Otherwise it becomes just any other fiction award and loses its uniqueness.

For example, “Greenies” certainly falls into the category of Sci-Fi.

The lines between Romance and Erotic literature have been blurred, but Erotica is still, I think, generally regarded as sitting somewhere between Romance (thick plot, no sex) and Pornography (thin plot, much sex). I personally refer to Erotica as good stories with the sex left in. So where we pinpoint the minimum level of arousing content, between the Romance and Pornographic novel models, should probably be decided by the awards committee, after a vote by the readership, and then perhaps a change to the definiton of the no sex story code would be needed, and/or a new one perhaps named Ärousing” be added.

Personally, I think the minimum should be something along the lines of heavy petting; anything less should fall within the Romance genre. For example, a description of the slope of a woman’s breast can be arousing, but even if that level of content is in abundance and is the focus of the story, is that Erotica or Romance? Personally, I think it’s Romance.

For right now, I think that stories with no arousing content are clearly outside the Erotic Literature genre and should not be considered for a Cliterides Award; stories such as those clearly belong to some other genre, and I can’t think of any genre that doesn’t have a long standing award or three.

Further, I think that stories that are labeled erotic, but are far outside most people’s understanding or belief of what constitutes Erotic literature, weakens the standing and impact of the Cliterides Awards for both readers and authors alike.

I think the spirit of the original question-at-hand is this: there are stories being nominated that are completely, totally, utterly devoid of any sexual content whatsoever. Not “off screen” sex nor the prelude to nor aftermath of sex… rather, what I’m understanding from Lazeez’s post is that there are stories without even the faintest hint of sex in them. They are, in other words, non-erotic.

It’s interesting that the original post by Lazeez – then Lazeez’s later comment (#4), which was an attempt to clarify – got largely ignored by many people posting their ideas about it. Here’s the problem that’s been posed: The Clitorides is a contest for erotic stories, but people are nominating stories which cannot reasonably be classified as erotic, so what’s up with that? I get the sense that Lazeez was trying to politely get the notion re-established in the erotica writing community that the Clitorides is for erotica. Not non-erotica.

And I’m sorry, but “the politics of exclusion” doesn’t fly in this case. This isn’t politics. It’s arbitration. If Lazeez is the arbiter of what does and doesn’t qualify as an erotic story, then so be it. To turn the Clitorides into a polemical flashpoint over freedom of expression is just silly. If non-erotic stories are included for consideration in the voting for erotic stories, then that’s like nominating a duck for chicken of the year. It makes no sense.

So either eliminate the “exclusivity” of the Clitorides as an erotica-only award (and thereby change its purpose)… or else let’s have some common sense and understand that you can’t make apple juice with oranges.

In other words, please restrict your nominations for the Clitorides to only stories that are erotic in some fashion or another.

And here the majority rules..

But romance can be sexy too. Sometimes the anticipation is what you will remember best

But i think most of the authors want to be read firstly awarded secondly so i guess it’s a mote point anyway.

But in our imperfect world, who decides what makes a sex story? If I write an 80,000 word story with a single sex scene is that a sex story? Or do I need a scene in every chapter? Does the sex need to be on-screen? I coded my flash story “Photographic Evidence” as no-sex because it was about a picture of sex, not an actual sex act. Should it be eligible?

And just what is sex? President Clinton says oral sex doesn’t count, so should we eliminate all stories that have only oral sex. I’m enough of a prude to think water sports isn’t sex, let’s eliminate any stories with that too.

After all, I don’t see them giving the porn star awards, whatever they are called, to mainstream TV. Let’s honor the folks that it was intended to honor.

Wine

Wine

However, the Golden Clitorides Award would certainly seem to be for Erotic Stories, and I agree with that.

However, a story by a sufficiently skilled writer, could be erotic without having any explicit sex in it. Few writers are so skillful. So, once again, the EMPHASIS is on EROTIC. If it meets that description, then it should be eligible for a GCA but not otherwise.

-Cylis Derrens

So I say give “No Sex” it’s own category.. or better define the category as “No Sex- sex off screen”

My post above(#77)is erroneous. There is a Poetry Category in the system already.

I suppose I could have checked before spouting off, but what fun would that have been?

Sorry for the mistake!

AW

On one hand is the concept of a story conveying erotic feeling, but not depicting actual sex scenes. Of course, those should not only be accepted, but encouraged. I believe a well-done one in this genre potentially displays the highest level of the art.

On the other hand is the type that I assumed the question referred to, and that is stories which have no aim to convey any sexual theme, concept or feeling whatsoever. There are some posted on SOL and other sites, which is fine. For reasons that I stated in my entry several weeks ago, I would say ‘no’ to including those.

A new concept: how about a categoy for erotic poetry? To the best of my knowledge, there is none. (If there is, forget what I said.) I’m not a poet, but I can appreciate it as an art form, and with some highlighting, perhaps others would, as well.

AW

More categories are needed.

Maybe it should just be as simple as accepting all nominations, and then emailing the author with something like:

“Your story {story} has been nominated for a {link}Golden Clitorides Award{/link}, an award for erotic stories freely available online.

If you do not consider {story} to be an erotic story, or if for any other reason you do not wish {story} to be eligible for a Golden Clitoride award, you do not need to do anything but we (the award administrators) would appreciate an email explicitly saying this.

If you would like {story} to be voted on by the readers of online erotic literature and be in with a chance of winning the award, we need you to reply to this email with your explicit consent by {date}.

Your story has been nominated in the {category/ies} category/ies. If you would like to be eligable for an award, but not in one or more of these categories, please reply to this email giving details. In order to be eligible a story must be in at least one category – a full list is available on the Golden Clitorides website et {link}.

Otherwise it gets real messy.

Personally, some of the best stories I have read did not have true “sex” in them but I enjoyed them none the less and couldn’t wait for the next chapter.

RickM

The problem is a “no-sex” tag does not equal a “non-erotic” story. Another detail is the Golden Clitorides are not limited to stories on StoriesOnline.net but open to any freely available work. Many venues do not require a “no-sex” tag or even any tag at all.

cmsix

cmsix

with that being said, how about a practical example: “greenies” by al steiner is typically regarded as a purely science fiction story with “no sex”, however it it would be “eligible” according to the previous paragraph as it does contain *SOME*.. not much, but enough, IMHO, to be considered.

Basically, you’re asking whether we approve of a form of censorship – whether we think that your judgement (or that of a faceless committee) should determine whether stories gain access to these awards.

There are two major questions here.

The first is “what is erotic”? Is it the same as sexy? Is it the same as pornographic? Is a first kiss erotic? What about cuddling or putting on sunscreen lotion? What about a solo description of a young woman shaving her legs, or getting dressed? Well, my opinion is it can all be erotic. In my personal opinion, I’d much rather read those types of stories than ones about sadism, rape, torture and snuff – which I do not find at all arousing, but which are certainly eligible by your classifications. Erotica is not necessarily the same as pornography, and there’s a huge gradation between. Erotica need not be explicit – it can be implicit, and acts other than the sex act can still involve the senses in an erotic manner.

The second point is that many authors write some stores involving sex and some that don’t. Do you want to try to handicap them by banning some of their work from consideration in some areas (best author, best new author, etc.)?

I know I’m stretching terms just a little by using the term “censorship”, but not by much. The erotic literature movement has been asking to be considered equally as valid as mainstream literature. Now you want to introduce reverse discrimination? It’s just as ethically and morally slippery as reverse discrimination in employment, child custody, or any other field.

I say let the readers vote. If an author of a story that could qualify as mainstream literature wins, and is happy to have his or her story bear the “Clitorides” imprimatur, then good could come of it in many ways, and I can think of no harm it would do.

Should there be an award for the non erotic writer? I think there should be. Put that is something that has to be worked on in the future. As for now…

No-Sex stories as desided by the author should not be concidered.

Now that I have put my two cents in I will leave.

John Q

I think the decision to keep the clitoride awards as awards for erotic literature is best. Let the readers define what is erotic. Jefferson had some good comments as did Autumn Writer and others. A story should only be accepted for nomination in one category. If a story is nominated in more than one category then the author should be given the privilege of deciding which category it should remain in.

I think in future years we as a community might want to tighten up the categories. Wizard made an excellent observation as to there being a “Coming of Age” category. I think some categories that we have are not categories of erotic literature but categories of literature and need to be dropped or combined. But again, these are projects for the future. Maybe Lazeez could form a committee of some past winners to oversee this.

At the same time, it is tricky explaining to people who I would like to share my successes with what a ‘Clitorides’ is…

In the end, I write because I need to, and the emails I get from readers are all the recognition I need, but it would feel odd being excluded because someone decided that these awards couldn’t outgrow their origins, as the site itself obviously has.

The Clitorides Awards are for erotic stories. Period. The Clitorides should only go to EROTIC stories.

So what is erotic? The people commenting in this post seem to be debating “what is erotic?”. Some here might think the Bible is erotic. Some might think the latest Clancy novel is erotic. That’s a matter of opinion, just like I might think the latest Dan Brown novel is comedy (he meant to make it that bad, right? That has to be a joke! )

But I think that an erotic story should be considered any story that focuses on sex as its primary theme. Even a story with few if any sex scenes described: if sex is the dominant theme, the story is erotic.

Let me ask you this. The Godfather. Great book, right? Even better movies. And in the book especially, there’s a lot of sex. Does that make it qualify as an erotic novel? No. Because the primary theme is violence/criminality. That book falls into the genre of “mafia” or “crime” or “thriller”. Maybe something else. But erotica? With sex as the theme? Never.

Let’s look at Braveheart, another book turned movie. Again, there is sex. But would you describe either the movie or the book as erotica? Was sex the theme of either? No.

And bookstores and libraries are dominated with “Romance” sections that don’t always include erotic novels. When Romance is the predominant theme, it is no longer an erotic novel, necessarily. Just like when a sci-fi story is dominated with sex, it is no longer considered a sci-fi story, but an erotic one. There a TON of stories on SOL like this: great sci-fi tales that would NEVER be considered as science fiction by the sci-fi community; they would consider those stories as “smut”. Or “romance”. Or “tawdry”. In other words: erotica.

Stories that are erotica can be mysteries. Or science fiction. Or fantasy, or contemporary, or literature (O?), or romance. Whatever. What makes a novel erotic is its theme. When sex is the theme, a story is erotica.

So should non-sex stories be allowed to receive the Clitorides Award? No. Absolutely not. A comedy should not be allowed to win Best Drama at the Academy Awards, even if the movie in question had a dramatic element. And I highly doubt you’ll find a romance-themed story in the “Best Mystery Stories 2008″ anthology. I buy and read all of those, btw, every year: the Best Mystery one, the best Romance one, the Best Sci-Fi one. They’re always what I expect: amazing compilations of amazing works by amazing writers… and all of them with the themes I expect from the title.

If there was a “Best Erotica 2008″ I would be really mad to discover that non-erotic stories were included in such an anthology. Even if the editor said in the forward, “We consider erotica to be any story that has sex in it…”

The Clitorides Awards should go to erotic stories. Only.

Erotic stories have sex as the theme. Only these should qualify. If your favorite SOL.net story is focused more on romance, or sci-fi, or mystery? Great! Nominate the story to relevant sites. But if the Clitorides Awards are supposed to promote erotica, then the theme of all winners should be erotic.

When a sex is an afterthought in a story it is not an erotic story. Goodfellas was not a romance just because the main character fell in love and got married.

shannon

Just because it may have an “erotic” scene, or even several scenes, does NOT make it the same as a sex story in my opinion. It is also true that these “nonsex” stories sometimes have a disproportionate popularity. I would really hate to see sex stories become the redheaded stepchildren in their own awards.

This keeps the management from having to come up with some kind of definition of what is erotic while hopefully, giving the voters to opportunity to have their say and allow the votes to make the final call.

Erotica as a literary genre is not just in the eye of the beholder and author. The elements and intent of a story in the erotica should be fairly clear to most readers. That I might not find the story erotic for my personal tastes is irrelevant; I can take a step and say “Clearly, intended to eroticize.”

If these awards are about erotica’ then the stories can’t be ‘straight’ examples of other genres.

Either we get away from the Clits being ‘erotica’ awards or we have a subsection of the Clits for non-erotica… (Like the Academy awards have the technical awards.).

Since clitorides is the plural of clitoris, a single award should be a Golden Clitoris, not a clitoride.

For one thing, reading these comments it is clear a lot of people think that sex is erotic and no sex isn’t erotic. I’m sorry, I totally disagree. Anyone who saw the original “Thomas Crown Affair” and saw Faye Dunaway sucking that particular chess piece should be able to distinguish between sex and erotic.

You do readers a vast disservice by suggesting that they can’t decide for themselves whether or not a story is erotic or not. Yes, a story without sex can be erotic and it would be best I think to just let readers decide for themselves.

If you absolutely positively have to add a category, have Lazeez add one on SOL to the SOL catergories along with no sex — erotic.

JP

At present on the GC site, nominations are handled in batches of one or more stories. You can nominate multiple stories per category (e.g. two romance stories), but you can only nominate each story for one category per batch.

If you want to nominate Story A for “Best Sci Fi Story” and “Best Romance Story” then you must nominate it for one category, submit the nomination, and then nominate it for the second category as (part of) a second batch of nominations.

Whether the original intention of the awards was to allow stories to be in multiple categories I can’t say, however it is allowed – I remember a couple of years ago Nick Sciopio’s Summer Camp got an armful of awards.

If stories are to be restricted to one category, then I can think of at least three ways of doing it.

1) A story is nominated in 3 categories. The author and/or moderators decide which category it fits in best.

2) A story is nominated in 3 categories, it is placed in the category it receives the most nominations for, with moderators having a casting vote if needed.

3) A story is nominated, but the nominators don’t get to decide which category it is nominated in. The moderators (possibly in conjunction with the authors) decide which category each story is placed in.

Like Warlord, what I feel is that stories with no erotic content should be discouraged from the awards.

As well as posting on SOL and ASSTR I write poetry, which is occasionally arousing (I hope!) but is never pornographic. This I post on other sites, where people are looking for that sort of thing. I feel we should make clear what readers can expect, simply out of politeness and in order to avoid frustration, as much as from any feeling of propriety or any need to defend erotic writing as such.

However, like Tendertouch, what I think is; how on earth do you define the boundary? Is it worth the hassle?

In the end, I would cheerfully go with setting up a separate category, and letting people vote. I do have to say that I previously found multiple entries under different categories confusing, and on principle I never voted for any one story in more than one category.

Now I have another task – to go to your site and change some of the designations on my stories.

Another night though, when I’m not so sleepy!

.B

I’m not that worried about it since which ever the way the wind blows, I’m not likely to be in consideration, lol.

Be well;
Zaffen

There are few points that I need to clarify.

* The Clitorides Awards are not mine, they’re the erotica writing community’s. I don’t want control of them and I clearly stated that I prefer to have a hands off approach. I’m creating the site for them and I offered to handle them because I had a feeling that Souvie didn’t have time for them this year and I care about the erotica writing community too much to let them die. The awards are good for the erotica writing community.

* The Clitorides Awards are not from storiesonline. They started with an author that posted on ASSTR and ASSM. Maria laid out the rules in a way to include all free sites. So for those who commented that anything that is accepted on SOL should be eligible. That’s not true. I encourage every type of stories on storiesonline. I named the site storiesonline instead of sexstoriesonline for a reason. So because the clitorides awards were created for sex stories, that means not everything that gets posted on SOL is automatically eligible. And I really want to keep them separate from storiesonline.

* Most writing awards specifically exclude adult stories, so it’s only logical that awards created for erotica/sex stories exclude the other stories.

So far, from the comments that I’ve received and were posted here and on ASSD, the opinions are split almost down the middle, but there is a slight edge to keeping them restricted to erotic/sex related stories.

Since the awards were originally created for sex/erotica stories, and since the opinions lean that way, I will change the categories name to reflect erotica.

However, I do realize that there is a lot of subjectivity in deciding what’s erotic and what’s not, I’m sure that some people will differ on some stories that get nominated. The moderators should do their best to be as fair and as objective as possible.

And to report on the progress, I’m still working on the site. The time of the holidays is my busiest of the whole year and I don’t have as much time as I would like to dedicate to the project. After the new year I should be able to find enough time to finish, hopefully on time.

PS: .B, there is a sex content classification on SOL as ‘Minimal Sex’, which makes the sex categories:

- No Sex
- Minimal Sex
- Some Sex
- Much Sex
- Stroke Story

The minimal sex category has been available for a while on the site. Only one story is using it so far.

I’m torn about this issue.

On one hand ALL good writing should be recognized and appreciated but by the same token the highest quality erotic writing needs to be celebrated and particularly encouraged.

Given the paucity of awards and recognition for good erotic writing I’m leaning toward “NO” for a Gold Clit no-sex category award…

Recognize quality writing that happens with or without sex but call it something else and use the GC to encourage writers in that genre to improve.

As the community of readers and writers expands,matures, and writers stretch their imaginations and hone their skills I expect this will be an ongoing issue but finding a way to reward excellence hardly the worst problem to have when such exists

Not so BTW, thanx for taking on this task.

Enjoy the journey

WarLord