"Works that promote or focus heavily on politics or religion"

[AndersonsBiographer]

So...

https://i.imgflip.com/8ze2rd.jpg

It's been almost a month now that one of my stories was pulled for being, apparently, overly political. No word on what specifically pissed off the mod, or how I can alter the content to be less political/more kosher. It would really be funny if it wasn't irritating.

For the record, everything I write is at least implicitly political. In my opinion, Jumping GI Jane is less political than Cedar Station (that one is longer and it involves a whole town instead of one couple, so there's more fucking involved, so maybe that helps to crowd out my railing against the conditions inherent in late capitalism?). Sails Above Forgotten Worlds will be political. Another series that I'm considering: "Quranteam: Not a Typo"? Well...

I don't know how you can possibly write MC or NC without it being political, and doing truly apolitical IR is probably even harder. But then, as far as I'm concerned, all erotica is a variation of politics, just as all politics is a substitution for erotica. Assuming it isn't a substitution for violence.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I don't know how you can possibly write MC or NC without it being political, and doing truly apolitical IR is probably even harder. But then, as far as I'm concerned, all erotica is a variation of politics, just as all politics is a substitution for erotica. Assuming it isn't a substitution for violence.

This is another thread where the answer is already in the opening post.

Your world philosophy, if it's as you've expressed it here, is always going to be problematic for this site. If you link erotica and politics so tightly, your writing is always going to push up against the site's boundaries.

Maybe the site's not the platform for you?

 

[Kasumi_Lee]

I don't know how you can possibly write MC or NC without it being political, and doing truly apolitical IR is probably even harder.

As someone who's written an awful lot of both NC and IR stories, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. They're escapist fantasies, and it's never occurred to me to insert overt (or even covert) commentary on rape culture or systemic racism into them.

There's plenty of non-erotic commentary on those and similar topics all over the internet for people to peruse if that's what they want to read, but for those readers who want to enjoy a taboo story and maybe get wet or hard in the process, apolitical smut is strongly preferred.

 

[StillStunned]

Politics can never be used in erotica on Lit, if only because of the rule that the person being screwed has to enjoy it.

 

[TheLobster]

But then, as far as I'm concerned, all erotica is a variation of politics, just as all politics is a substitution for erotica.

"Everything is political" is by itself a political stance. And it's also an incredibly toxic one, for it forces you to view everything through the lenses of power dynamics and structures of oppression.

So yeah, Hill is right here. Tone down your messaging and don't let it overshadow the story. Or find a different platform for your writings.

 

[SimonDoom]

I haven't see the story (obviously), so I can't judge, but there are probably ways of weaving social and political beliefs into the story without getting it bounced. For instance, was it openly partisan? Did it mention real parties and candidates? Did the narrator, or characters talk about issues of current political interest in a partisan or heavily polemical way? My impression is that Laurel doesn't look THAT closely at stories so if the story has a lighter or subtler touch it might get through. That's somewhat speculative since I haven't had this problem with my stories.

 

[Bamagan]

I don't know how you can possibly write MC or NC without it being political, and doing truly apolitical IR is probably even harder. But then, as far as I'm concerned, all erotica is a variation of politics, just as all politics is a substitution for erotica. Assuming it isn't a substitution for violence.

That is... contrary to my observations as a long-time reader of this site. I suppose if that's your sincere belief, you're perhaps getting false positives of a sort when you're reading.
Of course, it's possible that I'm the one whose reading preferences have left them with a false impression of the content here. After all, I actively avoid scat stories, so to the extent that it overlaps with political bullshit, I might be flushing two birds with one commode!

 

[ronde]

To understand the reason for rejections of submissions containing political or religious content, you need look no further than the Politics Board on the Forum. Apparently there are some people who obtain a great deal of satisfaction by criticizing the views of others. If stories have such content, the comments section for a story would turn into another Politics Board. That would not be useful to us writers or to Literotica.

I can speak from experience as I have had two stories returned for their political content.

What triggers the rejection is the story content has one of a couple themes.

1. The story is obviously biased toward one ideology. Rants about capitalism even though minimal will probably result in a rejection as would a story containing a lot of content relative to a particular religious belief.
2. The story contains references to current politics of a country or the world. Both my stories were rejected for this reason. One was a story about the attempted seduction of a male American CIA agent in pre-war Ukraine by a female Russian Agent. Their interaction in the name of gathering intelligence for their respective governments was just there to give a logical reason for their initial meeting and to provide a backdrop for the rest of the plot, but did tend to show the CIA agent as the "good guy" and the Russian agent as the "enemy".

The second was based upon the theme that the drug cartels control the Mexican government. As with my first rejection, the political climate in Mexico was used as the basis for the plot that brought them together. As the plot progresses, most of the content centers on the thoughts and interactions of two people but continues to point out that the reason they're in this situation is the corrupt Mexican government.

I highlighted "current" above for a reason. I have several stories set in the American Civil War, World War II, and Vietnam. They were published because those stories use the conflict to explain the actions of the characters and do not espouse one ideology over another. Religion is also a part of those stories but is used to reflect the beliefs of people at the time in order to explain why the characters do what they do. You can even write a current political situation into a story if that situation is mentioned only as a plot tool. In that case, it's best to attach that reasoning as a "note to admin" when you submit the story. I have done so and it works. Changing Laurel's mind after the rejection will prove to be a difficult task, but that is explainable by the workload she has.

A simple way to know if your story is going to be accepted is to honestly ask yourself this question. "If I were to make my character's statements to my group of friends, family, co-workers, etc., would that result in a debate/argument/severing of our relationship?" If the honest answer is yes, and by "honest" I mean an objective evaluation based upon understanding the current political divide that exists throughout much of today's world, the story will probably be rejected.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

I haven't see the story (obviously), so I can't judge, but there are probably ways of weaving social and political beliefs into the story without getting it bounced. For instance, was it openly partisan? Did it mention real parties and candidates? Did the narrator, or characters talk about issues of current political interest in a partisan or heavily polemical way? My impression is that Laurel doesn't look THAT closely at stories so if the story has a lighter or subtler touch it might get through. That's somewhat speculative since I haven't had this problem with my stories.

Well I didn't think so, but then I have absolutely no references to go on on. The MC mentions in passing that Americans are out-of-shape, doughy, and stupid because they focus on muscle meats and don't eat enough liver. For all I know, maybe that pissed off somebody.

On the whole, I don't think that Jumping GI Jane was any more anti-government/anti-military than the Quaranteam series (and its spinoffs after spinoffs after spinoffs) is pro-government/pro-military.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

To understand the reason for rejections of submissions containing political or religious content, you need look no further than the Politics Board on the Forum. Apparently there are some people who obtain a great deal of satisfaction by criticizing the views of others. If stories have such content, the comments section for a story would turn into another Politics Board. That would not be useful to us writers or to Literotica.

I can speak from experience as I have had two stories returned for their political content.

What triggers the rejection is the story content has one of a couple themes.

1. The story is obviously biased toward one ideology. Rants about capitalism even though minimal will probably result in a rejection as would a story containing a lot of content relative to a particular religious belief.
2. The story contains references to current politics of a country or the world. Both my stories were rejected for this reason. One was a story about the attempted seduction of a male American CIA agent in pre-war Ukraine by a female Russian Agent. Their interaction in the name of gathering intelligence for their respective governments was just there to give a logical reason for their initial meeting and to provide a backdrop for the rest of the plot, but did tend to show the CIA agent as the "good guy" and the Russian agent as the "enemy".

The second was based upon the theme that the drug cartels control the Mexican government. As with my first rejection, the political climate in Mexico was used as the basis for the plot that brought them together. As the plot progresses, most of the content centers on the thoughts and interactions of two people but continues to point out that the reason they're in this situation is the corrupt Mexican government.

I highlighted "current" above for a reason. I have several stories set in the American Civil War, World War II, and Vietnam. They were published because those stories use the conflict to explain the actions of the characters and do not espouse one ideology over another. Religion is also a part of those stories but is used to reflect the beliefs of people at the time in order to explain why the characters do what they do. You can even write a current political situation into a story if that situation is mentioned only as a plot tool. In that case, it's best to attach that reasoning as a "note to admin" when you submit the story. I have done so and it works. Changing Laurel's mind after the rejection will prove to be a difficult task, but that is explainable by the workload she has.

A simple way to know if your story is going to be accepted is to honestly ask yourself this question. "If I were to make my character's statements to my group of friends, family, co-workers, etc., would that result in a debate/argument/severing of our relationship?" If the honest answer is yes, and by "honest" I mean an objective evaluation based upon understanding the current political divide that exists throughout much of today's world, the story will probably be rejected.

Sample section:

“It’s good to know you care.” she said, her eyes clear and piercing as she looked at me. “It almost makes me think of forgiving you for using me as a guinea pig.”

“Is it really such an awful sin, Private Abrams?” I asked softly, running a lock of her black hair between my fingers before my hand withdrew. “Do you think your previous masters would hesitate to do just as much or worse?”

I leaned back into my chair and raised my hands magnanimously, then brought them together in an academic steeple.

“At one time, they drugged and tortured thousands of servicemen with the idea of turning them into mind-controlled assassins. More recently, they forced the entire military to undergo exposure to an untested mNRA gene-therapy experiment in fear of what amounted to a bad flu outbreak. Social media is even worse than that, it was designed by DARPA with the full intent of gas-lighting the entire world into insanity. They routinely expose both the military and the civilian populations of those countries cursed with their presence to toxic depleted uranium. They’ve released germ weapons into American cities just to see what would happen, they released syphilis into disadvantaged communities of color for the same reason. They created America’s crack epidemic to help fund fascist death squads in Latin America. The opioid epidemic funds terrorists in the Middle East and neo-nazis in Ukraine. They used to run a torturer training program for third-world dictatorships out of Fort Benning. They let Trump’s old buddy and an Israeli Mossad agent run a Kompromat operation in the US Virgin Islands. They think of you commoners as nothing more than guinea pigs to be used and abused in any way they wish, so is there any good reason why I shouldn’t get in on the action too?”

Which, yeah, that rant does seem pretty heavily political... until you read what comes immediately after it.

Excreta tauri astutos frustantur, as speakers of Dog Latin are wont to say. Jane only smirked at me; she wasn’t buying a word of my fimi tauri.

Speaker heavily implying that he considers what he just said to be bullshit.

“Because,” she said, in a tone of perfect congeniality, “There’s nothing you can do to stop them from doing whatever they want to do, whereas all the money in the world won’t stop them from suiciding you in your holding cell if your value to them isn’t as much as you think it is.”

Now I smiled as well.

“That really is a good reason, isn’t it?”

So, yeah...

If anything is being "promoted" in this narrative, it's nihilism.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

Which, y'know, whatever. The other stuff hasn't been messed with yet, and I can always repost this one on other smut sites.

 

[SimonDoom]

Sample section:

Which, yeah, that rant does seem pretty heavily political... until you read what comes immediately after it.

Speaker heavily implying that he considers what he just said to be bullshit.

So, yeah...

If anything is being "promoted" in this narrative, it's nihilism.

Having read the sample, I would say that if one is going to have a no-politics rule, this definitely violates the rule. I've personally been somewhat ambivalent about the rule, because I think there's a legitimate and interesting intersection between art and politics, and by banning politics the site eliminates a lot of potentially interesting fiction. But if it's going to have the rule, I can see why it would exclude this.

 

[OffNSFW]

All art is political, and art that strives to be apolitical tends to become inadvertently more political yet. How we define politically neutral is the strongest possible expression of our own worldview, and the biggest highlight of our differences.

Which makes me wonder how absolutely sledgehammer-heavy you'd have to get with it in order for it to get your story kicked back.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

Having read the sample, I would say that if one is going to have a no-politics rule, this definitely violates the rule. I've personally been somewhat ambivalent about the rule, because I think there's a legitimate and interesting intersection between art and politics, and by banning politics the site eliminates a lot of potentially interesting fiction. But if it's going to have the rule, I can see why it would exclude this.

But it's a pretty important aspect of who he is as a person, since it shows that he doesn't consider himself as particularly worse than the society which created him.

As for the female lead, the very first paragraph include this...

Basic Training was finally finished. Graduation had come and gone, her reunion with the family hadn’t been as bad as she thought it would be. Some of them still didn’t fully approve of her joining “Comrade Biden’s Woke Stormtroopers” or whatever Tucker Carlson was saying about the military these days. The flak from the MAGA-types was bad enough, and what she got from the family’s resident liberals, libertarians, alt-righters and tankies was even worse. But her parents at least were happy that she had found a good method of gaining opportunities for herself and building her character and expanding her horizons and blah blah blah blah blah. Reality: this was her best hope for getting out of the suburbs and paying for college, since she didn’t have the looks for OnlyFans.

Jane Abrams smiled at that thought. She had always been such a plain-looking girl, struggling with her weight for as long as she could remember. She had to admit that boot camp had done wonders for her in that department, burning the pudge off her midsection while leaving sufficient curves on her breasts and butt. Sun exposure had cleared up her skin, and she even looked surprisingly good in short-cropped hair and glasses.

Again, multiple ideologies are being mentioned here, but none are being promoted. And they're being mentioned because, although she adheres to none of them, such things are pretty important to who she is as a person. Far more so, I would think, than the fact that she has a nice figure.

Can we even write about someone joining the US Army without bringing politics into it? What if, instead of the US Army, she had joined the Ukrainian Right Sector or the Kurdistan Workers Party? Regardless of her own beliefs or lack thereof, no one would be expected to simply ignore the inescapable associations with Rightism or Leftism...

...well, actually, New York Times columnists do it all the time. But those people are bigger whores and pornographers than I'll ever be.

Anyway, I am redoing it and seeing if the new version will be taken a little better. I might even be willing to lobotomize my characters entirely, ignore the political/class/social undertones and focus exclusively on the fuckyfucky. I'll only do that if I can find another site that will carry the un-neutered version.

Hell, maybe I'll write a lot of stories like GI Jane, post the "clean" apolitical versions on open websites, and reserve the dirtier versions for Smashworlds. Maybe I'll even make a buck.

 

[THBGato]

I think I put politics into my stories, but do so by "showing" rather than preaching.

That said, I've got away with two very overt and blunt criticisms of Brexit and no one has, to my knowledge complained. However, one was in a review, and I wonder if there is relaxation of the no politics stance in that category.

 

[SimonDoom]

But it's a pretty important aspect of who he is as a person, since it shows that he doesn't consider himself as particularly worse than the society which created him.

As for the female lead, the very first paragraph include this...

Again, multiple ideologies are being mentioned here, but none are being promoted. And they're being mentioned because, although she adheres to none of them, such things are pretty important to who she is as a person. Far more so, I would think, than the fact that she has a nice figure.

Can we even write about someone joining the US Army without bringing politics into it? What if, instead of the US Army, she had joined the Ukrainian Right Sector or the Kurdistan Workers Party? Regardless of her own beliefs or lack thereof, no one would be expected to simply ignore the inescapable associations with Rightism or Leftism...

...well, actually, New York Times columnists do it all the time. But those people are bigger whores and pornographers than I'll ever be.

Anyway, I am redoing it and seeing if the new version will be taken a little better. I might even be willing to lobotomize my characters entirely, ignore the political/class/social undertones and focus exclusively on the fuckyfucky. I'll only do that if I can find another site that will carry the un-neutered version.

Hell, maybe I'll write a lot of stories like GI Jane, post the "clean" apolitical versions on open websites, and reserve the dirtier versions for Smashworlds. Maybe I'll even make a buck.

Looking at this new passage, I'd say the problem is you're including too many "red flag" words in your story. It doesn't necessarily matter what, exactly, you are saying politically, it's just that you're bringing up lots of hot-button political terms, and whatever filter they're using catches them. I'm confident you can express the state of mind and motivation of this character without bringing up all these terms. That might cramp your creative style, and I sympathize with you on that point, but it's understandable to me why this sort of writing wouldn't cut it under the Site's standards, whatever you think of those standards.

 

[SimonDoom]

Hell, maybe I'll write a lot of stories like GI Jane, post the "clean" apolitical versions on open websites, and reserve the dirtier versions for Smashworlds. Maybe I'll even make a buck.

To follow up on the point: have you checked out the Politics Board on this site? I think the site doesn't want the story side of the Site to become like that. It's hostile and juvenile. I'm not sure I'd agree with them if I owned the Site, but that seems to be the way they feel. When you include terms like "MAGA" and references to specific politicians in your story you're going to push a lot of people's buttons, and I think they want to avoid that.

 

[alohadave]

Again, multiple ideologies are being mentioned here, but none are being promoted.

They are political statements. It doesn't matter if you favor one over the other or not. The rule does not state that political commentary should be fair and balanced.

From the content guidelines:

Works that promote or focus heavily on politics or religion, or political or religious figures.

Can we even write about someone joining the US Army without bringing politics into it?

Yes you can. Many stories manage to do that.

 

[AndersonsBiographer]

I think I put politics into my stories, but do so by "showing" rather than preaching.

That said, I've got away with two very overt and blunt criticisms of Brexit and no one has, to my knowledge complained. However, one was in a review, and I wonder if there is relaxation of the no politics stance in that category.

I think I got away with it in the other stories because of the fantasy elements. The main character in Cedar Station is, for lack of a better term, a fallen angel. Sails is about 16th century mariners colonizing alien planets with flying ships that pass through wormholes. Maybe that's the trick? Make your premise so damn weird that no one can be offended by it?

A scene from Cedar Station:

He stepped in, opened a bolted-down safe, removed a small satchel from it and stepped back out. He pulled that open and revealed the rubber-bound stacks of fresh, crisp, newly-reissued 500-dollar bills with which he planned to buy the property.

Brittany's mouth fell open at the sight, her expression a mix of shock and wonderment. Bradley's grin widened more. The US dollar was collapsing even faster than the US world empire, but people still can't help but gawk at the little slips of gray-green paper with faces of dead politicians on them.

"Cash?" she asked when she finally recovered. "Like... literal, physical cash? Is... is it even legal to buy land with cash these days? Is it legal to even have this much cash?"

"No." said Bradley as he pulled out a bill and offered it for her to examine. "I mean, yes, but also no. Police departments will impound a normal person's cash if they find even one McKinley in your wallet. But, they did bring that bill back for a very good reason: a lot of the filthy-rich oligarchs who rule this country still have a lot a situations where cash is still the best way to pay for the goods or services they desire. I mean, do you seriously think someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos wants to cut a check out to his bookie, his coke dealer, or his pimp? Of course not!"

Jerry Springer once lost a job as city councilman for writing checks to prostitutes, thought Brittany distantly. Though in truth that kind of proved the point.

"They're thinking of bringing back the thousand dollar bill, too." he continued. "Once you get enough of this stuff, the things that you can and can't do with it start to get a little, uh, flexible."

Hmm... maybe if I rewrite Jumping GI Jane, and I turn Michael into a vampire?

 

[Bramblethorn]

But it's a pretty important aspect of who he is as a person, since it shows that he doesn't consider himself as particularly worse than the society which created him.

As for the female lead, the very first paragraph include this...

I've seen this site publish more heavy-handed stuff in the past. Last I looked those stories were still up.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I find the whole 'everything is political' schtick completely assanine. Inevitably it preceeds a long rant about 'why your work should have more of my politics in it.'

Years ago, I found and flicked though, purely for amusement, a book about the History of English Literature written in English but for Chinese student and published by the Education Bureau of the Communist Party of China. When it got to the section on Charles Dickens the conclusion was something along the lines of "While Dickens works showed a lot of sympathy for the poor, his works were flawed as he did not realize that Communism was the ultimate solution to all the social issues he raised." The image of Little Nell and Tiny Tim storming the baracades and raising the hammer and sickle is an inherintly amusing one, but, of course, if Dickens had written Pro-Communist sentiment into his works, he would have sold precisely zero copies to the middle classes and as such achieved nothing with regard to actually helping and highlighting the troubles of the poor.

(George Orwell, of course, actually was a Communist for a hot minute and the book wisely avoided mentioning him at all IIRC)

The Everything is Political crowd tends to end up saying things like "It's known that All Cops are Bad, so who the hell is NBC trying to fool with this Columbo guy?" If your female character has a good job your work is progressive. If your female character is a housewife, your work is regressive and either way obviously it is equally political as the Handmaiden's Tale or Meine Kampf. (Don't try to game the system by not including any female characters at all...)

It's noticable for example that when writing the James Bond books, Ian Flemming made up the SPECTRE organization specifically so the bad guys would not be, for the most part, Russian. To spell it out for the EiP crowd the politics of those books is 'lets have some fun with cool spy stuff' rather than actually commenting on the geopolitics of the Cold War. Yes, spies work for governments and, no, you don't like governments, and, yes, if he wanted to Fleming could have included more real world commentry on, say, whether giving spies a licence to kill is a good idea or not - but, to paraphrase the immortal Nick Cave...

He just didn't want to.

Quite possibly he didn't even think about the super important issue you think he should have focused his whole attention on. Hurts, doesn't it?

It would be more honest to say that everything is based on some worldview and some worldviews are more closely aligned with your own personal worldview and maybe you like those more as a result.

In conclusion and bringing us full circle, everything is political but some things are more political than others.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

In conclusion and bringing us full circle, everything is political but some things are more political than others.

How Orwellian of you.

 

[SimonDoom]

In conclusion and bringing us full circle, everything is political but some things are more political than others.

It comes down to how you define "political." If you interpret the term broadly then I think it IS true that almost everything is political. Politics influences interpersonal relations, including sexual relations. Erotic activity is influenced by and governed by things like a) laws against incest, b) age of consent laws, c) rules regarding what constitutes consent, d) access to abortion and birth control, e) laws governing marital relations, f) discrimination laws, g) laws against public nudity, h) laws regarding who can have sex with whom, and on what terms, i) laws regulating pornography, etc. The list goes on.

Personally, I think there are artistically effective ways to weave themes about these issues into your stories, and probably without running afoul of the site's politics rule. I think the Site wants to prevent the story side of the website from devolving into an angry political cesspool like the Politics Board, where one side rails against MAGA cretins and the other rails against commie traitors. I don't blame them for that.

For instance, it would seem to me that one probably could write an intelligent, sensitive story about a romance between two transgender people that would touch upon the very obvious political issues swirling around transgender recognition these days while avoiding making the story a political screed, and I'll bet one could do it in a way that passed muster under the Site's rules. Tone is a big part of it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

But it's a pretty important aspect of who he is as a person, since it shows that he doesn't consider himself as particularly worse than the society which created him.

As for the female lead, the very first paragraph include this...

Again, multiple ideologies are being mentioned here, but none are being promoted. And they're being mentioned because, although she adheres to none of them, such things are pretty important to who she is as a person. Far more so, I would think, than the fact that she has a nice figure.

Can we even write about someone joining the US Army without bringing politics into it? What if, instead of the US Army, she had joined the Ukrainian Right Sector or the Kurdistan Workers Party? Regardless of her own beliefs or lack thereof, no one would be expected to simply ignore the inescapable associations with Rightism or Leftism...

...well, actually, New York Times columnists do it all the time. But those people are bigger whores and pornographers than I'll ever be.

Anyway, I am redoing it and seeing if the new version will be taken a little better. I might even be willing to lobotomize my characters entirely, ignore the political/class/social undertones and focus exclusively on the fuckyfucky. I'll only do that if I can find another site that will carry the un-neutered version.

Hell, maybe I'll write a lot of stories like GI Jane, post the "clean" apolitical versions on open websites, and reserve the dirtier versions for Smashworlds. Maybe I'll even make a buck.

Your mention of OnlyFans is a violation of the rules in and of itself.

 

[OffNSFW]

It comes down to how you define "political." If you interpret the term broadly then I think it IS true that almost everything is political. Politics influences interpersonal relations, including sexual relations. Erotic activity is influenced by and governed by things like a) laws against incest, b) age of consent laws, c) rules regarding what constitutes consent, d) access to abortion and birth control, e) laws governing marital relations, f) discrimination laws, g) laws against public nudity, h) laws regarding who can have sex with whom, and on what terms, i) laws regulating pornography, etc. The list goes on.

Personally, I think there are artistically effective ways to weave themes about these issues into your stories, and probably without running afoul of the site's politics rule. I think the Site wants to prevent the story side of the website from devolving into an angry political cesspool like the Politics Board, where one side rails against MAGA cretins and the other rails against commie traitors. I don't blame them for that.

For instance, it would seem to me that one probably could write an intelligent, sensitive story about a romance between two transgender people that would touch upon the very obvious political issues swirling around transgender recognition these days while avoiding making the story a political screed, and I'll bet one could do it in a way that passed muster under the Site's rules. Tone is a big part of it.

This is the key thing to me, I think.

Most of my stories involve queer characters. Some of them touch on themes of compulsory heterosexuality, harmful body standards, power asymmetry, stuff like that. But I'm not putting that stuff in just to make a point, or to get people mad. I'm trying to reach people as a storyteller first. To get them to care about what these characters' lives are like.