summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2006-08-31 12:49 am
summercomfort) wrote2006-08-31 12:49 am
Oh man...
... guess who's gonna be seeing The Protector when it comes out? I hope they don't cut out all the bits about the baby elephant!! Sept 8th!!~ My brother's gonna laugh at me for being so excited about a guy who jumps over things, but yes, Tony Jaa -- The guy who jumps over things.
In other news, here's part one of the aforementioned "Sushu thinks about porn" thing. Viewer Discretion Advised
So, I'm gonna look mainly at Literotica. Why? Because it's successful, it's professional, and it seems to be a fair sampling of the porniness of the general populous. (As in, not the alternative hentai section of 4chan. Futa=::shudder::) But at the same time, it's ... different? But honestly, this isn't meant to be anything serious, so I don't really care.
It was started in 1996, and it's still alive today, so it has the vitality to keep it going. 412 stories were submitted in the last 7 days, which is about 60/day. Not many, but the submission process is moderated. (Although you can't really tell when you first get to the site.)
First Impression:
What's with all the stuff in the way of the stories? I mean, first, there's the portal page. That's all right, yeah yeah, I'm over 18. But then, the stories are actually 2 screens down. More confusing is the stuff that's in the way. I mean sure, lots of these sorts of sites make you work for these elusive "free" stories by putting lots of banner ads in the way. But these aren't banner ads, so there's the temptation to read these navigation cues. But once you get to the categories... ah, that's more like it.
But slight pause here to consider the layout of the site. As mentioned, very few ads. Also, emphasis on community. First set of links: community. Second set of links: Resources for writers. You are first a community member, then an author, and finally a reader.
The overall index page hierarchy is like this:
[Site Contents]
- Community
- Resources
- Stores
[Erotic Stories]
- Special Sections
- Poetry submissions
- Search The Site
[Adult Headline News]
[Erotic Audio]
[Erotic Images]
As you notice, the Search function is buried on the second tier, instead of having a convenient search box somewhere near the top. So here is a story archive that ... doesn't really care about the stories. Instead of "zomg search for stories here!!!" it's more like "Please submit stories via these guidelines, please." There's bulletin boards and chats, there are contests, there's ways to track authors and list favorites, there's a place for reviews, etc. But the stories aren't ranked or rated, either by community or by some panel of editors. There aren't a bajillion keywords under each story. Even though you can search for keywords in specific categories, you can't sort by date posted or number of reviews. Instead, it's alphabetical, one story, one line, and you ... browse. Variety is provided in two ways: The Story Spinner takes you to a random story within a category, and each day the categories link to a different page of the category archive. (Today is page 1, tomorrow might be page 14).
So, maybe a little more about the categories. I haven't read from all the categories, but I suppose I should. Categories provide one of the few sorting mechanisms on the site, so they must be considered, especially since authors can only choose one category, and they're somewhat overlapping. For example, would tentacles go under "Erotic Horror" or "Non-Human"? They're ordered alphabetically, but I've decided to subdivide them by the type of organization they follow. Below is copied from yesterday. The categories in each grouping is ordered from most to least number of stories. The category title, blurb, and # of stories are directly from the site.
Community
- Reviews & Essays - Your take on art, films, & all things sexual. (483)
- How To - Advice and suggestions from our readers/authors. (399)
- Chain Stories - Collaborations between Literotica authors. (315)
Let's start with the smallest grouping. There's actually a Community category, but some of the stories are community-focused, too. Criteria for this grouping is that they're not addressing anything in the story itself. 醉翁之意不在酒, as the Chinese would say. ("The drunkard's intention is not in the wine")
Format
- Novels and Novellas - Erotic fiction with a broader scope. (4234)
- Letters & Transcripts - Fictional erotic correspondence. (556)
- Text With Audio - Erotica with aural accompaniment. (287)
- Illustrated - Erotica with accompanying original visual artwork. (144)
- Non-English - Erotic stories in other languages. (1)
I really don't get this category in regards to "Novels and Novellas" and "Letters and Transcripts", but whatever. I understand non-English as an important distinction, but when reading sex stories, wouldn't you care more about the content of the stories instead of the format? I don't care if tentacle porn was written as a novella or as a letter from the girl to her favorite octopus! But perhaps a writer would. Say if I'm writing a letter from a sock to its foot-fetished owner. Maybe reading the tentacle letter would be helpful? Also, what sort of person, when selecting a category for their tentacle letter, would choose to ignore its topic altogether and sort by format? It's sounds suspiciously like one of those process vs. product things.
Sex Act
- BDSM - Bondage, D/s, and other power games. (9576)
- Exhibitionist & Voyeur - Watching, and being watched. (5667)
- Fetish - Feet, panties, transexual love, and other kinky things. (3394)
- Anal - The butt, and nothing but. (1582)
- Non-Erotic - Fiction without a sexual focus. (1277)
- Toys & Masturbation - Battery-operated vegetables, etc. (1173)
First surprise: the small number. Technically, BDSM and Voyeurism can be considered fetishes, and there are sites that sort those together. But apparently they've pulled away from your average "feet, panties" crowd to form their own group. If you define fetish as all the weird "non-normal" sex stuff, then all of these are fetishes. What's interesting is that Anal's blurb is "The butt, and nothing but. Does this mean that all the stories in that category do not feature other penetration? Is anal penetration moving from being the odd one out in the big three and becoming a legitimate fetish? And if you are reading toys/masturbation, are you being an exhibitionist/voyeur? But what's with Non-Erotic? That's not a fetish, it's lack of a fetish.
Second surprise: Non-Erotic fiction has more stories than Toys and Masturbation.
I guess this brings out the community aspect of Literotica. People actually prefer to write about non-sex things rather than self-sex things.
Topic/Genre
- Erotic Couplings - Wild one-on-one consensual sex. (18879)
- NonConsent/Reluctance - Fantasies of control. (5434)
- Romance - Candlelight, wine, and a soft kiss. (5107)
- Sci-Fi & Fantasy - Erotic tales set in futuristic or fantastic worlds. (2356)
- First Time - Memories & stories of people's first times. (1936)
- Humor & Satire - A humorous take on all things sex. (1016)
- Mind Control - Erotic hypnosis and mind control. (1008)
- Erotic Horror - Bizarre, shocking, scary, and sometimes sexy. (787)
Relief that Erotic Couplings is waay ahead of everyone else. In other words, conventional sex is still conventional. (Defined here as one-on-one and consensual. Good job on the gender ambiguity, although not really). Also liking the even spread of physical/psychological. (Erotic Couplings/Romance, NonConsent-Reluctance/Mind Control, Sci-Fi Fantasy/Erotic Horror). Humor and First Time are community-building, sharing the joke/experience. Frustating sometimes is that the wording is so ... nice. By Erotic Couplings you mean sex. By NonConsent/Reluctance you mean that happy form of rape fantasy where magically the girl likes it by the end. Or really, just rape. I can easily see the Japanese guro stuff fitting under Erotic Horror.
Participant-defined
- Incest/Taboo - Keeping it in the family. (12214)
- Loving Wives - Tales of adventurous married women & their mates. (9422)
- Group Sex - Orgies, swingers, and others. (7958)
- Lesbian Sex - Women who love other women. (4871)
- Mature - May / December lust & love affairs. (3578)
- Celebrities - Parodies & erotic fan fiction about famous people. (3397)
- Gay Male - Men loving men. (2950)
- Interracial Love - It's all black & white, and white & Asian, and... (2944)
- NonHuman - Aliens, ghosts, androids, and more. (1590)
- Transsexuals & Crossdressers - Erotic tales of gender bending fun. (1277)
Okay, totally need to sleep, so I'll do this really quick.
1) Why is Incest/Taboo the second most popular after Erotic Couplings?
2) Incest is participant-defined. Taboo = sex act? "What you're not supposed to do". Similar to how Erotic Couplings is both genre and participant-defined (one-on-one)
3) Who's having sex is slightly more important than the tone of the sexual encounter, and way more important than the sex act.
4) haha, fan fiction.
5) Lesbian stories are hotter than gay stories. Why? Because the real gay story portals are elsewhere? Because more of these stories are written by men about girls getting it on? Literotica seems very family-oriented, whether it be moms and son or "adventurous" wives or swingers.
In other words, John and Dennis, you're gonna get grossed out. So avert your eyes.
In other news, here's part one of the aforementioned "Sushu thinks about porn" thing. Viewer Discretion Advised
So, I'm gonna look mainly at Literotica. Why? Because it's successful, it's professional, and it seems to be a fair sampling of the porniness of the general populous. (As in, not the alternative hentai section of 4chan. Futa=::shudder::) But at the same time, it's ... different? But honestly, this isn't meant to be anything serious, so I don't really care.
It was started in 1996, and it's still alive today, so it has the vitality to keep it going. 412 stories were submitted in the last 7 days, which is about 60/day. Not many, but the submission process is moderated. (Although you can't really tell when you first get to the site.)
First Impression:
What's with all the stuff in the way of the stories? I mean, first, there's the portal page. That's all right, yeah yeah, I'm over 18. But then, the stories are actually 2 screens down. More confusing is the stuff that's in the way. I mean sure, lots of these sorts of sites make you work for these elusive "free" stories by putting lots of banner ads in the way. But these aren't banner ads, so there's the temptation to read these navigation cues. But once you get to the categories... ah, that's more like it.
But slight pause here to consider the layout of the site. As mentioned, very few ads. Also, emphasis on community. First set of links: community. Second set of links: Resources for writers. You are first a community member, then an author, and finally a reader.
The overall index page hierarchy is like this:
[Site Contents]
- Community
- Resources
- Stores
[Erotic Stories]
- Special Sections
- Poetry submissions
- Search The Site
[Adult Headline News]
[Erotic Audio]
[Erotic Images]
As you notice, the Search function is buried on the second tier, instead of having a convenient search box somewhere near the top. So here is a story archive that ... doesn't really care about the stories. Instead of "zomg search for stories here!!!" it's more like "Please submit stories via these guidelines, please." There's bulletin boards and chats, there are contests, there's ways to track authors and list favorites, there's a place for reviews, etc. But the stories aren't ranked or rated, either by community or by some panel of editors. There aren't a bajillion keywords under each story. Even though you can search for keywords in specific categories, you can't sort by date posted or number of reviews. Instead, it's alphabetical, one story, one line, and you ... browse. Variety is provided in two ways: The Story Spinner takes you to a random story within a category, and each day the categories link to a different page of the category archive. (Today is page 1, tomorrow might be page 14).
So, maybe a little more about the categories. I haven't read from all the categories, but I suppose I should. Categories provide one of the few sorting mechanisms on the site, so they must be considered, especially since authors can only choose one category, and they're somewhat overlapping. For example, would tentacles go under "Erotic Horror" or "Non-Human"? They're ordered alphabetically, but I've decided to subdivide them by the type of organization they follow. Below is copied from yesterday. The categories in each grouping is ordered from most to least number of stories. The category title, blurb, and # of stories are directly from the site.
Community
- Reviews & Essays - Your take on art, films, & all things sexual. (483)
- How To - Advice and suggestions from our readers/authors. (399)
- Chain Stories - Collaborations between Literotica authors. (315)
Let's start with the smallest grouping. There's actually a Community category, but some of the stories are community-focused, too. Criteria for this grouping is that they're not addressing anything in the story itself. 醉翁之意不在酒, as the Chinese would say. ("The drunkard's intention is not in the wine")
Format
- Novels and Novellas - Erotic fiction with a broader scope. (4234)
- Letters & Transcripts - Fictional erotic correspondence. (556)
- Text With Audio - Erotica with aural accompaniment. (287)
- Illustrated - Erotica with accompanying original visual artwork. (144)
- Non-English - Erotic stories in other languages. (1)
I really don't get this category in regards to "Novels and Novellas" and "Letters and Transcripts", but whatever. I understand non-English as an important distinction, but when reading sex stories, wouldn't you care more about the content of the stories instead of the format? I don't care if tentacle porn was written as a novella or as a letter from the girl to her favorite octopus! But perhaps a writer would. Say if I'm writing a letter from a sock to its foot-fetished owner. Maybe reading the tentacle letter would be helpful? Also, what sort of person, when selecting a category for their tentacle letter, would choose to ignore its topic altogether and sort by format? It's sounds suspiciously like one of those process vs. product things.
Sex Act
- BDSM - Bondage, D/s, and other power games. (9576)
- Exhibitionist & Voyeur - Watching, and being watched. (5667)
- Fetish - Feet, panties, transexual love, and other kinky things. (3394)
- Anal - The butt, and nothing but. (1582)
- Non-Erotic - Fiction without a sexual focus. (1277)
- Toys & Masturbation - Battery-operated vegetables, etc. (1173)
First surprise: the small number. Technically, BDSM and Voyeurism can be considered fetishes, and there are sites that sort those together. But apparently they've pulled away from your average "feet, panties" crowd to form their own group. If you define fetish as all the weird "non-normal" sex stuff, then all of these are fetishes. What's interesting is that Anal's blurb is "The butt, and nothing but. Does this mean that all the stories in that category do not feature other penetration? Is anal penetration moving from being the odd one out in the big three and becoming a legitimate fetish? And if you are reading toys/masturbation, are you being an exhibitionist/voyeur? But what's with Non-Erotic? That's not a fetish, it's lack of a fetish.
Second surprise: Non-Erotic fiction has more stories than Toys and Masturbation.
I guess this brings out the community aspect of Literotica. People actually prefer to write about non-sex things rather than self-sex things.
Topic/Genre
- Erotic Couplings - Wild one-on-one consensual sex. (18879)
- NonConsent/Reluctance - Fantasies of control. (5434)
- Romance - Candlelight, wine, and a soft kiss. (5107)
- Sci-Fi & Fantasy - Erotic tales set in futuristic or fantastic worlds. (2356)
- First Time - Memories & stories of people's first times. (1936)
- Humor & Satire - A humorous take on all things sex. (1016)
- Mind Control - Erotic hypnosis and mind control. (1008)
- Erotic Horror - Bizarre, shocking, scary, and sometimes sexy. (787)
Relief that Erotic Couplings is waay ahead of everyone else. In other words, conventional sex is still conventional. (Defined here as one-on-one and consensual. Good job on the gender ambiguity, although not really). Also liking the even spread of physical/psychological. (Erotic Couplings/Romance, NonConsent-Reluctance/Mind Control, Sci-Fi Fantasy/Erotic Horror). Humor and First Time are community-building, sharing the joke/experience. Frustating sometimes is that the wording is so ... nice. By Erotic Couplings you mean sex. By NonConsent/Reluctance you mean that happy form of rape fantasy where magically the girl likes it by the end. Or really, just rape. I can easily see the Japanese guro stuff fitting under Erotic Horror.
Participant-defined
- Incest/Taboo - Keeping it in the family. (12214)
- Loving Wives - Tales of adventurous married women & their mates. (9422)
- Group Sex - Orgies, swingers, and others. (7958)
- Lesbian Sex - Women who love other women. (4871)
- Mature - May / December lust & love affairs. (3578)
- Celebrities - Parodies & erotic fan fiction about famous people. (3397)
- Gay Male - Men loving men. (2950)
- Interracial Love - It's all black & white, and white & Asian, and... (2944)
- NonHuman - Aliens, ghosts, androids, and more. (1590)
- Transsexuals & Crossdressers - Erotic tales of gender bending fun. (1277)
Okay, totally need to sleep, so I'll do this really quick.
1) Why is Incest/Taboo the second most popular after Erotic Couplings?
2) Incest is participant-defined. Taboo = sex act? "What you're not supposed to do". Similar to how Erotic Couplings is both genre and participant-defined (one-on-one)
3) Who's having sex is slightly more important than the tone of the sexual encounter, and way more important than the sex act.
4) haha, fan fiction.
5) Lesbian stories are hotter than gay stories. Why? Because the real gay story portals are elsewhere? Because more of these stories are written by men about girls getting it on? Literotica seems very family-oriented, whether it be moms and son or "adventurous" wives or swingers.
In other words, John and Dennis, you're gonna get grossed out. So avert your eyes.
no subject
no subject