Do you think it would help?

[Rob_Royale]

Imagine for a moment, if you will dear friends, that our illustrious site owners were to split Loving Wives into two (yes two!) categories. Non-Monogamy and Cheating. A place for swingers in one corner and cheating spouses in the other.

My question is — do you think it would help? I have my doubts.

 

[dirk2024]

Imagine for a moment, if you will dear friends, that our illustrious site owners were to split Loving Wives into two (yes two!) categories. Non-Monogamy and Cheating. A place for swingers in one corner and cheating spouses in the other.

My question is — do you think it would help? I have my doubts.

Shouldn't/wouldn't swingers go in group sex? Mutual parter sharing.

Are you thinking of something more along the line of a Hotwife category and a cheating category?

 

[SmilingLez]

Imagine for a moment, if you will dear friends, that our illustrious site owners were to split Loving Wives into two (yes two!) categories. Non-Monogamy and Cheating. A place for swingers in one corner and cheating spouses in the other.

My question is — do you think it would help? I have my doubts.

Then you would have to divide non monogamy into 2 sub categories — ethical non monogamy (ENM) and the default -- non monogamy (cheating). So there would be 3 categories — monogamy, ethical non monogamy, and cheating.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

No. It's not the name of the category that fuels those zealots; it's the type of story.

Also, Literotica needs fewer categories, not more. I'd say somewhere between five and ten categories would be the optimal number, along with the strengthening of tags. And those categories should be nothing like what we have right now. They are relics of a different time and mindset.

 

[CalBishForNow]

Rather than split categories and change their definitions, I think they should just put stories focused more on betrayal and bitterness in Non-Erotic. That would solve 90+ percent of the problem.

 

[NotWise]

My question is — do you think it would help? I have my doubts.

Help what?

 

[TheWritingGroup]

No. It's not the name of the category that fuels those zealots; it's the type of story.

Also, Literotica needs fewer categories, not more. I'd say somewhere between five and ten categories would be the optimal number, along with the strengthening of tags. And those categories should be nothing like what we have right now. They are relics of a different time and mindset.

The problem is, changing things would either required hundreds of thousands of stories and poems and games and audio recordings to be recategorized and have tags assigned, or break Lit's biggest advantage: that huge backlog of stories.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

I’ve always been a bit confused that there’s a Loving Wives but not a Loving Husbands.

OK, I’m not confused, I’m being disingenuous. But still…

 

[Ianus4]

Imagine for a moment, if you will dear friends, that our illustrious site owners were to split Loving Wives into two (yes two!) categories. Non-Monogamy and Cheating. A place for swingers in one corner and cheating spouses in the other.

My question is — do you think it would help? I have my doubts.

It just occurred to me today that there haven't been any new threads about LW in weeks. I've been missing them.

I basically agree with you, but based on current trends, I think first and foremost cuckolding should have its own separate category. For weeks now, tons of these stories have been popping up everywhere, and for me, it’s making not just the LW, but also the BDSM, CD, Fetish, IR, and soon even the Mature categories unpleasant.

But cuckolding in particular shows that soon any category will be meaningless, because everyone is posting whatever they want wherever they want, and the site isn’t even making an attempt to keep things organized.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I’ve always been a bit confused that there’s a Loving Wives but not a Loving Husbands.

OK, I’m not confused, I’m being disingenuous. But still…

I wonder if the audience for Loving Husbands will be as divisive as Loving Wives'...

...yet horny t-girl me can't stop thinking about cuckqueans having an orgy among themselves...

...that's how arguments should be resolved...

 

[sijopunk]

And those categories should be nothing like what we have right now. They are relics of a different time and mindset.

I'm curious what you mean by this. I don't disagree at all, it just seems like you put more thought into it than I have and I'd like to hear your thinking.

 

[alohadave]

The problem is, changing things would either required hundreds of thousands of stories and poems and games and audio recordings to be recategorized and have tags assigned, or break Lit's biggest advantage: that huge backlog of stories.

I don't think that's as much of a problem as it seems. Add a legacy search option that uses the old categories. The old categories could remain and become dormant. New categories are setup and used from then on.

Though I do think audio should be placed in the category of the subject matter. Having a category based on the fact that it's audio is craziness.

 

[Voboy]

No. It's not the name of the category that fuels those zealots; it's the type of story.

Also, Literotica needs fewer categories, not more. I'd say somewhere between five and ten categories would be the optimal number, along with the strengthening of tags. And those categories should be nothing like what we have right now. They are relics of a different time and mindset.

This.

The problem is not the category: Laurel's category description is clear enough.

The problem is that people don't seem to be reading said description. Same thing would probably recur even if the category were split. I think it's too poisoned now. My own fix, as a person who writes (and reads) a lot of stories that fit what I think Laurel's intent in that category is, is to use tags and place those stories in other categories.

 

[liliput1]

I wonder if the audience for Loving Husbands will be as divisive as Loving Wives'...

...yet horny t-girl me can't stop thinking about cuckqueans having an orgy among themselves...

...that's how arguments should be resolved...

Title it “A Fox in the Hen House” one lady riling people up whispering in their ears. With good core strength you could be bothering three at once without being too obvious…

 

[CalBishForNow]

I'm curious what you mean by this. I don't disagree at all, it just seems like you put more thought into it than I have and I'd like to hear your thinking.

I'm not the person you replied to, but I agree with them. There are a lot of problems with the categories. Erotic Couplings is a catch-all for basically anything except the "trump" categories, what those trump categories are is unofficial but can screw writers and readers up nonetheless, Fetish is a catch-all for a hundred different kinks, Novels and Novellas is another catch-all but there's no guidance on the recommended length there or elsewhere or how to handle stories published serially, plenty of stories could logically go in multiple categories and the author just has to pick one arbitrarily, and that's not even getting into Loving Wives.

IMO instead of categories, the site should just have tags. To help writers and readers, they might want to elevate a couple dozen "major tags" or "recommended tags," which might function like categories do now except for being non-exclusive. But then again, they might not. Tags are already very useful, they just aren't the built-in, default sort like categories are.

If I want to write about an ethically nonmonogamous couple that goes to orgies, I shouldn't have to choose between putting it in Loving Wives and Group Sex. If I want to write about an ethically nonmonogamous couple with a one-sided hotwife arrangement, I shouldn't have to choose between putting it in Loving Wives and Erotic Couplings. And if I want to write about a couple that has an affair and goes through a miserable divorce, I shouldn't have to choose between putting it in Loving Wives and Non-Erotic.

 

[Ianus4]

The problem is not the category: Laurel's category description is clear enough.

Well, for example, "swinging" is mentioned in both the LW and GS descriptions. I think the descriptions are outdated, and we can't go against what readers want. For instance, Lesbian Sex is just as much the realm of slow-burning lesbian romances as it is of sex stories. And in practice, the “Love” has long since disappeared from Interracial Love.
The goal would be for every genre and subgenre to have its own space.

 

[PennyThompson]

I'm pretty sure I've said this before elsewhere, but my personal Loving Wives Balkanization Plan would be to split it into two new categories:

• Non-Monogamy
• Infidelity & Betrayal

This would provide a more positive, fun-loving home for the writers and readers who want Sharing and Swinging and Hotwife and Cuckold stories.

The I&B category would no doubt continue to be a tricky space to write for though. And there's just no way around it, because it would still have the Burn-The-Bitch/Bastard audience and the Reconciliation audience, who tend to want different resolutions in their stories.

I actually think a better organizing framework would involve a much smaller number of broad Categories and a more granular and intentional use of Tags, but I suspect Lit's venerable database would not survive such a transition

 

[liliput1]

This.

The problem is not the category: Laurel's category description is clear enough.

The problem is that people don't seem to be reading said description. Same thing would probably recur even if the category were split. I think it's too poisoned now. My own fix, as a person who writes (and reads) a lot of stories that fit what I think Laurel's intent in that category is, is to use tags and place those stories in other categories.

I know at least occasionally they force a different category at submission time. One of the story feedback people the other day had theirs pushed into I/T and wasn’t happy about it.

I need to read tags I think. Found myself in the middle of knife/blood play the other day. The story was lovely, that scene was not for me. I would have missed out on some truly perspective-altering foreplay though, so the lesson and the message are at cross purposes.

But my point is one I’ve shared before which is that I’d like to see some energy put into making the tag system more useful for readers. Let me set some preferences for tags I don’t want to see. Or maybe not today. Not everyone wants to watch slasher films every night but maybe with the right mood or the proper altered state, that’s the way you want to go this evening.

People who hang out here for quality time discover kinks they didn’t know they had and occasionally discover that they’ve got their sexual orientation wrong. But as many, many authors here have documented, that road is a bumpy one with lots of setbacks. Maybe one story is enough to put you on timeout while you process how hard/wet that scene made you.

Maybe that knife play scene made me hot instead, which would be disturbing considering what I think I know about myself. I’d have to sit with that for a while before peeking again to see if it was a fluke. Or maybe for someone else it’s a scene deepthroating a tgirl. That could be surprising. Was it the throat or the partner that made you squirm? Better sample some more of each and both. Those are both in Fetish but that’s the Wild West.

 

[PennyThompson]

Well, ENM supporters might take issue with being grouped together with cuckolding, which fetishizes humiliation.

That's why I wouldn't call the category ENM

I think the overarching kink is married people engaging in sex outside of their marriage. That would encompass different power dynamics for sure though, and as always appropriate tagging would be important!

 

[TheLobster]

There are a lot of problems with the categories.

To me main problem with Lit categories is that they represent points on completely separate axes.

There are topical categories, like Sci-Fi & Fantasy or Erotic Horror, which can in theory accommodate any kind of pairing or kinks.

There are categories for different kinds of pairings, like Erotic Couplings (casual sex), Romance (building to a relationship) or Loving Wives (sex within and outside marriages), which in theory should accommodate any kind of kinks and stories told in any conceivable setting.

Then there are kink/fetish/sexual orientation/sexual practice/etc. categories: Anal, Fetish, Gay, Lesbian, Taboo/Incest, which in theory should accommodate any setting and any pairing.

And all of this is just in theory, because in practice there are many unspoken rules as to what combination of features you can put where and not get your story savaged by different factions of readers that have strong feelings for what the category "should" be about (e.g. don't ever put MM couplings in Incest, Lesbian is actually more about lesbian romance than sex, SF elements outside of SF&F don't go down super well, etc.).

A more robust classification would recognize those different features an erotic story can have and allow authors to declare them explicitly. I believe erotxt is pretty to having implemented a system similar to this, but that's a completely new site; the endeavor of retrofitting existing Lit content into such radically different typology would be quite difficult (esp. without the help of an LLM).

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Imagine for a moment, if you will dear friends, that our illustrious site owners were to split Loving Wives into two (yes two!) categories. Non-Monogamy and Cheating. A place for swingers in one corner and cheating spouses in the other.

My question is — do you think it would help? I have my doubts.

Short term, no but long term, yes. It would be a move to foster a more positive culture. The ugly culture is heavily ingrained over 20 years so it would take time to change, but yes it would change.

 

[Ianus4]

That's why I wouldn't call the category ENM

I think the overarching kink is married people engaging in sex outside of their marriage. That would encompass different power dynamics for sure though, and as always appropriate tagging would be important!

I'm not sure whether stories about ENM within marriage and those outside of marriage should be placed into separate categories.

 

[PennyThompson]

I'm not sure whether stories about ENM within marriage and those outside of marriage should be placed into separate categories.

Well, my impression is that the context of a marriage matters a lot to some readers and writers, I think it becomes a kink dynamic all on its own. I have a story that deals with ENM in the context of a friend group with two sets of (not-married) partners, and I just put it in Group Sex.

Does married swinging and spouse-swapping belong there too? I'm not so sure... But Married Non-Monogamy is neither a specific yum nor a particular yuck for me, so I'm probably not a good judge

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

No.

What would help is a clampdown on the abusive comments, up to and including blocking repeat offenders from commenting or even voting.

 

[Voboy]

I'm not sure whether stories about ENM within marriage and those outside of marriage should be placed into separate categories.

So, this is part of the problem: presumably, we writers who post here have a solid grasp on the dynamics of the site. If even we can't agree on how the category should be divided (nor even whether it should), it'll be hard to think of a solution L&M could impose that would please everyone, or solve every problem. If the situation is guaranteed to be flawed, it might be better to just keep it flawed in the way everyone is used to.

On the other hand, @pink_silk_glove is probably right that the culture would end up changing eventually, and probably improving. I always worry about unintended consequences, though.

I am increasingly using tags over categories in my reading here, but that too has problems.