Whats stopping me from giving my steamy sex scene a G rating?
Nothing, really, but I’ll be very disappointed in you. I’ll have to come in there and correct the rating to better reflect what you wrote. And if you pull that stunt often enough, I might even ban you from the site. The rating system is a means for you to communicate to others the nature of your contribution, and if you’re going to use it, I’d prefer you do it honestly. See, chapter ratings are averaged up in order to provide a rating for the story. That allows readers to select a story they think they will enjoy. If you lie about your chapter, you skew the average in a way that destroys the usefulness of the rating system without gaining you anything but the reputation of a sleazebag. So please don’t do it. Now, you can always leave the “none” rating option selected. That still skews the overall story chapter, but at least it’s not lying. I’m not going to ban people from refraining from choosing a rating. I’m also not going to ban folks from choosing PG when I think it should be PG13.
