Thoughts on LIT's Rules.

[TheMalevolence]

Dis-Blamer: (See what I did there?) This is NOT another post bitching about LIT's rules on non-con. So there.

Hey guys! I wanted to know your thoughts on how vague and exploitable LIT's rules can be. We all know about the Big 3 Posting No-Noes:

1) Rape (Where the "victim" doesn't enjoy it)
2) Beastality (Sex with non-human creatures)
3) Underage Sex (Sex with under 18's involved in any way)

The problem is, if you think about it, all thee of these rules can be bypassed really easily; Let's say I wanted to write about a (Insert age) year old girl being raped by a monkey: (not sure why...)

...I gasped as he slid his giant hairy cock into my tight, (Insert age) year old, virgin pussy, making illiterate groans as he did so, I thought about my friends back in school, studying for their GCSE's while this giant monkey thrusted it's cock in and out of me. I screamed, tearing against the ropes it had used to bind me to the bed, trying to escape to no avail. It cummed powerfully inside of me, while I started to feel tears running down my cheeks, unable to escape the pure torture of being raped by such a powerful and evil creature.

Yeeeaaah, that's not getting approved any time soon, but let's make a few changes, and see how much more approvable it looks:

...I gasped as he slid his giant hairy cock into my tight, young, virgin pussy, making illiterate groans as he did so, I thought about my friends back in school, studying for their GCSE's while this giant monkey-like creature thrusted it's cock in and out of me. I screamed, tearing against the ropes it had used to bind me to the bed, trying to escape to no avail. It cummed powerfully inside of me, while I started to feel tears running down my cheeks, unable to escape the pure torture of being raped by such a powerful and evil creature.

..."Thank you" I whispered, when he was finally done, my alien lover preparing to return home, perhaps to use me again next time he was nearby. I had no idea what he was, but ever since I bypassed my parent's porn blocker, he'd helped me live out the rape fantasies I'd read on the internet. "Please, come back soon."

See what I did there? Let's look at the " Three Dreadly Sins" again:

1) Rape - Once the sexy, "rape" section of the story is over, the (hopefully) orgasm-striken reader couldn't care less about whether or not it was all staged, the for what the wanted! The last semi-paragraph I added establishes that it was actually staged.

2) Beastality - Again, in the last paragraph, we establish that the "Monkey-LIKE" creature is actually an alien, as we can see by all the tentacle stories and other non-human stories on LIT, this is usually allowed.

3) Underage - This one's easy; I removed the part about the "victim" being (Insert age) and replaced it with "young". The part about her friends doing her GCSE's tells us that she's around that age and DEFINITELY under 18, but LIT's rules only stop people from TELLING us that cadavers are under 18, technically, the under 18 part is being assumed by the reader.

Obviously, the paragraph I wrote was badly written, plotless, indescript and just generally shit, but I've proved my point.

Thoughts? Are loopholes like this a bad thing for lit?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Relax. Market pressure will force change cuz the market will go where the demand is met.

 

[lovecraft68]

To your number one I just posted something in story ideas because you're right.

If the story is 4k of a woman being brutally raped and the last 400 words describe it was her husband and some friends and it was a birthday gift, or they were shooting a porn video or a dream....

The person jerked off to rape pure and simple so the rule is useless and pure hypocrisy.

Example for incest...guy wakes up to a knock on his door, his mom comes in the room takes her robe off and fucks him silly....he then wakes up with alone with hard on, mom sleeping down the hall in her room, it was a dream.

So no incest, right? Of course there was, what is read will not be unread....you got off to an incest scenario.

So "no one was really raped in this story" is idiotic. The author knows from word one that they were not writing rape, but the reader does not and does not care. End of the day its fiction...was she raped or not? What's it matter its a story.

The second half is this...I know when lit says the victim should enjoy it their intent is to "soften it" it wasn't really rape. I know that is their intent

Problem? The message it sends is...."See, every woman really does want to be raped!" And if you're reading rape fantasy you are probably someone who wants to believe that so it does more harm then good

Lit should cut the hypocrisy and the end around games and simply say they allow full non consent, as long as its in its own category so people who want it can find it and those who don't like it can duck it, who cares?


Bestiality

Please....just please, this drives me crazy. Okay, that woman that just sucked a horse cock? Well the horse had a horn on its head! Its not a horse...so...its not bestiality

If its furry and its fucking and you are stroking you have a bestiality kink end of discussion!

I really believe that lits rules in NC and Bestiality are to make people feel better about their extreme kinks and its ridiculous, fantasy is fantasy. NC fans are not going to commit the crime of rape(I hope) and same with animals, its fiction so why the end around at all?

Underage I won't discuss it has been beaten like a dead horse-no wait, this is lit, a dead unicorn

 

[TheMalevolence]

This whole thread may or may not have been inspired by the reply you posted to that story ideas thread

 

[sr71plt]

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

 

[LesLumens]

You should probably edit out that numeric age reference in your first post. The rules on the forum are no different than the rules for stories in that regard.

So what are you trying to say? The rules are too loose and need to be hardened? The rules are too easy to bypass anyway and should be dropped?

*shrug* The rules keep things from deteriorating too much, and nobody can deny that. All it takes is one look at ASSR to see what happens in a free-for-all.

Even if people are slipping things through, you're not seeing heebie-jeebie-inducing titles and descriptions of the banned content blatantly displayed next to your work in the new story list, the way you do on sites with few or no restrictions.

If you want complete freedom, there are sites that cater to it, or have fewer restrictions. If you want stricter control over the content that isn't allowed than what we have here, there are sites that do that as well.

If you see something you think violates the rules, you report it. If something of yours gets rejected, you take it to another venue.

Talking about it here doesn't accomplish anything, because when you get right down to it, the only real rule is will Laurel allow it. Everything else is just a guideline pointing you in the direction of what will pass the bar of that rule.

 

[JKendallDane]

If its furry and its fucking and you are stroking you have a bestiality kink end of discussion!

So anyone who enjoys a well written werewolf story automatically has a "bestiality kink"? Really, LC?

With that reasoning, I guess that would mean that anyone who gets into vampire stories is a closet necrophiliac...right?

Now granted, unicorn and dinosaur sex does make me question just what does turn people on at times. Or make me not want to really know.

 

[Darkniciad]

Let me save you some trouble.

Most of the non human category is an end around for bestiality.

It's not worth discussing. Believe me

So anyone who enjoys a well written werewolf story automatically has a "bestiality kink"? Really, LC?

With that reasoning, I guess that would mean that anyone who gets into vampire stories is a closet necrophiliac...right?

 

[Hypoxia]

Rape: let the victim feel pleasure. Bestiality: avoid 'real' animals; make them talk. Underage: they can't LOOK or be described as under 18. Simple, eh?

 

[CyranoJ]

Thoughts? Are loopholes like this a bad thing for lit?

"Loopholes" are to some extent unavoidable in porn and erotica. It's a rather poorly-kept secret, for example, that quite a lot of "barely-legal teenager" erotica is probably surrogacy for more legally taboo sorts of fantasies. So, how much of it? Which specifically? How much time can you productively spend worrying about what this or that reader is "really" getting off on? The hypersexuality of a lot of porn characters even in the most vanilla scenarios likewise can imply fantasies about ugly attitudes to real life, healthy sexuality and gender attitudes as they are actually lived. How much of it? Which specifically? In whose case? If that's going to keep you up at night it's probably best not to write porn.

The same questions pertain to non-con or incest -- are the some of the readers of a non-con story getting off on the idea of real rape, disclaimers notwithstanding, and really want to IRL believe that rape victims want and deserve it? Are some of the readers of incest stories "really" getting off on the idea of real incest with none of the supposed caveats of "consensual adult incest" (or indeed, do some believe that "consensual adult incest" is an actual thing as it pertains to, say, daddy-daughter and mother-son romps)? Sure, some are in both cases. All? No. What proportion? You don't and can't know. Welcome to writing dark kinks in porn, that's an uncertainty you simply get to live with. Yes, it's uncomfortable, and if you ever reach a point where there's not some moral tension there, it's probably a bad sign.

Are werewolves and fantasy creatures probably a loophole for bestiality kink to some extent? Sure. To what extent? In whose case? Does it particularly matter? I don't know that it does; I for one don't particularly care. It's a loophole the site is comfortable with due to the personal preferences of the the proprietors, likewise with any of the above, and at the end of the day that's what matters. (That said, yeah, I'd grant you that rejecting horse sex but accepting unicorn sex, per Sean Renaud in that Story Ideas thread, doesn't make much sense. But if the proprietors contradict themselves... well then, they contradict themselves. They're entitled to enjoy their contradictions.)

Basically I'm not a huge fan of trying to sit in judgement of other people's kinks. It rarely goes well (at least no better than trying to judge who's really writing "erotica" and who's just writing "porn"). The best method of keeping down the squick factor for me is to try to promote awareness of actually knowing the difference between fantasy and reality and what your kinks would really imply if enacted in the latter. After that, it's probably a waste of time and energy to spend too much time worrying about what the other Jack or Jill is "really" rubbing one out to. That's between them and their therapist.

 

[TamLin01]

Yes, any content regulation can be weaseled around, if someone works hard enough. But that's not really the point, is it? And furthermore, it precludes any hypothetical fix: A more stringent rule would be just as vulnerable to word games. So the only real distinction is between being completely unfettered or putting an inevitably inconsistent standard in place (though said inconsistency is almost always a matter of people acting in bad faith or indulging in forced rhetorical exercises anyway).

 

[CyranoJ]

And furthermore, it precludes any hypothetical fix: A more stringent rule would be just as vulnerable to word games.

Exactly so.

 

[CyranoJ]

All it takes is one look at ASSR to see what happens in a free-for-all.

Noob question: what is ASSR? Don't recognize the acronym.

 

[TxRad]

Noob question: what is ASSR? Don't recognize the acronym.

Another erotic writing website that pretty much allows anything and everything.

 

[CyranoJ]

Ah, ASSTR. Got it.

*shudder*

 

[Handley_Page]

I get the impression that there are some authors (or would-be authors) who are trying to imitate a USA legal beagle and find a way ROUND the letter of the Law.

Personally, I don't get it.
Thems the Rules; take 'em or leave; and please don't slam the door on your way out.


PS. Sorry, but my 'impression' is based upon films & programmes seen in the UK.
Any ideas of factual representation are therefore questionable.

 

[Bramblethorn]

(That said, yeah, I'd grant you that rejecting horse sex but accepting unicorn sex, per Sean Renaud in that Story Ideas thread, doesn't make much sense.

Depends on the unicorn. If unicorns are people-smart, then they're capable of giving informed consent in a way that horses are not. But if they're just sparkly horses with horns, then nope.

 

[Bramblethorn]

3) Underage - This one's easy; I removed the part about the "victim" being (Insert age) and replaced it with "young". The part about her friends doing her GCSE's tells us that she's around that age and DEFINITELY under 18, but LIT's rules only stop people from TELLING us that cadavers are under 18, technically, the under 18 part is being assumed by the reader. [/B]

I would think that something like that would be rejected if the mods noticed, even if it didn't explicitly state that she was under-18; certainly I've seen several posters complaining about stories being deleted because they gave the impression of under-age even though the authors intended otherwise.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

The Malevolence stop it. Your description of rape should get you banned from the boards forever.

To say that rape is just because the female victim didn't enjoy it, is excreable.

It has never happened to me but others could tell you how being raped has destroyed their lives forever.

You see rape as a game?

 

[rjordan]

I get the impression that there are some authors (or would-be authors) who are trying to imitate a USA legal beagle and find a way ROUND the letter of the Law.
(

That was my thought as well.

The rules here are not a legal contract. They are as binding as "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service". You can go into a restaurant bare chested with only a collar and cuffs to circumvent the rule, but you are still going to get thrown out because the owner doesn't want you in her restaurant dressed like whatever you think you are.

rj

 

[loquere]

Relax. Market pressure will force change cuz the market will go where the demand is met.

No. Legalization and mainstream acceptance does not always bend to the principles of supply and demand. Cocaine will never be legal.

 

[TheMalevolence]

The Malevolence stop it. Your description of rape should get you banned from the boards forever.

To say that rape is just because the female victim didn't enjoy it, is excreable.

It has never happened to me but others could tell you how being raped has destroyed their lives forever.

You see rape as a game?

Butthurt much? That wasn't a definition, it was a further explanation of LIT's rule on noncon, I don't condone rape in any way because I am not a sick human being.

Happy now?

 

[PervOtaku]

It's an interesting topic, because of course we are talking fetishes here, and fiction that is a form of escapism.

Just on the rape thing alone, for a surprising number of women, the rape fantasy actively involves total non-consent. Of course there's always the forced orgasm concept, where you haven't really turned the victim into enjoy enjoying her rape so much as you've taken control of her body away and made it react to stimuli. But some of these girls that are into this, the more the victim suffers the harder they get off on it.

The underage issue falls back on the old legal definition, which is clear cut for the sake of simplicity in interpretation but usually ends up looking like a high school zero tolerance drug policy that gets a student suspended for sharing aspirin with a friend. Of course there's a big difference between an adult screwing an 11 year old and an adult screwing a 17 year old. Especially since in stories like this the teenager in question is generally explicitly consenting rather than being manipulated by a predatory authority figure, and as often as not is actually the instigator. Of course most of the time the story doesn't change one bit if the teenager actually is 18. It tends to be more about the relationship (teacher/student, parent/child) than the age.

Beastiality is I expect much like incest in that it's all about breaking the taboo. It's not so much the sex itself as much as it is the idea that a line has been crossed. As far as that goes, stories about such things are far less offensive than anybody who does such things in real life. Though personally I think that fantasy creatures tend to have better potential as far as storytelling and practicality in the sex scene.

 

[CyranoJ]

Just on the rape thing alone, for a surprising number of women, the rape fantasy actively involves total non-consent. Of course there's always the forced orgasm concept, where you haven't really turned the victim into enjoy enjoying her rape so much as you've taken control of her body away and made it react to stimuli. But some of these girls that are into this, the more the victim suffers the harder they get off on it.

Indeed it's a bit of an irony of the current rules that they effectively rule out a lot of female readers and writers of that particular kink. (Not that I don't understand the reasoning -- the resulting fiction is often incredibly harrowing and would likely freak out other readers and writers on the site by its very presence to an even greater extent than the non-con category's existence evidently does now.)

 

[Hypoxia]

Story approval requires more than merely following (actually or apparently) the stated rules. The basic test: Is Laurel comfortable with the story? Two of my tales were rejected because of such discomfort, both dealing with self-mutilation. In one, the narrator *thought* about trephination -- but she did not actually go through with it, and no violence occurred in the story. After a slight rewrite, it was approved. The other was a cartoon-fantasy of a man injecting fast-acting growth hormone into his cock -- while engaged in intercourse. Blam! I'm not sure how a rewrite could salvage the tale. It's still absent here. Laurels's comfort zone is pretty commodious but it's not infinite.