The minors rule

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I am a literotica virgin. I have no intent to violate the 18 yo rule. I also do not want to waste the time of a reviewer who may has to review the story for publication. I have found it has taken some of my character development paths away from me, but the main thrust of my story is still surviving.

I do have one section where I am developing an older character who decides not to have sex with a younger character until the younger one reaches 18. The story spells out the older character's life choices in waiting, having wanted to have sex with the younger character years before. No one has sex until they are 18. The younger character has no idea of the older one's lust until they are 18. There is no "grooming" or "implicit intent" involved. It seems this is well within the bounds not only of the rule, but the intent of the rule.

Does anyone disagree with this, or should I pitch that whole section of the story?
 
First of all, how did you even find a 20 year old thread to reply to?

I do have one section where I am developing an older character who decides not to have sex with a younger character until the younger one reaches 18. The story spells out the older character's life choices in waiting, having wanted to have sex with the younger character years before. No one has sex until they are 18. The younger character has no idea of the older one's lust until they are 18. There is no "grooming" or "implicit intent" involved. It seems this is well within the bounds not only of the rule, but the intent of the rule.
Depends on how much time and detail you spend on it. You can mention it in passing, but if it's an important plot point that you'd spend some time on, you'd want to rework it.

On Lit, characters emerge as sexual beings at 18. Before that, they had nary an inkling that sex even exists.
 
I am a literotica virgin. I have no intent to violate the 18 yo rule. I also do not want to waste the time of a reviewer who may has to review the story for publication. I have found it has taken some of my character development paths away from me, but the main thrust of my story is still surviving.

I do have one section where I am developing an older character who decides not to have sex with a younger character until the younger one reaches 18. The story spells out the older character's life choices in waiting, having wanted to have sex with the younger character years before. No one has sex until they are 18. The younger character has no idea of the older one's lust until they are 18. There is no "grooming" or "implicit intent" involved. It seems this is well within the bounds not only of the rule, but the intent of the rule.

Does anyone disagree with this, or should I pitch that whole section of the story?
Sounds like grooming to me.
 
I am a literotica virgin. I have no intent to violate the 18 yo rule. I also do not want to waste the time of a reviewer who may has to review the story for publication. I have found it has taken some of my character development paths away from me, but the main thrust of my story is still surviving.

I do have one section where I am developing an older character who decides not to have sex with a younger character until the younger one reaches 18. The story spells out the older character's life choices in waiting, having wanted to have sex with the younger character years before. No one has sex until they are 18. The younger character has no idea of the older one's lust until they are 18. There is no "grooming" or "implicit intent" involved. It seems this is well within the bounds not only of the rule, but the intent of the rule.

The "wanted to have sex with the younger character years before [age 18]" is likely to be a deal-breaker. Laurel (the story moderator) takes a fairly broad interpretation of sexual activity; things like voyeurism, masturbation, and fantasising all count. You could PM her to be sure.

I've written a story where the two characters meet when one is 23 and the other is 16, then end up in a sexual relationship years later when the ages are something like 30-23, and that went through without problems. But there was no hint of attraction while one of them was a minor.
 
I do have one section where I am developing an older character who decides not to have sex with a younger character until the younger one reaches 18. The story spells out the older character's life choices in waiting, having wanted to have sex with the younger character years before. No one has sex until they are 18. The younger character has no idea of the older one's lust until they are 18. There is no "grooming" or "implicit intent" involved. It seems this is well within the bounds not only of the rule, but the intent of the rule.

Does anyone disagree with this, or should I pitch that whole section of the story?
That sounds like grooming to me, despite your disclaimer. If the younger person "has no idea" while the older person contemplates it, surely that's grooming?

Based on that, you might have problems getting it past Laurel.
 
Sailing close to the edge, IMHO, but not over it.

The older one noticing the other and thinking ‘Very pretty, but too young’ should work provided you don’t go into exhaustive detail and provided you stayed well away from any actions which could be seen as grooming.

The ultimate judge is of course Laurel and in my experience she’s always been willing to give guidance via PM. That might save you a lot of effort.
 
I am a literotica virgin. I have no intent to violate the 18 yo rule. I also do not want to waste the time of a reviewer who may has to review the story for publication. I have found it has taken some of my character development paths away from me, but the main thrust of my story is still surviving.

I do have one section where I am developing an older character who decides not to have sex with a younger character until the younger one reaches 18. The story spells out the older character's life choices in waiting, having wanted to have sex with the younger character years before. No one has sex until they are 18. The younger character has no idea of the older one's lust until they are 18. There is no "grooming" or "implicit intent" involved. It seems this is well within the bounds not only of the rule, but the intent of the rule.

Does anyone disagree with this, or should I pitch that whole section of the story?

The legal requirements have little meaning, then?
 
I'm pretty sure necrophilia is off the list too, which makes me wonder where this thread now fits in... is it reanimation? Resurrection? Or should it just be allowed to die once and for all?
 
The legal requirements have little meaning, then?

There are no "legal requirements." What the person has described is not in any way against the law. It's definitely skirting the line with being in violation of Lit's internal rules (my personal view is it crosses the line), which have nothing to do with the law.
 
The legal requirements have little meaning, then?
None whatsoever on Lit. Surely you know by now, HP, that Lit's 18 year old rule has nothing to do with legal positions in any jurisdiction. It's a site policy that's the line here.
 
What about high school? Technically, a small portion of high school students are over 18. Can I write about high school students?
[EDIT: Fuck, I need to start checking posting dates! I'm answering a question that was asked way before I was 18. Hahaha]

.............

You have a few options.

Write about highschool, and don't mention grades or ages. You might get rejected or maybe not.

Write about highschool and DO be specific that you are only featuring seniors. This will work.

Write about highschool, and don't mention grades or ages but put in a disclaimer that all characters are 18+. This will almost certainly work.

My personal favorite places the story in an alternate timeline where children don't start school until 8 years old, so as a result highschool starts at 18 and ends at 21. 18 becomes the age of consent, and 21 is the age of adulthood. (That allows all the highschool sex drama without breaking any rules)

Regardless, you should always include a disclaimer to the editor that all characters are 18+
(That doesn't immediately absolve you of whatever you write, if you are lying ... but it literally CANNOT hurt)
 
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The recurrence of this issue is fascinating. Laurel has posted some guidelines on the issue, and it would take less time to look them up and read them and absorb them than to noodle over them in the Author's Hangout. My general sense of the "rules" from the Site's point of view:

1. This isn't a legal issue. There is nothing illegal whatsoever about writing stories about people under 18 having sex. At least, that's true in the USA.
2. Laurel has been clear (look at her response in this thread, dating back to 2001!!!) that this isn't a legal issue. She has agreed with my position for the last 22 years that fiction should not be illegal, regardless of its content.
3. The "No under 18" rule is a bright line rule. The purpose of a bright line rule is to make it easy to administer and to reduce confusion. It may yield results to you that seem strange, because we all know that people under 18 have sex. So what? There's still a good reason to have a bright line rule. It doesn't have to make sense to your sensibilities for it to be a useful rule.
4. If you make it clear that everyone in the story is 18 or over, your story is probably fine UNLESS you describe the characters in a way that makes it appear you are trying to get around the rule and turn on your readers by featuring characters who aren't really 18 even though you describe them that way. If your story involves high school seniors that are 18 or over, you're probably fine. If your story involves characters you describe as 18 but they're high school freshmen, you're obviously cheating, right? Avoid obviously trying to get around the rules, and you'll probably be fine.
5. "Sex" is defined broadly for purposes of applying this rule. It means you can't feature under 18 people being the objects of sexual desire, or voyeurism, or lusting after others or being lusted after by others. You can't describe how when you were 17 you spied on your 15 year old sister in the shower.
6. It is OK to make very brief, cursory, non-titillating references to one's pre-18 experience like "I lost my virginity when I was 17." But you can't do much more than that.
7. No, the rules are not applied with perfect consistency, because the Site gets 70-100 new stories every day and Laurel is the only person who reviews them, and she cannot possibly read every single story all the way through, and things slip through the cracks. Deal with it.
 
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