What’s the Difference Between Adult and Mature?

ACertainPassingUser

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Mature is state of mind and mental usually gained around 17-18.

While Adult is physical state of people above 21.

Well, that's my opinion. Idk what to classify some 21yo Man-child that have mental age of 15yo that usually appears in crowd of assholes.
 

CheertheSecond

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In all seriousness, "Adult" and "Mature" have a lot to talk about. I will give you the long answer but there will be a table in the end in case you want it short.

Adult
By definition, it requires you to be adult (as defined by your country's laws) to read. Most often, it refers to the age of your physical body.

Mature
It is the maturity of the mind in contrast to the body.

To sum up, Adult is more or less about your biological body (hormone, reproductive organs...) + some bollock requirement from the laws (Sex ED...). Mature is about your mind, your thinking. In short, an Adult body vs a Mature mind.


Adult
Saying that, this genre focuses on pleasing your physical need with sub-tags and theme mostly involve sexual intercourse.

Mature
Focus on themes and storylines that are pleasing to a Mature mind. Thing that are serious and usually not very enjoyable to immature mind.



For readers.
They help setting expectation. Thing audiences can expect from an Adult work will be the introduction of sex and may be gore (i want to note that gore is not really an adult or a mature tag but it is considered adult/mature because of the law). Meanwhile, Mature work are usually about complex things like grey morality, controversies about war and politics, philosophic discussion about aspects of life and nature, the grandeur of intelligence (strategy...) and wisdom etc.



For authors.
They help filtering the demographic of your readers.

You can expect that mostly legally adults will read your Adult fiction (I want to stress that i use read as in "like to read"). However, that does not mean underages will not want to read your work. No one knows whether there are underages within your Adult work's readers or not.

For Mature, most of the time it can be argued that only adults will read your fic, but that isn't set on stone. Some people develop a taste for Mature stories very young while some develop much later. The demographic in this genre is also varied.



AdultMature
Demographic filter(18-45)+, may attract some younger age(18-45)+
but may attract much more younger age
TagsPrimarily sexual-related tagsMay or may not have sex or anything sexually obscure
DefinitionMaturity of BodyMaturity of Mind (and, may be, Body)
FulfillmentFull fill the sexual need of the readersFull fill the mental need of the readers
UsageTell your audiences that you expect them to love some sex in the ficTell your audiences that you want them to think and comment like mature people
 

Poleg

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As the title says, what’s the difference between the genres?

Here’s the definition for adult, as given by the genre page:


Here’s the definition for mature as given by the genre page:


Don’t the two overlap quite a bit?
I thought Adult was basically smut with plot and mature was actually a story that is not edgy litrpg.
Mator : your a big boy
Adul : S*X
Mator.
Fucking Mator
Breeding a Mastador.
Very well my friend
Mastador.jpg
 
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BearlyAlive

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One is porn while the other is for edgy teens. So there really is no difference at all since both will primarily be consumed by teens.

Case closed.
 

T.K._Paradox

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These can best be explain via music analogies:

Adult themes are the drugs, sex, explicit words in a song.

Mature themes are the life lessons and deeper understanding behind the lyrics.
 

Empyrea

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Adult is the tag you need to legally put on so you can't be blamed for minors reading your story.

You'll see it in the R18 tag:
To be used when the content of the story is suitable only for individuals who are 18 or older. This may be due to the story having sexual or violent themes repeatedly. Note that it can ONLY be used for a JP or KR* novel. For others the Adult genre will suffice.

Mature is more of a warning that the themes can be adult oriented, but might not mean content unsuitable for minors.

I also see a lot of people using the Smut tag wrong which states:
Erotic work of fiction that’s mainly targeted toward females. Smut stories often gives heavy focus on love and relationships between the main characters.

It's not a genre for heavy amounts of lewd, but for female oriented lewd.

I hope this helps.
 

Bartun

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50 shades is anything but mature. But I'd put mature as anything dealing with subject matter a younger reader won't be able to understand or appreciate as well, or with subject matter that's more disturbing or uncomfortable for younger readers.
I know, I just think is an easily recognizable title and it illustrates the point. If you are an impressionable 12-year-old a movie like that is kinda mature-ish. If you watched The Film Zone past midnight you could easily find a movie far more mature than 50 Shades and that was HO-LY-COW back in the day.
Where can I obtain this movie?
It is lost today, but the VHS was easy to find in any rent-a-video's adult section back in the day.
 

EldritchCoomer

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I have a feeling mature means like outright sex and organs hanging out of a dude. Adult might be like nudity, not necessarily sex, and blood and bones breaking. That's just my guess, though
Actually mature means adult themes like depression, growing into an adult and some violence, while adult means gore, darker topics and sex
 
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