Answers received, thank you. (Topic: Erotic Images and Smut)

[Cutie2000]

So, I'm new, and I searched everywhere for information on what RPG considers erotic imagery and "smut". I found nothing that really helps.

I'm starting 2 1x1s that will include romance and sex. I understand that this is not an erotic site, and that I need to keep the sex "appropriate", unless it's being written in PM.

But what is appropriate?

Regarding imagery, can I, for example, post a link to an image of a naked woman so long as we don't see her nipples, her crotch, and/or her naked ass? Can I use an image of a women from behind wearing only a thong with her bosom fully hidden behind her arms and hands? Where do I draw the line?

If I can't post these images in the IC, can I post them in the Characters Page? Would the limits apply to all 3 types of threads (IC, OOC, Characters)?

Regarding erotic text, can I speak of a couple stripping down and coming together for sex without giving explicit details about the "contact" between them and actual "gettin' it on" details? Can I go farther than that? Do I need to prevent going even that far?

If I avoid roleplaying sex scenes, am I allowed to use words to describe sexual body parts. You know, "Danny dropped his shorts and Sally got her first viewing of his ****", and that kind of stuff?

I'm just trying to keep out of trouble. I don't write pornography, I write erotica, with the difference in my mind being: "Pornography is a whole lot of sex with very little story, while erotica is a whole lot of story with very little sex."

I can avoid the erotica altogether, of course, but that kind of takes away from the heat of the romantic story, doesn't it? I hate writing in PM, but if I have to, I will. Or, I'll avoid the sex altogether and write a PG-13 story in the threads.

My primary concerns regarding my stories which include romance and/or sex are twofold: (1) Not to offend anyone, regardless of age; (2) To write a great story which, if it IS a romantic story, would obviously include sex.

All serious comments are appreciated. If you're just gonna be rude or stupid, don't bother: you're not impressing anyone, and it doesn't affect me.

Oh, also, if you have any favorite erotic stories which WERE allowed, I'd like to review those scenes to see that which those writers were allowed, so that I can get an idea of what's appropriate. Please send me a link to the appropriate part of the story or at least the story itself with an idea of how many posts in I need to go to find the intimate scene. (In other words, I don't want to read 500 posts to find a sex scene at post #333 that's only 4 posts long.)

Thanks to all who bothered reading this.

[Cutie2000]

Bump.

I'm kind of desperate to know what is or isn't allowed in the public threads regarding erotica.

I considered contacting Mahz, who I assume runs the site (?), but according to his profile page he hasn't even been online for the last 6 months.

If you are writing a story in the threads with erotica in it, will you send me a link so that I can see just what you got away with so that I can then tamp down on my own writing to match?

[BrokenPromise]

Yea, what little money the forum gets from ads comes from google's adsense, which doesn't really like erotic content. So if you plan on doing an X rated RP, it would have to be done in PMs. Though if you hate writing in PMs, maybe you could just fade to black and write the naughty bits in PMs or google docs? That way you would at least do most of your posting on the forum.

As for how far you can go without needing to resort to that, I will say that I've written some "over the clothes" stuff openly that nobody seemed to care about. What few times I've gone beyond that my descriptions were so vague or flowery that nothing interesting was ever revealed. But if you're curious exactly where the line in the sand is drawn, it's a better idea to just tag a mod and then they can talk with their homies. They're a pretty chill group here, and don't actively scour the forum for problems to stop out or suggestions to answer.

@POOHEAD189

You do 1x1 stuff, right? What's your take on all this?

[Rogue Sloth]

@Cutie2000 Hi, long time 1x1 writer here.

Something to keep in mind is that if you're going to write on the public forum, any words you use will trigger Google adsense and will be visible to minors who use the site - both reasons to keep sexual content off the public pages. I understand not wanting to use PMs to write (I had an aversion to it for a long time due to the learning curve of sorting all the different threads for RPs and conversations) but if you don't want to censor yourself, it's the best option for you and your writing partners.

For my own public RPs with sexual content, I "fade to black" as soon as clothes start coming off, maybe after a little very vague build up toward the actual sexual act. The key is a lot of self censoring and, as BrokenPromise said, flowery language that leaves a lot to the imagination.

I came across one of your threads in the 1x1 section for understanding and would say that one definitely belongs in PMs. Even the private RPs I've written that I would consider on the erotic side (which, to be fair, I don't do a lot of) don't go as far with descriptions of nudity and sexual acts - especially sexual coercion which can be a powerful trigger to some readers.

If erotica is your jam and that's really what you want to include to fully flesh out your RPs, I think that adapting to PMs is your safest bet to avoid issues of being too graphic on the public forum. The same note for images, since it's probably not the best idea to be linking ladies in lingerie for under 18 year olds to see.

[Cutie2000]

@Cutie2000 Hi, long time 1x1 writer here.

Something to keep in mind is that if you're going to write on the public forum, any words you use will trigger Google adsense and will be visible to minors who use the site - both reasons to keep sexual content off the public pages. I understand not wanting to use PMs to write (I had an aversion to it for a long time due to the learning curve of sorting all the different threads for RPs and conversations) but if you don't want to censor yourself, it's the best option for you and your writing partners.

For my own public RPs with sexual content, I "fade to black" as soon as clothes start coming off, maybe after a little very vague build up toward the actual sexual act. The key is a lot of self censoring and, as BrokenPromise said, flowery language that leaves a lot to the imagination.

I came across one of your threads in the 1x1 section for understanding and would say that one definitely belongs in PMs. Even the private RPs I've written that I would consider on the erotic side (which, to be fair, I don't do a lot of) don't go as far with descriptions of nudity and sexual acts - especially sexual coercion which can be a powerful trigger to some readers.

If erotica is your jam and that's really what you want to include to fully flesh out your RPs, I think that adapting to PMs is your safest bet to avoid issues of being too graphic on the public forum. The same note for images, since it's probably not the best idea to be linking ladies in lingerie for under 18 year olds to see.

@Dagger

Thank you so very much for your reply. I was worried that I might have gone too far.

Luckily, I got a reply via PM from one of the Moderators and was told that while I was at the edge, I didn't step over it.

However, in the future, I think I am going to tone down the erotica even farther. I may even go back and tone down the already-posted replies and ask my writing partner to do the same.

Again, thanks!!

[NuttsnBolts]

<Snipped quote by Dagger>

Thank you so very much for your reply. I was worried that I might have gone too far.

Luckily, I got a reply via PM from one of the Moderators and was told that while I was at the edge, I didn't step over it.

However, in the future, I think I am going to tone down the erotica even farther. I may even go back and tone down the already-posted replies and ask my writing partner to do the same.

Again, thanks!!

@Cutie2000

The guys here covered it pretty well with the AdSense stuff, but most of the time it does come down to us evaluating the context of the images/writing and seeing how it may trigger AdSense. For example an image of a woman in a bikini shouldn't trigger it, or a nude male who's in a bed with a sheet lightly covering his lower body, and to be truthful there are probably some images that could be posted that wouldn't necessarily trigger it either, but we just usually take a step of, "If it may trigger, we'll just be safe and remove it" (Yes I've had to remove images of Sonic the Hedgehog hermaphrodite smut). We also do have to keep in mind that there are minors who view the site and they may come across these images.

Words can be a bit different as certain combinations of phrases could trigger the AdSense, so it's why we ask that any smut would be taken to the PMs as the PM system is hidden away from AdSense. That also means that you are free to do what you want in the PMs with images, phrases, etc. They're your private domain and not even the mods/Google have access to view them so you can do what you want in there.

In regards to the rules, they are written fairly harshly and firm so that they portray the view that we want the site to have. "Staff do reserve the right to remove any smut which may appear on the public forum" just means that if we see something it's gonna disappear before we tell you about it, and mentions of bans are there as a deterrent to prevent something really bad from happening. In the 4 years that I've modded there's only been two bans that I've seen with both being around the topic of minors.

[Cutie2000]

<Snipped quote by Cutie2000>

The guys here covered it pretty well with the AdSense stuff, but most of the time it does come down to us evaluating the context of the images/writing and seeing how it may trigger AdSense. For example an image of a woman in a bikini shouldn't trigger it, or a nude male who's in a bed with a sheet lightly covering his lower body, and to be truthful there are probably some images that could be posted that wouldn't necessarily trigger it either, but we just usually take a step of, "If it may trigger, we'll just be safe and remove it" (Yes I've had to remove images of Sonic the Hedgehog hermaphrodite smut). We also do have to keep in mind that there are minors who view the site and they may come across these images.

Words can be a bit different as certain combinations of phrases could trigger the AdSense, so it's why we ask that any smut would be taken to the PMs as the PM system is hidden away from AdSense. That also means that you are free to do what you want in the PMs with images, phrases, etc. They're your private domain and not even the mods/Google have access to view them so you can do what you want in there.

In regards to the rules, they are written fairly harshly and firm so that they portray the view that we want the site to have. "Staff do reserve the right to remove any smut which may appear on the public forum" just means that if we see something it's gonna disappear before we tell you about it, and mentions of bans are there as a deterrent to prevent something really bad from happening. In the 4 years that I've modded there's only been two bans that I've seen with both being around the topic of minors.

@NuttsnBolts

I exchanged some PMs with Hank, who is a Co-Admin, regarding my first 2 posts in "The Enslaved". He said it was close to the edge but fine. Perhaps you would take a look at them and give me your opinion, too. I do not explicitly describe the actions of sex; I only speak of sex occurring.

I would hope that having been told this by an Admin, that the Moderators such as yourself would be okay with it, too. I don't know if you are able to access my PM string with Hank, but here is the link to it: roleplayerguild.com/convos/265063

And thank you for your good work, btw.

[NuttsnBolts]

<Snipped quote by NuttsnBolts>

I exchanged some PMs with Hank, who is a Co-Admin, regarding my first 2 posts in "The Enslaved". He said it was close to the edge but fine. Perhaps you would take a look at them and give me your opinion, too. I do not explicitly describe the actions of sex; I only speak of sex occurring.

I would hope that having been told this by an Admin, that the Moderators such as yourself would be okay with it, too. I don't know if you are able to access my PM string with Hank, but here is the link to it: roleplayerguild.com/convos/265063

And thank you for your good work, btw.

@Cutie2000

Nah. That's a private message so I can't see it. And if Hank has already checked over it then it's fine, I don't really need to add more input. It'll just muddy the waters and create confusion.