Day 14 - Ratings - How high are you comfortable with going? Have you ever written higher? If you're comfortable with NC-17 (aka X Rated), have you ever been shocked by finding that the story you're writing is G-rated instead?

Writing or reading? Generally I write between G and PG, perhaps I might slide into a low R, but that's it. I've read pretty much every rating, though I usually skip the NC-17. As Christopher Lee put it, "very often what you don't see, is far more effective, frightening, suggestive, erotic than what you do see" - subtext, shadows, hints are wonderful things, and they let you paint pictures in your mind that are far more than an author could hope to put down in writing. Getting too explicit ruins some of the fun and fantasy for me. However, I will read them if someone I trust (or whose taste I trust) recommends them because they've got an actual plot/storyline/something that would draw me in. Pure smut or PWP is NOT, NOT, NOT my thing.