If You Incest: A Data-Driven Post on Why Your Story is Screwed

Inkognito1

Virgin
Joined
Dec 3, 2025
Posts
2
Aight homies.

You clicked, I’m talkin’. Let’s jump in.

By now, anyone who even casually browses the forum has seen the flood of posts about stories being rejected for AI, or stories stuck in queue limbo for days, weeks, and even months.

We’ve all heard about stories getting posted almost instantly, while others rot unseen.

Many theorize it’s some sort of bug or glitch. That their story just vanished into the void.

I’m going to share a different theory on what the problem is.

Because there is no glitch.

The story queue isn’t being moderated.

It’s being curated.

Between 12/04 and 12/10, 1,144 stories were published across 29 categories. Take a look at how many stories have been posted in each category for the past week, and compare to your experience.

Submitted to the First Time category and still waiting two weeks later? Well, that might be because so few stories in that category are published daily. Or were you someone who submitted to, say, Erotic Couplings, and found your story posted within a day or two?


1765438533964.jpeg


1765438679499.jpeg







1765438763677.png



Here’s the deal. Those little story stat icons? You think they’re just for authors to feel good?

Nah, bro.

They’re internal metrics for the site. They’re tracking what gets clicks.

What gets read.

And what brings in the money.

It’s business.

And your long, heartfelt slow-burn lesbian romance with deep character work?

Yeah. That’s getting sidelined for whatever other story the stats say is more likely to get clicks.

Notice how the Novels and Novellas category is capped at 3-5 stories published per day. You think it’s because that category somehow receives exactly 3-5 submissions daily?

Come on now.

After taking a look at the stats in that category, it's easy to see that its intentionally being throttled because the stories there just don't get views.

Take a look for yourself:

1765439217689.jpeg



Most of those stories are getting just a few hundred views at most.

Listen, when I submitted my story on 12/04, it was approved within 6 hours.

Why?

Because my story was a satirical takedown of gay erotica tropes.

It was funny as hell.

I knew it. And so did the person who read it.

So they fast-tracked it, knowing it would get views.

And it did.



1765439561922.jpeg


Notice how most of the stories in Gay Male have thousands of views compared to just the few hundreds in Novels and Novellas?

Is it any surprise then, when one category is more heavily published over the other?

And save the lazy argument of, “Well, that just means it gets more submissions.” High view counts don’t automatically translate into drastically higher submission rates. There’s no direct link between how many people read a category and how many authors submit to it.

It doesn’t work like that.

But all that aside, those few thousand views on those stories in the Gay Male category?

Bruh.

They ain't shit compared to the top dog on this godforsaken site.

That crown belongs to Taboo/Incest.

My jaw about hit the damn floor when I clicked on that category and saw those view counts. There were stories with fifty thousand views.

Fifty. Thousand.

Holy-fuck-your-mama-moly-Jesus-Joseph-and-Mary, man.

It's kind of funny though, when you think about it.

Literotica is nothing but a bunch of motherfuckers.

Literally.


1000051039.jpg


So if you're still wondering, “Why is my story stuck in pending?” or “Why did someone else’s go live in hours?”

The answer’s simple: You’re not in a queue. You’re in a content triage system.

Stories that resemble previous high-performers are fast-tracked.

Categories that consistently draw traffic are cleared daily, while niche, slow-burn, or long-form fiction gets benched.

And if your timer resets?

That’s because someone opened your story… and didn’t think it would pull views.

This isn’t a conspiracy. This is data.

And if there’s one thing we can confirm, it's that on Literotica, Incest is Best.

You’re not cursed. There is no glitch.

You’re just not Daddy.

And this site?

It loves Daddy.
 

Attachments

  • 1765439562068.jpeg
    1765439562068.jpeg
    210 KB · Views: 5
  • 1765439217772.jpeg
    1765439217772.jpeg
    245.4 KB · Views: 4
Over the past two and a half years, I've published in twelve or thirteen categories. Almost all my stories have been approved within a few hours - including T/I, EC, R&E and even Chain Stories. "Too Cold Not to Fuck" (with 190k views in T/&) wasn't approved any faster than "The Countesses of Tannensdal" (which took months to reach 1k views in EH).

If the site wants to spread the volume, it does this by giving your story a later publication date, not by leaving it in Pending.
 
According to your list, Sci-Fi & Fantasy at #5 on the most stories posted. The average views are on the low end, just above N&N, L&T, etc. Mature is #14 and easily just below LW and Incest for views. Anal is #24 and sits in the same tier as Mature for views. And that's just 3. Erotic Couplings is barely 3rd tier for views, and #2 on your list.

The reason there are so many incest stories and erotic couplings is because there aren't that many places where you can post pure unbridled incest, and erotic couplings is the catch-all category for whatever doesn't fit anywhere else. Incest also "sells" so authors are naturally going to try to get in on that action.

Your analysis is horrendously flawed and obviously tailored to fit a predetermined conclusion.
 
Over the past two and a half years, I've published in twelve or thirteen categories. Almost all my stories have been approved within a few hours - including T/I, EC, R&E and even Chain Stories. "Too Cold Not to Fuck" (with 190k views in T/&) wasn't approved any faster than "The Countesses of Tannensdal" (which took months to reach 1k views in EH).

If the site wants to spread the volume, it does this by giving your story a later publication date, not by leaving it in Pending.
Yep, that's my observation too. Over the last decade the site has always spread the publication dates so that the category release is as evenly distributed as it can be, given the disproportionate incoming volumes.

The pending issue, I suspect, is intrinsically to do with the likely volume of AI junk the site is trying to cope with.
 
The analysis ignores the historical submission/publishing experiences that many here have seen. Unless this alleged implementation of this "clicks driven" vetting of submitted works aligns with the timing of when the relatively recent publishing delay began, where is the correlation?

Absent data on when the published stories within each category were submitted compared to the day it was published, the "delay" factor is also missing from the analysis.
 
Over the past two and a half years, I've published in twelve or thirteen categories. Almost all my stories have been approved within a few hours - including T/I, EC, R&E and even Chain Stories. "Too Cold Not to Fuck" (with 190k views in T/&) wasn't approved any faster than "The Countesses of Tannensdal" (which took months to reach 1k views in EH).

If the site wants to spread the volume, it does this by giving your story a later publication date, not by leaving it in Pending.
Counter argument: your stories might rake in more clicks than others. An author with many followers or even despite lacking followers gets a lot of clicks? Fast track to get clicks.

And I can imagine why. It is probably not malice. It is simply to stay in the air and have a comfortable income at the same time. With ad blockers rampant and ad revenue low regardless how you slice it, it can be hard to pay off your mortgage on a site alone. This is why so many creators have merch. The margins on those often aren't big, but a whole lot better than ad revenue.

The second thing is attention. You're always combatting for attention online. Why wouldn't people go to their social feed on Facebook, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Insta, Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, Discord, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Flickr... The list of apps that send notifications is endless. The content and notifications carefully moderated by advanced algorithms to keep your attention.

Who can blame a site for trying to stay relevant with relevant stories? I don't. It sure is painful stories are in the waiting list, and a more properly managed site could probably reduce that time and allow more stories, and thus a better blooming community. As is, they are probably doing their best while managing their users.
 
My Transgender category stories have, for the most part, been published within 2 days of submission, with usually another 1-2 day delay before they go live.

The only ones that are "stuck" is a rewrite of one that got flagged for AI use, and part 2 non-con story that I think might have gotten shuffled into a queue for human review to make sure it fits within the site rules. Also both in the Transgender category.

Transgender is way down on your list.

Also, while I tend to write gay/trans male fiction, my work runs the gamut from contemporary soft-dom BDSM romance to sci-fi dubcon and even includes crossdressing. It doesnt make sense to say that only stories that have done well in the past are fast-tracked. I can tell you from personal experience that trans male fiction is definitely a niche interest on this site.

I dont think your data actually supports your conclusions.
(Signed, a data scientist)
 
Everything we've seen so far indicates that it's chaos that rules and not some clear purpose when it comes to publishing. I don't believe in your theory, not because it doesn't make sense, but because I also think that data doesn't support it.

For example, there seems to be a whitelist for authors who are deemed to be in the green when it comes to AI usage, but for some reason, there are brand new authors who seem to be in it. It's hard to gleam sense from Lit's actions when there isn't any.
 
I found that the more I posted, the quicker my material was released. Even when I entered into the Survivor fray, my stories made it up quickly regardless of category. I'd suggest that those that have stories with less chances of mechanical errors, AI issues, and generally decent proven flow are checked first over new authors that type with mittens on.

That being said, I write for the T/I category much of the time and enjoy the large number of Lit lusters that lap up my work. Watching the view count of the other categories was like watching paint dry vs the thrusting growth of bamboo.

Great post, @inkognito
 
Everything we've seen so far indicates that it's chaos that rules and not some clear purpose when it comes to publishing. I don't believe in your theory, not because it doesn't make sense, but because I also think that data doesn't support it.

For example, there seems to be a whitelist for authors who are deemed to be in the green when it comes to AI usage, but for some reason, there are brand new authors who seem to be in it. It's hard to gleam sense from Lit's actions when there isn't any.
I would suspect that you are right, and my latest story tends to support this.

Based upon none of my previous stories seeing a publishing delay, my last story sitting in my pending folder for 15 days was an anomaly for me. Then, the fact that a simple PM to Laurel got it released immediately for publishing would indicate that not much of a review went into the approval. I don't know if I am "whitelisted" per se, it seems to have simply "fallen through the cracks" until I brought it to Laurel's attention.

By the way, it was published in the Loving Wives category on 12/9/25 and is averaging over 5,100 views per day so far.
 
Aight homies.

You clicked, I’m talkin’. Let’s jump in.

By now, anyone who even casually browses the forum has seen the flood of posts about stories being rejected for AI, or stories stuck in queue limbo for days, weeks, and even months.

We’ve all heard about stories getting posted almost instantly, while others rot unseen.

Many theorize it’s some sort of bug or glitch. That their story just vanished into the void.

I’m going to share a different theory on what the problem is.

Because there is no glitch.

The story queue isn’t being moderated.

It’s being curated.

Between 12/04 and 12/10, 1,144 stories were published across 29 categories. Take a look at how many stories have been posted in each category for the past week, and compare to your experience.

Submitted to the First Time category and still waiting two weeks later? Well, that might be because so few stories in that category are published daily. Or were you someone who submitted to, say, Erotic Couplings, and found your story posted within a day or two?


View attachment 2582698


View attachment 2582699







View attachment 2582701



Here’s the deal. Those little story stat icons? You think they’re just for authors to feel good?

Nah, bro.

They’re internal metrics for the site. They’re tracking what gets clicks.

What gets read.

And what brings in the money.

It’s business.

And your long, heartfelt slow-burn lesbian romance with deep character work?

Yeah. That’s getting sidelined for whatever other story the stats say is more likely to get clicks.

Notice how the Novels and Novellas category is capped at 3-5 stories published per day. You think it’s because that category somehow receives exactly 3-5 submissions daily?

Come on now.

After taking a look at the stats in that category, it's easy to see that its intentionally being throttled because the stories there just don't get views.

Take a look for yourself:

View attachment 2582705



Most of those stories are getting just a few hundred views at most.

Listen, when I submitted my story on 12/04, it was approved within 6 hours.

Why?

Because my story was a satirical takedown of gay erotica tropes.

It was funny as hell.

I knew it. And so did the person who read it.

So they fast-tracked it, knowing it would get views.

And it did.



View attachment 2582708


Notice how most of the stories in Gay Male have thousands of views compared to just the few hundreds in Novels and Novellas?

Is it any surprise then, when one category is more heavily published over the other?

And save the lazy argument of, “Well, that just means it gets more submissions.” High view counts don’t automatically translate into drastically higher submission rates. There’s no direct link between how many people read a category and how many authors submit to it.

It doesn’t work like that.

But all that aside, those few thousand views on those stories in the Gay Male category?

Bruh.

They ain't shit compared to the top dog on this godforsaken site.

That crown belongs to Taboo/Incest.

My jaw about hit the damn floor when I clicked on that category and saw those view counts. There were stories with fifty thousand views.

Fifty. Thousand.

Holy-fuck-your-mama-moly-Jesus-Joseph-and-Mary, man.

It's kind of funny though, when you think about it.

Literotica is nothing but a bunch of motherfuckers.

Literally.


View attachment 2582719


So if you're still wondering, “Why is my story stuck in pending?” or “Why did someone else’s go live in hours?”

The answer’s simple: You’re not in a queue. You’re in a content triage system.

Stories that resemble previous high-performers are fast-tracked.

Categories that consistently draw traffic are cleared daily, while niche, slow-burn, or long-form fiction gets benched.

And if your timer resets?

That’s because someone opened your story… and didn’t think it would pull views.

This isn’t a conspiracy. This is data.

And if there’s one thing we can confirm, it's that on Literotica, Incest is Best.

You’re not cursed. There is no glitch.

You’re just not Daddy.

And this site?

It loves Daddy.

Three points:

#1) while from a business sense your theory that stories that will get more clicks get fast tracked make sense, it's at odds with the fact that only 1 person is doing the approval process and she can't possibly give each of the hundreds of stories approved daily more than a cursory glance

#2) you are saying that more t/i stories are approved because that's what most people want so the site is giving it to them. But doesn't it also track that the most popular category for readers would also be the most popular category for writers anyway? And, conversely, unpopular categories with the general public should be expected to be relatively unpopular with the writers as well. There is no reason to think that everyone wants to READ incest and yet all writers only want to WRITE romance.

eta: follow this forum for even a short time and see how many new first-time writers post on here saying "Hi, everyone. I want to write a story about incest." - and you'll note that they never, ever follow that up with "not because I like incest but because that's what the site wants to publish." Even with dozens of categories, curiously, coincidentally, it's always incest.

#3) in both here and the other thread you posted the data in, you theorize that there is a limit on the NN category. But since that category, by definition, is going to be much longer than the average story, doesn't it also track that there are fewer submissions of stories in the 50k word range than there would be in the 5k word range? I think you're confusing the cause-and-effect there.
 
Last edited:
Oh, a fourth point: I totally approve of the fact that you incorporated not one, but TWO puns in your title alone!!
 
I’ve only submitted two stories - both true - about a year ago. Need to post a few more.

They were my experience with ‘hands-free prostate massage’ and ‘mature mutual masturbation.’ Each was posted within a few days.
 
Last edited:
Over the past two and a half years, I've published in twelve or thirteen categories. Almost all my stories have been approved within a few hours - including T/I, EC, R&E and even Chain Stories. "Too Cold Not to Fuck" (with 190k views in T/&) wasn't approved any faster than "The Countesses of Tannensdal" (which took months to reach 1k views in EH).

If the site wants to spread the volume, it does this by giving your story a later publication date, not by leaving it in Pending.

I have submitted 77 stories, of which two were in any of the top ten "Daddy" categories. With the exception of my most recent, which got stuck in pending, none have taken more than two or three days to be published. Of course that is anecdotal, but at least five people have already responded that their posting experiences are counter to this theory, and enough anecdotes, added up, become statistics.

I do believe that keeping content in the most popular categories flowing may be a factor in approval times, but if so, that it is probably one of several factors. I do not believe that there is any sort of official white list either, but I certainly believe that when someone like RejectReality or ElectricBlue comes up in the queue, it's likely they get clicked through with little or no scrutiny, while newer authors, or those who have previously been problematic, get a closer look.
 
Counter argument: your stories might rake in more clicks than others. An author with many followers or even despite lacking followers gets a lot of clicks? Fast track to get clicks.
My very first story was approved within an hour and published the following morning. It was SF&F, and by the time I took it down six months later it had fewer than 4k views. I have great admiration for Laurel and her understanding of erotica, but I doubt even she read my story and thought, "Within a few months this chap will be writing an Incest series that will bring in more than half a million clicks."
 
<...>

For example, there seems to be a whitelist for authors who are deemed to be in the green when it comes to AI usage, but for some reason, there are brand new authors who seem to be in it. It's hard to gleam sense from Lit's actions when there isn't any.
My idea about most of the AI complaints is that people do use AI in one form or another in their stories.

AI is so much hyped and used, it is too easy to grab and try to post it. Some people might use it without realising, as many (non-native) writers use programs to help them construct a decent sentence. Word suggestions, grammar rules or auto complete, it can all lead to language that AI uses a lot.

The people who legitimately wrote their stories and got caught in the filter are in all probability few.
 
My idea about most of the AI complaints is that people do use AI in one form or another in their stories.

AI is so much hyped and used, it is too easy to grab and try to post it. Some people might use it without realising, as many (non-native) writers use programs to help them construct a decent sentence. Word suggestions, grammar rules or auto complete, it can all lead to language that AI uses a lot.

The people who legitimately wrote their stories and got caught in the filter are in all probability few.

^---- this. The # of people whose stories get delayed who then also say "Sure, I use Grammarly but I don't let it change anything" seems to be way to high to be coincidental. Or everyone on here uses Grammarly except me.

Similarly the # of people that say they use auto-translation tools when auto-translation tools are no where near capable of accurately translating entire stories yet is crazy.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top