Bisexual in LS?

[iwatchus]

I have a story I am working on outlining right now -- targeting a short novel 70-80K.

It is about the changing relationship between two women, first as a mentoring relationship, shifting in a multi-year love relationship and then moving into just close, mostly (maybe totally) non-sexual friendship.

At least one of the two is bis-sexual, I think both are. Given the primary storyline is the relationship between the two women, is this okay for LS even if some of the story does consider their hetero relationships as well?

Given I am still planning this out, could I stay in LS if I just tone down the hetero?

Or should I put it somewhere else (EC I guess. Since they end up friends, not lovers, I think Romance is out as well)

Suggestions?

If you want a little more background, these are two characters from a silly very short story I wrote called Dolls. This is basically a backstory to it. Here is the entirety of the description of their relationship from that story (by the way if you go off and read it, it is probably my worst written story, but it was fun to write.)

I have a unique background for the job. I was one of the few women in a graduating class of computer engineers at an elite school. My electives were all in electro-mechanical engineering, so I have a pretty good handle on the hardware side.

By the time I graduated, I knew I didn’t want to be an engineer for the rest of my life. I got accepted into a doctoral program for psychology. Not a top of the line program, but a good one. I was doing well and worked a summer helping run studies for a sex research lab. They sent me home after I was caught offering blow jobs to bring in more subjects.

And then I was asked to leave the doctoral program that fall when I organized a swap club among the grad students.

Did I mention I love sex? Man or woman. Fat or skinny. I love people. I want to understand how to make them happy and help them make me happy. It’s why I decided to swap to psychology.

I found this job through Sara. She had been the TA for my intro programming course that I took my first semester as an undergraduate, She was starting her doctoral studies at the same time. We became good friends, and for a while two years later, lovers. We had stayed in touch and she got them to interview me for this job when I got kicked out of grad school.

Her doctorate is in AI. More specifically, her work was on creating “normal” interactions between agents and humans. She was hoping to get a job creating better NPCs in games — she is a hard core gamer. With a fallback of working on e-commerce agents.

But the gaming companies didn’t seem to want her when she finished her dissertation. When she heard about Eros’s Arrows, this company, and its plans, she jumped on just when they were starting. Better than getting AI’s to sell you shit you don’t need. She has been with the company for just over two years and architected all the interactions between the robots and the subjects.

I have more ideas in my head about those years prior to this story, but that may shift some as the story develops.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Given I am still planning this out, could I stay in LS if I just tone down the hetero?

Or should I put it somewhere else (EC I guess. Since they end up friends, not lovers, I think Romance is out as well)

I'd err on the side of Erotic Couplings. I think it's fair enough that fans of the Lesbian category don't want to find unannounced male appendages, or even announced ones. I've got several man with bisexual women stories in EC, and they do well enough. In the absence of a Bi-sexual category it's the next best, I reckon.

 

[Bamagan]

I have a story I am working on outlining right now -- targeting a short novel 70-80K.

It is about the changing relationship between two women, first as a mentoring relationship, shifting in a multi-year love relationship and then moving into just close, mostly (maybe totally) non-sexual friendship.

At least one of the two is bis-sexual, I think both are. Given the primary storyline is the relationship between the two women, is this okay for LS even if some of the story does consider their hetero relationships as well?

Given I am still planning this out, could I stay in LS if I just tone down the hetero?

Or should I put it somewhere else (EC I guess. Since they end up friends, not lovers, I think Romance is out as well)

Suggestions?

If you want a little more background, these are two characters from a silly very short story I wrote called Dolls. This is basically a backstory to it. Here is the entirety of the description of their relationship from that story (by the way if you go off and read it, it is probably my worst written story, but it was fun to write.)



I have more ideas in my head about those years prior to this story, but that may shift some as the story develops.

With respect to the preferences of the category's readers, I think you're fine mentioning hetero relationships as long as they're not described explicitly. Kind of like the rules around underage shenanigans.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

there are plenty of lesbian sex readers who love to read about bisexual characters exploring their sexuality (e.g., me). I would say go for it. Write about their heterosexual relationship but understand that the main theme must be focused on wlw. Also understand that the readership does not do well with common male gaze-oriented tropes, e.g., lesbian couple sharing their male friend’s cock.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Another instance of the requirement for an actual Bi Sexual category....
Recently I have seen several queries regarding categories, that really fit none...
Stories getting pushed into gay male, because there is a minute amount of male 2 male interaction.
I read a lot of LS stories. it is my jam...
I don't hate stories focusing on hetero sex.... Not what I read LS for though.

I really hope Literotica create a safe space for Bi Sexual stories....
I have several completed, but don't know where to post them. They don't fit LS... Or Erotic couplings... So I'm hanging onto them in the hope of a separate category

Cagivagurl

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

Also understand that the readership does not do well with common male gaze-oriented tropes, e.g., lesbian couple sharing their male friend’s cock.

Other considerations — aka things you should probably avoid if you’re labeling your story LS:

Exoticising/fetishizing the gayness, e.g, the trope of the woman doing it for her man to arouse him.

Sensationalizing the gayness — in other words, a tone of gay sex being corruptive and immoral.

Gay sex as a wild fling — in which the FMC only has gay sex as an experiment and ultimately returns to her male partner.

Obviously there are no absolutes. I’ve read stories where such tropes are turned on their head and used to move the plot in a positive direction for the typical LS reader. Just understand that if you use any of the above tropes in your story, you’re treading on thin ice with a significant proportion of the audience there lol.

 

[AlinaX]

If you've got sexbots running around, it's safe to put it in sci-fi.

 

[Jorunn]

It would be a challenge in 70K story to not describe the male sex parts. If your character is actively bisexual, you should look at a different category. Perhaps they were formerly bisexual, and now lean to LS? Memories can tell the story. If you go with LS, be sure to add an introductory statement so readers know what to expect. I would still read your story afterwards, but you would screen out readers who don’t want to go there.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Other considerations — aka things you should probably avoid if you’re labeling your story LS:

Exoticising/fetishizing the gayness, e.g, the trope of the woman doing it for her man to arouse him.

Sensationalizing the gayness — in other words, a tone of gay sex being corruptive and immoral.

Gay sex as a wild fling — in which the FMC only has gay sex as an experiment and ultimately returns to her male partner.

Obviously there are no absolutes. I’ve read stories where such tropes are turned on their head and used to move the plot in a positive direction for the typical LS reader. Just understand that if you use any of the above tropes in your story, you’re treading on thin ice with a significant proportion of the audience there lol.

I agree with Jackie. I only publish stories in LS when they are focused on women loving women. I have lots of [female] bisexual characters, but their adventures end up in a different category.

I think it’s fine writing a previously hetero woman discovering sapphic sex. But making it a “tourist” activity is probably a bad idea in LS.

 

[iwatchus]

If you've got sexbots running around, it's safe to put it in sci-fi.

The very short story that quip is from is in SF&F. That whole story is really a setup for a punch line at the end of it. As I said, fun to write, but not well written.

But I was revisiting it (to borrow from another thread) and decided that I would like to explore the narrator's back story. I liked her character. Having written a few LS stories since I wrote that, I think I would like to explore this relationship more. I agree with @Cagivagurl on wanting a Bi category for this story.

This story will be about Lily (and maybe Sara as well) exploring and understanding their sexuality. I am not worried at all about violating @Jackie.Hikaru taboos.

I have certainly written the male gaze-oriented trope a couple of places, and I have referenced the fling (but never actually written one of those). I think the only hetero male character I have had in any of my LS stories is the MC's husband in the first story, when she comes out of the closet and leaves him. That is not a very male friendly

 

[iwatchus]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. It sounds like it would be borderline okay if I shift the story slightly. I think I will let the story write itself and then see where it ends up.

As I'm imagining this story, the emotional content of it feels more LS. I have written a few and read a lot in there. But I think I know in my gut, it will end up with too much hetero to be comfortable in LS. And no HEA in the romance sense, so it can't go there, which is the other category I have mostly been writing for.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I really hope Literotica create a safe space for Bi Sexual stories....
I have several completed, but don't know where to post them. They don't fit LS... Or Erotic couplings... So I'm hanging onto them in the hope of a separate category

It's been a twenty years wait so far. Don't hold your breath for a Bisexual category.

 

[Trionyx]

It's been a twenty years wait so far. Don't hold your breath for a Bisexual category.

Agree.
EC is ‘wild one-on-one consensual sex’ and does not exclude one-on-one consensual FF sex. I would use this category in lieu of a bisexual category.
Certainly if more than two people and genders are in the same room at the same time, use group sex.

 

[THBGato]

things you should probably avoid if you’re labeling your story LS:

Exoticising/fetishizing the gayness, e.g, the trope of the woman doing it for her man to arouse him.

Sensationalizing the gayness — in other words, a tone of gay sex being corruptive and immoral.

Gay sex as a wild fling — in which the FMC only has gay sex as an experiment and ultimately returns to her male partner.

What Jackie said (and also Cagivagurl). You can absolutely have hetero sex in the Lesbian Sex category but the main theme and the outcome should be women loving women. Indeed, there are several high scoring stories (my own Forty is one) in which the female narrator very much loves men (explicitly) but ends up in love with a woman.

That would be my concern with what you've described: your intent for them not to end up together. (Is this "Kissing Jessica Stein "?)

Will one/both of them end up in a lesbian relationship by the end? If so, you'll be fine, though many readers will have been shipping them throughout. If they both end up with men, then Lesbian is not the right category.

@Nightaelf recently published "The life of Anne" in which <spoiler>Anne has a child with Sarah, her lover, yet they end up just friends and co-parents. Both Anne and Sarah get happy endings with other people </spoiler> and it was well received.

And of course there's always the Portland Saga by @AwkwardMD in which <spoiler>two lovers decide that they would be better off as friends</spoiler>. It's fucking brilliant and a must-read if you are interested in the genre.

Good luck and happy writing.