I don't have much of an opinion on what nfic should be called, even though the fact that "n" stands for naughty is a little depressing. Not all nfic is naughty, if you ask me.
To me, the very best nfic is about exploring Clark and Lois's characters in stories where their sexual relationship is a part of the story. My favorite nfic story ever is CC Aiken's When the World Finds Out, which may be my all-time favorite Lois and Clark story of any kind. The story is about Clark and Lois's love, quite simply, how they come through for one another in so many different ways and in so many different situations. One way which they come through for one another is through lovemaking. CC's story has only one actual lovemaking scene, which incidentally contains very few details. The nfic version of this scene makes it clear, however, that Lois and Clark frequently seek out physical, sexual joining simply to become "one body" and thus confirm and reaffirm their absolute commitment to one another. Through lovemaking, the two of them do become one. This may sound like a trite old cliché, but the way CC told it, it was very powerful and strong to me. Her story reminded me, the agnostic, of the most beautiful biblical passages about what the love between a man and a woman should be like.
In CC's story, Clark's Superman identity is revealed to the world, and for a while Clark is shattered and overcome with grief and loss. He seeks comfort in Lois's arms, through lovemaking. CC only points this fact out, without going into any details at all about how they make love. Here, their lovemaking is seen as Lois's ultimate gift to Clark - her total acceptance and love of him, her holding him close like a mother would hold her son, except that Lois and Clark are married, so they make love instead of just hugging. But in terms of comforting it is the same thing - it is the total physical closeness that a woman can offer a beloved man to soothe his pain. This, too, is something I found so beautiful.
Later in the story Lois and Clark's circa seventeen-to-twenty-year-old children arrive on the scene to speak to Lois and Clark. The children, and particularly their son, speak with almost shocking frankness about their parents' lovemaking. But the way I read the story, the children are definitely offering their parents their support. They are, I think, telling their father that he is lucky to have a wife that offers him such consolation by making love to him. And I think the children are saying that they love their parents and want them to be as happy as possible, and therefore they are glad that their mom and dad get so much comfort and joy out of their love life. Isn't this, too, beautiful?
There are other nfic stories too, which use Clark and Lois's love life to explore beautiful aspects of these two people's character. For example, I love the way ML Thompson's Super Stud shows us that even when Clark has lost all sexual inhibitions, he is still an extremely sweet and totally considerate man, who wouldn't dream of making love to anyone but Lois and who could never be anything but unselfish and caring when making love to her.
Like I said, the best nfic stories are beautiful stories about Clark and Lois as characters. There are also other nfic stories which I would not label "the best", but I leave it to others to talk about them!
But to summarize: Yes, I would read the nfic version of a Kerth winning story first. I think that both CC's and MLT's stories work slightly better as nfic than as gfic. If there is an nfic version of a gfic story, then I'm going to assume that the nfic version was the original one, and that the gfic version has been somehow truncated. I would, in fact, assume that the gfic version was the "second best" version of the story.
And I would definitely be less likely to read an nfic story if I knew it had gotten its rating even though it had no nfic-rated sexual content. I would assume that the story was very violent, cruel or otherwise disturbing. Like I said, I think the best nfic stories are beautiful and uplifting, but I wouldn't expect a very violent or cruel story to be uplifting.
Ann
