There are various "exceptions" but it's still all really, really grey. For example the sex has to be plot and not there for titillation (when it's "minors"). But I mean who decides that? How much poetry quoting do you have to shove in between the t&a to qualify it as "literary"? Who's to say whether a reader is getting off on a scene or not? I've read quite a lot of erotica recently solely for research, to see the words and phrases that other writers use, it has been a completely unerotic experience. It's technical and analytical and it feels like homework. Conversely there was a novel I read as a teenager where the villainous hero "tried to force off her coat". That was it. That was the sum total of the sexual activity (she managed to escape him, later married him). Yet that phrase, at the time, was more erotic for me than anything I've ever read since. Even if you're writing it in a jurisdiction where the age of consent is under 18, the protagonists have to be 18 before they can have sex. Except they can possibly "do everything but" beforehand. I remember a fascinating discussion on Reddit where someone got banned for a "sleep sex" erotica. That's rape apparently so not kosher (even in the context of a relationship with prior consent). So another writer advised her to change the blurb to something like: So you effectively have this absurd situation where someone is asleep-but-not-asleep but that apparently pushed it over the acceptability line. For those interested in censorship as a topic, /r/eroticauthors is a great source of discussion.Joanne was sleeping when she heard Mark come in. As he slid his hands over her, she wondered if she should wake up?
Yeah I know. And apparently others, such as Apple, are even worse. I'm sort of expecting mine to be rejected from there but let's see. It's interesting how offended a lot of reviewers get though, and that may be interpreted as customer pressure. For example I've seen all sorts of reviews where people say things like "I got to 55% and had to stop reading. This book had my blood boiling, it just felt wrong" and then rate it one or zero stars. I mean ffs, it's billed as a student-teacher romance, if that concept offends you why read it? Same goes for other erotica or any other genre. If the subject matter disgusts or bores or you by its very nature , don't read it. Or if you do, for god's sake don't leave a bloody review. It's like me reviewing an engineering textbook and writing "1-star, SO dull, can't believe how boring this was, couldn't get past chapter 1". So I think a problem for all these book sites is that people don't apply their own filters properly and then take offence. And then these offenderati are the most likely to mount various vocal campaigns and cause a headache/bad publicity for the book site. (Though I think in some circumstances what actually happens is that they got turned on, felt disgusted and ashamed with themselves, and then left a scathing review to atone and "cleanse" themselves).
Well you know, that's what I figured! There is so much vocal outrage at the moment over the issue of "underage", and people frothing with rage over the idea of a 22-year-old guy sleeping with a 17-year-old, that I'm pretty damn convinced that they're actually frothing elsewhere...