who want a historical event, find one that happened in April and there is always the woman named April.

I write stories fairly regularly and when a contest rolls around I try my best to make the story I'm writing fit the category. At other times I may write strictly for the contest.
Just my nickles worth
DG

April fool's day is very popular around the globe. It will give the users from Lit a common ground to connect to.

If you include historical events, there is also the question of ethnicity coming into question.

Users from US would obviously post something related to their history and cultural context and this would be the same case with the Brits, and other people.

I know a fair amount of history but it's impossible for me to keep track of every possible historical shenanigan.

Am I rambling?

 

[RejectReality]

Bumping this back up, in case anybody is just now recovering from 4th of July hangovers. Also because there's still a second part of the process to go, narrowing down the choices for a poll.

 

[49greg]

It's late

It's late where I'm at, and I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, so.... I haven't read all the posts since I posted earlier in this thread and I want to go to bed, so apologies if someone covered this.

How about a different theme each year for this contest. I liked the idea of a certain number of objects or a first line that has to be in it. Heck, just have a line or snippet of conversation that has to fit in somewhere.

But every year by say late summer or new years day or whatever, the theme for this contest be posted.

It sounds good to me now but I'm so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open or think straight.

 

[3113]

I'll like to vote for The Glaringly obvious
*April Fool's Day Theme*

I keep thinking call it "April Contest"

I dunno. "Spring" may seem a bit broad to me, but this one seems a bit narrow. Just looking at the U.S., an "April" themed contest keeps us from stories of "March Madness" and March hares and the Ides of March and Lent. On the other side, it keeps us from May Day and good ole "Mom's day" stories, which you know the incest crowd will really, really want.

If Easter and Passover come early, which they sometimes do, then all you've got for April is April Fools and Tax Day. Kinda slim pickings there. I mean, I'll grant you that the Halloween contest only has Halloween—but scary stories are pretty broad in scope. They can be applied to all categories—ones gory or creepy, ones terrifying or fun. I'm not sure funny stories are quite the equal because it's harder to be funny than to be scary. Putting it another way, if a ghost story doesn't scare someone, that's okay. They might still have found it entertaining or interesting.

But if a joke doesn't get a laugh...the writer could be left embarrassed. Like when you tell a joke and no one laughs. Even worse if the joke insults or offends. Those who are good at telling funny stories know it and do. A contest inviting everyone to tell funny stories...that could end badly if those who write up the stories get feedback telling them they're not funny.

Wouldn't a "Spring" theme be better to get in the May Day romps, the mother's day incest, and the spring equinox as well as April Fools? That would let the funny story writers do their thing, while letting others write up what they most want to write up (like, say, a story about man who gives up sex for lent, then meets the woman of his sexual fantasy dreams who is leaving the week before Easter ).

 

[Boxlicker101]

I imagine historical fiction is too challenging for most LIT writers, present company included. Done right historical fiction requires its writer lose self-consciousness she has for the times she writes of.

I'm reading a fictional account of Germany invading Russia. The principal characters mission is the assassination of Russian political commissars, the folks who intimidate and persecute Russian/Ukrainian peasants. The principal character has a crisis of guilt when he discovers he's murdering Jews. But here's the thing: Almost all of Stalin's villains were Jews. He used Jews to deflect hatred from himself. But IRL Hitlers SS Special Commando Teams, tasked to murder communist commissars, would experience no angst for killing commies. So the author plays his PC card a lot.

Why would the Nazi assassin have any qualms about murdering Jews?

 

[Boxlicker101]

I dunno. "Spring" may seem a bit broad to me, but this one seems a bit narrow. Just looking at the U.S., an "April" themed contest keeps us from stories of "March Madness" and March hares and the Ides of March and Lent. On the other side, it keeps us from May Day and good ole "Mom's day" stories, which you know the incest crowd will really, really want.

If Easter and Passover come early, which they sometimes do, then all you've got for April is April Fools and Tax Day. Kinda slim pickings there. I mean, I'll grant you that the Halloween contest only has Halloween—but scary stories are pretty broad in scope. They can be applied to all categories—ones gory or creepy, ones terrifying or fun. I'm not sure funny stories are quite the equal because it's harder to be funny than to be scary. Putting it another way, if a ghost story doesn't scare someone, that's okay. They might still have found it entertaining or interesting.

But if a joke doesn't get a laugh...the writer could be left embarrassed. Like when you tell a joke and no one laughs. Even worse if the joke insults or offends. Those who are good at telling funny stories know it and do. A contest inviting everyone to tell funny stories...that could end badly if those who write up the stories get feedback telling them they're not funny.

Wouldn't a "Spring" theme be better to get in the May Day romps, the mother's day incest, and the spring equinox as well as April Fools? That would let the funny story writers do their thing, while letting others write up what they most want to write up (like, say, a story about man who gives up sex for lent, then meets the woman of his sexual fantasy dreams who is leaving the week before Easter ).

Nobody has mentioned VE Day, May 8, which would be a good excuse for sexual excesses. I am referring here to the actual event in 1945, making it an historical event.

 

[3113]

Nobody has mentioned VE Day, May 8, which would be a good excuse for sexual excesses. I am referring here to the actual event in 1945, making it an historical event.

Good one. OH, and Cinco de Mayo! How could I forget the 5th of May, popular in so many cultures? And Memorial day, of course.

And for March there's also St. Patricks, and did you know there's a Girl Scouts Day? I, myself, could write a whole story about a Scout Leader, someone sexy that she meets, and the boxes of cookies she's stored at her house. That is the time of year when those cookies are sold

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Why would the Nazi assassin have any qualms about murdering Jews?

Because its 2014 NOT 1944. He was a kinder-gentler Nazi assassin. The Jews he shot had just murdered 3000 political prisoners but gee whizz theyre Jews! The end was even worse. The old Nazi learns that a rogue American Jewish CIA officer murdered 1/2 of Vienna, including his wife, yet he cant find the enthusiasm to shoot the bastard. Its 2014 PC.

 

[sr71plt]

And, so . . . ?

 

[SikFuk]

In the interest of getting away from the same old same old, I think the Art and Music theme could be much more interesting than a generic Spring theme (which is just like the generic Summer theme.) Art and music are the cultural aspects that define an era. History buffs could go back in time to the Roaring Twenties, or Mozart, politics could be tied into protest songs, seduction could be tied into love songs. (Barry White, anyone?) Art could include performance art, which opens up some very bizarre scenarios. (Google Yoko Ono's "Cut Piece.")

The other theme that has potential is Workplace. So many possibilities. Take it outside with a logging crew, take it to the islands with a waiter or waitress at a resort or on a cruise, take it to a high rise, take it to a small town summer job or a minimum wage worker blackmailing her pervert boss... One would be hard pressed to run out of ideas for this category. Plus, the stories would be interesting - at least more interesting than another generic Spring fling.

I've been wishing for a religion category for stories. Thinking back to the foreign exploitation flicks from the 70's, you've got your wicked nuns, and your corrupt priests, and your perverted religious rituals involving naked virgins and such, and your cult leader with his brainwashed harem, and your present day abstinence-only crowd looking for safe sex alternatives, and your pray-away-the-gay folks getting seduced by their targets.

In other words, I'd like to see categories that encourage stories with some meat to them - not the ten-inch kind of meat, but the mental nourishment kind of meat that you keeps you thinking about a story long after you've finished it.

My 2 cents. 6 cents, actually.

 

[Hypoxia]

In other words, I'd like to see categories that encourage stories with some meat to them - not the ten-inch kind of meat, but the mental nourishment kind of meat that you keeps you thinking about a story long after you've finished it.

Ah, but this is LIT, and 10-inch meat is very important here.

Another thematic possibility: some specific fetish, maybe on a rotating basis, a fetish-of-the-month contest. But which fetishes? Select from this list (yes, I just posted this elsewhere) (from THE BALD-HEADED HERMIT AND THE ARTICHOKE - An Erotic Thesaurus):
____________________________

Fetish(es) with Related Terms

Fetish: from the Portuguese feitico/or religious relic; a source of reverence and fascination. This in turn derived from facticius, Latin for artificial and facere, to do. Psychoanalysts later applied the term to body parts and clothing as sexual sources of obsession.

abrasion, accident prone, addiction, adult basics, age play, algophilia, alternate proclivity, animal sex, animal training, ass play, aural sex, Auto, auto-erotic asphyxiation, axillisma, baby play, bagpiping, ball play, ball torture, bars, BDSM, bears/bear culture, beating, begging, beginner, bent, bestiality, bigamy, birching, blindfolds, bodyshaving, body worship, bondage, bondage and discipline/B&D, boots/boot-licking, branding, breath/breath control/breath games, breather, brown shower, bulletin boards, burial, butch, butt plug, caning, castration, cat, CBT, chainmail, chastity belts, chubby chaser, cigarettes, cigars, circumcision, clubs, cock torture, code words/codes, collegiate fucking, consenting adults, control scenes, coprophagy, coprophilia, corporal punishment/cp, corsets, cowboys, crops, cross-dressing, crucifixion, cunt torture, cupping, cutting, daddy, denim, dental dam, dependence, depilation, diapers, dildoes, discipline, dog training, DOM (dominant), dominance/ submission, dominatrix, douching, drag, dungeon, electricity, electrotorture, enemas, English arts, English culture, English vice, ephebophilia, equipment, execution scenes, exhibitionism, explicitness, extreme, fantasy, farms, feces, feet, femme, fistfucking, fisting, flagellation, flash (er), flat-fucking, flogging, foot fetishism, foot-licking, footwear, force-feeding, foreskins/foreskin worship, freak fuck, French, French maid, frottism, furniture, gags, gas masks, gender play, gender-bending, gender-fucking, genitorture, girls, gloves, golden shower(s), Greek, hair, handballing, handcuffs, hankies, hanky codes, harnesses, heavy scenes, hermaphrodites, hosiery, hospital, humiliation, immobilization, in rôle, infantilism (baby play), injury, intersex, inversion, jewellry, jocks, kicking, kink, knots, lashing, latex, LDU, leather, leather queen, leather sex, leatherwork, leg work, lingerie, maids, masochism, master/slave scenes, masturbation, mature scenes, meatflasher, menstrual play/scenes, mess, military, mind fucking/games, mistress, motorcycles, mummification, muscle, mute/mutisni, nannies, nappies, naturism, necrophilia, needles, negotiation, new guard, nipple/tit clamps, nipple torture, noses, novice, nudism, nurses, nuts, old guard, oral sex, orgasm control, outdoor scenes, paddles/paddling, pain/pain games, pansexuality, panic, panties, pantyhose, pedophilia, Peeping Tom, percussion play, perversions, petticoat discipline, phone lines/sex, photographs, physical limits, piercing, piss, piss fest/play, play, playroom, pleasure and pain, ponies, poppers, porn, predilections, Princeton rub, privacy, professional dominance, PT, punching, punishment, R/S, rape scenes, raunch, reality, recreational drugs, regalia, restraints, Roman culture, rope, rough trade, rubber, s&M/sM/sadomasochism, sadie-masie, sadism, safe, safe, sane, and consensual, safeword, sane, scarification, scat, scenes, scourging, self-bondage, sensations, sensory deprivation, shackles, shaving, she-males, shit, shoes, showers, shrimping (toe sucking), skinheads, slavery, slings, smoddler & smoldster, smoking, socks, sodomy, spanking, splashing, stiletto heels, stockings, strangling, strap-ons (dildoes), straps, student/teacher scenes, SUB (submissive), submission, suffocation, suspense, suspension, Swedish culture, swingers, switch, tattooing, temperature play, tickling, tied down, tied up, tightbuck, tit torture/work, toes, toilet, top (bottom), toys, training, transgender, transsexual, transvestite, twisty, uniforms, urethral play, vaginal fisting, vanilla, video play, voyeurism, water sports, weenie-wagging, whips, whipping, wigs, withdrawal syndrome, wrestling, youth, zoophilia

* Axillisma: derives from axilla, use of the armpit for sex.
* Bear: gay term for a heavy-set, hairy man.
* Bondage: from the Latin bondagium, to occupy or inhabit.
* Breather: obscene phone caller.
* CBT: fetish culture frequently uses abbreviations or acronyms for specific practices, in this case cock and ball torture.
* Coprophagy: copro (feces) and phagy (eating).
* Fist-fucking, fisting, handballing: vaginal or anal penetration with the fist. Rolex loser: a fist-fucker.
* Freak fuck: objective of individuals who seek out physically deformed partners.
* LDU: leather, denim, uniform.
* PT: physicial training.
* R/S: rough sex.

* Hanky codes: refer to coloured hankerchiefs worn in the left (active/dominant/top) or right (submissive/passive/bottom) pocket, primarily in the gay community. Specific colours indicate sexual practices: i.e., yellow=urine; grey=bondage; red =fisting.

* Other terms for necrophilia: cold comfort, having a stiff one, having one on the rocks, fridge frigging, slabbing, raiding the icebox, slab-stabbing.

* Modern psychiatry no longer refers to fetishist activity as perversion but rather as paraphilia, from the Greek para {to the side
of) andphilia (love).

* Modern SM culture emphasizes consent and safety in all practices through verbal and sometimes written contracts, as negotiated by both partners. A safe word signal or stop word indicates that the particular activity or "scene" must stop immediately when uttered by either participant.

* Sado-masochism:from the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), a famous pain inflicter, and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (2Ô76-1895), who documented the pleasures of being injured or ridiculed in his novels.

* Warning: WS (water sports) in personal ads does not describe swimming or playing polo, but rather urophilia, a love of urine.

"Whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped."
- Ritter Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

 

[oggbashan]

Hypoxia's list above omits many fetishes e.g.

Breast bondage; Breast fucking; breastfeeding; Face-sitting; Face-riding; lactation (inc Hu-Cow); Unbirth and the varieties of Vore...

The total list would be much longer, and I doubt it will ever be completely listed. One person's fetish could be incomprehensible to another and/or a complete turn-off.

 

[sr71plt]

Sounding.

 

[_Lynn_]

Sounding.

Indeed.

 

[RoyceConnors]

Missed cock and pussy pumping too.

 

[sr71plt]

The upshot on this, I think, is that Fetish would probably be a good contest theme. I think that "How To" was a theme some years ago to bolster the category file there. Rotating categories would help bolster other category areas and still be fresh (if rotated every year).

That said, where again is this thread going?

 

[madam_noe]

"New Beginnings"

I think "New Beginnings" would be a good theme. Here in the northern hemisphere we have the whole "nature's first green is gold" thing going on, while it's fall down in the southern hemisphere.

No matter what we have international holidays like Easter, symbolizing rebirth, or a new beginning.

How about stories that have to be about discovering something new (for example discovering watersports in the story "April Showers"), starting something new (like having just graduated university and starting a career with a sexy coworker), or finding a new type of lover (such as a first bi experience).

Basically, the idea would be discovering some new, sexy thing that will change the protagonists's life forever in some big or even small way.

 

[sr71plt]

Oh, no, no, we couldn't have a bi story contest. We don't even get a bi story category here.

 

[madam_noe]

Bi was just an example, not a description.

Simply saying "New Beginnings" would just be stories of people trying something new and loving it.

also, on an unrelated note, I'm okay without a bi category. I just go into novels/novellas and group sex and search tags for "bi."