Is erotica sexual harassment?

[madelinemasoch]

Artists draw inspiration from their surroundings/environments all the time. In fact, I can’t imagine where else one would draw their inspiration from aside from divine or demonic intervention. My question is both legal and ethical: is it sexual harassment to publish stories on this site that include characters which are inspired by/based on/look like real people? I’m not talking celebrities; that’s aside the point here, as I’ve already seen celebrities being discussed in Reddit threads. I’m talking about regular civilians you know or even strangers you have seen. I’m also asking both with and without the consent of the person. Is it sexual harassment? Is it illegal? Is it immoral? Is there any precedent behind this issue?

 

[lustychimera]

I think you're right that it's absolutely natural to take characteristics from people you know. But it does veer into immoral if you're just straight up inserting that person into your work for whatever reason. Short of that, no.

Edit: And from my understanding, libel is very very difficult lawsuit. Someone not only has to hurt your reputation, but they also have to cost you a financial loss.

For precedent, look at the Johnny Depp case.

 

[madelinemasoch]

I think you're right that it's absolutely natural to take characteristics from people you know. But it does veer into immoral if you're just straight up inserting that person into your work for whatever reason. Short of that, no.

Edit: And from my understanding, libel is very very difficult lawsuit. Someone not only has to hurt your reputation, but they also have to cost you a financial loss.

For precedent, look at the Johnny Depp case.

Where do you draw the line between taking characteristics and inserting people into work?

 

[Bramblethorn]

IMHO it becomes "harassment" at the point where there's a prospect of it affecting the subject.

If I write a series of stories about having sex with [real person I know], using their real name and other attributes that would identify them, that stands a chance of getting back to them and making them uncomfortable, or having other people read it and react in ways that will bother the subject. Legality will vary but I think there's a good chance it could qualify as some form of harassment in many places. If the story suggests harmful falsehoods about the subject, it could also fall under defamation/libel. There was a case in the early days of the Internet where a student posted up a snuff story about his classmate, and I seem to recall he got a criminal conviction for that.

OTOH, if the description is sufficiently anonymised that there's no chance anybody would read it and figure out who I'm writing about, that's not harassment in my book.

There's still an argument to be had about whether it's some other kind of immoral. I've heard people argue that wanking while fantasising about another person is involving them in sexual activity without their consent. I don't accept that argument - the person in my head is not the real person - but some people do believe it.

A lot of ink has been spilled on this subject where celebrities are concerned; searching on something like "ethics of real-person fic" will probably find you plenty. But I haven't seen as much regarding non-celebs, probably because RPF usually focusses on the famous.

 

[lustychimera]

Where do you draw the line between taking characteristics and inserting people into work?

For example, I was raised evangelical. And I remember several kids who were homeschooled all their lives. More broadly, they tended to be very happy, naive, and weird in the sense that they were really passionate about niche interests, like I had a friend who, when he was in his 20's, invented this live action role playing gave where he'd get a group together, they'd go down to the local park, and swing swords at each other. They didn't give a fuck what people thought about them. They just wanted to do their thing.

I don't see anything wrong with writing a character who embodies those traits. But I would never write a character that's him, someone with all his mannerisms and speech quirks--things like that. I might save those for another character.

I think of it like taking little pieces from here and there and making a collage out of them for my characterizations. You gotta find that pieces that fit.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think you have to be clearer about your question. Nobody can give you an accurate answer unless you are crystal clear.

No, publishing stories on the Internet that are in some way based on real people is not a form of sexual harassment, in a legal sense. It might involve invasion of privacy, or defamation. One would have to know the specifics of the case to form a valid legal or ethical opinion on the subject.

If you publish a story based on a real person, and you write it in a way that readers reasonably would believe that the things that you are saying about this person are true, AND readers have a reasonable prospect of identifying the person that you are writing about, and IF the things you write are false and defamatory--meaning likely to injure that person's reputation--then you may be liable for defamation. But note that the person claiming defamation has a number of things to prove to prove a case.

In the United States, "invasion of privacy" is a matter of state law, so it depends on the state in which the alleged action happens. If you reveal facts about a person's private life without their consent that might cause them injury in their lives, then in some jurisdictions that person might have a claim against you. It depends on the jurisdiction and the circumstances. Law aside, it seems clear to me that revealing personal private things about another person in an erotic story without that person's consent is obviously wrong, so one shouldn't do it regardless of the jurisdiction in which one lives.

I don't think there's any support in the law in the US that this sort of conduct would constitute harassment. It might be if it's clear that you are publishing a story with the malicious intent of exposing something private about somebody and hurting that person. But I'm speculating. I'm not aware that such conduct ever has been found to be harassment.

Ethically: I think it's perfectly fine to take experiences from real life and create stories out of them AS LONG AS you are not lying about, outing, or revealing private information about a person without that person's consent. If there is even a slim chance that a reader could identify the real person based on your story, then you should re-write the story so they cannot, UNLESS they consent.

My view is that if in this situation you focus hard on doing the RIGHT thing, then you don't have to worry about the complicated legal and ethical implications. Just do what's right. Be good and fair to others. Then you avoid all the tricky questions.

 

[mildlyaroused]

A fascinating question. I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion, but my answer would be a fairly resounding no. It's not immoral, it's not harassment, and it's not illegal - within reason.

Every author writes from their own experiences. Whether we know it or not, we are writing about people we've met and noticed. I know that I sometimes insert the eccentricities/characteristics of real people straight into my stories, if I find them compelling enough. I insert emotional dilemmas that I've had with real-world partners, family and friends into my stories. Sometimes I write things that would likely be difficult for people close to me to read, because they might recognise elements of our own relationships/experiences in the fictional characters.

But that's just how fiction works. I'm not writing about my life, or the people I know. I'm writing fiction, even if fragments of it are true to life.

Maybe it's controversial, but I think this all stands true for erotica. I don't think it's immoral to imagine sexual fantasies with someone, and I equally don't think it's immoral to explore those fantasies as fiction. If you're sharing those fantasies, though, I do think you have a responsibility to turn this "person" into a "character." They can't live where they live, or be named what they're named, etc. That's when it becomes harassment. They cannot be identifiable.

There's no line, though. It's a spectrum, and the closer you write to real life, the more careful you have to be. This is what makes the legality of it so difficult. Fiction as defamation is often impossible to prove. Fiction as an art form is protected to an extent.

 

[Stopokochac]

You bring up a very interesting point which has crossed my mind as well. This reminds me of the guy that sued Sacha Baron Cohen for saying he was a terrorist, even though he technically didn't use his real name. I didn't think someone could win a slander case, if their real name wasn't used and people were aware the film was only satire, but apparently the guy won. The Romanian villagers also tried to sue him for the same thing, even though he also didn't use their real names or occupations. That one didn't get anywhere. Personally, I wouldn't consider that slander, but I'm no lawyer. But surely there's a reason that movies and TV shows often put a disclaimer that says, any characters resembling real people are purely coincidencal. And I know the actual people that "Stillwater" and "The Crush" were based off of, tried to sue the production company too.
Someone told me Literotica only allows "fictional" stories, because writing about real people without their consent is technically illegal, but we all know it happens anyways. And assuming the person were to find it and their names were changed, they would have to proof it was actually a story about them, which would be pretty difficult. Another person said it's illegal to publish artwork using real people's faces.
But that's the LEGAL aspect of it, which would need to be looked at by a lawyer.
The MORALITY of it is a whole nother issue. But as you said, it's very common for artists/authors to draw inspiration from real life. And I personally wouldn't consider it "sexual harassment", though again, I'm no lawyer, but I can see why someone would be creeped out if they found out someone wrote such a story about them without their approval. I know one of my friends thought it was creepy that her ex was writing erotica about girls he knew in real life

 

[madelinemasoch]

Someone told me Literotica only allows "fictional" stories, because writing about real people without their consent is technically illegal, but we all know it happens anyways.

Illegal according to what law, specifically?

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Artists draw inspiration from their surroundings/environments all the time. In fact, I can’t imagine where else one would draw their inspiration from aside from divine or demonic intervention. My question is both legal and ethical: is it sexual harassment to publish stories on this site that include characters which are inspired by/based on/look like real people? I’m not talking celebrities; that’s aside the point here, as I’ve already seen celebrities being discussed in Reddit threads. I’m talking about regular civilians you know or even strangers you have seen. I’m also asking both with and without the consent of the person. Is it sexual harassment? Is it illegal? Is it immoral? Is there any precedent behind this issue?

No.

 

[Stopokochac]

Illegal according to what law, specifically?

IDK. The person didn't say.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Many of my stories are inspired by people I've known intimately, casually, or complete strangers, and I write them in various degrees into fantasy.

Change names (assuming I even knew names) and locations, go vague about time and place, add in the distance of decades, add fantasy - who will know? Readers can't separate fantasy from fiction at the best of times, so unless you named someone as well as yourself explicitly - outed yourself at the same time - I can't ever think why it's an issue. We're all anonymous here, thus we're all deniable.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Would y’all say that enough of a physical description of a character makes it “recognizable” as a real person? Even if the names are changed and no other private information is revealed?

 

[mildlyaroused]

I don't think physical descriptions are enough to make them recognisable.

Using someone's likeness in written fiction is different to erotic art or imagery, because no reader will exactly imagine how the person really looks from words alone.

So unless it's coupled with other information, looks alone shouldn't do it.

 

[alohadave]

Would y’all say that enough of a physical description of a character makes it “recognizable” as a real person? Even if the names are changed and no other private information is revealed?

Depends on what makes someone recognizable. You could describe my gender, height, hair color, eye color, and ethnic background and it would cover about 5 million people. Describe my tattoos and it's much easier to identify me.

Personally Identifiable Characteristics are what you want to be aware of when taking inspiration from real people.

 

[RetroFan]

You would have to be pretty stupid to write stories about people you know using their real names and other information that specifically identify them. For example, if you live in a town in Maryland and write an Incest Taboo story about the family across the street using their actual names, occupations and set in the actual town where they live plus other identifying information such as naming the street where their house is located, describing their pets and the types of cars they drive and you get hit with a lawsuit, you have nobody else to blame but yourself.

The legal action though as others have said would fall under libel/defamation rather than sexual harassment. It would be sexual harassment say if some guy at a workplace shows a pretty co-worker one of the stories on the site, reading out some of the lines to her and saying that he wanted to undertake similar sex acts with her. But this has nothing to do with the author who wrote the story or Lit themselves.

Celebrity fan-fiction is far murkier waters, and I am not a lawyer so no way would I try to interpret it. I know there are rules disallowing IT or Non-Con celebrity stories on this site, but I personally avoid it at all costs. Sure, if you write an erotic story about an actual actress getting up to various X-rated activities on the set of an actual movie or TV show nothing may happen, but there is always the real and un-nerving risk of legal problems for such an action.

What of coincidental names and situations in fiction? I've heard this is on a case-by-case basis. For example, one would rarely (we hope) meet a man named Humbert Humbert, the main character of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial 1955 novel 'Lolita', and a man whose reprehensible actions make this name a by-word for pedophile. Now say there really was a man named Humbert Humbert who in the 1950s who took umbrage at his real life name being used in a best-selling novel this way and tried to take legal action against the author and publishers. If this Humbert Humbert had lived in Sydney Australia (where his was born), worked as a train driver and was married with three sons, then such an action would hardly succeed as the character's circumstances are so different from the real life man with this name. But if there was a Humbert Humbert from one of the states of New England, a writer who had moved to the USA from France in the late 1940s to teach literature at college, was married to a widow named Charlotte from whom he originally rented a room and he was stepfather to Charlotte's teenage daughter Dolores, then yes, there might be the prospect of a lawsuit.

I always put a disclaimer on my work stating that the characters and events are fictional and any similarity to real persons living or dead coincidental and unintentional.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Artists draw inspiration from their surroundings/environments all the time. In fact, I can’t imagine where else one would draw their inspiration from aside from divine or demonic intervention. My question is both legal and ethical: is it sexual harassment to publish stories on this site that include characters which are inspired by/based on/look like real people?

I'm going to push back on this idea. We are exposed to thousands of people both real and fictitious in our daily life and daily media consumption. We've seen 'the most attractive people in the world' on TV and we've probably vaguely lusted after a dozen pretty people we've passed in the street today alone. There's no need to base characters on one specific individual and it very rare for me to actually do so (almost never, but one exception incoming below).

For me, characters tend to develop as I'm chewing over the story. I tend to start with a general concept for a story and think what kind of characters would get involved in that kind of story and then, as their personalities and traits start to get firmed up, they start to exert their own influence on the story beats. Personally, I don't have to be massively visual when writing. I have written ten stories with one particular character, Hannah, but I can't actually visualize her face - and I don't particularly need to for the stories to work as what makes her attractive is mainly personality-driven.

Occasionally I might draw on certain specific traits. While writing my current story featuring a posh university student who works in a coffee shop, I was put in mind of the way Shelley Long in Cheers would always say "Norman" instead of "Norm" and that has become something of a reference for how I'm writing the dialogue for this character. But that's just one trait and not one that is even going to particularly leap out at the reader - for one this character is British and horsey posh rather than intellectual posh.

As others have said, there's a question of how close or how many traits a character needs to be ethically too close to a real friend or acquantance to use. One of the rare exceptions to me not basing my stories on real people is one fragment I have lying around featuring a mousey-girl carrying a (relative-to-her-size) massive cello through an airport. This image is partly based on someone I used to know at university (although we've never been to an airport together). At the moment in the fragment the character only has the traits 'mousy' and 'plays the cello'. If I added the trait 'Jewish' that would probably be enough for a common friend to realize who I was writing about. Even given that Lit is anonymous, I'd feel wrong doing that so if I ever flesh that piece out, I'd definitely be giving her other differentiating traits.

 

[nice90sguy]

My question is both legal and ethical

The world is getting sooo damn litigious these days; people are way too offended and hurt way too often; IMO they're often simply vengeful and greedy for compensation.

I'm sure you have a perfectly serviceable moral compass without needing to consult any oracles or legal precedents about harrassment.

 

[BBlaketbv]

In general? No
Fanart for celebrities has always been okay.
AI art is more on the edge and desperately needs some regulation.
As for stories about random people, you're fine.
As long as you don't go out of your way to specifically write the story to make it possible for a person to be identified.

 

[madelinemasoch]

In general? No
Fanart for celebrities has always been okay.
AI art is more on the edge and desperately needs some regulation.
As for stories about random people, you're fine.
As long as you don't go out of your way to specifically write the story to make it possible for a person to be identified.

I’m having trouble with this question because I like to be as descriptive and visual as possible, so that it would literally be possible for readers to see what I’m seeing in the original visualization of the idea. It’s a lot of fantasizing about real-life crushes I have, people who inspire me to create beautiful poetic devotional pieces of smut. I’m worried that this could be a problem and am paranoid about going to jail for publishing again.

 

[STrent]

Really good question.

My current work is part autobiographical: but they’re stories that have happened to me in various ways, either exaggerated or locations changed, names certainly changed and likenesses also.

But there’s an element of fictionalising the whole story to make a cohesive storyline: the two main characters are fictional: the girl is based on a combination of different people and is not “real”.

Sam, the male, has some of my experiences, but he approaches it differently. I dare say he handles it all better than I ever did!

Could Peta be identified as a real person? I don’t think so, she’s not “one person” but in reality a series of stories attributed to one character who was never real, that basically sews all of these different experiences together.

Could Sam be identified as me? No, he is not even described in the same way or have the same external characteristics.

The point here is that drawing from your own experiences must also come with the responsibility of knowing where to draw the line between the use of a real part of your life, or others, and how to present it in a way that is firmly a fiction.

There are thousands of novels out there that are flat out the real thing, even using people’s real names in some cases.

Think of some of the historically based novels where actual people have been used - or novelisations of films based on reality (just looking at Titanic, for example - both the film and the novelisation of James Cameron’s work was sued by the family of one of the officers of the Titanic for defamation based on how they portrayed him as a coward).

So my advice would be to change things enough to make it obviously a fiction. Drawing from real life makes things more “real” - that’s entirely legitimate for authorship.

Just make sure you don’t cross that red line into making it too “real”.

 

[nice90sguy]

going to jail for publishing again

Wait, what?

 

[STrent]

I’m having trouble with this question because I like to be as descriptive and visual as possible, so that it would literally be possible for readers to see what I’m seeing in the original visualization of the idea. It’s a lot of fantasizing about real-life crushes I have, people who inspire me to create beautiful poetic devotional pieces of smut. I’m worried that this could be a problem and am paranoid about going to jail for publishing…

I was with you until this next bit…

…again.

So I would ask, if you’ve been jailed for publishing before, and it was about the subject matter you have highlighted in the OP, why haven’t you learned the original lesson?

 

[madelinemasoch]

I was with you until this next bit…



So I would ask, if you’ve been jailed for publishing before, and it was about the subject matter you have highlighted in the OP, why haven’t you learned the original lesson?

Wait, what?

I meant publishing again, not going to jail again. I’ve never been to jail for publishing or for any reason. Lol.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Really good question.

My current work is part autobiographical: but they’re stories that have happened to me in various ways, either exaggerated or locations changed, names certainly changed and likenesses also.

But there’s an element of fictionalising the whole story to make a cohesive storyline: the two main characters are fictional: the girl is based on a combination of different people and is not “real”.

Sam, the male, has some of my experiences, but he approaches it differently. I dare say he handles it all better than I ever did!

Could Peta be identified as a real person? I don’t think so, she’s not “one person” but in reality a series of stories attributed to one character who was never real, that basically sews all of these different experiences together.

Could Sam be identified as me? No, he is not even described in the same way or have the same external characteristics.

The point here is that drawing from your own experiences must also come with the responsibility of knowing where to draw the line between the use of a real part of your life, or others, and how to present it in a way that is firmly a fiction.

There are thousands of novels out there that are flat out the real thing, even using people’s real names in some cases.

Think of some of the historically based novels where actual people have been used - or novelisations of films based on reality (just looking at Titanic, for example - both the film and the novelisation of James Cameron’s work was sued by the family of one of the officers of the Titanic for defamation based on how they portrayed him as a coward).

So my advice would be to change things enough to make it obviously a fiction. Drawing from real life makes things more “real” - that’s entirely legitimate for authorship.

Just make sure you don’t cross that red line into making it too “real”.

I guess I just don’t know where the line is or should be drawn in the case of my stories.