Would this fly on Lit?

[mfan2112]

Question for the more veteran writers here. I am working on a story about a young English Teacher. I am considering a scene where she is in her class right after she has her first sexual experience (she is just out of college and a late bloomer) and she is teaching on Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2 where Hamlet and Ophelia have a rather tawdry conversation. I was thinking of having the students, including the daughter of the teacher's new boyfriend, react to the fact that ole Shakespeare is a pervert.

Obviously no one is having sex in this scene other than what alluded to in the play. But some teens who are not quite 18 are realizing that there is a bigger world out there.

Is this too far for Literotica? Just trying to figure out my boundaries here.

I do remember covering this act in high school and one of my classmates, who was rather preggers at the time (naughty naughty), blurting out in class "Shakespeare was a PERVERT!"

Thoughts? Advice?

 

[SimonDoom]

What is the point of your story? What is the point of this scene in relationship to the story? If the students are under 18 and the point of the scene is to be titillating then it probably wont fly.

 

[JJA122]

*****

 

[KeithD]

Obviously no one is having sex in this scene other than what alluded to in the play. But some teens who are not quite 18 are realizing that there is a bigger world out there.

What do you mean by "a bigger world out there"? Your post is centered on the sexual. Anything sexually arousing is sex; it doesn't have to be graphic tab A in slot B. If you have under 18s involved in sexual imagery, this is sex and not permitted here by the selection editor, disclaimer slug or not.

Why don't you have it in a junior college English class? If it has to be under 18, it's trying to play the underage card (by Literotica selection standards).

 

[ElectricBlue]

Obviously no one is having sex in this scene other than what alluded to in the play. But some teens who are not quite 18 are realizing that there is a bigger world out there.

"...who are not quite 18..." there's your answer right there. A story full of one sentence descriptions is going to be really dull.

Age them up, send them to college, and get them to discuss Anais Nin or Henry Miller or the Story of O, if you want to do the classics .

 

[Voboy]

It doesn't have to be a problem, as long as it is joking and discussing without any kind of sexual loading. As long as you don't put a sexual vibe to it, I think it would go fine.

This is my take on it, too.

This exact thing happened in my own English class when I was in high school, except that the teacher was discussing Lysistrata and we were all juniors.

It was an AP class, but still. Nobody in the class (the teacher least of all) shied away from the fact that the author was writing about sex. I don't remember the sky falling.

For Lit purposes, I'd make them seniors in the fall and keep it humorous and/or superficial. "Shakespeare was a perv!" getting blurted out of a student's mouth in a classroom setting is not sexual activity, nor anything like it.

 

[Jada59]

Also, just throwing some reality in there. A teacher right out of college would likely not be teaching teens. At least not in this area. Reason being, they are too close to the age of the students. They'd be sent to an elementary school.

 

[mfan2112]

Also, just throwing some reality in there. A teacher right out of college would likely not be teaching teens. At least not in this area. Reason being, they are too close to the age of the students. They'd be sent to an elementary school.

I had multiple teachers who were barely out of college in middle and high school, and I grew up in New York.

Story takes place in small mid-west town, so even more likely, harder to recruit teachers.

 

[mfan2112]

This is my take on it, too.

This exact thing happened in my own English class when I was in high school, except that the teacher was discussing Lysistrata and we were all juniors.

It was an AP class, but still. Nobody in the class (the teacher least of all) shied away from the fact that the author was writing about sex. I don't remember the sky falling.

For Lit purposes, I'd make them seniors in the fall and keep it humorous and/or superficial. "Shakespeare was a perv!" getting blurted out of a student's mouth in a classroom setting is not sexual activity, nor anything like it.

I'm thinking now, based upon this feedback to have her be thinking about her lesson plan and reviewing it in her mind. The idea is to have her read the passage again and use it to process her own experience. So it is mainly character dev, not so much having the students around.

I don't want to get in hot water with the admins here.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

"...who are not quite 18..." there's your answer right there. A story full of one sentence descriptions is going to be really dull.

Age them up, send them to college, and get them to discuss Anais Nin or Henry Miller or the Story of O, if you want to do the classics .

Mfan2112, I think you might get away with going no further than you describe but it would be a coin-toss. This is site policy, not necessarily law or common sense (and I think I understand where the owners are coming from), so you are risking a lot of effort on the opinion of the site’s one-woman jury.

EB66’s advice is, IMO, the way to go.

Good luck.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm thinking now, based upon this feedback to have her be thinking about her lesson plan and reviewing it in her mind. The idea is to have her read the passage again and use it to process her own experience. So it is mainly character dev, not so much having the students around.

I don't want to get in hot water with the admins here.

Context is everything. I can't tell from the way you've described the story and the scene what the point of the scene is in the story, and that makes all the difference.

The main point of the Site's policy is that you cannot have a scene with under 18 people that is sexual in nature -- where a reader might be aroused by the scene, even if arousal seems improbable to you and even if no actual sex is involved. If you have a scene where under 18 high school students are discussing the sexuality of a Shakespeare play, then under this Site's policy it probably won't fly, because some readers will find it arousing to read about high school students talking about sex in Shakespeare. But I can't tell exactly what you're getting at with this scene, and what its purpose is in the story as a whole. So I don't know for sure.

I'd do one of two things: either revise it as you've suggested and just make it a matter of her thinking about her lesson plan, without any actual student interaction, or age the whole thing up so they're college students, which will give you free rein to do whatever you want.

 

[KeithD]

I had multiple teachers who were barely out of college in middle and high school, and I grew up in New York.

Same here, but that was fifty years ago. Times may have changed, I suppose.

I remember having an English teacher straight out of college with legs that went up into heaven. She drove an MG sports car (an MG Sprite?) and we'd gather around the high school window to watch her unfold herself from it in the parking lot.

 

[KeithD]

Basically, I think too many writers just don't understand (and want to argue about) what constitutes sexual activity in the site's policy. Voyeurism here is sexual activity. Being sexually aroused by anything is sexual activity (and addressing it and not being sexually aroused by it isn't erotica). It doesn't have to be tab A into slot B.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Make it college with everyone 18 or over. It gets a bit forced with the scenario you described tho because it’s a stretch to think they’re thinking that for the first time. One of the limitations of Literotica. Or you could make it a “do you remember” scene somehow....

 

[NotWise]

I'm thinking now, based upon this feedback to have her be thinking about her lesson plan and reviewing it in her mind. The idea is to have her read the passage again and use it to process her own experience. So it is mainly character dev, not so much having the students around.

I don't want to get in hot water with the admins here.

I think this is a solution. The problem I see with it is that internal dialogue like that can be pretty tedious. Another option might be for her to talk over her lesson plan with a more experienced teacher, and mingle her thoughts with their conversation.

 

[KeithD]

Community/junior colleges are often more like high school than like a full college and have the connotation of "right after high school," which obviates the age issue. If you can't use that as a setting rather than high school, there's really little argument that you aren't trying to click in an underage (for here) vibe.

 

[LaRascasse]

But some teens who are not quite 18 are realizing that there is a bigger

That is where I fear you're mistaken. In the world of Literotica, humans do not grow genitals, or know about what they are used for until they turn 18. On the stroke of the midnight hour on their 18th birthday, they can have all forms of wild, imaginitive, kinky sex with no second throught. But until then, the switch stays off. Not just sex, not even sex adjacent. Not even in the same zipcode as sex.

Krissy always has a suspciously convenient sleep over when her single Dad might have sex. She doesn't know what it is until that magic midnight hour. After that, she can have whichever form of it with whoever she wants.

Now does that mean that there are no Lit stories with some marginal content of this kind? That if you wrote this piece it would be rejected? No to both.

However, there is a good chance Laurel might read the age and "pervert" in proximity to one another and err on the side of safety. In which case, you have to clarify or remove the age reference.

 

[Voboy]

Same here, but that was fifty years ago. Times may have changed, I suppose.

They haven't. 23-year-olds are hired all the time in American high schools. The idea that a modern teacher gets hired, and THEN gets "assigned" to teach some random grade K-12, is not what happens. Teachers apply for specific positions in line with their certifications, and secondary certification is not the same as elementary certification.

It all depends on the principal, or whomever else is doing the hiring. Within two years of a male principal moving into the office, it becomes VERY apparent what kinds of people he's most comfortable hiring... his "type," as it were. Same with female principals, from what I've seen.

 

[Bramblethorn]

We can all speculate here, but your surest bet is to send a PM to Laurel, the story moderator, and ask her whether it's acceptable.