The Mature Tag Query

[RetroFan]

One commonly used tag for stories is 'Mature', but I couldn't work out which stories this would apply to, as their content varies so much.

At the moment I am working on a Romance category story about a never-married 40-year-old man and a 38-year-old divorced woman who has two kids. Would the mature tag suit this story, or are these characters too young?

Please let me know what you think.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'd say yes because in the porn world it seems anyone not a teen and over thirty is 'mature' The downside is mature is wide ranging from the ages you described up to seventies+

 

[HandsInTheDark]

I guess that, if the two characters behave the way adults (and moreover, parents, at least one) should do, being grown up and stuff, it is okay to describe them as mature. (fully grown or developed).

But you may want to ask yourself if you really want to use a tag that is as broad and non-descriptive as 'mature'. It may fit your story, but people searching for other types of 'mature' might become disappointed. Moreover, a search on 'Mature' gives you approximately 20140 results - you won't stand out with this tag, so what's the purpose?

But to be honest, I don't really know how tags are used at Literotica. If people often use combinations of tags to search for stories, it could be a very useful one. In addition, the use of general tags might enhance the chance that your story is indicated in the list "Similar Stories", next to other stories. Anyone who has knowledge/ideas about the use of tags?

Mature means "not childlike". I'd probably start applying it when characters are north of 40. I think it's used when there's a large age gap, as well.

I honestly don't think tags are all that useful here. You can type anything as a tag and people can search on anything as a tag; and the only things people are likely to use consistently in a tag are either covered by a category or disallowed. If you're aiming at a particular fetish (nurse, babysitter, grandfather) they might work out ok; but since there's no way for us to collect data on how often they get matched, there's no way to tell how effective they are or how to use them better.

Any use of Literotica is like bumbling around in a dark closet for a particular pair of shoes. I think the best way to find things is to go to Google, type in words you'd like to find in a story, and cap it off with site:www.literotica.com . Google is way better at this than Lit is.

 

[NotWise]

One commonly used tag for stories is 'Mature', but I couldn't work out which stories this would apply to, as their content varies so much.

At the moment I am working on a Romance category story about a never-married 40-year-old man and a 38-year-old divorced woman who has two kids. Would the mature tag suit this story, or are these characters too young?

Please let me know what you think.

I suspect that a lot of the stories in the "Mature" category are tagged as mature. I think most people do tag their stories with the category. The catch is that the "Mature" category is for May/December relationships, not so much for relationships between mature people.

I think your characters are plenty old enough to be called mature--at least, as long as the act mature--but people who are searching for stories of young girls doing old men (Mature category) might be disappointed.

If the story is going into Romance then you probably don't need to tag it as mature. A lot of the stories in the category have mature main characters.

 

[holliday1960]

I suspect that a lot of the stories in the "Mature" category are tagged as mature. I think most people do tag their stories with the category. The catch is that the "Mature" category is for May/December relationships, not so much for relationships between mature people.

I think your characters are plenty old enough to be called mature--at least, as long as the act mature--but people who are searching for stories of young girls doing old men (Mature category) might be disappointed.

If the story is going into Romance then you probably don't need to tag it as mature. A lot of the stories in the category have mature main characters.

Well, NW...now you've done it! You do realize that everyone who reads this will now create characters born in May and December so they can use the 'mature' tag, right? (The mature cat is already overflowing with 'very mature' eighteen-year-olds.)

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[sr71plt]

At the moment I am working on a Romance category story about a never-married 40-year-old man and a 38-year-old divorced woman who has two kids. Would the mature tag suit this story, or are these characters too young?

I'd say reception as a Mature category story would depend a lot on which side of the 40 divide the reader is on. (I'm willing to bet most are older than that.) I think of Mature being more for players 50 and above or ones with a wide age difference. for 40/38, I think you might be best in Romance.

I think all defensive explanation notes are just that--defensive, inviting offense, and conveniently pointing out where the possible offense could be.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'd say reception as a Mature category story would depend a lot on which side of the 40 divide the reader is on. (I'm willing to bet most are older than that.) I think of Mature being more for players 50 and above or ones with a wide age difference. for 40/38, I think you might be best in Romance.

I think all defensive explanation notes are just that--defensive, inviting offense, and conveniently pointing out where the possible offense could be.

Yeah romance is pretty loose as long as there's romantic involvement. As for a disclaimer, I think they're worth it in some cases-extreme kinks-but I don't think mature is worth it.

All my mature stories are age gap mostly milf stuff. I have two that would be just as fine in romance, but as they were May/December I felt mature over ruled it.

But as someone said, I'm not sure how effective tags even are in this system...

 

[rutger5]

Well for one story I selected Romance as the category to be posted in but the powers that be decided Mature was the proper one. There was an age gap but the older character was only 33 so at worst it was a May/August pairing, hardly a May/December.

 

[lovecraft68]

Well for one story I selected Romance as the category to be posted in but the powers that be decided Mature was the proper one. There was an age gap but the older character was only 33 so at worst it was a May/August pairing, hardly a May/December.

Mine were both 40's-20/21. I did a romance between an older woman and young man then tried a reversal with the man being older.

Both were romances and I debated on mature or romance. Went with mature and one of them has been in the top five time all time in mature for five years. The other is in the top twenty so seemed to be the right call.

 

[NotWise]

Well for one story I selected Romance as the category to be posted in but the powers that be decided Mature was the proper one. There was an age gap but the older character was only 33 so at worst it was a May/August pairing, hardly a May/December.

You need to be careful posting anything to Romance. The readers there are very protective of their category. They reward stories that meet their expectations, and they're hostile to anything that doesn't meet their expectations.

Laurel probably felt that your story didn't fit Romance. Moving it would be a way of protecting your story from a lot of hostility that it might not deserve.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[rutger5]

You need to be careful posting anything to Romance. The readers there are very protective of their category. They reward stories that meet their expectations, and they're hostile to anything that doesn't meet their expectations.

Laurel probably felt that your story didn't fit Romance. Moving it would be a way of protecting your story from a lot of hostility that it might not deserve.

This is definitely true. There are a lot of unspoken rules regarding what does and what does not belong in the Romance Category, both here on Lit and in the wider self-publishing community. (For example, there can be absolutely no cheating what-so-ever, a HAE is a must, etc.) If Laurel moved it to the Mature Category, it's probably because your story broke one or more of those rules. I'm still trying to figure out what I can realistically label as "Romance" on Amazon without getting flamed for it.

Well my highest rated story here at Lit is in Romance so I'm able to push the romance crowd's buttons sometimes I guess. The 'rejected' story had been called romantic by a bunch of readers at another unnamed site so that's why I tried to place it in Romance. I'm not sure it was happily ever after but it ended happily at the moment, ever after is a long time. Who knows, they may hate each other in five years though at the least it was infatuation at first sight.

Yeah, from what I hear readers are strange about a lot of categories here. LW most prominent but I heard BDSM and now Romance. People should lighten up a bit and remember it's all fiction anyway.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[RetroFan]

You need to be careful posting anything to Romance. The readers there are very protective of their category. They reward stories that meet their expectations, and they're hostile to anything that doesn't meet their expectations.

Laurel probably felt that your story didn't fit Romance. Moving it would be a way of protecting your story from a lot of hostility that it might not deserve.

Thanks for the responses so far - I might avoid using the Mature tag for my story. I didn't know it was frequently used for very large age differences - I have written quite a few cougar stories, posting them in Erotic Couplings and Lesbian, but never one with a male much older than the female.

As for my story, without wanting to give away too much if it was a movie it would definitely be the sort of film that women would prefer, watching it on a girls' night in with plenty of tissues close handy, so Romance seems the logical category.

The tags are quite interesting. Some authors use such generic tags (like sex) or too few of them that it is hard to find their story. Others may use such obscure, specific tags that nobody would ever search for, so their story also becomes hard to find.

I try to tag my works as best I can - for example in a recent story I wrote called "Leanne the Lusty Lifeguard" the titular character is six feet four tall, so I used the tag 'tall girl', as readers on the site wanting to read stories about tall women would definitely search that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'd say yes because in the porn world it seems anyone not a teen and over thirty is 'mature' The downside is mature is wide ranging from the ages you described up to seventies+

A friend of mine did IT work for a porn company, and they tried to encourage her to appear in their MILF videos. She was 25.

 

[sr71plt]

I know the BDSM folks absolutely hate it when noncon is accidentally posted there, but who can blame them? BDSM and noncon are at completely different ends of the spectrum--even if they're both an exploration of power dynamics--and noncon is a major, major turn-off for a lot of people. I can honestly understand the hostility. Though I'm still not sure why femdom gets such a poor reception there?

They only are opposite ends of the spectrum if you've agreed to knuckle under to a self-proclaimed claim of ownership of the term by some self-anointed role-playing club. I don't.

B stands for bondage; if someone gets tied up, you have that element in your story. D stands for domination; if someone takes control of someone else, you have that in your story. S stands for sadism; if someone tortures someone else physically or emotionally, you have that in your story. M stands for Masochism; if you have a character who tortures him/herself physically or emotionally, you have that in your story.

If you have elements of those in a story, you have written that in your story. No role-playing club owns the definition of those terms. And nonconsent most definitely can go with any and all of those elements. The choice is yours as an author. The choice of whether you write within some silly role-playing clubs rules is all up to you--not the club.

Of course you can decide to give up ownership of what you write to some club if you are pursuing nice votes.

 

[ElectricBlue]

One commonly used tag for stories is 'Mature', but I couldn't work out which stories this would apply to, as their content varies so much.

At the moment I am working on a Romance category story about a never-married 40-year-old man and a 38-year-old divorced woman who has two kids. Would the mature tag suit this story, or are these characters too young?

Please let me know what you think.

Seems to me you're answering your own query - Romance.

Mature favours the young man / older woman, young woman /older man mix. Mostly milf, I suspect.

I've had two younger woman / older man stories run well (both my female leads were in their twenties, ie adults, not school girls) but the age gap was the thing that caught my readers. One bagged a bunch of "thank you" comments, which was rather nice.

Other than Romance, there's Erotic Couplings, which is a catch-all. Maybe depends on whether your story is a tear-jerker or not? But you say yourself, Romance, so I'd stick with that.

 

[lovecraft68]

They only are opposite ends of the spectrum if you've agreed to knuckle under to a self-proclaimed claim of ownership of the term by some self-anointed role-playing club. I don't.

B stands for bondage; if someone gets tied up, you have that element in your story. D stands for domination; if someone takes control of someone else, you have that in your story. S stands for sadism; if someone tortures someone else physically or emotionally, you have that in your story. M stands for Masochism; if you have a character who tortures him/herself physically or emotionally, you have that in your story.

If you have elements of those in a story, you have written that in your story. No role-playing club owns the definition of those terms. And nonconsent most definitely can go with any and all of those elements. The choice is yours as an author. The choice of whether you write within some silly role-playing clubs rules is all up to you--not the club.

Of course you can decide to give up ownership of what you write to some club if you are pursuing nice votes.

As I've tried to get through your head before when you get on your horse about bowing down to rules

CONSENT IS A RULE IN BDSM. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE CONSENT YOU HAVE NON CONSENT WHICH IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AND PEOPLE WHO ARE INTO THE BDSM LIFESTYLE ARE NOT SUPPORTERS OF RAPE WHICH IS WHAT NON CONSENT IS.

THERE ARE THREE RULES IN BDSM, SAFE SANE AND CONSENSUAL. THE FIRST TWO VARY FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER, BUT STILL HAVE TO BE AGREED UPON BETWEEN PARTIES, BUT HAVE NO LIMITS OTHER THAN WHAT THEY ESTABLISH.

CONSENSUAL IS NEVER DEBATABLE. THERE IS A FACTION TRYING TO WORK IT IN, BUT THOSE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO PUBLISH RAPE UNDER BDSM SO THEY DON'T HAVE THE STIGMA OF WRITING RAPE STORIES., ESPECIALLY FOR SALE ON SITES THAT WON'T ALLOW IT SO BDSM IS A SNEAKY END AROUND

HERE IT SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED IN BDSM AS THERE IS A NON CON CATEGORY, BUT THE WRITERS HERE AGAIN DON'T ALWAYS WANT TO BE KNOWN FOR WRITING RAPE AND UNFORTUNATELY TOO MANY HAVE NO REAL UNDERSTANDING OF IT BECAUSE OF SO MANY ARE TRYING TO MAKE RAPE PART OF IT. ADD TO THAT THE SITES APPALLING LACK OF SCREENING AND ENFORCING RULES AND LYING ABOUT RAPE CONTENT AND YOU HAVE A BDSM SECTION THAT MOST PEOPLE WHO TRULY KNOW BDSM AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE.

maybe the large colored letters and font will get you to read that instead of reading two words and thinking you know what the post says.

As for your crack about clubs, you've never been in one that allows non consent because if you had you would be in jail with everyone else who was there. Rape is not legal here(yet give trump time)

I've lived this lifestyle for thirty years and am tired of your claims of how it works. Want to think rape is part of it? Go to a legit club or munch and force yourself on a man or woman and see what you get.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[lovecraft68]

I mean, you can pretty much say the same about any term, but here's the deal: words mean things. And at the end of the day, it's society as a whole and not you--as god-like as you may be, Pilot--that gets to decide what they mean. At this point, it's pretty well understood that "BDSM" is all about consensual sex between informed adults, while nonconsent is about, well, rape. Consensual sex--even with elements like sadism--and rape are on two completely opposite ends of the spectrum. Most people recognize this and many enjoy BDSM oriented erotica, even if noncon turns their stomach.



First of all, a masochist is someone who enjoys pain, not necessarily someone who self-harms. Just for, you know, future reference. But my main point is that a story can contain bondage, domination, sadism, and/or masochism and still not be "BDSM." In this case, the acronym's meaning is more than the sum of its parts.



Oh, get off your high horse. It's not about "nice votes," it's about having a basic level of respect for your readership. There are people who have been assaulted, raped, or worse on this site; there are people who might spiral into an episode of anxiety or depression if they stumble across noncon and it triggers a bad memory. Or, hell, maybe noncon just grosses them out, but who cares? That's okay, too. Separating out the BDSM and noncon categories--and adhering to them as a writer--is about being a considerate human being, nothing more and nothing less.



I mean, way to disparage an entire community of truly awesome people because you're mad that the BDSM readers don't like your noncon?

BTW, I love reading noncon and I write noncon. But I also respect that, for some people, noncon erotica is truly terrifying and if I can save them a little anxiety by appropriately categorizing my work, why wouldn't I? Why would I toss my morals aside, just to prove that some "role-playing club" isn't the boss of me? I have better self-esteem than that.

Now really blow his mind-and some other posers here-and tell him in a D/S relationship-a proper one-its the sub in control.

That question is the easiest way to spot someone who knows as opposed to someone who pretends or latched on because they think its a way to get away with beating people.

 

[sr71plt]

Sorry, those in BDSM clubs aren't "society." They are a minuscule subsubsubset of society. You can knuckle under to them in search of meaningless votes on a story, if you like, but I'll challenge their--and your--"right" to define these terms for authors here every time it comes up.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[rutger5]

I know there are those on this site that have a history with each other, let's say, and that may color their interactions but pilot makes some valid points. Yes, there is a "BDSM" lifestyle with a certain sub-culture but that isn't the beginning and end of the subject. I'm not going to address any non-con elements due to strong feelings on subject as well as the fact that Lit has a non-con category.

But I've known women (and no doubt there are men too) who are sexually submissive and enjoy being tied up or held down (bondage) during sex. Many of them also enjoy being spanked by hand or with some objects (discipline perhaps) not that they wish to be beaten with a birch rod or a cat o'nine tail or anything extreme like that.

It seems some are saying if you're not a proponent of the lifestyle and your story doesn't conform to said lifestyle then it doesn't belong in BDSM category. Kind of reminds me of a certain other category here where there are those that feels a story must pass their litmus test or it's cuck shit.

Under the BDSM listing it says Bondage, D/s, and other power games. It seems to me a story can meet that criteria without hewing to a certain narrow sub-culture. Maybe many of the readers in that category demand ideological purity but that doesn't mean a writer has to bow down to that.

 

[sr71plt]

Sounds like a good use of your time, Pilot; you ahead and die on that hill.

Thanks, I will. I won't be limited in my writing by some narrow-minded role-playing clubs.