Age Disclaimer

[John988]

[This content has been removed due to a copyright violation.]

[This content has been removed due to a copyright violation.]

 

[KeithD]

No, it doesn't matter. It could as easily be a lie as the truth. What's operable is only what's in the actual text. What that indicates to me is that maybe the story is being fudged to convey underage while hiding behind a permissible age number.

 

[Hypoxia]

It's a habit for me now. I just always insert a preface like "All fictitious sexual players in this made-up story are adult humans with weird morals. Details may be incorrect. Views may not be the author's. Non-Anglish messages may be roughly translated for your convenience. Enjoy." Multiple disclaimers FTW.

 

[yukonnights]

No, it doesn't matter. It could as easily be a lie as the truth. What's operable is only what's in the actual text. What that indicates to me is that maybe the story is being fudged to convey underage while hiding behind a permissible age number.

I'm guilty of using this disclaimer, but I tend to agree with you about it's usefulness. In my case, it's a sincere sensitivity and objection to attempts to camouflage under age intent/hints in a story. But, you make a good point about it possibly signalling that very thing. The one thing that sometimes worries me is when a character is, say young 20's and written as small or petite. I noticed in your 'I Met A Man' that you handled that exact situation nicely with a description of the young delicate man with a quick follow up with dialogue by the other character saying "But he's a man now, and it's up to him to decide" (or something to that effect).

I've never had any question about anything I've written. And a number of them have these "delicate men" portrayed in them. But, I think it's good practice to make it very clear within the story...and drop the disclaimer.

Thanks John988 for raising the question.

 

[KeithD]

The only "disclaimer" I use is for multiple chapter segments, where I make clear the work is completed, how many chapters there will be, and when posting of it is projected to be completed. Most other disclaimers I see seem to be defensive about what's in the story and serve more to send readers away or to apologize for what's in the story than to bringing readers in. But then I hold the reader responsible for what he/she choses to read and continues to read as long as the story has been honestly tagged. If I were to use an up-front disclaimer for more than to assure the reader they aren't being led into a bottomless pit, it would be to put the tags up front.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'm guilty of using this disclaimer, but I tend to agree with you about it's usefulness. In my case, it's a sincere sensitivity and objection to attempts to camouflage under age intent/hints in a story. ....

I do the same thing. A lot of my lead characters are 18, and at that cusp of life between teenager and being adults. I like writing with that transition in mind, but there's always that fine line. To be honest, I see it in reality as being more at 16 or 17 but I use 18 because of Literotica's rules and I adapt my character's personalities and the stories to make sure I do that legitimately and without faking it. So I also put that disclaimer in just to make it clear. And I quite often throw in an "18th birthday" just to be painfully obvious. Altho I've never ever had my characters watching the clock and going "I'm 18, lets do it now" LOL. Altho it'd make a good comedy if you did it right.

 

[yukonnights]

The only "disclaimer" I use is for multiple chapter segments, where I make clear the work is completed, how many chapters there will be, and when posting of it is projected to be completed. Most other disclaimers I see seem to be defensive about what's in the story and serve more to send readers away or to apologize for what's in the story than to bringing readers in. But then I hold the reader responsible for what he/she choses to read and continues to read as long as the story has been honestly tagged. If I were to use an up-front disclaimer for more than to assure the reader they aren't being led into a bottomless pit, it would be to put the tags up front.

I've been doing both of these. The chapter stories that die midway in are a really bad practice. Of the few such stories I've done, I've submit the completed story with all chapters at one time and mention it up front. I've been including the tags up front too since a lot of readers didn't get there with a tag search...this can be helpful to them and to me to prevent someone being disappointed midway through and scoring the story down, etc.

 

[KeithD]

I don't submit all parts at once because I don't want to make Laurel responsible for spacing them out. I usually wait until I see a part post before I submit the next part. Makes it a little longer to run, but I keep the responsibility for submission spacing.

 

[SimonDoom]

What KeithD said. No, they are not necessary, nor will they necessarily make your story rejection-proof if it's obvious you're trying to skirt the rules. If you try to get a story published about "18-year-old" high school freshmen I think you'll have a problem, disclaimer or no disclaimer.

I never use these disclaimers because I think they're silly. In my incest stories the younger party is always at least a high school graduate, and I make it explicit at some point in the text of the story that the character is an adult. I suppose if you are writing stories about high school students it might help, but otherwise I see no point.

 

[RosieVelvet]

From this side of the Pond the limit of 18 feels odd. 18 isn't really seen as the cusp, as Chloe suggests; at 18 one is considered a full adult. There are moves afoot to reduce the voting age to 16, and 16-year-olds can already vote in local government and Holyrood (Scottish government) elections in Scotland..

From my personal point of view it creates slight problems, not for my stories necessarily but for participating in some social discussion here. I certainly can't talk about my most outrageous taboo fantasy, and I can't talk about my first time either (actually that really depends on what you mean by first time: I was actually 19 when I had my first vaginal penetration, but that doesn't mean I hadn't been sexually active for some time, just very determined not to risk getting pregnant.

My understanding is that the 18 limit comes from the concentration of American media in California, where the age of consent is 18, and that in the majority of states the age of consent is actually 16. Is this correct?

 

[KeithD]

From this side of the Pond the limit of 18 feels odd.

Please don't pull us into this biweekly wheel spinning. It's a requirement of the Web site. Either adhere to it or don't submit stories here.

 

[TxRad]

It seems very simple to me. If you need an age disclaimer then you are skirting the line too close. Laurel's site, Laurel's rules. End of discussion as far as she is concerned.

 

[ChloeTzang]

My understanding is that the 18 limit comes from the concentration of American media in California, where the age of consent is 18, and that in the majority of states the age of consent is actually 16. Is this correct?

For Literotica, I believe it's a straight out avoidance of any liability / legal issues now and in the future and it's a very hard rule that is enforced. It's Laurel's site and her decision and IMHO a reasonable one to make. Not that it matters what any of us think of it. It is the rule.

It's a question that comes up all the time with writers new to Literotica and once you've been here a decade or two, you can get a bit tired of repeatedly explaining it so I'll do it this time and spare the old guys the trouble. This is the second thread on more or less the same subject in the last couple of weeks.

The rule is, no under-18 sex. No under-18 involvement in sex. No looking in the window. No listening to Mom and Dad. No attempting to skirt it by being clever. No being 18 and appearing not to be. No no no. No exceptions. No excuses. No pasaran, dude. Ever. And if by some faint chance it passes Laurel's eagle eyes, it WILL be taken down when someone reports it. It's not worth trying.

I write 18 year old characters a lot. They act 18, they behave 18, I state that they are 18, they don't act younger (mostly they act older), my stories pass because I don't try and skirt round the rules and I stick to them religiously and Laurel's passed enough of them to know that. Take that approach, and you'll be fine.

 

[SimonDoom]

From this side of the Pond the limit of 18 feels odd. 18 isn't really seen as the cusp, as Chloe suggests; at 18 one is considered a full adult. There are moves afoot to reduce the voting age to 16, and 16-year-olds can already vote in local government and Holyrood (Scottish government) elections in Scotland..

From my personal point of view it creates slight problems, not for my stories necessarily but for participating in some social discussion here. I certainly can't talk about my most outrageous taboo fantasy, and I can't talk about my first time either (actually that really depends on what you mean by first time: I was actually 19 when I had my first vaginal penetration, but that doesn't mean I hadn't been sexually active for some time, just very determined not to risk getting pregnant.

My understanding is that the 18 limit comes from the concentration of American media in California, where the age of consent is 18, and that in the majority of states the age of consent is actually 16. Is this correct?

In the US, 30 states have the age of consent set at 16, 8 at 17, and 12 at 18, including California.

But that's not the law that matters, because fictional stories have nothing to do with people in the real world. In addition, there's the question whether explicit stories about children under 18 having sex are obscene or are protected under the First Amendment. Under current law, that question is not entirely settled. In the case of USA v Frank Russell McCoy, in 2015, a federal appeals court upheld a conviction against a man who wrote stories about pedophilia. In that case the court found that the stories were obscene. Obscenity is not protected under the First Amendment.

 

[Bramblethorn]

From this side of the Pond the limit of 18 feels odd. 18 isn't really seen as the cusp, as Chloe suggests; at 18 one is considered a full adult. There are moves afoot to reduce the voting age to 16, and 16-year-olds can already vote in local government and Holyrood (Scottish government) elections in Scotland..

Indeed. But AFAIK the UK still enforces a minimum age of 18 for porn films, along with a swathe of other restrictions that would prohibit some of my Literotica-legal stories from being screened in the UK. Every country has its stupid sex laws, and its share of Mary Whitehouse types who'd like to make them even stupider.

Literotica's identification as an erotica site means that it risks being judged more harshly for under-age content than a mainstream publisher might. It also runs the risk of being censored for viewers in some countries. It's understandable that Literotica's owners might be cautious about hosting content that could easily become fodder for another morals crusader, or which might attract unsavoury types. Nobody wants to be "the site where those pedophiles built their network".

From my personal point of view it creates slight problems, not for my stories necessarily but for participating in some social discussion here. I certainly can't talk about my most outrageous taboo fantasy, and I can't talk about my first time either (actually that really depends on what you mean by first time: I was actually 19 when I had my first vaginal penetration, but that doesn't mean I hadn't been sexually active for some time, just very determined not to risk getting pregnant.

Yeah, it does mean that many people can't post their "first time" stories on this site. But hopefully most folk didn't stop having sex at 18, so there are still plenty of other stories to be told. (And some can be age-shifted, depending on their circumstances.)

On the forums, there's some leeway to discuss stuff that happened before you were 18, as long as you don't discuss the under-age aspect of it. If being under-age is a key part of your most outrageous fantasy, then you might have to settle for talking about the second-most outrageous one.

 

[jaF0]

My understanding is that the 18 limit comes from the concentration of American media in California, where the age of consent is 18, and that in the majority of states the age of consent is actually 16. Is this correct?

No.

...

 

[jaF0]

Make it a school for miscreants and flunkouts who are still there at 20. They spend so much time humping, they can't be bothered to do the schoolwork and keep having to retake classes.

 

[RosieVelvet]

Please don't pull us into this biweekly wheel spinning. It's a requirement of the Web site. Either adhere to it or don't submit stories here.

Whoops! Sorry I spoke! Like I say I don't have any problems with respecting the rule and only mild irritation about what I can't say on forums. I didn't mean to open a hornet's nest. My apologies.

Does this mean my homeymoon here is over?

 

[ElectricBlue]

My understanding is that the 18 limit comes from the concentration of American media in California, where the age of consent is 18, and that in the majority of states the age of consent is actually 16. Is this correct?

It's got nothing to do with the law, not in the US nor anywhere else.

It's a policy of a privately owned web-site, put in place by the owners, policed by the owners, and generally supported by responsible writers. Some try to skirt the rules, and if they're spotted by Laurel in her first pass, they will be rejected, and she very probably will remember them in future. She might have a watch-list, who knows? None of us here, that's for sure.

If under-age (or writing down age) is found in stories, they can be reported back to Laurel for review, as part of the community's self-policing. In this context, I think age disclaimers are bullshit, and very often a poor attempt at distraction. Laurel's been doing this for twenty years, the days of sneaking past are long gone. It's still raining, but she didn't come down in the last shower.

You can write minors in realistic, socially aware stories, just keep them a thousand words or more away from any sexual content (so they are well and truly out of the room). And don't even bother writing them in stroke. It not hard. And yes, Virginia, at Lit, everyone lost their virginity on their eighteenth birthday. Lucky them.

Carry on .

 

[TxRad]

Does this mean my horneymoon here is over?

Nope, you're a 21 post virgin still. And I fixed your spelling on honeymoon.

 

[RosieVelvet]

How long does it take for me to lose my virginity? Or do I have to wait for somebody to come along and deflower me? Do I get to choose who?

Rosie

 

[ChloeTzang]

How long does it take for me to lose my virginity? Or do I have to wait for somebody to come along and deflower me? Do I get to choose who?

Rosie

As long as your 18 you can pick. Unless it's in NonCon / Reluctance and then, well,

 

[Emirus]

Whoops! Sorry I spoke! Like I say I don't have any problems with respecting the rule and only mild irritation about what I can't say on forums. I didn't mean to open a hornet's nest. My apologies.

Does this mean my homeymoon here is over?

Don’t worry about putting your foot in it or offending people. Nobody else does. With some being offensive is a way of life. You’ll soon see what I mean.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Whoops! Sorry I spoke! Like I say I don't have any problems with respecting the rule and only mild irritation about what I can't say on forums. I didn't mean to open a hornet's nest. My apologies.

Does this mean my homeymoon here is over?

Opening a hornets nest is an obligatory rite of passage which you have now adequately fulfilled. I won't tell you what I did. I'm still embarrassed. And too many people here will remember. Tables of scores. Competition. Say no more. Blushes bright red.

 

[KeithD]

Whoops! Sorry I spoke! Like I say I don't have any problems with respecting the rule and only mild irritation about what I can't say on forums. I didn't mean to open a hornet's nest. My apologies.

Does this mean my homeymoon here is over?

Apparently your horneymoon is going on and on, and as a bonus you get to see who backbites who else.