ratings - what's an R vs. an NC-17?

[khalulu]

Hi all - just curious, since I'm new to submitting and posting fics, and many places ask for a rating - is there any consensus on approximately where the line is between R and NC-17 in a slash fic that has sex but isn't PWP?

Comments

[khalulu]

nteresting - a specific example like that is very helpful for understanding how that particular place approaches it, thanks. That R didn't leave much to the imagination!

At one place - skyhawke, I think - I had to get past a warning for "extreme sex or violence" to read fics that just had explicit sex. If they hadn't been recced or I hadn't read the author elsewhere, I'd have thought that rating was a warning for graphic torture/non-con etc., and stayed away.

[slytherincesss.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's Skyehawke. They have the X S V codes -- extreme sexual or violence content. The problem is that it implies something is violent when perhaps it's just explicit and there's a huge difference between the two. Just because something is explicit doesn't mean it's extreme. Someone can use very graphic and blunt terms to describe very vanilla sex. So I always take the X S V codes with a grain of salt and read the fics I want to read. I can always hit the back button if they turn out to be genuinely creepy :))