Literotica

Literotica is one of the pioneers of online erotic fiction. It was first created in 1998, and may have been the first erotic fiction website to openly accept and published works from its users. A lot of the original porn-sites have been overpassed by newcomers, but the same can’t be said of Literotica. Although its appearance and layout may seem at times oldfashioned and even cumbersome, the site can’t be beaten when it comes to the quality and quantity of fiction it contains.

So Many Stories

Upon entering Literotica you’ll be greeted with a brief disclaimer about the sites adult nature, an introduction, and some recent news. Although it may look at first glance as if the site hasn’t been updated since the 90s, it is in fact still regularly changed, improved, and updated on a frequent basis.

New themed contests start regularly and can be a fun way to introduce yourself to the active authors of Literotica, so resist the temptation to skim through this whole page. While it’s tempting to get right down to business, it is worth taking the time to familiarize yourself with Literotica.

The main appeal of Literotica for a vast majority of visitors is in the Stories & Pics section. Once at that page, you’ll be greeted with a straightforward list of links to move you forward, and simultaneously assaulted with a hideous blue background with the words “literotica.com” and “erotic stories” repeated ad nauseaum.

Do your best to ignore that bit of bad site design, though. Under the heading Erotic Stories you’ll find more and better literary erotic fiction than you’ll find on any other website, and possibly on all other sites combined. If you’re incredibly brave and have a high tolerance for terrible characters, plots, and writing mechanics you can dive right in to read the newest stories, but if you’re at least a tiny bit discerning you’ll want to approach the collection another way. This isn’t to say that you won’t find anything good in the New section, but the site receives over one hundred new stories uploaded each day, so your odds aren’t good.

For a true greatest-hits style experience, you should start with the Top Lists page. In Pornsites.com’s opinion the poetry can be well-written and is often actually quite hilarious, so don’t discount that section entirely, but if you’re visiting Literotica with a goal of orgasm in mind, stick with stories. The poetry can be enjoyed later, but the stories are the focus of the site.

You have two options for viewing the top stories (before you get into genre). You can see a list of the Most Read stories, as well as the top Reader Voted stories. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. The Most Read stories have stood the test of time, often being almost ten years old. But, they also sometimes suffer from having drawn their popularity more so from their longevity, interesting title, or eye-catching themes than from the actual quality of the story.

The top-voted stories aren’t without their drawbacks. Where the most-read stories are ancient, these are almost too new, and get their popularity as flavors-of-the-month rather than due to any inherent quality. Likewise, some only have a high average rating because they’ve only been read by a fraction of the sites readers.

But, both are excellent, even if they’re excellent in different ways. So instead of choosing one and sticking with it, try to read stories from both categories. Or, if you’re looking for something a bit more specific, dive into Literoticas extensive category system. Within these categories stories are sorted by voting results, but you can adjust the filter to include stories from the last month, year, or all-time to change the results up a bit.

Each genre is sorted alphabetically. While almost all of them have worthwhile stories within them, I’ll only go over a few of Pornsites.com’s favorites and some of the more interesting ones. They have the basics you would expect from any porn, like Anal, BDSM, Gay, and Group Sex stories, as well as some of the genre tropes that always come up in literary erotica, like Celebrities, Fan Fiction, and First Time. Fetishes are touched on in Exhibitionist & Voyeur, Incest/Taboo, and NonConsent/Reluctance, and they’ve even got some categories you would never expect, like nonfictional How To guides, Reviews and Essays, and even Non-Erotic stories.

You can also browse stories by series, which is a much more preferable way to get into the long serials that many Literotica authors like to write, and if you end up liking a specific author above others, there is an author directory where you can locate and follow them in particular. Last, but not least, is the themed contest section, which collects all of the stories being published in the currently-running contest.

And A Little Bit Extra

There is a bit more to Literotica beyond the main bulk of the site that is its stories. One interesting section is their (once-)weekly advice column, which handles user-submitted questions relating to life, sex, porn, and a wide variety of other topics. It is equal parts entertaining, educational, and erotic, so even if it is not at all what you had in mind when visiting Literotica, it shouldn’t be missed. Unfortunately, the section is no longer actively updated and only hosts a handful of the old letters, but Pornsites.com still recommends you check it out for posterity’s sake.

There is also an incredibly active personals forum hosted on Literotica. Unlike other dating sites, it’s not centered around profiles but rather forum threads and responses. Further unlike other dating sites, it is truly and actually entirely one hundred percent free, with not even the option to pay to increase your visibility. And, piling on the uniqueness, the demographics of Literotica skew heavily towards female, and that trend continues onto their personals section. So while a vast majority of dating and personals sites are a sea of men with islands of women, Literotica’s personals forum is the exact opposite.

The remaining sections are either only minorly appealing, or can be ignored altogether. What they call a Bulletin Board is a surprisingly active general discussion forum covering everything from erotic fiction to sex to life in general, while the chatroom generally discusses the same topics.

Literotica also hosts an Adult Toy and Video Store, though in Pornsites.com’s experience the selection and prices don’t match those of a dedicated adult store. Likewise with Literotica VOD—they have pay-per-minute streaming porn, but you’re far better off just visiting a dedicated video porn site.

A surprisingly nice addition to the site is the Erotic Audio section, which features readings of erotic fiction. Unfortunately, the quality here is less consistent than the written works, but there are definitely plenty of gems worth discovering and enjoying. The site also contains a self-submitted photo gallery, alongside erotic art, original cartoons, and more. These sections, while by no means as appealing as the main parts of the site, can be an interesting distraction from the stories.

Excellent Erotica

Literotica isn’t perfect. Some parts of the site aren’t updated, and the general aesthetics of the site desperately need modernization. But that’s not the point—the appeal of Literotica is the vast quantity of excellent literary Erotica, and the site knocks it out of the park in that aspect. Ignoring the site's minor faults is easy when considering the massive upsides of the site.

Yes, it’s ugly. But it doesn’t need to be beautiful. The site is a means to an end. There are literally millions of well-categorized and well-written erotic stories across hundreds of themes and genres, and they’re all easily accessible. The site is free, there isn’t an ad to be seen, and you can get to the stories quickly and efficiently. It may not be pretty, but it works.

There are other literary erotica sites that might be a bit newer and flashier than Literotica. But none will ever compete with its back catalog or massive userbase. For now and throughout the foreseeable future, authors and readers of written porn should prefer Literotica above all else.