Categories on LitE

[GuessImJamie]

A published author on this site (who wishes to remain anonymous) asked me a question about categories because she has had stories that she submitted published (at least she gets published) in a different category than submitted in.On occasion with tags she didn't choose and in one case promicing readers content that was not in the story.

Realizing that much is subjective, that Literotica takes an expansive definition of what sex is and that there is only one person whose opinion truly matters and that she is way too busy to read this...

My friend would appriciate any modification to this those who are more qualified than I ( that covers all of 'yall) might offer. Some categories are ignored 'cause she doesn't write Sci Fi, essays, Romance or... (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)

Gay male trumps all. Two guys having sex is GM. No discussion or debate.*

I/T - all identified family members having sex, not just those forbidden by law - well, unless it is about two guys - it go here, no iffs ands or butts. (This one got her in trouble as in a story one of her character's parent's siblings TALKED to character about sex and it got moved here. THE READERS WERE NOT PLEASED - that simply wasn't "incesty" enough. A rewrite into a neighbor -aint fiction grand - fixed that issue.)

Group Sex - *Unless two guys are fucking each other, in which case its Gay Male. Even one more than 2 is a group. If she has sex with six people - one per day on different days rewrite as 6 chapters even if chapter is 751 words long. GS folks want orgys not promiscuity. Poly ain't so popular either but it's better than promiscuity.

Lesbian, can't have any penises in story. Can't even talk about a guy.

Erotic Coupling - short two person heterosexual stories, long ones go in Romance.

BDSM - if curse words are used or a butt gets spanked this is where it goes (one of her 'rough sex' story got moved here that WAS NOT APPROCATED!!)

NC Reluctance, one of her DS stories was moved here - it actually got really good scores although it says in the story it is consensual and neither party was reluctant, go figure.

Celebrity and Fan Fiction - I assume this is a legal classification. If a copyright holder exists it goes here. If it's PD - like about Sappho it goes in Lesbian, unless you mention the fact that she was bi then all hell breaks loose. Don't write a gay male Fan Fiction, just dont do it.

Humor and Satire - if it is on a sexual topic but doen't contain any overt sex it goes here.

Exhibition and Voyeur - uncertain - there are some good stories in there. But everything that any of us have submitted to EV gets moved elewhere.

First Time, uh no, no thanks (see my post "Frustration")

Not meaning to slight any other catagory- it just hasn't come up to examine those.

 

[NotWise]

A published author who wishes to remain anonymous on this site asked me a question about categories because she has had stories that she submitted published (at least she gets published) in a different category than submitted in.On occasion with tags she didn't choose and in one case promicing readers content that was not in the story.

The closest thing there is to a guide to choosing Literotica categories is Tx Tall Tales' How To Love Your Readers: Categories.

I think a few things in the How To could be changed, but overall it's still current.

 

[JamesMiehoff]

Another good resource for trying to pander to the readers in categories (or to avoid the pitchforks and burning tar) is How To Break the Literotica Toplist.

There may be others in the Writer's Resource Guide, but I haven't gotten to all of them yet. There are a lot of them.

James

 

[Handley_Page]

BDSM - if curse words are used or a butt gets spanked this is where it goes (one of her 'rough sex' story got moved here that WAS NOT APPROCATED!!)

Not meaning to slight any other category- it just hasn't come up to examine those.

Forgive me please, but I am unfamiliar with this word.
Is it a mere misspelt example ?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Gay male trumps all. Two guys having sex is GM. No discussion or debate.*

I think Illustrated and Text With Audio would trump GM (though I don't recall any examples either way), and from what I hear some GM content ends up in SF/F.

Lesbian, can't have any penises in story. Can't even talk about a guy.

That's not been my experience. My first story in Lesbian started with two women getting together; several chapters later one of them admits that she had a boyfriend when they met.

My current story starts with a woman trying to get into a "sugar daddy" arrangement, with some mention of her sexual history with guys, and it's only at the end of the first chapter that she ends up with a woman instead. Meanwhile, the narrator self-describes as "lesbian" but was in a relationship with a guy for several years. (Her partner transitioned to male while they were together, and she decided to stick with him.)

Both of those stories have done pretty well in Lesbian and I've never had any flak from readers for mentioning that major characters have slept with men. IIRC, Pixiehoff has a harem story where the protagonist is a sort of sidekick to the Sultan - he and she both have sex with his harem, but not with one another, and I think that one's done well in Lesbian.

What readers there don't appreciate is stories where the female-female relationship is secondary to a male-female relationship (e.g. "woman fucks another woman for her boyfriend's titillation".)

NC Reluctance, one of her DS stories was moved here - it actually got really good scores although it says in the story it is consensual and neither party was reluctant, go figure.

Yeah, the line between NC and BDSM is a bit blurred and some stories end up in one that probably ought to be in the other, in both directions.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

Gay male trumps all. Two guys having sex is GM. No discussion or debate.*

I missed whatever your * was referencing. This also strikes me as homophobic. If "swords cross" during an orgy scene, is it suddenly GM because the author mentioned it? What about a creampie or snowball? Suddenly, it's regulated to GM? What if a man gets pegged or a finger up the butt?

Lesbian, can't have any penises in story. Can't even talk about a guy.

Feels like your GM suggestion should receive the same treatment: no mention of a woman. Additionally, that's another harsh standard suggesting the women can't even talk about a guy.

Erotic Coupling - short two person heterosexual stories, long ones go in Romance.

Again, a rather subjective suggestion. Equally subjective? "Longer stories go in Novels and Novellas." (Made to illustrate a point.)

In general, it's a remarkably subjective list of suggestions that doesn't seem to allow for how fluid and category bending sexual experiences can be.

I believe good tags or content warnings would eliminate most of your issues with category-spanning stories. Like life, Lit's categories can be messy at times.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Off-topic, perhaps, but I note that you several times mention several of your friend’s stories being ‘moved’ to a different classification. I suspect there’s a computer algorithm responsible for this.

Once you have submitted a story, it gets moved from Drafts to Pending. It stays there until either you play with it (sending it back to Drafts) or else it gets published. Here’s the trick. About a day before it gets published, a future date gets shown in Pending; that’s the date it will be published.

It will also show the category it will go up in. If the program has for some reason changed the category, you can open it, change the category back and resubmit after adding an Admin box note explaining the problem and why you think it belongs in the category of your choice. I’ve done that; it works.

It pays to monitor a story’s progress.

 

[GuessImJamie]

Off-topic, perhaps, but I note that you several times mention several of your friend’s stories being ‘moved’ to a different classification. I suspect there’s a computer algorithm responsible for this.

Once you have submitted a story, it gets moved from Drafts to Pending. It stays there until either you play with it (sending it back to Drafts) or else it gets published. Here’s the trick. About a day before it gets published, a future date gets shown in Pending; that’s the date it will be published.

It will also show the category it will go up in. If the program has for some reason changed the category, you can open it, change the category back and resubmit after adding an Admin box note explaining the problem and why you think it belongs in the category of your choice. I’ve done that; it works.

It pays to monitor a story’s progress.

This is incredibly helpful. A very heart felt thank you.

 

[GuessImJamie]

Forgive me please, but I am unfamiliar with this word.
Is it a mere misspelt example ?

NOT APPROCATED

|naw-t aw-pwish-e-aye-ted|

MANGLED CONTRACTED SOUTHERN US DOUBLE-NEGATIVE ADJECTIVE PHRASE

Indicating reproachful lack of appreciation

"Well that was not approcated."

-Bug Tussle Dic'nary of English

 

[GuessImJamie]

I think Illustrated and Text With Audio would trump GM (though I don't recall any examples either way), and from what I hear some GM content ends up in SF/F.

I am sure you are correct but she has never written in TWA or SF/F.

That's not been my experience. My first story in Lesbian started with two women getting together; several chapters later one of them admits that she had a boyfriend when they met.

My current story starts with a woman trying to get into a "sugar daddy" arrangement, with some mention of her sexual history with guys, and it's only at the end of the first chapter that she ends up with a woman instead. Meanwhile, the narrator self-describes as "lesbian" but was in a relationship with a guy for several years. (Her partner transitioned to male while they were together, and she decided to stick with him.)

Both of those stories have done pretty well in Lesbian and I've never had any flak from readers for mentioning that major characters have slept with men. IIRC, Pixiehoff has a harem story where the protagonist is a sort of sidekick to the Sultan - he and she both have sex with his harem, but not with one another, and I think that one's done well in Lesbian.

What readers there don't appreciate is stories where the female-female relationship is secondary to a male-female relationship (e.g. "woman fucks another woman for her boyfriend's titillation".)

In her story two lesbian lovers employ a man to "donate" sperm. It has good score but collects many scathing comments (all by anonymous of course - possibly just one disgruntled reader - where are the gruntled readers?) regarding the fact that "other avenues exist."

Yeah, the line between NC and BDSM is a bit blurred and some stories end up in one that probably ought to be in the other, in both directions.

My wife (we are part of an exclusive polyamorous group/ multiple and not legally recognized married septembrate) wrote several stories that she calls "intense sex" that were posted in BDSM. In our experience there is a very vocal group that utterly despises stories that don't mention safe words or condoms or dungeon masters.

 

[GuessImJamie]

As Bramblethorn suggested, I would guess many of these decisions are made by a computer algorithm. And so far, no computer has been created that is as complex as the human mind.

I missed whatever your * was referencing. This also strikes me as homophobic. If "swords cross" during an orgy scene, is it suddenly GM because the author mentioned it? What about a creampie or snowball? Suddenly, it's regulated to GM? What if a man gets pegged or a finger up the butt?

It strikes me as incredibly homophobic. But it is my experience. My two male lovers (they are 68) were raised in a culture where "crossing sabres" created a mater-anti matter reaction threatening all terrestrial life. In 48 years of play this has inadvertently happened thousands of times. In my mind the distinction between intentional and incidental is silly.

And get real when two guys spit roast or dp a lucky girl they are having sex with one another as well, wonderful life sustaining soul fulfilling... Oops, got sidetracked. Lisa put dialog to that effect in a group sex scene in a story. That short paragraph generated 90 percent of the comments. What did WS say? "Thou doth protest too much."

Feels like your GM suggestion should receive the same treatment: no mention of a woman. Additionally, that's another harsh standard suggesting the women can't even talk about a guy.

I agree they should, and I admidt to making statements based on a sample size of 3, which stastically speaking is probably =1.

Again, a rather subjective suggestion. Equally subjective? "Longer stories go in Novels and Novellas." (Made to illustrate a point.)

In general, it's a remarkably subjective list of suggestions that doesn't seem to allow for how fluid and category bending sexual experiences can be.

As a new writer it seems incredibly subjective. Almost all of the feedback that I have recieved in comments has been negative, but in general I don't think my scores are that bad.

My friend (her average story length is longer than mine and she usually has more different things going on in them) gets tons of negative, much more viscous commentary that she reguarly deletes, oddly some of her highest rated stories get the nastiest comments and vice-versa. Many comments refer to the catagory placement promoting our conversation.

I believe good tags or content warnings would eliminate most of your issues with category-spanning stories. Like life, Lit's categories can be messy at times.

In another thread (Authors Notes) it was suggested to write a paragraph or so as an intro laying out ^ths^ and containing any disclaimers and warnings. I will try that and see how it goes.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

GIJ - Da nada.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I missed whatever your * was referencing. This also strikes me as homophobic. If "swords cross" during an orgy scene, is it suddenly GM because the author mentioned it? What about a creampie or snowball? Suddenly, it's regulated to GM? What if a man gets pegged or a finger up the butt?

Feels like your GM suggestion should receive the same treatment: no mention of a woman. Additionally, that's another harsh standard suggesting the women can't even talk about a guy.

Yeah, there is a homophobic element among Literotica readers and the expectations for GM aren't symmetric to the expectations for Lesbian. On occasion even stories posted in GM will get flamed for having GM content, because some readers are fucking idiots.

Off-topic, perhaps, but I note that you several times mention several of your friend’s stories being ‘moved’ to a different classification. I suspect there’s a computer algorithm responsible for this.

AFAIK, that's a matter of Laurel's personal judgement, not an automated system.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

AFAIK, that's a matter of Laurel's personal judgement, not an automated system.

At the risk of beating an old drum, I submitted a story last year about two very human women who wore mermaid costumes, A Clutch of Mermaids, in Erotic Couplings. Nobody reading it could have taken it for anything else. Yet the system, before I caught it, was about to be post it in Non-Human.

I'm not objecting, not pouting. Poop doth occur and it all worked out, but no human would have made that error. It had 'A-semi-I' written all over it.

Moreover, I'm not asking Laurel to give away trade secrets, but considering the volume of prose submitted every day, expecting one human to individually read it all is not reasonable. That too speaks to the likelihood of a computer scanning programme somewhere in the loop.

 

[PaxNurgle]

So, I thought the author picked the category themselves when they submit the story. Does it arbitrarily get reassigned and can it override the author's original classification? Because obviously, you wouldn't want a femdom/BDSM story involving a cuckolding fetish to get re-assigned to "Loving Wives" where it would just freak people out.

 

[NotWise]

So, I thought the author picked the category themselves when they submit the story. Does it arbitrarily get reassigned and can it override the author's original classification? Because obviously, you wouldn't want a femdom/BDSM story involving a cuckolding fetish to get re-assigned to "Loving Wives" where it would just freak people out.

Why not? All of the stories in LW freak out half the readers anyway.

The site usually accepts the author's choice of category but they can and sometimes will move them to different categories, depending on how they see the story's content.

Laurel moved one of my early stories that in retrospect totally needed to be moved. I had another where I wished Laurel took over and fixed it, but she didn't.

If you're a new author, then you probably shouldn't disagree with Laurel's changes. If you have some experience, then you might disagree with her.

 

[gordo12]

So, I thought the author picked the category themselves when they submit the story. Does it arbitrarily get reassigned and can it override the author's original classification? Because obviously, you wouldn't want a femdom/BDSM story involving a cuckolding fetish to get re-assigned to "Loving Wives" where it would just freak people out.

Yes, categories get changed, tags get added or removed and parts of the story removed or rewritten or sent back.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Off-topic, perhaps, but I note that you several times mention several of your friend’s stories being ‘moved’ to a different classification. I suspect there’s a computer algorithm responsible for this.

Once you have submitted a story, it gets moved from Drafts to Pending. It stays there until either you play with it (sending it back to Drafts) or else it gets published. Here’s the trick. About a day before it gets published, a future date gets shown in Pending; that’s the date it will be published.

It will also show the category it will go up in. If the program has for some reason changed the category, you can open it, change the category back and resubmit after adding an Admin box note explaining the problem and why you think it belongs in the category of your choice. I’ve done that; it works.

It pays to monitor a story’s progress.

From what I remember, Laurel will move a story in to a different area, or edit/change tags.

 

[Javahead]

From what I remember, Laurel will move a story in to a different area, or edit/change tags.

I've had her do both to some of mine. I don't always agree with her changes, but I've got to admit that she's right more often than not.

 

[Bramblethorn]

At the risk of beating an old drum, I submitted a story last year about two very human women who wore mermaid costumes, A Clutch of Mermaids, in Erotic Couplings. Nobody reading it could have taken it for anything else.

Laurel doesn't read every story, though. She skims, mostly to check for stuff like under-age.

As they exited the building, the two saw one of the younger male guests with a bare-breasted mermaid lying in his arms.

The mermaid gave a shrill squeal, surfacing a moment later laughing.

Somebody who's skimming through fifty-plus stories a day and catches a few lines like those, and isn't particularly looking out for words like "lockable fins", might slip up and think you were writing about actual mermaids.

Or, given how much work you put into the whole mermaid-girls thing, even if she did read the whole thing closely she might've decided it was in the spirit of Non-Human.

I'm not objecting, not pouting. Poop doth occur and it all worked out, but no human would have made that error. It had 'A-semi-I' written all over it.

Keep in mind, this site was set up around 1999, and AFAICT not a huge amount has changed since then in how it's run. 1999-grade text-classification AI would be fucking up a lot more often and more badly than what we're seeing.

Laurel has mentioned several times that she skims everything that's submitted, and I don't see why she'd fib about something like this?

Moreover, I'm not asking Laurel to give away trade secrets, but considering the volume of prose submitted every day, expecting one human to individually read it all is not reasonable.

...which is exactly why that human scans, and misses stuff.