can minors hold hands, kiss, cuddle on this site?

[Cagivagurl]

(Not arguing the rule, only trying to understand it so I can obey it)

I have a couple in high school. They're not going to do any sex until they're eighteen, but can they say they're dating, hold hands, kiss, and cuddle before that? Is it okay to be explicit that they're waiting for their birthdays, or are they not even allowed to acknowledge what it is they might start doing on their birthdays?

Laurel's quoted in the stickied thread as saying they can't "have sexual thoughts," and I'm trying to figure out whether that means I can't give a blow-by-blow account of their wet dreams and sexual fantasies (not a problem! totally understand how that'd be outside the spirit of the rule) or I can't even have them come out of a kiss breathing hard.

Again, this is a question about what the rule is, not what it ought to be.

Depends on whether they're coal miners or gold miners. Above ground or underground....

 

[Abbafan]

The grandma rule is about right, and make her a fairly strict, Christian grandma at that.

You can get away with a little more if it's just a mention of something that happened in the past, but if there's any detail or it's written in a way that's at all erotic, it probably won't get through. I'm pretty sure I've come across mentions of a character losing their virginity before they turned 18, but they never really got into telling too much about how it happened.

 

[ChloeTzang]

If you so desperately feel the urge or need to write about children and their sexual exploits, you definitely need help.
Make them 18 years old and saving themselves for marriage.

Now that I disagree with. There's a plethora of underage sex, some of it pretty explicit, in mainstream novels. You name it, it's there. And there's also a difference between children and teenagers....Literotica, on the other hand, is rather more definitive about <18 sex than Amazon or any of the mainstream publishers and sets a rather higher barrier. I don't agree or disagree. It's been said often enough, it's Laurels site and she sets the rules. but saying someone needs help just ebcause you disagree with the subject matter is another thing entirely. Gotta disagree on that one.

One the other hand, just making them over 18 saves a lot of hassle. I do that all the time. It's easy to do, doesn't detract from the story and meets the criteria set by the site. No-brainer.

 

[Bramblethorn]

You can get away with a little more if it's just a mention of something that happened in the past, but if there's any detail or it's written in a way that's at all erotic, it probably won't get through. I'm pretty sure I've come across mentions of a character losing their virginity before they turned 18, but they never really got into telling too much about how it happened.

Yep. One of my stories mentions that "grandma was an adventurous young lady" who got pregnant at 15 or 16, and that was approved. I specifically flagged that bit in a note when I submitted, so I know it didn't just slip past accidentally.

My rule of thumb is "could somebody who's into under-age plausibly get off on it?"

 

[joy_of_cooking]

All right, the consensus is clear. It's a bit tricky because my romance subplot is tied up with another plot line about college applications, but I think I can disentangle the two. Thanks to everyone who kept this thread on topic (i.e., on the rule and not the morality).

 

[colddiesel]

On the other hand, two minutes after their 18th birthday's is totally acceptable, so you could have them sitting there watching the clock and the moment that second hand ticks over, they go for it like minks on heat. That'd actually be pretty funny too if you played it for laughs LOL.

You could always characterize the female protagonist as a horny young Chinese girl born in the USA who goes on a holiday to perhaps her relatives in Adelaide Australia. She hopes to get a 15 hour timezone start on her 18th Birthday back home. She then finds out that Adelaide, being Australia's City of Churches, she has her work cut out finding a fella to do the deed. Played for laughs, it could work.

 

[nice90sguy]

One hurdle is whether the scene is sexual from the point of view of the characters. If it is, then it won't fly.

As usual, Simon, you’ve hit the nail on the head.

Not my head, or Laurel's head, based on my experience.

As I posted above, the underage "sex" in my two stories was explicitly sexual in the characters' heads (and they were aware of their own feelings and felt shame afterwards).

I think it's MUCH more of an issue of whether the READER is supposed to be titillated by the writing. It's clear in my stories that I'm not doing that, so my stories weren't rejected for underage. Maybe I'm crediting Laurel with nicer judgement than she actually uses, but I like to think she does use that criterion, and it gives me freedom to write underage scenes that I myself feel okay depictiing.

I have had one story rightly rejected for underage sex, with two 15 year-old schoolgirls. That was a while back, and I fixed it quickly and chaged the age; that was a cut-and-dried issue.

My own sexual experiences started at 16 -- I was a late developer. Some of the girls I hung out with started exploring sex at around 13 or 14, around Juliet's age in Romeo and Juliet. But that was London in the 1970's, with a differnet moral landscape from today, and from other places.