Archive-name: erotica-faq
Frequency: monthly
Last-modified: 15 Jun 1994


    INTRODUCTION TO REC.ARTS.EROTICA AND FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
		   [ Last changed: June 15, 1994 ]

		Tim Pierce (twpierce@unix.amherst.edu)
	   Originally by: Evan Leibovich (evan@telly.on.ca)


Copyright 1994 by Tim Pierce.  Permission is granted to copy and
redistribute this document provided that it remains complete and
unmodified.

For the most up-to-date copy of this FAQ, send mail to
erotica@unix.amherst.edu with the subject "FAQ".


New material is indicated by a "+" at the beginning of a line; revised
material, by a "!".  Material that will be deleted with the next FAQ
is marked with a "-" at the beginning of a line.

------------------------------
Subject: 1. Table of Contents

   1. Table of Contents
   2. Welcome to rec.arts.erotica!
   3. What will happen if I post to rec.arts.erotica?
   4. What kind of submission is unacceptable?
   5. How about "taboo" subject matter?
   6. What should I include in my submission?
   7. Do you ever edit or modify submissions before approving them?
   8. What if my submission is rejected?
   9. Can I post anonymously?
  10. Can you please cancel my last post?
+ 11. There's never anything in this group but this FAQ.  What's wrong?
  12. Is there a publicly-accessible site which archives this group?
  13. Can I get rec.arts.erotica via e-mail?
  14. Where can I get sexy GIFs?
  15. Where is Amherst?

  (If you are using a pager that understands regular expressions, you
  may skip directly to a particular question -- for example, question
  9 -- by searching for the expression /^Subject: 9\./ Digest-aware
  newsreaders may have special commands to facilitate paging through
  this FAQ.)

------------------------------
Subject: 2. Welcome to rec.arts.erotica!

  This news group is intended to be a low-volume, noise-free
  environment in which to find erotic literature, and pointers of
  where to find other erotic materials.  It is here for the enjoyment
  of the Usenet community and no other reason.

  Original submissions, and works either released into the public
  domain, or copyrighted but without restriction of distribution, are
  welcome.

  There aren't many rules here, but there are some. I don't think
  they're too outlandish, and I'm always open to change if some policy
  is too restrictive.  But your reasons had better be good...

  If you have suggestions or problems regarding the answers that
  follow, please write me.  Posting to the newsgroup should also work,
  because most news systems automatically mail posts to moderated
  groups (such as rec.arts.erotica) to the moderator's mailbox.

  Do not post or mail requests for stories of names of archive sites.
  Such requests will go ignored.

------------------------------
Subject: 3. What will happen if I post to rec.arts.erotica?

  For information on cancelling articles that have already been
  posted, please see question 10.

  First, your post will be sent to me automatically via e-mail, so
  that I can review it.  Therefore, don't expect your post to show up
  within a few minutes after being composed.  It'll have to wait until
  the next time I log on and have time to review new submissions.  If
  traffic is high, this might be more than a few days (and has taken
  two weeks or more in the past).

  Next, I check it over for acceptability (see below).  If your
  submission meets all of the guidelines required of rec.arts.erotica
  postings, I will "approve" it and have it posted to the newsgroup.
  I will also save a copy of your post in the rec.arts.erotica
  archives.  Please note that by submitting to this newsgroup, you are
  implicitly granting permission for your work to be archived here and
  at any other archive of rec.arts.erotica that someone might be
  maintaining.

  Before approving a submission, however, I will add a Keywords header
  line to your submission containing a list of the topics explored
  therein.  The reason for this is to permit people who are either
  strongly interested or strongly disinterested in particular topics
  to determine quickly whether they will find your post interesting.

  The following keywords are used to describe a post's content:

    admin:     administrative announcements, indexes of stories, etc.
    animal:    bestiality and animals
    annc:      announcements other than administrative: freeware, etc.
    bond:      bondage (physical restraint)
    dom:       domination (primarily psychological)
    ff:        female-female contact
    furry:     sentient non-human characters (e.g. "Journal Entries")
    gothic:    vampires and other Gothic subjects (e.g. "Night Music")
    group:     group sex and threesomes
    heavy:     "heavy" forms of bdsm
    humor:     joke posts or amusing stories (e.g. "Barbeque of Doom")
    incest:    incestuous relationships
    mf:        male-female contact
    mild:      "mild" forms of bdsm
    mm:        male-male contact
    nc:        non-consensual situations
    pedo:      pedophilia (pre-pubescent) (e.g. "Misty")
    poem:      poetry
    rape:      rape scenes and other violent non-consensual sexuality
    scat:      scatology and coprophilia
    series:    long stories split into sections (e.g. "Marie")
    sf:        speculative fiction: sci-fi, heavy fantasy, and the like
    sm:        sadism and masochism
    teen:      consensual sex involving teenagers and postpubescents
    trans:     transsexuality, crossdressing and transgender topics
    water:     watersports and urophilia

  Before posting an article to rec.arts.erotica, I also add a header
  line entitled "X-Moderator-Review."  This line contains a numeric
  rating which may fall between 1 and 10, and a one-line summary of my
  opinion of the post.  This entire header is purely subjective, and
  may freely be ignored if you do not find it useful.

------------------------------
Subject: 4. What kind of submission is unacceptable?

                              NOTE:

     *  Adherence to the following guidelines is completely   *
     *  the responsibility of you, the poster, regardless of  *
     *      the story's original source. I neither edit       *
     *       submissions nor have the time to perform a       *
     *    complete authenticity check on every submission.    *
     *    I will reject flagrant violations of these rules    *
     *    if I notice them, but I disclaim having any such    *
     *                    obligation.                         *

  * Material that isn't sexually oriented. This isn't a place for
    detective stories or politics.  Note, however, that "sexually
    oriented" is a relatively subjective term; Anais Nin, for example,
    one of the most highly acclaimed writers of erotica of our time,
    wrote a good deal of highly erotic material that is also
    completely sexless.

  * Copyrighted work that isn't publicly distributable.  Work that is
    copyrighted, but explicitly permits electronic redistribution, is
    acceptable.

  * Anything submitted from a temporary, guest, or numbered account,
    unless there's a name attached to it.  Other accounts such as
    "news," "root," or accounts belonging to organizations are
    considered "guest" accounts for these purposes.

  * Non-textual material such as binary-encoded graphics.

  * Something that's already appeared on this newsgroup.

  * Material which exhibits an exceptionally poor grasp of written
    English.  A single proofreading with a copy of Strunk and White
    and a spellchecker should fix most such rejections.

------------------------------
Subject: 5. How about "taboo" subject matter?

  Most sexually-oriented material is acceptable here.  That includes
  heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality,
  bestiality, BDSM, fetishism, and so on.  The sky's pretty much the
  limit.

  I even accept articles about rape and other nonconsensual activity,
  although personally I find these subjects extremely repugnant.  My
  reason for accepting them is partly that the readers of
  rec.arts.erotica and alt.sex.stories have, in the past, voted
  overwhelmingly in favor of my approving anything with sexual
  content.  Also, I feel strongly that if I were to draw a line at
  where "unacceptability" begins, I would imply that I regard the
  material that I do approve to be "acceptable."  That is not always
  the case, and I am loath to normalize such material through the
  process of "approving" it.

  Hence, at present, the solution with which I am most comfortable is
  to post all such material which is sent to me, using the "rape" and
  "nc" keywords rigorously, and reviewing brutally violent submissions
  poorly.  It is not a perfect solution, but it's not a perfect world.

------------------------------
Subject: 6. What should I include in my submission?

  Approved postings now carry an "Archive-name" header which is
  parsable by "rkive" and other archive-maintenance software.

  Because of this, it would make my life slightly easier if you
  include *both*:

     * a descriptive Subject line.  Note that "story" and "submission"
       are not what I consider descriptive.

     * a suggestion for a one-word archive name.  The archive name
       should be no longer than 14 characters if possible, and should
       consist only of alphanumeric characters and hyphens.  If you do
       not include an archive name, one will be chosen for you.

  Please make sure that your submissions use proper spelling, grammar
  and formatting.  It is generally best to use a line length shorter
  than 75 characters. Also, please be generous with your paragraph
  breaks.  All of these things will make your submission easier to
  read.

------------------------------
Subject: 7. Do you ever edit or modify submissions before approving them?

  From time to time I have made small spelling corrections and changed
  the formatting of submitted posts slightly, but in general, no.  I
  do not regard it as my place to override authors' artistic
  judgments.  However, as stated above, submissions may be rejected if
  they appear to be written carelessly or unthinkingly in violation of
  the rules of written or spoken English.

  I do reserve the right to edit submitted messages if I find it
  necessary, mainly to modify the Subject or Keywords headers.
  Regrettably, I may also need to remove some newsgroups from the
  Newsgroups header supplied by the author, for I cannot post to
  certain newsgroups (for example, alt.sex.wizards) from this site.

------------------------------
Subject: 8. What if my submission is rejected?

  An unmoderated newsgroup for erotica, alt.sex.stories, was created
! some time ago.  There are also other newsgroups for posting general
! fiction and verse, such as rec.arts.prose and rec.arts.poems.  If
  your post is rejected from rec.arts.erotica, you may either edit it
  so that it falls within the guidelines for submission and then
  resubmit it, or you may post it directly to one of the above-named
  unmoderated newsgroups.

------------------------------
Subject: 9. Can I post anonymously?

  I will not accept anonymous submissions from remote anonymity
  servers such as anon.penet.fi.  When I have the time, I will prepare
  a service on this site allowing you to post anonymously to
  rec.arts.erotica.

------------------------------
Subject: 10. Can you please cancel my last post?

  I reserve the right to cancel posts which have already been approved
  to rec.arts.erotica, for any reason.  This includes, but is not
  limited to, submissions which violate someone's copyright, which are
  subsequently shown to be reposts of old rec.arts.erotica material,
  or which prove to be intended primarily to harass or humiliate
  another Usenet participant.

  I also reserve the right to refuse to cancel any post which was sent
  somehow in error.  It is your responsibility to check and proofread
  messages before they are sent, to know your local site's policy on
  postings to Usenet, and to understand what it means to have your
  name appear in the header of a post to rec.arts.erotica.  I cannot
  be responsible for such mistakes, and I don't think it's appropriate
  to unnecessarily inconvenience readers of this newsgroup by
  cancelling posts that were submitted carelessly.

------------------------------
Subject: 11. There's never anything in this group but this FAQ.  What's wrong?

+ The most likely problem is that although the newsgroup appears on
+ your system locally, for some reason some site upstream from you is
+ not passing it along.  As a result, you will only receive
+ rec.arts.erotica articles which have been crossposted to newsgroups
+ that *are* sent to you.  There is a low proportion of crossposting
+ in rec.arts.erotica, so this generally means that only the FAQ will
+ arrive at your site.
+
+ To solve this problem you will need to speak with your system
+ administrator, or with the administrator of a site that feeds you
+ news.  I am afraid that I cannot help you further in this.

------------------------------
Subject: 12. Is there a publicly-accessible site which archives this group?

!    * NOTE: I do not have the time to send individual posts in *
!    * the rec.arts.erotica archive to people, nor do I have    *
!    * the resources to make the archive available via FTP or   *
!    * mail server.  Any requests I receive for reposts, old    *
     * old submissions, or to be subscribed or unsubscribed     *
     * from mailing lists, are likely to be dropped in the bit- *
     * bucket without comment or acknowledgement.               *

  There are almost certainly archive sites, but many do not wish to
  make their existence publicly known because of the crush of archive
  requests which invariably result.  Please do not jeopardize the
  existence of erotica archive sites by posting their names.  I will
  include the name of such a site here only if the administrator of
  the service has given me permission.

  If you manage such an archive site and are willing to announce it
  publicly, please notify me and I will include it in this posting,
  which I hope will be updated from time to time with new information
  of this kind.  If you are willing to *publicly* archive
  rec.arts.erotica but do not have copies of the archives, I will be
  happy to supply you with copies of past submissions.

  The following archives of rec.arts.erotica have been made known to
  me:

     FTP sites:
       None.  If you manage such a site, please let me know
       so I can include the information in this FAQ.

     Mail Servers:

       * server@hermes.acm.rpi.edu

         Send mail to server@hermes.acm.rpi.edu with the word "help"
         in the body of the message.  Note that this archive contains
         a variety of erotic texts, but does not presently archive all
         posts to rec.arts.erotica.

  If you are willing to offer your resources to augment any of these
  services, *please* let me know.  I would like to distribute the load
  of archive requests and mailing list subscriptions over as wide a
  base as possible, in order to prevent any single site from becoming
  overwhelmed.

------------------------------
Subject: 13. Can I get rec.arts.erotica via e-mail?

  I do not know of any mailing list reflector of rec.arts.erotica
  currently in operation.  If you administer such a mailing list and
  would like it advertised here, please let me know.
 
------------------------------
Subject: 14. Where can I get sexy GIFs?

  I haven't a clue.  Nor do I wish to get one, on this subject.

------------------------------
Subject: 15. Where is Amherst?

  My Amherst is Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, but I have
  heard tell of Amhersts in New Hampshire; New York; Vermont; Ohio;
  Virginia; Colorado; Maine; Minnesota; Montana; Nebraska; North
  Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; Wisconsin; Nova Scotia;
  England; and Victoria, Australia.

  That's all for now.  Happy reading (and posting)!

-- 
Moderator, rec.arts.erotica.  Submissions to erotica@unix.amherst.edu.
Please, no reposts, first drafts, or requests for "subscriptions,"
stories, GIFs, or archive sites.
