Bummer

[Hypoxia]

Explicit partisan commentary mostly is just bad style anyway, and often doesn't age well. Ideas itself on the other hand, can and often have attributable political leanings, like we it or not.

I hold quite political views which of course inform and flavor my stories. The most explicit texts merely mention that a player orients in some direction, while the subtext is Don't Be An Asshole. That's basically the golden rule codified in the Code of Hammurabi a few millennia ago. Alas, Don't Do What You Don't Want Done To You a.k.a. the ethic of reciprocity takes a long time to mold human consciousness and has yet to sink in.

IMHO "explicit partisan commentary", other than extolling sensual lifestyles like polyamory, fits best in erotica/pr0n as 1) parody, 2) to signal a player's asshole-ness, or 3) as a foil for alternate views leading eventually to fucking.
_____

ObTopic: Has OP learned Laurel's reason for rejection? Besides what I mentioned above, I've a couple of tales with some violence that went through several rejection cycles before passing Laurel's scrutiny. My over-the-top Randy's Revenge needed a fatal explosion changed to absurd transformation. With Like a Hole in the Head I learned that Laurel doesn't find even hinted-at mayhem erotic, so the MC only stared at the drill and didn't press the button.

Moral: To post pieces for LIT's large readership, satisfy Laurel. To post elsewhere, meet those sites' standards, if any. But decrying unfairness here or anywhere won't get you far.

 

[XyJonah]

Why Assholes Do Not Deserve My Understanding

I've been quietly lurking and have watched this topic develop. I wasn't going to post, but there's something that has really quite irked me that I'd like to address, and it's summed up in this sentence:

"That’s why I’m arguing for a sentiment that ascribes to “I understand why you feel this way but I would rather do something else than engage with you.”

Writers are inherently proactive, not reactive. That is to say writers are the originator of whatever people are engaging with: they put something out, someone else responds. Therefore, the first moment of engagement (writing, publishing) has already ended by the time someone is responding to it. If there is a wish to turn that response into a discussion, that's a different thing: that's someone exercising their agency not as a writer but as a person.

Personally, as a writer, as a woman, just as a human being sharing air with other people, I feel no further need to understand why people are as fucked up and nasty as they can be. And I'm pretty tired now of the higher moral ground being claimed by "enlightened men"** urging me to exercise a little more understanding when I respond to the person who just <enter relevant example: wrote abusive lit and then got angry about its rejection, e.g.>

I am in my 40's and the majority of my adult life has been spent working to understand and advocate for people who are unable to be easily understood or advocate for themselves. It is difficult work. It is hard and requires patience, empathy and energy. It is a skill you have to work at and get good at. It is not something I am willing to do for every asshole who crosses my path. Especially those who feel qualified to speak / behave / write in whatever way they choose, especially those who imagine they can exercise their opinion over anyone else's by default. Frankly, there are neither enough hours in my day nor years in my life. I am not The Great Reformist / their mother / a psychotherapist and (as an aforementioned writer, woman, human being etc) I have my own shit to be worrying about and getting on with.

When you publish anything anywhere, you are assuming a platform. Like it or not, whether you have a million readers or just a handful, you have a stage and are assuming you will therefore have an audience, too. If you then use that stage to perpetuate hate, discrimination, negativity you can AND SHOULD be challenged. Not cuddled and understood: you are not having a cosy chat with your best friend on your sofa, but opining hatred to anyone who passes by, and, worse in this instance, doing under someone else's banner (Literotica brand name).

It is hard for men (and I apologise for my second gendered generalisation here, but, again, after some thought it stands) to understand how hard it is to live in a world where your opposing gender feels not only the need but societal permission to touch you whenever they want; to shout out judgments and opinions about any aspect of your body, life, sexual preferences whenever they want; to send you pictures of their genitals (like they have the very best looking dick ever in the world and it's magic, to boot: Bestow Upon Me Thy Great Blessing O Discord Stranger!) whenever they want; to discuss your work, your words, your efforts and then say "Oh, it's by a woman?" before dismissing it completely.

I am 43 years old. I have never had a job where I wasn't inappropriately touched, harassed or spoken to, often by male colleagues (always by a man), and always where my complaint was later dismissed. My experience is not unique. It is not special. My story is the story of literally almost every woman you know. And we're so fucking tired.

It is, therefore, incredibly difficult to see another Typically Terrible Someone arguing for the right to do that in fiction, get salty when their request is denied, and then to be told to just be a little more understanding about them.

No. I will not.

You need to be a bit more understanding about us: we have been asking ourselves for years why some guy did / said / sent that in an effort to understand it.

Incidentally:

"That’s why I don’t want to go after their art, it’s a nonviolent manner of expressing themselves."

No, it's not.

By calling it "art" you are excusing them from consequence. Violence is violence. Abuse isn't just delivered in the form of physical blows. When terrible people do terrible things and then shroud them in "art", the ONLY response there can be is a critical one.

Maybe people will learn and grow, and maybe they won't. But until they figure out how to understand themselves, there's not an ounce of fucking difference that can be made by anyone else making the effort to, least not a member of their preferred victim group.

Hypoxia completely nailed it with this:

"Alas, Don't Do What You Don't Want Done To You a.k.a. the ethic of reciprocity takes a long time to mold human consciousness and has yet to sink in."

I'll stick to saving my understanding and compassion for those who don't threaten and belittle me, and my criticism for those who do, thanks: that's how I deliver my reciprocity.


**"Enlightened men: I realise this might be a provocative term - I tried to find another, but really couldn't.

 

[MichaelGH]

I think that your version of understanding is a bit more cuddly than mine. I’m not saying the actions you described are ok but you could probably understand why your coworkers did them. They most likely wanted some power over you, someone who was representative of women everywhere. A group of people who they felt powerless against. That doesn’t make it ok but it does ascribe a reason. And now that we know the cause then maybe we can figure out the cure.

I’ve seen some people come back from some awful things, and at the center of it all was empathy. An understanding of why the abuser/perpetrator/what-have-you did the things they did, with or without accepting if what they did was ok or not. No sort of compassion or comforting was needed. The understanding just freed the victim, not forgave the perpetrator.

Because if my assumption of why your coworkers behaved like they did is correct then you just understood them. That probably doesn’t change how you feel about them. You probably don’t have compassion for them still.

Maybe literotica doesn’t accept this person’s story. Maybe literotica doesn’t give this person a forum for what his story contains. But I’m not going to have judgement for them. If the story did contain abuse then he probably wanted to feel what that type of control felt like on the page though. I understand why a person would write such a thing.

A lot of us have dark thoughts. We kind of have to go out into society acting perfect, not really being able to process them. But ignoring them doesn’t make them going way, it only causes them to fester and come out in damaging ways. And then we have to find a way to think of ourselves as good people to feel like we belong and so we have to justify our actions in weird and destructive ways rather than accept we did a bad thing. Barring that we find a hate group who will accept us for our darkness.

That’s part of the reason why I think anti-heroes have become so popular as of late in our entertainment, because they allow us to process certain feelings and desires that are not permissible or expressible in society. Walter White, the protagonist of the most acclaimed tv shows ever made, sexually assaulted his wife in an episode. That show caused a lot of enjoyment for people.

I don’t want to pave over the darkness. In our own ways we’ve probably imagined doing terrible things. That’s fine as long as they stay fantasies. I think there should be a way process some of those dark feelings and if writing is a way of doing that then I want to encourage that if it’s a viable way of keeping it from spilling over into the outside world.

 

[MichaelGH]

But I do think there is an imbalance of empathizing with abusers rather than the victims though. I think it kind of comes from the fact that a lot of people feel guilty for what they’ve done. And so if we feel that if this asshole who has done much worse than us can be forgiven then we’re in the clear and don’t have to feel bad.

And that when we were the victim ourselves we felt powerless, inadequate, a bunch of other things we’d rather not feel. So we kind of ignore the victim because dealing and empathizing with them brings up feelings we don’t want to accept in ourselves. At least when we were the person who did wrong then there was some power in that.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

For me it was the idea that love/relationships would make life significantly better. You know that kind of creates a certain resentment towards women if you think they’re the key to your salvation, only that they’re not turning the key for you. You could probably understand how someone could feel that way, every depiction of love seems to point to that direction.

And you know hearing “hey asshole, you’re not entitled to a woman’s love,” didn’t really lessen the resentment. It’s more like hearing that one is primarily in a relationship with oneself and a person is just going to end up bringing that person to the relationship. And also that a lot of people in relationships are pretty miserable, they’re not the cure all your looking for.

Michael - I'm glad that you seem to be learning some empathy yourself, and have figured out that holding women to an impossible standard was only making yourself miserable. It's so easy, especially these days, for young men to go in the other direction. There are, as I'm sure you're aware, entire websites and communities designed around reinforcing the worst assumptions about women.

I wasn't going to step back into this discussion, but your sentence "and you know hearing 'hey asshole, you're not entitled to a woman's love' didn't really lessen the resentment" struck me. Because I think you've illuminated the basic flaw in InCel/MRA logic. They *do* think they are entitled to a woman's love. And typically they think this not in the abstract sense that everyone should expect to have a relationship, but one specific guy thinks he is actually owed the affection of one specific girl. Or one category of girls. But you're not. They're just not entitled to any particular person's affection.

And no one's entitled to your affection either, Michael. You have the agency to decide that you don't like someone, or you're not attracted to someone, and I have a feeling that you've exercised that agency from time to time.

But InCel and MRA guys deny that agency, that basic human autonomy, to women in general and in specific. And they tend to make two basic errors of logic when they do so.

1) they assume that no woman has difficulty getting dates or being in a relationship wtih someone she wants. They assume that all a woman has to do is bat her eyelashes at any man she wants and he will fall all over himself seducing her. Guess what? That's not the way the real world is. Plenty of women get shot down, get rejected, get dumped by guys that they like. Plenty of women get made fun of by guys they want to date. But the InCel/MRA guys dismiss that.

2) they focus on getting attention and dates from a very narrowly defined kind of "hot" woman. They want the popular women to go out with them, and when that doesn't happen, they spin up conspiracy theories about how all women are collaborating to deny them their due. That feeds the anger and the resentment. It's like if I spent all my time trying to get Brad Pitt to screw me, and then when he laughed in my face, I decided that all men are worthless pricks worthy only of contempt. If that was my mindset, no one would screw me, and I could either realize the problem is with my way of thinking, or I could continue being resentful.

Writing can be an outlet for uncomfortable and dark feelings. It can be a way to process those feelings and let go of them, and maybe even come to a better understanding. But writing dark and violent stories also has the potential to reinforce those feelings, which can lead to real world consequences.

Anyway, like I said, I'm glad to see you write that you're changing your perspective on things. I hope that doing so relieves some of your frustration and your angst.

 

[MichaelGH]

Michael - I'm glad that you seem to be learning some empathy yourself, and have figured out that holding women to an impossible standard was only making yourself miserable. It's so easy, especially these days, for young men to go in the other direction. There are, as I'm sure you're aware, entire websites and communities designed around reinforcing the worst assumptions about women.

I wasn't going to step back into this discussion, but your sentence "and you know hearing 'hey asshole, you're not entitled to a woman's love' didn't really lessen the resentment" struck me. Because I think you've illuminated the basic flaw in InCel/MRA logic. They *do* think they are entitled to a woman's love. And typically they think this not in the abstract sense that everyone should expect to have a relationship, but one specific guy thinks he is actually owed the affection of one specific girl. Or one category of girls. But you're not. They're just not entitled to any particular person's affection.

And no one's entitled to your affection either, Michael. You have the agency to decide that you don't like someone, or you're not attracted to someone, and I have a feeling that you've exercised that agency from time to time.

Writing can be an outlet for uncomfortable and dark feelings. It can be a way to process those feelings and let go of them, and maybe even come to a better understanding. But writing dark and violent stories also has the potential to reinforce those feelings, which can lead to real world consequences.

Anyway, like I said, I'm glad to see you write that you're changing your perspective on things. I hope that doing so relieves some of your frustration and your angst.

Yeah I don't want to say I was ever like an MRA or an Incel or anything like that. There was a time when I was very angry (still am a bit) and isolated though and of course women were a target of my anger because everything was.

I don't think I did anything that was that bad. More like just kind of strange because there was also the conflicting impulse to be the nice ally feminist even though I was woefully unprepared to do that in that state. Some deep contradictions ran through these veins.

Anger and pain can be extremely isolating things. No one particularly wants to deal with it. Many people are more concerned with their own pain and anger, keeping the flame alive because the trauma they suffered was formative to them, do whatever they can to make it seem important because no one else is going to. And maybe women and minorities have more of it, I'm not to say. I don't think anyone wants me to be an authority on that, least of all me.

Anyway I've found better nonjudgemental places to help deal with those issues. Getting to interact with people who don't expect me to be perfect but want me to grow all the same. It lets me accept that there's pain and anger inside me and that's ok. Only that I would probably rather try and feel something else. I think a lot of our desire to be good really just comes from a fear of being judged instead of an actual idealism.

I still don't like that phrase "you're not entitled to a woman's affection." The response that makes the most sense for me is "but I want it." It kind of feels like its being dangled in front of you with someone saying "You want this affection, don't you? It would feel so good wouldn't it? Too bad you're never going to get it." It's almost like a power play in its structuring.

And the people who accept it kind of take a monk like attitude and praise themselves for being ok with being deprived of something. Thinking something along along the lines of "Yeah I'm such a good person for being ok with this. Oh I'm so awesome for not feeling entitled to that love, and that means I really do deserve that love, but I'm totally ok with not having it."

A better phrasing I think would be more akin to saying "This woman doesn't have the affection you're seeking," or "There are better sources to look for it," or "This woman's affection won't solve your problems because you'll just end up being you." It kind of does away with the potential instead of making it seem like someone's withholding from you.

And yeah maybe some writing will help reinforce those beliefs but I don't know how to tell. The thing about this type of art/work/writing/what-you-want-to-call-it is I think that this is the type of art that people are least likely to see as a reflection of the outside world. A lot of this is pure unreality with no hope of comment on reality. A fantasy can just be a fantasy. I'm sure a lot of us would've found 50 Shades of Gray misogynistic if it were written by a man.

So you can see why I don't want to judge a guy for his fantasy. I feel like I'm stepping out of my bounds here a bit because I didn't read the story and it might actually be calling for violence but telling him that it was rejected because it was misogynistic/gross/disgusting/harmful might become a self fulfilling prophecy. It might have some ideas that you might feel are problematic or some other less loaded word but I think supporting an ideology that you like will do more to combat one you don't particularly like than just rejecting and judging it. Voting for stories that you think reflect sexuality in a healthy way and trying to show people the way that you see it so you can pass that viewpoint on.

 

[Bramblethorn]

IMHO "explicit partisan commentary", other than extolling sensual lifestyles like polyamory, fits best in erotica/pr0n as 1) parody, 2) to signal a player's asshole-ness, or 3) as a foil for alternate views leading eventually to fucking.

Depends on the subject matter. Most of my stories here are about same-gender relationships and set in Australia before 2018. Legally, my protags are second-class citizens who don't have the right to marry their loved ones, and it would feel dishonest to self-censor that when I'm writing about two people considering a long-term relationship together.

But I don't think many readers in the Lesbian Sex category are going to be offended by that particular brand of commentary, and if they are, I'm okay with offending them.

 

[XyJonah]

I'm sure a lot of us would've found 50 Shades of Gray misogynistic if it were written by a man.

Consent is everything. As the well-held BDSM adage goes, "Safe, sane and consensual". Personally, I don't give a shit who wrote it as long as these three points are well-covered.

Though I'd get a kick out of a man talking about His Goddess for sure.

Michael, I think it's important to recognise how brave you're being here (and I didn't do that before). We are all broken; we have all felt rejection, loneliness, despondency. But to publicly admit, analyse and invite discourse about it requires courage, and I applaud you. Were there more like you in the world, frankly.

It is up to you - and only you - to learn how to chart your course when you're in that particular strait. Your destination shouldn't ever be "The Love of Another" but "the Love of Yourself".

And I would say that to anyone who is suffering from loneliness and rejection and then blaming the world or an entire gender for it: love yourself first. Accept who you are when all that shit is stripped away. You wouldn't find a solution to your current situation, but you'll find it easier to live with for sure.

Best of luck, Michael.

 

[Bramblethorn]

A fantasy can just be a fantasy. I'm sure a lot of us would've found 50 Shades of Gray misogynistic if it were written by a man.

A lot of people did find it misogynistic. Being written by a woman didn't get it a free pass on that.

I don't think there's a simple answer to this issue. My position boils down to "sometimes fantasy about bad things isn't just cathartic/harmless, and sometimes it does actually promote the bad things it describes, and recognising the difference comes down to complicated questions of analysis".

(And with 50SoG in particular, I think it's possible to believe both that the book contains some misogynistic tropes that ought to be criticised, and also that some of the criticism it received was itself driven by misogyny. A plague on both their houses, etc. etc.)

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

A lot of people did find it misogynistic. Being written by a woman didn't get it a free pass on that.

I don't think there's a simple answer to this issue. My position boils down to "sometimes fantasy about bad things isn't just cathartic/harmless, and sometimes it does actually promote the bad things it describes, and recognising the difference comes down to complicated questions of analysis".

(And with 50SoG in particular, I think it's possible to believe both that the book contains some misogynistic tropes that ought to be criticised, and also that some of the criticism it received was itself driven by misogyny. A plague on both their houses, etc. etc.)

Interesting thread. Kind of a combination of "why I write," coupled with "where are the boundaries?"

One thing I have often wondered about the the amazing popularity of things like 50 shades and what seems to be characterized as "dark erotica" Forget literary criticism or feminist criticism. There seems to be a market driven by women that eat up stories of kidnapping and sexually breaking women in what I consider to be nothing more than rape. All in the name of love.

I really don't understand that genre

 

[SynSlave]

Interesting thread. Kind of a combination of "why I write," coupled with "where are the boundaries?"

One thing I have often wondered about the the amazing popularity of things like 50 shades and what seems to be characterized as "dark erotica" Forget literary criticism or feminist criticism. There seems to be a market driven by women that eat up stories of kidnapping and sexually breaking women in what I consider to be nothing more than rape. All in the name of love.

I really don't understand that genre

I don't understand the appeal either on a personal level. But the 'victim' theme is one of the oldest and still relevant - just put on a random Lifetime movie.

I just read something interesting about V for Vendetta (one of my favorite movies.. enjoyed the movie more than the graphic novel) and it compared Natalie Portman's character to Christine from Phantom of the Opera (my favorite musical of all time). And of course it's common in renessaince, vampire lit, etc. So it isnt that i dislike the trope.

But why it's acceptable for mainstream - in modern storytelling society/setting... well... like you said. I don't 'understand it'. Even if I get it.

 

[Wordmate]

The point, which seems to have got lost in the identity parade, is that this guy's story has already, by his own admission, had at least one knock-back and resubmission to get published in the first place, which means it was already borderline against a content policy. We all know that Laurel can only ever scan lightly, but something bumped her the first time around. The story then gets up, gets quickly reported by the sounds of things, and Laurel takes it down, so it's now bumped her twice (with a closer read) and somebody else once, to report it.

The OP then goes into an, "Oh but it's just a story and not a sick fantasy," schtik (conveniently forgetting that nearly every story on Lit IS a fantasy of one sort or another - and sickness or otherwise is usually down to the writer, not the reader) and in this case, the OP even states he was encouraged to go more extreme. He now refuses to edit, and wants to take it elsewhere. Which suggests to me that he knows full well that it's gone too far, and he's protesting just a little too much.

Do what I did, and go check his body of work. You'll find a collection of misogynistic hate stuff and a collection of very, very revealing non-erotic poetry. If it's not quite an incel manifesto, it's pretty damn close. The list of poetry titles alone is evidence, I think, of SimonDoom's thesis that story titles are important tells:

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=1398905&page=submissions

Here's an extract to save everyone time - story title "Everyone's a Critic" (may be ironic, but somehow I don't think so):



My guess is the piece was very, very unpleasant, and Laurel has rightfully pulled it. I doubt it was a mistake, like in BlindJustice's case.

That's the thing with words, mate, they usually tell a story. It's when you string them all together that often reveals the most. Write something nice about little kittens next time, maybe someone will like you for who you really are.

You probably need to get out more, do something healthy. That's not irony, by the way, but a serious suggestion. I don't think the writing's helping much, not really.

Everyone's A Critic has not been pulled and neither has the sequel.

 

[SimonDoom]

To me incels/misogynists/what have you are like the shadow self, there’s probably a bit of that in me. I have the same potential, not drawing an us and them line there. The point is I do my best not let it rise to the surface. And the larger point is that you could probably understand where they’re coming from without condoning their views or actions. And straight up rejecting them is probably not going to solve the problem at hand.

.

I think you are on to something here. All of us have some kind of shadow side or self, although it's a much bigger part of some of us than of others. Erotica and the shadow are, to me, deeply intertwined. While my view of erotica is similar to EB's in that I take a very positive attitude toward female sexuality, I also think part of the thrill of erotica comes from its exploration of the forbidden. And that includes that shade over into sexism or racism. Think about interracial stories, for example. There's a huge, enthusiastic audience for stories about large, strong, dominant black men having sex with white women. There's simply no denying that (many of) these stories play on stereotypes. Is that bad? I don't know, but I tend to think not. I tend to think it's perfectly OK for erotica to be a fantasy world where these shadow elements inside us come out to play. And I think that's true of misogyny or borderline-misogyny as well. BDSM stories play on stereotypes about men and women. Many women really do enjoy rape stories. That's just how it is.

Literotica has its content limits, and I imagine Wordmate's story violated those limits and he's reluctant to face that, but I don't know. One thing is for sure, and that's that Literotica doesn't ban stories just because of misogyny. You can find plenty of that here.

 

[Wordmate]

I think you are on to something here. All of us have some kind of shadow side or self, although it's a much bigger part of some of us than of others. Erotica and the shadow are, to me, deeply intertwined. While my view of erotica is similar to EB's in that I take a very positive attitude toward female sexuality, I also think part of the thrill of erotica comes from its exploration of the forbidden. And that includes that shade over into sexism or racism. Think about interracial stories, for example. There's a huge, enthusiastic audience for stories about large, strong, dominant black men having sex with white women. There's simply no denying that (many of) these stories play on stereotypes. Is that bad? I don't know, but I tend to think not. I tend to think it's perfectly OK for erotica to be a fantasy world where these shadow elements inside us come out to play. And I think that's true of misogyny or borderline-misogyny as well. BDSM stories play on stereotypes about men and women. Many women really do enjoy rape stories. That's just how it is.

Literotica has its content limits, and I imagine Wordmate's story violated those limits and he's reluctant to face that, but I don't know. One thing is for sure, and that's that Literotica doesn't ban stories just because of misogyny. You can find plenty of that here.

No, my story was rejected because of a torture scene involving a woman getting even with a guy who put her in the hospital.

 

[SynSlave]

No, my story was rejected because of a torture scene involving a woman getting even with a guy who put her in the hospital.

Can you post part of the scene? I myself enjoy reading and writing around the edge of darkness but often wonder how far to go (not for the site particularly but in general). Ive read plenty of science fiction and war fiction where torture/interrogation were key and well-described elements. But, on the other side, I don't read snuff and don't believe just because you can describe something, you should. Always a gray area for me.

Example, even the syfy channel got away with some pretty heavy shit in that show Magicians (violent rape and abortion, plus all the hearts being ripped out and severed heads). I'm back and forth whether I even like the show and still can't believe they can get away with it on cable--no less the syfy channel, that got plenty of criticism directed toward the creators of Doctor Who making episodes "too dark".

 

[ElectricBlue]

Can you post part of the scene?

Not a good idea. Laurel applies the same content rules to Forums as she does to stories, and she will not look favourably on something she's pulled creeping in through the back door. That could result in a permanent ban.

 

[SynSlave]

Not a good idea. Laurel applies the same content rules to Forums as she does to stories, and she will not look favourably on something she's pulled creeping in through the back door. That could result in a permanent ban.

Wouldn't want to get anyone in trouble, so if that's the case so be it. Thought an excerpt might help with context. Guess the only person that really knows, or can know, is the author and the editor that rejected it.