Forum: Author Hangout

Possibly the type of people who prefer to read sex stories are less critical in general.

That statement made my day, and it's still early morning here. I just have to ask, do those people have any other abnormalities we should know about?

I just have to ask, do those people have any other abnormalities we should know about?

How do you know it isn't the one's who prefer no-sex stories that are abnormal?

How do you know it isn't the one's who prefer no-sex stories that are abnormal?

I don't, I thought the opposite is your theory, at least it's what you wrote.

I don't, I thought the opposite is your theory, at least it's what you wrote.

Less critical is not the same as abnormal. How do you know I don't think more critical is abnormal?

Although, truth be told, I don't believe that normal exists, so I don't believe in abnormal either.

Fine, now you have ruined your joke and my day is back to be as lousy as it has been before I read it. I hope you're happy now.

Fine, now you have ruined your joke and my day is back to be as lousy as it has been before I read it. I hope you're happy now.

It wasn't a joke in the first place.

Now we're back where we started.

Possibly the type of people who prefer to read sex stories are less critical in general.

If this is not a joke, what is it?

I have over 105 stories on SoL and only 19 of them have any sexual activity in them. Going by their scores, the stories with sex in them are in the following places: 6, 13, 20, 46, 67, 78, 79, 83, 87, 90, 92, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105 (with a score of 5.88).

I wonder what you think that chart proves. I guess I know what you would like it to prove, but it does not. Occam simply would conclude your sex scenes are not your greatest strength.

It proves that No Sex stories can get good scores, it all depends on how well the story is written, regardless of the sex content.

My impression is that scores are a much better guide for 'how well the story is written' for stories with little sex than for those with a lot.
Perhaps Lazeez could calculate for us the median scores for all stories with No Sex or Minimal Sex, and for Much Sex or Stroke Stories?

My impression is that scores are a much better guide for 'how well the story is written' for stories with little sex than for those with a lot.

Care to elaborate?

Perhaps Lazeez could calculate for us the median scores for all stories with No Sex or Minimal Sex, and for Much Sex or Stroke Stories?

Sounds like a lot of work, but I'm sure he could, but why should he?
Those story types don't compete, as Switch Blayde mentioned before.

Care to elaborate?

No! I did say it was my 'impression'. My anecdotal evidence is the number of high-scoring stories with a lot of sex I've seen with writing styles I find too tedious to tolerate.

Sounds like a lot of work

It should only take him a few minutes if the required data can be easily dumped into a spreadsheet, but I'm sure he'll just ignore my suggestion if it would take a lot a time.

why should he?

Simply to satisfy the curiosity of us authors.

It proves that No Sex stories can get good scores,

That it proves indeed. I didn't think that fact was seriously in doubt, though. In principle I agree with the rest of your statement as well as with Switch Blayde's earlier note. Sex simply adds another part to a story, that readers may like or dislike, and they score accordingly.

Do people vote lower because there's no sex in a story?

I doubt it. Someone wanting to read a story with sex in it won't read a no sex story.

Agreed. I simply don't want a ten chapter description of matching item A with item B. Some of the stories I mark high might mention Fred getting together with Freda and bloke d getting annoyed - I don't call that a sex story but IF it is well written it will get a good mark. Another reasonably well written serial has, I think, no sex though two of the girls did get married very early
For me it is the quality of the story and writing which is important and gets marks

fewer proofreading errors

FTFY

Well, I don't have editors and proofreaders checking over my forum posts....

... resulting in things like where you miswrote 'misspoke'. :-)

It's not uncommon for comments made in the forum to be thoroughly edited and proofread.

Died ewe miss-poke two?
Surly ewe meaned too ewes twiple-negatiff?
It's not uncommon for comments made in the forum to not be thoroughly edited and proofread.

Good to know it's not a complete waste of time to post questions

The first three replies did address the question.

No, Switch Blade it is not the same. Stephen King does not write sex stories and I never said anything about switching other types of stories.

It is the same.

I prefer stories with no sex because there is a story. Sex stories could swap several paragraphs and nobody would know the difference. There is no new way to screw and no new way to describe it. Like I said swap paragraphs and nobody will know.

What you describe and bemoan is redundancy. Sex is not the nemesis of a storyline, redundancy is. I once read in a story the seemingly endless discription of someone disassembling his pistol, just to reassemble it in the next paragrah. That was as reduntant as reading about him masturbating, what he kind of actually did.

Now if someone were to write a killing story where there was nothing but killing and no plot, that would equate to how you think of sex stories on SOL.

The Hitcher?

I've lost count of the number of stories that I opened because the description sounded like an interesting plot, and then exited for the plot was never really developed.

The number of downloads is also a poor indicator for opening a story. The numbers don't mean the reader read the entire story.

I strongly agree with both points.

There have been quite a few stories with an interesting description, lots of downloads & good scores, but I haven't been able to get up to even the 5th chapter. Some I've bailed out of on the first page.
And these days I tend to shy away from stories with "Lots of Sex" in the tags, as apart from a few exceptions too many of those stories tend to use the lots of sex to offset the lack of editing, plot, or character development (or all 3).

Maybe not, but we know that certain readers prefer stroke stories, while others prefer incest plots and others prefer harem stories. It makes more sense figuring out why one group of readers might score stories higher, or whether authors actually put more effort into another group of stories.

This is probably the biggest part of it. You're probably dealing with different groupings of people as the codes/descriptions change. There probably is a LOT of overlap between them, but not as much as some may want to believe.

That said, the author-specific followings(good and ill alike) are probably a grouping unto themselves. ;)

The other matter is that there probably is a little bit of the whole "people score things differently when in different frames of mind" and their "frame of mind" IS probably going to be different when they're going after a "stroke story" rather than one flagged as "no sex" so the scoring will vary a bit from that alone.

a particular authors rabid fans (pardon the expression

Hey! Just because my fans foam at the mouth, that doesn't mean that they are rabid. :)

It just means they eat too much soap, or have extremely strict mothers.

Or they otherwise consume large quantities of other substances known to be capable of that outcome as well. :)

Which brings us back around to the original point, that no-sex stories tend to be scored higher (for whatever reason) than the stroke and much-sex stories.

The original point was the exact opposite. The impression of the original poster is that there exists a 'penalty' in scores for no-sex stories. That is my impression too, although I note EB's statistics suggesting no-sex stories are over-represented among the highest scoring stories, over 8.
I'm still curious about what the median score is for no-sex stories.

Some stats I found easy to get with the category search engine were:

1. the number of no sex stories.

2. The number of no sex stories with a score of 8 or more.

3. The number of stories with a core of 8 or more.

4. the number of stories with a score of 9 or more (did this one a few minutes ago).

5. the number of no sex stories with a score of 9 or more.

How 'easy' did you do that? All I get with these parameters is 'You Must Select at least one category'.

That's clever!

I did a little research too after you showed me how easy it is. Of all the stories on SoL, 1,309 are bigger than 500 kb. That's 3.2 % of the available stories. Of those 1,309 stories, 722 scored 8 or more. That's 55.2 %, and 30.5 % of all stories scoring 8 or more. So it seems pretty obvious to me what the easiest concept to write a successful story is. It has to be a long story. Btw, only 95 of those long stories are no sex stories. That's a meager 7.3 %. Statistics can prove many things, practically anything you want to prove.

If you ignore factors such as a good plot and good writing, then your conclusion might be true. If you conclusion is true, then all I have to do is string together 3 MB of words to create a story that has no plot and is written so poorly that the story makes no sense, and I will get a rating of over 8 for that garbage.

Do you really think that's my conclusion?

Have you ever heard of the concept of necessary but not sufficient?

That's not stats, that human behavior!

Usually I would just chuckle and go on, but I noticed that irony, sarcasm or simple subtlety is no admissible technique in this forum. So weirdly I feel the need to point out that the only reason statistics exist, is to predict human behavior.

I used the example of +500kb stories well aware that those stories score exceptionally well. Story length is a random parameter, just like the tags for the amount of sex in a story is. It hardly proves anything, but that is the whole point.

I'm pretty sure that people in general don't care about sex or no sex in a story. They simply want to read a good story. If they don't like sex scenes in stories it's easy to prevent it - don't read them. The same for people who prefer sex scenes, don't read stories with the NO SEX tag.

Sex scenes neither make a story better, nor do they make them worse. The same goes for the lack of sex in a story. Some people like them, some don't, and that's all. How stupid is it to give a lower score to a story tagged NO SEX , because there is no sex in the story? Of course the same goes for the opposite, although I noticed some people seem to believe that sex in a story somehow miraculously prevents the development of a plot. It's a matter of preferences, not of good or bad.

Sex scenes neither make a story better, nor do they make them worse.

Depends on how well or how poorly it's written, and how relevant to the story it is.
Well written & relevant, makes a story better. Poorly written and irrelevant, makes it worse.
And all the combinations of both.

although I noticed some people seem to believe that sex in a story somehow miraculously prevents the development of a plot.

With some authors it does, with other authors it doesn't.

Depends on how well or how poorly it's written, and how relevant to the story it is.
Well written & relevant, makes a story better. Poorly written and irrelevant, makes it worse.
And all the combinations of both.

That's true for every scene in a story, not just for the sex.

Depends on how well or how poorly it's written, and how relevant to the story it is.
Well written & relevant, makes a story better. Poorly written and irrelevant, makes it worse.

And all the combinations of both.

That's true for every scene in a story, not just for the sex.

Exactly.

How stupid is it to give a lower score to a story tagged NO SEX , because there is no sex in the story?

And yet, particularly disliked types of stories, even when labeled as such, get tagged with low scores regularly because they hit some peoples sqicks.

Well, I intended to ask a rhetorical question, but to remove all doubt, I'll answer it myself:

Some people are stupid.

Some people are stupid.

Based on the normal curve, half the population is below average. Well, some of the population is/are average so the below average are not quite half.

Put another way, if the average story is 6.0 and I believe management adjusts scores so that is the case, there are a few scores of exactly 6.00. Those stories are neither above or below average.

Most people are stupid, including incredibly intelligent people.

... and all those times I claimed you were being stupid were actually intended as compliments. :-)

Which indicates the no sex stories score (on average) higher than the sex stories by a significant margin.

On the other hand, the single lowest score in the system (1.57) goes to a no-sex story, so, call me skeptical that your conclusion about the average score of no-sex stories is valid.

The number of downloads is also a poor indicator for opening a story. The numbers don't mean the reader read the entire story.

True, but I'm a numbers nerd so I have a spreadsheet for my story. Last time I check, My 1st chapter has 15580 downloads. 2nd chapter was 10272, or 66% of the 1st. As stated, there's lots of "extra" 1st chapter downloads.

What I found important is that 3rd chapter was 82% of the downloads for the 2nd, then 4th 99% of 3rd, 5th 84% of 4th, 82%, 82%, 63% (after a posting layoff), 106%, but then only 38% for the most recent after a long layoff.

On average 5 of 6 readers went on to the next chapter.

I'll have to play around with my numbers and spreadsheet. I wonder if there is a trend based on the number of chapters in a story.

Trying to imagine what kinds of trends may exist, without any facts to support my guess, I'd expect:
* The absolute value of download counts for all chapters is meaningless
* The download counts for the first chapter of a long story is grossly inflated
* But I think the rate of decay of download counts from one chapter to the next, after perhaps the third chapter, may be closely proportional to the numbers reading those chapters.
While various things may be distorting the counts, it's hard to imagine those are not distorting adjacent chapters to very similar extents.
I expect drop-off rates would be relatively high in the early chapters. Some readers may persevere until Chapter 3 with a story they aren't getting into before giving up, while others last until Chapter 5. However, as an author, I'd want to see the rate of decline becoming quite low further into the story. Still, I would expect there to always be some drop-off. There are many reasons readers might stop reading a story after only getting so far, but it's hard to imagine anyone starting to read at a point deep into the story.
One factor affecting the counts may be varying chapter lengths. For comparatively long chapters it seems likely readers will stop reading part way through a chapter and need to download it again to finish it later.

Don't forget, few readers will vote for a story they don't think is a full ten!

Do they only think it's a ten but give the story a lower score? Otherwise I can't understand why I have so many votes that are no ten. Or did you maybe vastly enlarge the range of 'few'.

As a result, the scores are vastly over-rated to begin with.

Compared to what?

While they're 'normalized' it hardly moved the scores into a 'normal' bell curve.

Actually that's what Lazeez's weighed score calculation is all about. So your statement is wrong.

I apologize if it seems like I'm picking on you CW, that's not my intention. Some of your lines are just too tempting for me to resist. I think that's a great talent, and I'm not joking.

@CW
While they're 'normalized' it hardly moved the scores into a 'normal' bell curve.
@robberhands
Actually that's what Lazeez's weighed score calculation is all about.

For the one story I've posted the number of votes is less than 5% of the number of downloads.
The point CW was making is there's a lot of self-selection in who chooses to vote before the system normalises the scores to produce an average of six. It cannot be proven, but it seems a reasonable assumption that the group which chooses to vote would like stories more than the group which does not.

For the one story I've posted the number of votes is less than 5% of the number of downloads.

I assume that was a rather short story, otherwise the quotient would have been much worse. I'm at 1.3% for my first complete story.

It cannot be proven, but it seems a reasonable assumption that the group which chooses to vote would like stories more than the group which does not.

I agree, that is a very reasonable assumption, but the scores are only for readers on SoL, and only significant for stories on SoL, so what does it matter?

The point CW was making is there's a lot of self-selection in who chooses to vote before the system normalises the scores to produce an average of six. It cannot be proven, but it seems a reasonable assumption that the group which chooses to vote would like stories more than the group which does not.

Personally, if after a few chapters I don't like a multi chapter story, I will abandon it without bothering to forward to the end so I can vote on it. I would not be surprised if that is not uncommon.

I have written a few stories and the one with the lowest individual votes appears as a single page on SOL.

Actually that's what Lazeez's weighed score calculation is all about. So your statement is wrong.

Technically, the scores may follow a bell curve, but it can't be a proper normal bell curve.

When you say a normal bell curve, I presume you are referring to the Normal Distribution used by formal statistics.

The normal distribution model for statistics is a bell curve, but it isn't the only form of bell curve.

The normal distribution assumes infinite tails on both ends.

Nothing with a finite upper or lower bound can properly fit a normal distribution.

The story scores necessarily have finite limits on both ends. No story can score less than 0 or more than 10.

Technically correct and practically with absolutely no meaning for this discussion.

The story scores necessarily have finite limits on both ends. No story can score less than 0 or more than 10.

No story can score less than 1. (Very minor nit, since there are no stories I know of that are 1s.)

I thought that too, but there are nearly 700 stories that have no scores at all.

Because of the nature of the scoring system, there is a minimum number of votes a story has to have before the system can show a score for it.

The stories with no displayed score could come out anywhere if the next vote pushes it over the limit. They should not be counted as 0 or anything else < 1.

Post deleted, because EB's next post proves what I thought was happening is not correct.

No story can score less than 1

Any story with voting turned off will score 0

Instead, Lazeez does the correct because the scores are out of whack.

How can the scores be out whack if their sole purpose is to give readers on SoL a comparative measurement to assess stories on SoL? The SoL readers made those scores, so saying they are generally too high, too low or not evenly distributed across the scale makes no sense whatsoever.

You asked, so I did the figures based on the current story count of 40,411 stories searches just on scores came out as:

less than 3 - 1.06%
3 to 4 - - 0.95%
4 to 5 - - 4.31%
5 to 6 - - 18.19%
6 to 7 - - 43.69%
7 to 8 - -25.91%
8 to 9 -- 5.50%
9 and up - - 0.39%

Now we need someone to transfer the data into a Bell Curve. To me it doesn't look "abnormal".

Now we need someone to transfer the data into a Bell Curve. To me it doesn't look "abnormal".

Actually, with scores 1-3 taking only 1% and scores 8-10 being nearly 7%, the curve skews high by quite a bit.

Actually, with scores 1-3 taking only 1% and scores 8-10 being nearly 7%, the curve skews high by quite a bit.

According to my admitedly limited knowledge about Bell Curves I'd assume that the 1-3 scores have no great effect. The important part is the range where the mass of the data is located and its distribution on the scale.

P.S.: Just researched a bit and noticed my knowledge is more flawed than I thought. You are correct. The curve is not very smooth.

According to my admitedly limited knowledge about Bell Curves I'd assume that the 1-3 scores have no great effect. The important part is the range where the mass of the data is located and its distribution on the scale.

My comment goes you to saying it doesn't look "abnormal"

"normal" for a bell curve distribution is about skew. Specifically, to be normal a bell curve has to be symmetrical (zero skew). This means that values n standard deviations below the mean are exactly as likely as values n standard deviations below the mean.

Here, at the range limits of the data set, values above the mean are more likely than values below the mean. The data set is asymmetrical with significant positive skew and is therefore, very definitely abnormal.

Yep, I already corrected my earlier false statement.

Now we need someone to transfer the data into a Bell Curve

I am sorry to say the scores based on your data are not representative of a normal (bell) curve. If 6.0 is the mean, and I am under the impression that Lazeez adjusts scores so that that is the case, then one standard deviation (say for the point of argument is 1.0) in each direction above and below the mean would cover approximately 68% of population. Between one and two standard deviations from the mean would include 13.5 of all the population. From the mean to one standard deviation from the mean would cover 34% (both above and below, 68%) and the area between two standard deviations below and above would be 68% plus 27% or 95% of the sample. From the mean to two standard deviations above the mean would be 47.5%.

The number of stories that include 68% of the population does not fit the hypothesis as slightly less than 62% of the stories score between 5 and 7. Far more stories score from 7 to 8 than a normal curve would show (nearly 26% instead of 13.5%) and the amount between one and two standard deviations below the mean is far too low (less than 5% instead of 13.5%.)

The number of stories more than two standard deviations above the mean (8 to 9) is way too high for a normal curve. There are 5.5% of stories with those scores, while a normal curve would cover 1.25% more than two standard deviations above the mean.

Perhaps the standard deviation is not 1.0. Even with a different standard deviation the curve does not appear to me to be symmetrical enough to be a normal curve. There are too many high scores and not enough low scores.

It is clear to me that scores are not established randomly enough for a normal curve to work. There may be some other curve that better fits the information, my statistics courses date back 50 years so I can't remember any particular curve. I do remember an actuary telling me he can fit several dozen points into any curve I want and I can get any answer I want. This was to set insurance rates for the next year. Of course the insurance commission's office didn't care what math we used as long as we used some, they just had to approve rates that would be reasonably politically popular.

It is possible adjustments can be made to the mean, it might not be 6, and to the standard deviation, it might not be 1.0. However it is hard to get around the lack of symmetry with far more scores above the middle score (median, mode, mean, average, whatever you decide to pick than below it. About 25% of scores are below 6 and more than 31% are above 7. It is likely the mean is between 6 and 7. It would be the point where half the scores are below and half are above, but the scores above whatever the mean turns out to be still won't fit a normal curve as there are more high scores than low ones.

Again, I never said "abnormal", merely skewed towards one side (6.5 instead of 5).

That is the definition of abnormal when you are talking about bell curves. In statistics, the normal distribution (what is generally called a bell curve) explicitly assumes zero skew.

You asked, so I did the figures based on the current story count of 40,411 stories searches just on scores came out as:

May I ask for the divisions of those figures based on the Sex Content of the stories? Ideally, the figures for the 5-6, 6-7, 7-8, and 8-9 ranges each broken up into five different
We're up to 120 posts on this thread and I don't recall anyone coming up with any statistics yet giving some indication to answer the question in the OP: do no-sex stories tend to score less well than those with a lot of sex?

I'll look at it in about 12 hours.

Thank you. I don't have Premier Membership to do it myself.
Waiting a day is fine with me. I've waited over three days already, since my first post on this thread when I asked, 'Perhaps Lazeez could calculate for us the median scores for all stories with No Sex or Minimal Sex, and for Much Sex or Stroke Stories?'

We're up to 120 posts on this thread and I don't recall anyone coming up with any statistics yet giving some indication to answer the question in the OP

If the amount of sex in a story would be the only diverging criterion between stories those statistics woul help, but they are not. To every story here on SoL there is a multitude of tags attached. Picking radomly one of them won't get you any reliable results. The results would be as random as the tag you chose.

Picking radomly one of them won't get you any reliable results.

I have not 'randomly' picked one tag. I've asked for the break-up, within each score range, for the Sex Contents tag, a tag for which every story has one, and only one, value.
The results will not prove anything, but they probably will be indicative if there is any marked tendency for readers to score average-quality stories more highly when they have a lot of sex.

I have not 'randomly' picked one tag. I've asked for the break-up, within each score range, for the Sex Contents tag, a tag for which every story has one, and only one, value.
The results will not prove anything, but they probably will be indicative if there is any marked tendency for readers to score average-quality stories more highly when they have a lot of sex.

I give you a hypothetical scenario to show why a statistic based on a single variable is not reliable or of any significance.
Imagine every sex story on SoL would be correctly tagged: 'Gay', 'Cuckold', 'Scatology' (I don't want to discredit any kinks, I picked those because I assume they are some of the most hated by the scoring trolls); was written by the same chimpanzee; and it's a 1kb short story.

SoL's reader pool is the same as it is in reality, so every sex story on SoL will score between 1 and 3. The 10% NO SEX stories on SoL did not change at all, so they score significantly higher.

Now take your wish for a statistic, picking the amount of sex as the sole parameter. It will lead you to the conclusion that SoL's readers greatly dislike any amount of sex in a story and prefer NO SEX stories by a very large margin. In this scenario your conclusion would be correct, but only in such a scenario, which in reality is rather unlikely to develop.

I am well aware there are many factors influencing the scores of stories.
I cannot be bothered explaining to you what, if any, interpretations I may make after seeing the results.

I'm curious: were the 1 - 3 scores evenly divided, or heavily slanted towards 1?

EB answered that about half-way through this thread.
There are only 5 stories with scores between 1 and 2, and 37 between 2 and 3.

Many of us here simply won't read anything that's lower than a 7, definitely nothing 5 or below.

If that statement is correct it means that the 'many' allow the few to dictate what they read.

Every story posted starts with a score of 0 so you are saying that you will only read stories that are judged to be at least a 7, by people who read stories regardless of how low they score.

Every story posted starts with a score of 0

Stories actually start with no score, and the system will not display any score until some minimum number of votes have been cast.

Stories actually start with no score, and the system will not display any score until some minimum number of votes have been cast.

And your personal definition of the meaning of 0 is...?

And your personal definition of the meaning of 0 is...?

My personal definition is the one I learned while majoring in Mathematics at university, and I regard zero and non-existent as entirely different things.
How would you define the score of a story if everyone who has voted for it so far has voted 10, but there are not enough votes yet for the system to display a score for readers?

How would you define the score of a story if everyone who has voted for it so far has voted 10, but there are not enough votes yet for the system to display a score for readers?

In exactly the same way as I define a story with voting turned off. Both score 0 until such time as the system displays a higher score.

Granted the system needs a certain number of votes before a score is displayed, but other than you voting and therefore knowing the score you awarded, without the score being displayed, you cannot know what score a story has, other than what is displayed.

Congratulations on the maths major, did you pass?

You should be asking how he picks his lottery numbers ;)

Out of other people's pockets. The nett return from lotteries is typically very low compared to other forms of gambling.

Thanks for the stats.
There are a two things I would have expected to see in the results assuming readers were mostly "fair" in the way they scored stories.
One is no-sex stories would be over-represented in the highest-scoring stories, say 8 and above, because the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories.
The other is with-sex stories would be over-presented in the below-average range, say 4 to 6, because we know that stories with the "wrong" type of sex (e.g. MM, scat, ...) are consistently scored lower than their literary merit would warrant.
Both of those "trends" appear to be present in the data.
My conclusion is no-sex stories are probably NOT penalised by readers in their scoring, or at least not significantly enough to be apparent from the data.

the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories.

Why?
Because they don't like to write sex scenes?
Or because their readers don't like them?
Or because sex scenes diminish the value of a story, so they wouldn't be best authors anymore?

Probably because it's hard to write sex scene after sex scene without getting too repetitious, and thus boring.

Another thing I would like to see is a break down by sex/no sex, score and length.

Long stories tend to score better than short stories, so if the sex stories are shorter on average, that would weaken the effect of having sex as some of the difference would be length related.

Probably because it's hard to write sex scene after sex scene without getting too repetitious, and thus boring.

Well, an easy task woudn't need a 'best author'.
When I look at the SoL lists of classics and top stories I read many names I personally would count among the best author's on SoL, and most of them have sex in their stories.

True, and I've written stories with sex in them. However, the sex scenes in Finding Home are a lot less and very different to the ones in Ed's New Life and Debt Collection. In Finding Home the sex scenes are there to show aspects of the main character changing, while the sex scenes in Debt Collection are the focus of the story - that makes a big differences on how you write the story.

I don't mean to discredit you or your stories, but you're not the only author on these lists.

I never said I was,

Neither did I, and I didn't imply it either.

I mentioned it because your post indicated you couldn't understand why they would change or vary.

Whatever gave you that idea?

When I look at the SoL lists of classics and top stories I read many names I personally would count among the best author's on SoL, and most of them have sex in their stories.

90% of all stories on SOL have some sex. 80% of all stories scoring 8 or more have some sex. There is obviously some reason for that difference, but we've no way of being certain what that reason is. What on earth is the point you are trying to make?

What on earth is the point you are trying to make?

the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories.

My point is to voice my dissenting opinion to that claim.

My point is to voice my dissenting opinion to that claim.

I would not object if that was what happened.
I did not claim it was so. I merely stated it was something I 'expected' to find, and why. I do not appreciate being asked to justify statements like that.

Thanks for the stats.
There are a two things I would have expected to see in the results assuming readers were mostly "fair" in the way they scored stories.
One is no-sex stories would be over-represented in the highest-scoring stories, say 8 and above, because the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories.

If you don't appreciate being asked to justify your statements maybe you should abstain to make them.

If you don't appreciate being asked to justify your statements maybe you should abstain to make them.

Do you understand the difference between asserting something as a fact, and stating something something as an opinion?
If I believe something is probably true, but know it cannot be proven, I will write it as a statement of an opinion. It is the utterly pointless, and irritating, when someone asks me 'Why?' when they already know, if they have actually read what I wrote, that my statement cannot be proven.
I have no objection to you stating any contrary opinions or evidence - but you are just being negative when you ask me to justify something you already know cannot be proven.
BTW, do you have any alternative explanation for the over-representation of no-sex stories among the highest-scoring stories on the site?

Do you understand the difference between asserting something as a fact, and stating something something as an opinion?

If I believe something is probably true, but know it cannot be proven, I will write it as a statement of an opinion. It is the utterly pointless, and irritating, when someone asks me 'Why?' when they already know, if they have actually read what I wrote, that my statement cannot be proven.

You claimed 'the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories' as reasoning behind your assumptions and expectations. So I think it's fair to ask how you came to that conclusion.

BTW, do you have any alternative explanation for the over-representation of no-sex stories among the highest-scoring stories on the site?

As I've repeatedly stated already, the 'over-representation of no-sex stories among the highest-scoring stories on the site' is of no significance, because every variable but one is ignored, and thus this statistic is meaningless.

You claimed 'the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories' as reasoning behind your assumptions and expectations. So I think it's fair to ask how you came to that conclusion.

I DID NOT CLAIM THAT!
I DID NOT ASSUME ANYTHING!

READ WHAT I ACTUALLY WROTE:

There are a two things I would have expected to see in the results assuming readers were mostly "fair" in the way they scored stories.
One is no-sex stories would be over-represented in the highest-scoring stories, say 8 and above, because the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories.
The other is with-sex stories would be over-presented in the below-average range, say 4 to 6, because we know that stories with the "wrong" type of sex (e.g. MM, scat, ...) are consistently scored lower than their literary merit would warrant.

I anticipated what the results would be like, and that is how they turned out to be. I was stating nothing more what I had anticipated, and why.
Note the difference between the two statements I made. The second says 'because we know ...' That statement made it clear I was asserting something as a fact, which I'd be happy to justify if asked.

What does it take to shut you up when you're prattling on about rubbish I already know and have no interest at all in discussing?
You questioned the statistics I asked EB to extract from the system, stating:

To every story here on SoL there is a multitude of tags attached. Picking radomly one of them won't get you any reliable results. The results would be as random as the tag you chose.

I explained that the tag I chose was not 'random'. It was the one and only one tag for which every story has one and only one value.
I also made it clear I knew full well the statistics may still not be clear enough to draw any conclusions, stating:

The results will not prove anything, but they probably will be indicative if there is any marked tendency for readers ...

That's the ONLY THING I've been interested in during this entire exchange: are the statistics clear enough to draw conclusions to answer the question posed in the original post of this thread.
... You then come up with a lengthy, ridiculous scenario that proves nothing more than it's easy to read more into statistics than they actually show. Here's a newsflash for you. We're not a bunch of complete morons here. We already know statistics are very easy to misinterpret.
What made that post so irritating was being lectured to, as if I was a complete idiot, when the only thing you knew about how I intended to use the results was my statement I would treat them, at best, as 'indicative' if there was some 'marked tendency' in the data.
When the data did arrive, my conclusion was it was not possible to draw any conclusions from it.

You claimed 'the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories' as reasoning behind your assumptions and expectations. So I think it's fair to ask how you came to that conclusion.

While I wouldn't have phrased it that way, I would generally agree with the sentiment. "High quality Authors" tend to write better focused stories, which means they "don't wander" very far from the "core" of the story they're trying to tell.

Which means if a scene fails to provide either a needed context for the story, or fails to advance the plot in any significant way(that can be easily done elsewhere), then it gets cut.

How often does sex advance a storyline outside of stories "specifically geared that way" to include it? Interest in sex obviously plays a significant role in normal life. The actual sex itself? Not so much.

In the context of "art imitates life" that means most sex acts are inconsequential in and of themselves. Which means most sex acts in the context of a story will be inconsequential to the plot of the story. Sure it happened, but the details don't matter. A good writer will realize that, and consequently, the sex gets excised from the story.

I don't disagree with anything you said. It's a straight-lined argumentation and very reasonable. But I think it's just one kind of 'high quality author'. I prefer another kind. The kind of author who focuses on the enjoyment of his readers. About 90% of the stories on SoL are 'sex stories', so obviously there is a request for that kind of stories. I greatly enjoy a well written sex story, and that includes an interesting plot and well painted characters. In other words a good story plus sex. Luckily there are many excellent writers on SoL providing these kind of stories. I don't like to see their efforts discredited, or unfairly rated second best, simply because they write what many people enjoy to read.

However, the sad thing is a great number of the sex stories on SoL miss out on the interesting plot and well painted characters. Way too often what is presented in the sex stories is a bunch of sex scenes strung together with a mediocre plot.

That's not sad, it's just the way it is. It's the same with movies. Do you also bemoan the existence of porn movies, just because there are movies with excelent stories and interesting characters and without any sex? Both genres have a publicum, so I can't see a reason to feel sad about it.

I think it comes back to what's been said quite a few times - a good plot with well developed characters results in a good story, regardless of there being sex in the story or not.

Absolutely.

However, the sad thing is a great number of the sex stories on SoL miss out on the interesting plot and well painted characters. Way too often what is presented in the sex stories is a bunch of sex scenes strung together with a mediocre plot.

Why be sad? Without all those stories, the scores for your stories would be lower. :-)

The other problem area is a good story littered with mediocre sex scenes because the author feels the story has to have sex scenes to be on SoL - and the sex scenes aren't as well done as the rest of the story, thus pulling the story down.

There are also authors with a great talent to write excititing sex scenes, but their talent to write interesting plots or create enchanting characters isn't as well developed. Their stories become better because of the sex. I hope that thought will feel comforting, and might ease your worries.

I agree that such authors writing such stories should be recognised by high scores - and I think they are. However, the sad thing is a great number of the sex stories on SoL miss out on the interesting plot and well painted characters. Way too often what is presented in the sex stories is a bunch of sex scenes strung together with a mediocre plot. The other problem area is a good story littered with mediocre sex scenes because the author feels the story has to have sex scenes to be on SoL - and the sex scenes aren't as well done as the rest of the story, thus pulling the story down.

Another comparison basis would likely be many of the "recent" HBO (and other subscription networks) titles that have "pornographic" or at a minimum, overtly "sexual content" in them.

Compared to their counterparts on either side of the spectrum relative to them. Where on one side you get almost pure porn, with practically no plot or story, just sex(and still makes decent money). While on the other side you have productions that tend to pretend sex and the assorted "naughty bits" don't exist. Although more than a few of those programs may play with "sexual tension" actual sex is a no go.

I can propose a hypothesis. Long stories are proportionately uprated by readers. It is difficult for authors of long stories to continually come up with fresh and exciting sex scenes. So authors of long stories who don't risk including sex scenes might have a marginal advantage.

My hypothesis is similar to that. I'm not so certain that long stories are uprated by readers. I suspect at least some of the apparent uprating is the result of better authors being more ambitious, and writing longer stories.

We'll have to disagree on that.

I'll agree with that. :-)

We'll have to disagree on that. A substantial proportion of highly-rated long stories have, in my opinion, disappointingly poor writing quality.

As the expression goes, sometimes quantity is a quality of its own. The quality may be low, but the imagination/creativity behind it may have been high, and thus the higher score. Remember, one of the main scoring criteria is "how interesting" you found a story to be.

In that context, a story seemingly written by a 3rd grader could earn a high score in the right circumstances. It's highly unlikely for a range of reasons, but it can happen.

The "other factor" going for the "high imagination"/long story theory is many of them were first/second stories by authors, often written without much of an outline if any, and posted as they progressed serial style. Which tends to result in both "story sprawl" and the infamous "meandering story" that moves "very slowly" in some respects because of how much it's covering. (Even if "very slow progress" in some cases is because the author expends 100k+ words on a single day in a story which is focused on something that plays out over days/weeks/months or even years.)

Complaints about a "poorly focused story" are one thing. Saying a story is "uninteresting" because of that flaw alone is another.

@Me
the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories.
@You
Why?

No-sex stories are about 10% of total stories, but 20% of stories with scores of 8 or more.
That is the type of result I expected because the best authors are capable of writing good stories about anything!
I do not care how you interpret that result in the data.

How about: 1) they write based on plot, rather than the amount of sex, and 2) they have more confidence, and won't force into a story where it doesn't fit.

So the 'best authors' avoid mistakes every good writer should avoid. That's just stating the obvious, but no argument why the 'best authors' are more likely to write stories without sex. Exchange sex with violence or drama and your statement stays true for stories without sex, too.

1) They write based on plot, rather than the amount of violence or drama, and 2) they have more confidence, and won't force violence or drama into a story where it doesn't fit.

So the 'best authors' avoid mistakes every good writer should avoid. That's just stating the obvious, but no argument why the 'best authors' are more likely to write stories without sex. Exchange sex with violence or drama and your statement stays true for stories without sex, too.

When most normal people, that aren't assholes, are having sex, their attention tends to be focused on just that. So not much else is likely to happen.

While in a "dramatic situation" or "violent situation" any number of permutations are available that don't result in your characters coming off looking either very abnormal, or assholes.

Edit: That isn't to say you can't create a setting in which casual/indifferent sexual activity is considered "normal" for the people involved. It just means you're going to have a harder time trying to "sell" that to the reader.

Of course, I guess there is always the under the desk/table hijinks that can be employed, but there's only so much that can be done there.

I don't object anything you said, I just can't see the point you want to make. Good authors should avoid redundancy in their stories. That's pretty obvious and true for every kind of story. Do you want to say that sex in its very nature is redundant and therefor has to be avoided in a story at all times? I don't think that's what you wanted to say and you didn't, but if it's not, what is your point?

I don't object anything you said, I just can't see the point you want to make. Good authors should avoid redundancy in their stories. That's pretty obvious and true for every kind of story. Do you want to say that sex in its very nature is redundant and therefor has to be avoided in a story at all times? I don't think that's what you wanted to say and you didn't, but if it's not, what is your point?

Not so much that sex is redundant, more that sex is typically superfluous to development of the plot in most stories aside from the fact that it happened. Because generally speaking, it doesn't matter if he's taking her doggie style, or she's riding reverse cowgirl. Now if an assassin(or angry spouse/ex) is going to take pot shots at them from behind the one "on top" it becomes somewhat relevant to the story. However, that doesn't necessarily mean we need a detailed accounting of their successful exploration of 6 positions from the Kama Sutra prior to that.

I'm all for sexy context, and gratuitous inclusion of related things even when it may not be strictly necessary. But there is a point where it becomes "too much" and the story suffers because of it.

It isn't that I am arguing(or wanting) for less sexual content in stories. It is that good stories with large amounts of sexual content are hard to write, because once more, actions(rather than events unrelated) that occur during sex rarely advance or impact a storyline. Obviously there are ways they can, but it gets back to an author can only do that so many times in a story before it starts coming off as blatantly contrived by the author--and the story suffers because of it.

It isn't that I am arguing(or wanting) for less sexual content in stories. It is that good stories with large amounts of sexual content are hard to write, because once more, actions(rather than events unrelated) that occur during sex rarely advance or impact a storyline. Obviously there are ways they can, but it gets back to an author can only do that so many times in a story before it starts coming off as blatantly contrived by the author--and the story suffers because of it.

If it's hard to write, or better let's say difficult because of the lewd context, wouldn't that also imply that a very good author might be able to pull it off, whereas a mere mediocre author would fail? Remember we were talking about the 'best authors'.

If it's hard to write, or better let's say difficult because of the lewd context (sic) ...

So you want to play Who's the Most-Annoying Nitpicking Arsehole?
Game on!

Nitpick #1

Why is difficult 'better' than hard?
The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary gives this as it's second definition of the adjective hard:

difficult to do, understand or answer

It then provides this example:
quote}
hard for somebody (to do something) It's hard for old people to change their ways.

How "old" are you???
Difficult is not 'better'; they mean exactly the bloody same thing!

Nitpick #2

You should have a comma after difficult?
These words in your sentence, 'or better let's say difficult', are what is called a 'parenthetic phrase' (and various other names).
It is actually two parenthetic phrases, 'or better' and 'let's say difficult', but they are linked closely enough that it's reasonable to treat them as one.
Parenthetic phrases interrupt the main body of a sentence. The test for them is whether what's left if they were deleted still makes grammatical sense. You're sentence does.
The usual way to punctuate parenthetic phrases is with a comma before and after them, but you can often get away with not having a comma at either. The one thing you cannot do is to use a comma to introduce a parenthetic phrase and then not have some punctuation to close it.
Your sentence has a 'dependent' phrase, 'because of the lewd context'. That has been separated by your single comma from the clause it is dependent on, 'If it's hard to write'!

Nitpick #3

The word context does not make sense to me. I think that should be content.

Nitpick #4

You should also have some punctuation mark to show that the words hard and difficult in your sentence are being quoted from another source. That is usually achieved by either enclosing them in single quote marks or putting them italic font.

By the way, I have a "friend" I can't wait to introduce you to. He uses the name Dominions Son here. I can just tell that you two are going to get on like a house on fire ... I just hope the supply of houses is large enough to cope.

* * *

To Dominions Son:
I apologise for dragging you into this like that. I trust you'll understand I intended no offense, to you.
May I say that I've noticed you have been very "good" for quite some time now, and I have appreciated that. :-)

If it's hard to write, or better let's say difficult because of the lewd context, wouldn't that also imply that a very good author might be able to pull it off, whereas a mere mediocre author would fail? Remember we were talking about the 'best authors'.

That's the issue with speaking in generalities. "Best authors" probably could write very good "stroke" or "much sex" stories. But the reality is, due to that same difficulty issue, which impacts them as well, they'll tend not to do so. Because people generally prefer "easy" over "difficult."

Which also isn't even touching on the matter of "forcing the muse" in such scenarios. As that brings us back to the amount of work/creativity involved in both keeping the sexual context unique/"fresh" and also relevant to the plot, rather than something that can be skipped or edited out without being missed.

So while they could do so, generally speaking "Best authors" will not do so. Resulting in their tending towards production of works with less sexual content rather than more of it. But being a generality, that's just speaking to the odds of what they'll write at a given time. You never know, their "muse" may drop a "stroke" story in their lap next week.

But being a generality, that's just speaking to the odds of what they'll write at a given time. You never know, their "muse" may drop a "stroke" story in their lap next week.

Personelly I don't care for stroke stories, so I'll hope it will be a "much" or "some sex" story that drops in their lap. Looking at the top stories lists on SoL those seem to drop fairly often, and I'm very satisfied with their authors and their quality.

CW mentioned to me recently about using a sex scene as a trust building exercise. There will be sex, but what's important is what they say to each other before and after.

In the scene after the one I'm writing now, they are cuddling but she's been distraught and won't let him stick it in right away. She wants to talk. She needs to trust his motives.

She says, "What if I told you I don't like sex anymore?"

"I'd think you were lying."

"Okay - what if we stopped having sex? Would you still love me?"

He gives a good answer and she lets him slide it in for some nice, slow, passionate lovemaking. It's also a setup for a sequel scene with a girl who has only average looks and doesn't believe in premarital sex. Is she still someone who he can love?

Back to the original couple, later they are in bed and she asks him about his previous girlfriends, eventually teasing him that, "You're not that good" which gets into a discussion of whether it's good to be able to compare your current partner's performance in bed to past partners. Just enjoy it for what it is or be thinking that the ex gave better blow jobs? Again, is sex necessary part of loving someone, and can it get in the way?

CW mentioned to me recently about using a sex scene as a trust building exercise. There will be sex, but what's important is what they say to each other before and after.

This cycles back to "generally speaking" such encounters are not needed, not relevant, and whatever plot advancement that may happen could easily be done elsewhere.

There are always going to be cases where the "general expectation" doesn't hold true. A good writer will know the difference, a mediocre one won't(and probably leave it there).

Also of note in that specific example is the "plot relevant parts" happen either just as the sex starts, or after its concluded. Making it not too difficult to "just skip over" most of the sex from there.

This cycles back to "generally speaking" such encounters are not needed, not relevant, and whatever plot advancement that may happen could easily be done elsewhere.

It is true that in my examples sex was not necessary to make the plot point. However, do we expect them to have a relationship without sex? That's a different type, which I will also write about. If they are having sex, to what level of detail do we portray it? As time goes by I'm editing the sex scenes in my WIP to be less graphic, but also to my example, that she only lets him proceed in a certain circumstance is important to the plot. I don't have a lot of scenes. They get intimate every couple of weeks on average - but I make sure that scene has story value just like any other.

Also of note in that specific example is the "plot relevant parts" happen either just as the sex starts, or after its concluded. Making it not too difficult to "just skip over" most of the sex from there.

You won't need a thousand word blow by blow description, just the flow of action, the emotions and the conversations.

Mental draft -

She ran down the hall to her room, clad only in her panties and bra. I followed her in to find her on the bed, facing away from the door. Out of her sight, I slipped off my shirt, leaving only my socks and boxers, and asked, "Can I lay down with you?"

"Yeah - but don't go stickin' that thing anywhere. I just need you to hold me."

I snuggled up from behind to spoon her. When my hand slipped from her shoulder to her breast she lightly smacked it away. "I told you - no touching until I say so."

"Okay."

"Shh. Let me think."

She held my hand and it wasn't until several minutes later when she whispered, "Tell me about your girlfriends..."

"...and two weeks later I met you."

"Okay, I'm ready."

I lifted up her leg and nudged forward. Upon feeling me enter she rolled away and said, "Aren't you forgetting something? You better go get that rubber."

Latex encased, I started the process over. As I worked my way deeper, she cooed. "Oh, yes, that's what I need."

I kept it slow, nibbling at her neck and fondling her breasts from behind, the only sounds her moans and the gentle slapping of our thighs. When I was getting close my pace naturally picked up, and she slipped a hand down there to rub herself to climax as I stiffened and filled the condom which was deep inside her.

After I pulled out she rolled over, held my face, and kissed me. "Thank you."

Her emotions and general state of mind, testing whether she could trust him to follow directions and be devoted to her in the long term, the use of the condom, the pacing - all these are the kinds of things that can be shown that are important to the plot while describing the sex but not in "intimate" detail

I can't shake off the feeling that behind all those reasonable sounding explanation lurks a lot of hypocrisy. No one has to hide shamefaced in a dark corner because he enjoys to read about a dogfight between two pilots; a gunfight between gunslingers; a lengthy description of a difficult break-in; but to read about people having sex is superflous. Although all those scenes have the same potential to add to a story in regards to character development or to the plot. Or they don't add much, and a reader just enjoys the scenery.

I can't shake off the feeling that behind all those reasonable sounding explanations lurks a lot of hypocrisy

I don't see the scope their explanations as going far enough to result in hypocrisy.
If I thought their meaning was to suggest others should limit explicit content, I'm not sure what word I would choose to describe that - but it would be insulting.
I interpret their comments as being only a discussion of what they do (plus why, its effect,...) to achieve the results they find most satisfying when they choose to limit explicit content.
There is an equally valid question that could be being discussed here: how can authors employ gunfights to enhance the way they show the development of their characters,

It becomes a problem when the scenery (sex) is 50+ percent of the content, and the plot is not about having sex.

I agree, but it also would become a problem if 50% of the scenery were dogfights, gun fights or break-ins, and that's the point.

I can't shake off the feeling that behind all those reasonable sounding explanation lurks a lot of hypocrisy. No one has to hide shamefaced in a dark corner because he enjoys to read about a dogfight between two pilots;

Forget what the jargon term is for such stories, but there actually is something of a "genre" for this kind of thing. And it basically could be described as "excessively detailed act by act accounts of fighter dog fights"

a gunfight between gunslingers;

"Gun porn" is a thing.

a lengthy description of a difficult break-in;

Depending on the story and genre(crime), that may be a very appropriate thing to include. It's kind of like a "hard SciFi" story going into a very detailed description of the mechanics behind how a particular thing is possible/happening in the story.

but to read about people having sex is superflous.

If the story's major focus has little or nothing to do with sex, then having detailed blow by blow(literally!) accounts of sex acts is very likely to be superfluous.

It's either that or the author went "I think this story isn't going to do well on its own merits. So I better throw in a lot of sex scenes for good measure, and then market it under the erotica sub-genre as well." It still doesn't make the sex scenes relevant to the story line, it just makes the sexual content relevant to the specific genre the author was targeting.

Although all those scenes have the same potential to add to a story in regards to character development or to the plot. Or they don't add much, and a reader just enjoys the scenery.

Not going to argue that point, but in more than a few cases, it gets to the point with some authors, when those types of scenes come up, it's time to skip ahead a few paragraphs, check in briefly, and probably skip ahead several more, rinse and repeat, probably several times, until you find yourself 15 pages further into the book, at which point the story continues, and you've missed nothing for having just skipped over nearly all of those 15 pages.

and you've missed nothing for having just skipped over nearly all of those 15 pages.

Or maybe you have, but you'll never know for sure because you skipped over them.

Or maybe you have, but you'll never know for sure because you skipped over them.

If the story still makes sense after skipping something either in whole or in part, whatever was skipped probably wasn't essential to the story. So if the objective is to write "a tight story" then that content would be up for the chopping block. Without regard to what that specific content was.

Sexual content was given "special attention" in this discussion because
1) The subject matter of the OP.
2) The theory that higher-scored low to no-sex stories were getting higher scores on average due to being "tighter stories" in general
3) SOL being considered a "sex stories site" by many, many authors do, as Ernest Bywater mentions, decide that the story must have sexual content in it, and pursue including gratuitous amounts of it into their stories because of it. Which in turn results in their being downrated for containing "repetitious, boring, and uninspiring/uninspired content."

Basically, the author potentially decided to pander to their audience, and that's a bad idea if taken too far.

Basically, the author potentially decided to pander to their audience, and that's a bad idea if taken too far.

That's actually a good summary of my thought process before I wrote a story and submitted it to SoL. I am a part of the audience and like being pandered to. So I thought I could try to contribute as an author as well. Since every idea is a bad idea if taken too far, that thought didn't detain me.

Edited to correct the spelling error pointed out to me.

That's actually a good summary

That was my reaction to the entire post by Not_a_Id.
I thought the post was very well stated, managing to achieve a non-inflammatory tone about a topic which often inflames the passions of many here. :-)

If the story still makes sense after skipping something either in whole or in part, whatever was skipped probably wasn't essential to the story. So if the objective is to write "a tight story" then that content would be up for the chopping block. Without regard to what that specific content was.

I think you focus a bit too much on the storyline. A good story is more than straight lines from point A - to B - to C. An author also has to create the world his characters are living in. Painting pictures and showing emotions to help the reader's imagination and enjoyment of his story. That doesn't further the plot, or tighten a story, but it adds to its quality nonetheless. Maybe it's just a matter of preference, but I surely prefer such a story.

That doesn't further the plot, or tighten a story, but it adds to its quality nonetheless. Maybe it's just a matter of preference, but I surely prefer such a story.

You're not letting go, are you? But I think 'matter of preference' is something no one here has problems agreeing to.
I think CW explained how often, not always, everything up to it starting and after it's finishing is adding to plot and character development, but the Tab-A-in-Slot-B parts in between are not. While not objecting to some needless "scenery", I gather his preference is to limit the descriptions of mechanics to a level which does not become repetitive and boring. Surely some readers like the choice he makes, but some would prefer more.
I cannot agree with 'adds to its quality', but I'd certainly agree with 'adds to the appeal to some readers'.
Perhaps the words of Ricky Nelson are apt for this situation:

You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself

Painting pictures and showing emotions to help the reader's imagination and enjoyment of his story. That doesn't further the plot, or tighten a story, but it adds to its quality nonetheless. Maybe it's just a matter of preference, but I surely prefer such a story.

There are stories where the setting is more important than the characters themselves, in fact the characters may simply be the vehicle through which the author explores the setting. Tolkien does this with Lord the Rings and the associated additional materials.

However, as fun as exploring the labial folds of Tauriel may or may not be, her vulva doesn't really have much relevance in regards to the overall setting of Middle Earth.

However, as fun as exploring the labial folds of Tauriel may or may not be, her vulva doesn't really have much relevance in regards to the overall setting of Middle Earth.

It's a fantasy story, you never know! Maybe Middle Earth was designed as a likeness of her vulva, and we never heard about, because no one explored it attentively enough.

It's a fantasy story, you never know! Maybe Middle Earth was designed as a likeness of her vulva, and we never heard about, because no one explored it attentively enough.

Lo and behold, her vulva was actually a scale replica of Mount Doom. If only Frodo knew.

Lo and behold, her vulva was actually a scale replica of Mount Doom.

In that case I've to revoke my former comment. Someone obviously was attentive enough to explore.

In that case I've to revoke my former comment. Someone obviously was attentive enough to explore.

And Frodo can rest easier knowing that Tauriel doesn't exist in the books written by Tolkien.

And Frodo can rest easier knowing that Tauriel doesn't exist in the books written by Tolkien.

That was simply mean! I was wondering who the fuck is Tauriel. I even googled the name but didn't realize she was invented only for the movie.

That was simply mean! I was wondering who the fuck is Tauriel. I even googled the name but didn't realize she was invented only for the movie.

To be fair, when I was hunting for a name, I just ran straight to the cast list for The Hobbit and pulled her name from there, not knowing she was invented for the movie. I found that out later when I went back to check to see if she was even still alive when Frodo made his journey. Imagine my surprise to discover she didn't exist when those movies were made.

So if the objective is to write "a tight story" then that content would be up for the chopping block.

Why should that be "the" objective?

Why should that be "the" objective?

He said 'if the objective', not 'should', and I think the answer is to please himself.

Basically, the author potentially decided to pander to their audience, and that's a bad idea if taken too far.

A meaningless statement without an objective criteria for how far is too far.

I simply don't see a reason sex is especially to mention when talking about redundancy or disutility in stories. It's like every other theme or activity in a story. Not a special detriment in need of extra caution. Cause and effect is the same in every story, no matter if sex is a part of the story. Use the scenes in your story to develop and progress plot and characters, and you get a good story (potentially, an interesting storyline is needed as well).

By itself, it isn't, except a number of authors and readers keep pushing the incorrect statement a story on Sol has to have sex in it.

Since there are hundreds of no sex stories on SoL, and they even have their very own tag, I thought that should be obvious.

Thus some authors insert repetitious boring sex scenes to meet that false statement.

That sounds pretty silly to me. Do 'some authors' do it as some sort of misguided revenge for the injustice they had to endure? Or are they trying to pull a nail out of a wall with the only tool they own; a hammer.

Anything where the same thing is repeated time after time is boring, but a boring gratuitous sex scene is about the classic example of wasted text.

I thought the classic example is a school lesson (not a lesson in the NiS universe, of course).

I suspect some authors do it because they've been told or believe they must have sex scenes so they toss them in, but since it's a throw-away seen they don't do any real work on it, thus it isn't well done.

Although an internet search for 'Storiesonline' reveals that the site's advertising leans heavily to sex stories, it also mentions stories in general. Maybe Lazeez could make it more explicit, that sex is no requirement for stories to be published on SoL, but I doubt that would have much, if any, effect at all. Bemoaning the reality doesn't alter it either, so I guess there isn't much you can do about it. If an author is willing to compromise his story by adding half-arsed scenes, I wouldn't put too much faith in his abilities anyway.

Regular repeated scenes with no or little changes are boring, be they sex scenes

Edited per advice from Ross:

Agreed, and I think that most of the "too much" or "gratuitous" are really about "boring". In which case, the objection should be stated as "boring sex" rather than "too much sex" or "gratuitous sex".

Say what you mean, mean what you say.

Are you and CW arguing about a statement that I originally made? - 'the best authors are more likely to write no-sex stories'.
May I constructively suggest you discuss instead my assertion - 'the best authors are less likely to write stories with a lot of sex'. I think you are more likely to reach some sort of agreement about that: there are now statistics available which clearly show a trend exists.

When I first asked EB to compile some statistics, I asked for a breakdown of scores for each of the five values for Sex Content. He only had time to produce results comparing no-sex stories to all others in the first set of statistics he produced.
I anticipated the results would show some drop-off of very high scores for stories with a lot of sex. The only reason my original statement mentioned 'no-sex stories' was that was the only data available at that time.

The full data is now available and it very clearly shows a trend in the highest-scoring stories. These are my calculations for the score at the first decile for the five levels of Sex Content:
None Min. Some Much Stroke
8.12 8.21 8.02 7.63 7.25
These results will be close enough to show the trend quite accurately, except for the Much Sex value, which is slightly higher than it should be.
The trend is very clear: it's very hard to write a story with a lot of sex that scores very well, and increasingly hard as the level of sex increases. I might not consider these results statistically significant if they were based on only 400 scores, but with over 40,000 stories I do think it's reasonable to assert that the trend exists.
It's obviously not possible to be certain about the cause(s) of this trend - there are so many variables affecting scores - but I think those here should be permitted to hypothesise about probable causes without being challenged about their opinions. I would imagine most theories those here might propose would be partially, but not completely, true.

So, robberhands, will you please reconsider the statements CW has been making that you object to? I think he would concede those comments are not restricted to no-sex stories, but would also apply to stories with some sex - just not to those with too much sex. They may not be provable, but they seem to me to be opinions it's quite reasonable for him to hold.

To both of you, please don't bother responding to this post. I won't answer anything either of you say!

The scoring is set up to toss out the highest and lowest 5% of votes and then to regress that mean to a prior. Therefor, a story with the same actual vote distributions but a higher number of votes will rate well. The longevity of a story is correlated to it's quality (as people still want to read it) but the score will naturally rise as it hangs around and gets more votes. The actual vote totals for my stories average about 8.3 while it's reported as 7.0 due to the regression with the comparitively small number of votes.

The scoring is set up to toss out the highest and lowest 5% of votes and then to regress that mean to a prior. Therefor, a story with the same actual vote distributions but a higher number of votes will rate well. The longevity of a story is correlated to it's quality (as people still want to read it) but the score will naturally rise as it hangs around and gets more votes. The actual vote totals for my stories average about 8.3 while it's reported as 7.0 due to the regression with the comparitively small number of votes.

You've misinterpreted something. The number of votes does NOT affect the score. If you had exactly ten times the number of 10 votes, and 9 votes, ... and 1 votes, your score would be exactly the same.

This is a trivial point. It is possible for a score to change without any extra votes being cast for it. If your score is currently showing as 7.00, but its actual value is 7.0049, a sudden surge in low votes for other stories could push your score up a fraction, and the system would then show it as 7.01.

Isn't the thought that taboo sex might actually occur something that makes reading about it more exciting?

You've actually done well to get a score of 7 with a stroke story, especially one that's very short. If you look at the lengthy post I made just above, I calculated an estimate that only 10% of all Stroke stories have a score of 7.25 or better. :-) I'm sure your story scored well because you included a plot and character development as well.

The number of votes does NOT affect the score.

This is not exactly true. The number of votes doesn't have a linear effect but it does have some effect.

The effect will be more pronounced when the total number of votes is less than 100.

The system always throws out the same number of votes at the top and bottom and it can only throw out a whole number of votes.

So lets posit a story with 99 votes,

Vote(count)

1(5)

8(89)

9(1)

10(4)

The raw total is 766 and the average is 7.73

5% of 99 is 4.95 but the system can only remove whole votes, so the top and bottom 4 are removed and the adjusted average is 7.93 ((8*89) + 9 + 1)/91

If you add 1 more vote of 7 to push the total to 100, what happens?

The new score is below the raw and adjusted averages, so the first impression is that the score would drop slightly.

But that's not what happens. Since the number of raw votes is now 100, the system will remove the top and bottom 5 votes and the score actually jumps to 7.99 (7+(8*89))/90

I just finished working out a lot more statistics

Thanks, EB, for those statistics.
I was surprised by the results. I had thought, like the original poster, that readers "penalised" stories with a low sex content, not giving them the credit they deserved based on the quality of the story and writing.
The curve of scores is very similar for No-Sex and Minimal Sex stories. The peak is fractionally lower for Some Sex, significantly lower for Much Sex, and very much lower for Stroke stories.
My guess, which I cannot prove, is the general quality of low-sex stories is higher than for high-sex stories - but I did not expect that to be reflected so clearly in the scores.
I no longer think readers penalise low-sex scores. If anything, it appears they tend to penalise stories with too much sex, and not enough story.

Yeah. I think my statement should have read, 'they tend to penalise stories when the story suffers because of too much sex' ... but I'll keep the 'If anything' part to avoid sounding too conclusive.

The results kind of restored my faith in human nature.

I expected the average score of stories with sex to be slightly lower because of what the trolls do to stories including MM sex, about 6% of the total. However, if it was just that then the Some and Much Sex stories would suffer as much the Stroke stories. That is not so; the downgrading becomes stronger as the level of sex increases. It does appear it's excessive sex that becomes boring that they will penalise.

In my opinion, too much sex is one of the lesser faults of that ilk

I agree and you make a valid point: there are many things besides excessive sex which can clog up an otherwise interesting story.
My comment was an observation about how readers tend to score stories, not the kinds of things that are better left out of stories.

there's more danger of the author slipping in a gun above the mantlepiece.

Maybe some American authors will slip on guns above their mantelpieces and help clear away some of the chaff for us. :-)

In my opinion, too much sex is one of the lesser faults of that ilk that a story can have because the sex scenes are relatively safe to skip over. Compare that with too many meetings, too much technical or mechanical detail, too many shopping lists, too much of the author's political and economic theories, too many descriptions of the protagonists having breakfast - there's more danger of the author slipping in a gun above the mantlepiece.

In the case of what is being demonstrated regarding "stroke stories" in particular, is a problem not much unlike a "pure porn/no plot" video. The author's chosen mission as it were, is to generate as much sexual content as possible in as little time as possible. So there is basically no plot, no foreplay, it's "just sex."

And surprisingly enough for a website which caters to sex stories. Those stories get penalized for being uninspired, or really having anything that sets them apart from the hundreds that came before it. Except the matter that theirs is the newest one posted.

Which would appear to indicate that SOL readers want a good plot with their sex over just sex.

Perhaps there are times when a stroke story is so good at doing its "job" that readers forget to give it a score afterwards. :-)

I posted my two recent stories here as a writing challenge, to post a single chapter 'stroke story' of three to four thousand words, that has character development and a plot as well as a payoff. I wanted to sexual situation in the story to be as plausible as possible. Isn't the thought that taboo sex might actually occur something that makes reading about it more exciting?

Thanks for identifying the explanation of the scoring system.
The method of calculation is not what I thought, but there still appears to be an apparent anomaly to me.
Certainly, I was wrong in suggesting the curve of scores may be affected by a tendency for high-scoring stories to receive more votes.
I would now expect the median score to be (almost) exactly six. I calculate (which will be very close, but not exact) a median score of 6.69.
I'll wait for Lazeez's explanation. I'm sure there's a rational reason for what I see.

I'm not discussing the scoring system again.

I can live with that, and thanks for the response.

When I do include sex scenes I try to keep them varied and interesting, but it's not as easy as you would think off hand.

I wouldn't think that at all, and it becomes more difficult the longer the story continues, at least for me. I couldn't even imagin to write one of the 5k+ epic 'much sex' stories. I admire the perseverance and determination of their authors.