Final Answer Chapter 8 has now been posted! Both I and the commissioner are thrilled that it’s become a community favorite, especially since it’s also really fun to write. This blog post touches on an aspect of the chapter, so be sure you read it before this blog, but this blog may go on a tangent before we get to anything in the chapter specifically. Bear with me.

There’s a comment I got relatively early on that sticks with me to this day. Shortly after I posted Panopticon, I remember receiving a comment that contained the following:

Incidentally, my criticism of this story is that it had the opposite effect. Interesting story, but I stayed completely flaccid the whole time. I get that you avoid sex centricism, but imo there’s a line between sex story and story with sex in it.

I think about this quote often. I wasn’t at all deterred because I knew what I was writing was distinctly unsexy, and occasionally, I try to experiment with my style and try new things from time to time. Panopticon is one example of this. And Ophelia Blinked and Breathe are other examples. A lot of my stories try at least something I haven’t done before to some extent, and one relatively recent email even noted they felt like Follow the Leader was experimental too.

Incidentally, whenever you try to post more experimental stories on public sites, you get some absolutely hilarious comments. For fun, here are some other comments I received that are, I guess, angry that they read something different on a porn website instead of clicking away from it and reading something else.

This is a whole load of bullshit. I can’t even call it a story. Have you read other stories on this site. What a waste of my time and data

Wtf…? Why even write this? This is deceptive!

What’s the point of this? XNXX is a porn site. Go to Literotica where more people will approve your whacked out writing. Please don’t post this Vonnegut wannabe stuff again.

I’ll give the last one some credit: A, I wish I had even half the literary talent of Kurt Vonnegut, and B, I did post it to Literotica and the comments were very kind there.

These people would have hated the Wild West of the 2000s forum-based Internet – I’m barely old enough to remember it, but remember it I still do. Online spaces are for people to experiment, and heck, to troll. Someone once posted the entire bee movie script to Sexstories. No, seriously, take a look (and if you enjoyed the earlier comments I posted, they’re nothing compared to the gold mine of comments on this story). The internet is not a place where people only post things you like. In this 2000s Wild West, people got around that by only going to websites they liked, and existing in their own bubbles. Today’s Internet is not only more interconnected, but also, more centralized, with five or six websites getting the lion’s share of my, and statistically your, traffic. We’re more aware than ever that people with opinions and art we hate exist. I hope these commenters are okay given this is the world they’re living in now.

For the record, the first commenter was a very gracious person. I replied to them with a hopefully not-too-defensive explanation that I prefer to think of myself as a person that indeed does write stories with sex in them as opposed to sex stories, and their reply was understanding and even encouraging. The rest of these comments are fascinating because there’s a clear emotional commonality between them: a feeling of deception. The third comment calls it by name. They’re all but telling me “I expect to find nothing but porn here, and porn I would approve of only. How dare you post something outside of my expectations?”

I personally love when I find something novel on a sex story website. I love when an otherwise bad story has an amazing one-liner or a creatively written character. Sometimes I’ve taken aspects of sex stories I’ve read and repackaged them in my own writing. Sometimes it’s deliberate: Getting to See Karly was a deliberate attempt to retell a now-deleted sex story from memory, in my own words, with a few aspects swapped here and there; graciously, its commissioner was alright with it being made different in this way. I’ve said once or twice before that Being More Social‘s base premise, once I knew Nicole was a part of it, was heavily inspired by Chris and Christie by theblackknight, and if you’ve read it, I hope you can see why it was inspiring. It has its rough edges, but a world is created, and it’s a great dynamic. I also hope that me revealing that doesn’t ruin the story for you, but then again, if that has the power to ruin the story for you, may I suggest not reading Being More Social’s sequel…

In the same way that I love the novel and I love finding things that work, I love finding ways to create things that work in different ways. I have enjoyed that, over the years, especially as I age and my high school characters, uh, stay the same age, I have sexualized bodies less and the actual act of sex and desire more. Some readers, no doubt, might be frustrated by this, not unlike the comments we just read. They’re used to sex happening between attractive bodies. Why isn’t the body more sexualized? Isn’t that what porn is? Why is a school hallway technically being physically described more than one of the sex participants? Is this even porn? This isn’t sexy to me. This isn’t sexy. Go write your Kurt Vonnegut wannabe shit somewhere else.

Etc.

It’s why I think about the first comment often and had to search my stories’ comments for the others: the first one is very honest. The full comment contains a frankly strange anecdote, but overall it has a kind tone and is presented thoughtfully, including concerning the critique. It’s the same sentiment, but told to me earnestly, instead of just telling me to fuck off. Heck, when I replied, they were receptive to my reasoning. This person didn’t feel deceived, but they clearly felt the need to tell me, “Hey, just wanted to mention, this isn’t what I browse this site for, man” nonetheless.

This implies there’s a wrong way to write erotica online that even the non-angry commenters can clearly see. That, in turn, implies there’s a right way, and clearly, if you don’t write it the right way, people get mad. As one commenter pointed out, “This is a porn site,” before telling me to leave it. The implication isn’t ambiguous, it’s direct: “This isn’t porn.”

This is fascinating to me, since Panopticon has sex scenes. Multiple, arguably. It likely has a higher sex-to-non ratio than a good few of my stories/chapters. Yet it’s deemed “not porn” not because of the sex scene content, but rather, the way the sex scenes are laid out and framed. That’s fascinating. You’d have to deny reality to suggest Panopticon doesn’t contain sex scenes. You’d have to be incredibly cynical to argue the scenes are written with zero intent to arouse its reader. Remember, bad porn is still porn. Panopticon wasn’t being accused of being bad porn. It was being accused of not being porn.

So then, like… what is porn? What is needed to make a story a sex story? Are there aspects that, when added, can make a story with arousing sex scenes automatically not porn, despite the aforementioned sex scenes? I have no doubt Breathe in particular is one of my least arousing stories overall, but it has descriptions that, when viewed in isolation, are “hot,” as a few readers I asked recently confirmed when thinking of this blog post.

There is only one piece or chapter I have ever posted that contained zero sex or sexual content. For spoiler reasons and other reasons, I won’t say which; if you know you know. However, now let’s get to Final Answer. Some stories have less sexual chapters, partially to build up to the sex, like how Mutual Benefits Chapter One only contains the cheesy “hang on I’m getting there” sex story trope of a sex daydream. Final Answer goes a step further. Chapter One contains no sex, and only contains two characters talking about their sex lives and deciding whether they might want to go for each other in the future. When I wrote it, I genuinely expected the commissioner to give me feedback akin to those comments, but to my surprise and delight, he reacted positively (and also is a mature and kind person on top of that). Then I expected people to not like it, but… people latched onto it immediately.

I think the community we have here genuinely likes sexiness as a mood rather than a physical product. If I wrote about penises and vaginas and little else, like some authors make a decent living doing, I think the community here wouldn’t like it. We’ve become one of those bubbles I mentioned (which also means that by being on this website, you’re defying the Six Main Websites and being a free thinker. Power to the people). When I ask “What is porn?”, it’s very clear there isn’t an objective answer. To us, porn is psychological, it’s character-based. We love the closeness characters feel and the passion they have for each other. Porn for us isn’t a substitution for porn videos, it’s a separate itch to scratch entirely. Heck, if you watch porn, I’m guessing you know when you want to watch porn and when you want to read a story.

This is the time to reveal (hopefully not for the first time) that the most recent chapter doesn’t contain a sex scene, per se. It contains themes of passion, but that’s now two chapters (a fourth of the whole story!) that do not contain sex scenes, nor some cheesy faux sex scene to cover it up. I appreciate that you can read that and still feel joy for the emotions the characters have shared.

Don’t get me wrong: maybe you’re disappointed, and maybe you wish there was a sex scene every chapter. It is not invalid to want that from me. There’s a clear standard there too, and I am by no means telling you how to think, nor that some stories are inherently better, nor even that we’re better for liking the psychological aspects of sex more. No one is better, and watch/read whatever porn you like. All I ask is that if you find yourself thinking, “this isn’t my porn,” don’t fool yourself into letting that thought become, “this isn’t porn,” because I think that might cause closed-mindedness and even limit your capacity to let yourself be surprised by something new you enjoy. For my part, I’ll try to keep an open mind in that way too. I’ll talk to you all next week.

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