Literotica is a free erotic fiction website. It allows any user to register as an author and submit stories and has over a million registered users as of April 2010. Amateur authors contribute stories, poems, essay

Essay

An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition...

s, illustrated stories and audio stories in a variety of categories. As of April 2008 there were more than 299,000 erotic stories posted. Ant.com ranks the website as the 361st most popular on the internet as of April 9, 2011. Literotica, though a United States based web site, only receives 47% of its web traffic from the United States. According to alexa.com, other countries with a notable share of the site's web traffic are India with 10%, Germany with 6.8%, the United Kingdom with 5.8%, and Canada with 3.2%.

Story submission

Literotica was amongst the first adult sites to be open to story creators, quickly having replaced the usenet

Usenet

Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...

 erotic story sections. Its few rules prohibit stories about paedophilia and bestiality (except fantasy creatures like dragons and unicorns), and it is mostly aimed towards amateur writers and readers who prefer the (largely) image-free environment. Stories submitted include short, one-off stories, chain-stories written in collaboration with other authors, and entire novels submitted in a "chapter-by-chapter" mode.

The stories themselves are categorized into various themes, and there are also categories for stories with pictures and stories with audio.

Message boards

Literotica's message boards, account for only 6% of literotica's web traffic. (Alexa.com, 2008) However, this forum has over 1,140,000 registered members as of April 2010. There are 23 forums in which users can participate; 16 English speaking and seven non-English language boards.

Inside Literotica's message boards are many different forums from which users can choose one or all forums to frequent. These deal with topics such as Amateur Pictures, the Author's Hangout, Roleplaying and Sexual Roleplaying

Sexual roleplaying

Sexual roleplay is an erotic form of roleplay: it is a sexual behavior where two or more people act out roles in a sexual fantasy. How seriously this is taken depends on the people involved, and the scenario may be anywhere from simple and makeshift to detailed and elaborate, complete with...

, as well as the unmoderated General Board. There is also a How-To forum and a place for writers to seek advice, and also BDSM

BDSM

BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...

 and LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 sections. Literotica's forum is popular and comfortable for people who want to enjoy erotic activities with the anonymity the internet provides.

Members of the message boards, also known as 'Literoticans', 'Litizens' or 'Litsters' Sometimes meet in what are known as 'Litogethers.' This is where members from particular areas plan an event, in order to socialize with others they have formed friendships with online.

CHYOO

CHYOO is a sister site of Literotica. Like Literotica, users are allowed to post up their own stories. The difference is that after a story is created, other users can add other threads expanding the story in a different direction, such as in a choose your own adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure is a series of children's gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view, with the reader assuming the role of the protagonist and making choices that determine the main character's actions and the plot's outcome. The series was based on a...

 book.

This site has 18 sections to post stories under including: Erotic Couplings, Romance

Romance novel

The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...

, Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

, Homosexual, Fan Fiction, and even includes Non-English and Non-Erotic sections

Literotica users can use their log-in password and username for CHYOO.

Literotica chat

The site also provides a series of chat rooms. Originally this was through DigiChat's Java client software, but because of continued cyber attacks, this has moved to a Flash-based client. After a long period of instability, including frequent wholesale "boots" of logged-in users, this client is now dependable though generally considered less user-friendly and intuitive than "the old Lit." Chat registration is free and users are able to create their own public or password protected private rooms, that are similar to the old Yahoo Chat rooms. Chat rooms are moderated and the discussion of certain themes will lead to users being banned from the system.

Other services

The site has also published collections of stories under a "Best of" banner, and makes income through ad sales, and links to webcam, adult video on demand, and an online adult store.