Can I publish a coming of age story?

[GaryLMMartin]

I wrote a great big novel about the coming of age of a telepathic girl from birth to age 50. I know stories about sex under 18 is forbidden, but what about kissing under 18? Can 17 year olds kiss on Literotica? What about a teenage girl who has typical worries about the size of her breasts and body shape? Or are coming of age stories simply forbidden here? Is there any way to deal with this or rewrite to be able to describe a girl's dating experiences in High School, short of sex? Thanks in advance!

******************************
Link to my First 112 Stories:
https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=4837524&page=submissions

 

[Djmac1031]

Short answer: probably not.

 

[TheRedChamber]

There are a thousand threads on this topic already, but generally sexual experience before eighteen should be mentioned briefly in passing if at all. In the detail you suggest - no. Body image, as it related to the naughty bits, will get bounced. Long descriptions of teens kissing will get bounced

It sounds like your story is a complete non-starter for Lit, unless you want to go the 'never had a sexual thought until my 18th birthday' route which might work if the story is set Jane Austen period, but isn't going to fly for anything more contemporary.

 

[Lovecraft_Lore]

Basically no. Think of it like a Germany company reviewing their long and proud history. It goes from 1900 to 1934 then skips to about 1952. Those other 18 years are just not mentioned and no one has any idea how all those dead slaves and Jews got stacked out behind their factory.

The same goes for Lit, the babysitter had no idea how big her D cup breasts were or how hot all those dads were till about a month after turning 18.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Characters can refer to past events as long as those events aren't sexualized ("I lost my virginity at age 15 to a boy from my town, but it wasn’t until college, a few years later, that I discovered orgasms"). Thing happened, but now we have moved forward in time.

 

[Djmac1031]

This is probably about the closest I've gotten to inferring a character had sex before the age of 18 in a story:

"I didn't start dating until I was a junior in high school. The guy I lost my virginity to dumped me the next day, told me I was a 'lousy lay,' can you imagine that?"

I also had a male character make this vague, non age specific reference to masturbation:

"I'd been masturbating since the day I'd found a Playboy magazine in my dad's nightstand,"

I'm not posting these as a "here's how you get around it" thing. I'm merely posting them as examples of what is, apparently, acceptable: vague, brief, and no juicy details.

You could probably have two 17 year olds kiss. You just can't talk about how it FELT.

And I'd utterly avoid anything even close to "my breasts starting coming in at..." Doesn't matter if it's not in a sexual context. If you're painting the image of a female body and that body is under 18, it's gonna get flagged.

You COULD probably get away with a much more vague statement much like you actually wrote in your OP:

"she grew up like most typical teen girls, worried about her body shape, etc."

But any extra details on that, especially breast size, would probably get you in trouble.

Seriously hope this helps. I understand the rules can sometimes feel restrictive, but they're there for a reason, and we as writers simply have to work within the boundaries.

 

[alohadave]

I wrote a great big novel about the coming of age of a telepathic girl from birth to age 50. I know stories about sex under 18 is forbidden, but what about kissing under 18? Can 17 year olds kiss on Literotica? What about a teenage girl who has typical worries about the size of her breasts and body shape? Or are coming of age stories simply forbidden here? Is there any way to deal with this or rewrite to be able to describe a girl's dating experiences in High School, short of sex? Thanks in advance!

******************************
Link to my First 112 Stories:
https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=4837524&page=submissions

Short answer: No

Longer answer: Post it somewhere else that accepts lower age limits for conduct. SOL would be what I'd recommend. They have a lot of coming of age type stories there.

The only real option you have is to age up the characters to over 18 and fudge the story if you want them in high school. Lots of stories do this, and it's understood why. There are a lot of 18 and 19 year old high schoolers here.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Can I publish a coming of age story?​

Depends what age the cumming happens at.

Em

 

[GaryLMMartin]

Short answer: No

Longer answer: Post it somewhere else that accepts lower age limits for conduct. SOL would be what I'd recommend. They have a lot of coming of age type stories there.

The only real option you have is to age up the characters to over 18 and fudge the story if you want them in high school. Lots of stories do this, and it's understood why. There are a lot of 18 and 19 year old high schoolers here.

What is SOL?

 

[alohadave]

What is SOL?

StoriesOnline It's one of the big erotica sites, though much less traffic than here.

 

[GaryLMMartin]

StoriesOnline It's one of the big erotica sites, though much less traffic than here.

Thank you.

 

[Zootonius]

There is one story that may help as a reference IMO.

https://literotica.com/s/waif-1

Nothing happens with the under age woman until she's 18. It's carefully written and an excellent story.

 

[ronde]

I've been successful by only hinting at what happens in high school. I've used statements like, "He bragged about fucking Sharon, but I knew for a fact that never happened", and, "All the guys wanted to do on a date was feel our boobs, but we wouldn't let them. I've also had a character muse about what sex would probably be like, but with no real details. His statements were of the "I had this fantasy about her, but never got to act it out", type.

As for any details about such things, they'd almost always be rejected unless there's some statement that indicates both participants are 18 or older. I don't like the first paragraph to state that "All characters are over the age of 18. I prefer to write and read the age stated in a subtle manner. In the US, most high school seniors are 17 or 18, so it's necessary to make some reference to age, but it can be as simple as "When she turned 18", or "after my 18th birthday. By the time most people get to college or junior college, they're 18 or older so there's no need to mention age unless it's critical to the story.

Anything involving sex by any character under 18, including any kissing other than a friendly kiss on the cheek, is too close to pedophilia for me, so I'd never write it.

 

[Duleigh]

I wrote a great big novel about the coming of age of a telepathic girl from birth to age 50. I know stories about sex under 18 is forbidden, but what about kissing under 18? Can 17 year olds kiss on Literotica? What about a teenage girl who has typical worries about the size of her breasts and body shape? Or are coming of age stories simply forbidden here? Is there any way to deal with this or rewrite to be able to describe a girl's dating experiences in High School, short of sex? Thanks in advance!

YES Just BE CAREFUL, show in your text that the characters are not having sex, they're waiting for that "special someone" or something like that. It's difficult to write an erotic story without sex but I did it, and got some good marks for it. We're a Wonderful Wife starts with a flashback to at least put some sex in Chapter 1, but the first few chapters start with the MCs abstaining from sex until they're married. They didn't even start foreplay until they hit 18. I had two characters raped in their teens, I had to trod very lightly and just mention that it happened and the character "still won't talk about it."

 

[tenyari]

I'd personally not want to deal with a story that went through large sections of the the protagonist's pre-adult life.

That said. When I read 'Coming of Age' story I'm also seeing opportunity for a story that is about the cultural ceremony for a character who has passed '18', and is not undergoing some ritual to enter the adult community.

That's a very different kind of thing than the OP was asking about though.

 

[AlexBailey]

I wrote a great big novel about the coming of age of a telepathic girl from birth to age 50. I know stories about sex under 18 is forbidden, but what about kissing under 18? Can 17 year olds kiss on Literotica? What about a teenage girl who has typical worries about the size of her breasts and body shape? Or are coming of age stories simply forbidden here? Is there any way to deal with this or rewrite to be able to describe a girl's dating experiences in High School, short of sex? Thanks in advance!

******************************
Link to my First 112 Stories:
https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=4837524&page=submissions

This is from Laurel from 2012, she’s the one person who decides what’s allowed on Lit:.

Hi writers!

For clarification and future reference: we do allow characters under the age of 18 in stories. What we don't allow are stories in which characters under the age of 18 are involved in sexual situations. This includes as voyeurs, as the object of a voyeur, masturbation, having sexual thoughts, and so on.

We do allow references to past activity in stories so long as it is not explicit. For example, an adult character referencing his or her history - "I lost my virginity when I was 15" - is fine. Explicit and/or salacious details are not.

These are not new rules nor have our content rules changed in many years.

As far as things slipping through: one thing to realize is that the stories are not approved by a robot or script. They are approved by human eyes, which tire easily as I age. Every story must be formatted; tags, title, and description checked; and skimmed for content issues. The daily update takes hours. If I could find a way to do all this properly with a script, I would. But in the last 12+ years, the only way to do things right is to do it by hand, so to speak.

Mistakes happen. The site has been on a huge growth streak in the past year, with readership & unique visitors up nearly 20%. This means a corresponding growth in submissions. We want to post stories to the site as quickly as possible for you authors. We also want to make sure that the updates are as top-quality as they can be - with a minimum of formatting errors and no forbidden content inadvertently posted. Thorough checking of stories and timely posting is a balance we will continue to work to get right.

I'd like to be able to read every story through, but I can't. Reading 100+ stories/novels a night - much less formatting, tagging, etc. - is just not possible. So, if while skimming I see something that sends up a red flag and further reading doesn't clarify things, I often send it back to the author. If I stopped and read through each novel we receive to check on whether an underage character is sexually active at any point, I would be even further behind than I already am.

When a story is sent back to you for any reason, this is not a final rejection and it is not meant to be taken personally. This just means we have issues or questions. You are free to resubmit either with corrections - or, if you think we're wrong, an explanation of why we're wrong in the NOTES field.

If you believe your story was rejected in error, please open the submission, respond to the rejection in the NOTES field of the submission, and hit SUBMIT. Please do not add the word EDITED to the title, as that denotes someone editing an already approved story. Since we process all edits after the new stories are posted, adding the word EDITED to a title will cause a delay in the posting of your new story. If you are submitting an edit of a rejected story, simply open the rejected form, make the changes in that form, and hit SUBMIT. Do not start a new submission.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me anytime. PMs are faster than emails.

Thanks everybody, especially those who let me know about this thread - and have a great weekend!