Won't somebody think of the children?

[sqbr]

Recently there's been a huge ruckus as livejournal has (inconsistently and hamfistedly) tried to rid itself of pedophiles and visual pornography involving minors. (EDIT: Which I think they're well within their rights to do, I just think they screwed up the execution) One of their more controversial stances has been to lump drawn pictures of fictional characters with actual photographs, calling it all "child porn". (EDIT: they didn't just ban both, they explicitly said they're the same) This attitude is not uncommon in society at large. (I say having read the justifications for Australia's inconsistently strict child porn rules)

This attitude bothers me a lot, and after much thought I've recently realised why. In short: these people have forgoten that child porn isn't wrong because it's gross. It's wrong because making it involves hurting actual children.

The obvious and common reponse to those who object to erotic deptions of fictional minors(*) is to argue that noone is being hurt by the creation of this stuff, and that liking fictional depictions of a given act is not the same as doing the act itself, otherwise everyone who likes horror films is a murderer etc. I think this argument has a certain weight to it in principle, but personally feel a strong intuition that liking fiction with violent or otherwise antisocial themes(**) is not the same as liking porn with those themes, though I'm still trying to think out a reasoned argument to back this up. Anyway, I'm not 100% convinced that violent fiction is harmless, though I like certain violent fiction too much to say it's all bad :)

Also I personally can't stand seeing bad or disturbing things happen to children, real or fictional. It's a thing with me. (I mean I similarly can't stand zombies, so I'm not sure it's a moral thing, but it's certainly a thing)

So I don't object to livejournal's stance out of a strong sense of solidarity with the pornographers. I've realised my problem is people objecting to child porn not out of any concern for the wellbeing of actual physical children but out of moral repugnance for the "unnatural" attraction that creates it. I get the feeling these people would rather an adult beat or otherwise non-sexually abuse a child than think sexual thoughts about them. That they would rather put effort into hounding people who draw erotic depictions of fictional characters than groups who give support to the victims of actual abuse. That they don't want to help the children, they want to punish the perverts, and whether or not those perverts have actually hurt anyone isn't the point.

I'm not saying it's wrong to object to, or even ban, particular types of porn even if the acts it depicts did not actually happen, just that it's wrong to equate "thought crimes" with actual crimes, and that doing so is a disservice to the victims of the latter.
EDIT: See also Polanski, "Hounddog" and 13-year-old voices

NOTE: As always, off topic comments or flames go here. Also PLEASE read all the comments before replying, I've clarified a few things after people made a bunch of different intelligent points. (This paragraph has yet to be neccesary but I like to be prepared :))

(*)Another is that apparently most of these stories involve "children" in their late teens, a group frequently presented as sexual objects in the mainstream media, and who it is often legal to have actual sex with. Which has nothing to do with my point, but I thought I'd bring it up before someone else did :)
(**)There's a huge subgenre of non-erotic fiction about child abuse (Look at Law and Order:SVU), using it as a quick way of creating angst precisely because the audience finds it abhorrent. I still dislike the genre, mind you, but it's not the same as porn on the same subject (admittedly, since I can't bring myself to consume either genre this is all a bit theoretical)

Comments

[myfyr.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear. I agree completely.

I guess the main response to what you are saying would be that fictional depictions of certain actions encourage people to commit said action. I guess this is most commonly seen in the "violent movies are evil because they turn people into murderers" crowd (which you have voiced some doubt over), but I am far from convinced on this point. Moreover, I think the costs of persecuting "thought crimes" far outweigh the benefits.

It will be interesting to see how most people respond to your post though...

[elaran.livejournal.com]

Yeah. What you said. I'm more pissed at most of these stories involve "children" in their late teens, a group frequently presented as sexual objects in the mainstream media, and who it is often legal to have actual sex with. Bah.

And yeah, eljay can stop the pedos. But I like Snape/Hermione fic and it doesn't particularly bother me if she's in fifth year and omg a minor when the smut happens. It doesn't mean that I condone older guys getting it on with school kids but argh, I m not sure what my point is, just that I'm annoyed at eljay's stance.

[evil-megz.livejournal.com]

I thoroughly agree with you and have many times tried to argue much the same to pedophilephobics.

One thing that gets to me is when people refer to somebody as 'a convicted pedophile' or similar. "Pedophilia" is not a crime anywhere that I know of. What pedophiles are convicted of are child sex offenses, possession of child pornography and so forth. If a person feels sexually attracted to children they have committed NO crime and in my opinion done nothing wrong. People in this situation, and I believe the majority of pedophiles are (ie, don't act on their urges) shouldn't be treated as if they are already criminals, but if anything should be treated like anybody with a psychological issue they probably would like to get rid of.
If society could get over itself and try to help these people, give them places to go, people to talk to, safe outlets for their feelings etc, then I expect it could significantly reduce the proportion of people attracted to minors who act on their urges and actually end up hurting children.

One of the worst things to do, in my opinion, is to remove all harmless outlets for such feelings (specifically fake child porn). The majority of pedophiles out there wouldn't want to hurt children, but hey, if children are the only thing around that look like children they might not have a choice when their feelings get out of control.
Nobody is going to be browsing the internet, come across cartoon child porn and go 'omg I find this soo hot, I best go find a child to molest!'. If somebody is going to feel those urges to children, they are more likely going to realise it watching children in real life... they're everywhere, and as a friend of my family's pointed out, they're usually naked and behaving in a way that /could/ be interpreted to appear very sexual. Cartoon child porn isn't going to create any more pedophiles, and definitely not ones who might end up hurting anybody.

anything that makes fanficcers go away = awesome!

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

"Pedophile" instead of "paedophile" still disturbs me. =(

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, I agree, that's why I made sure to say that people have a right to think it's bad, as long as they don't equate it with actual child abuse.

The two simplistic extreme POVs are that fictional depictions encourage the behaviour they show, or at the other extreme that they release tension and so discourage the behaviour. I don't think any correlation is that simple (or uniform between people) but it is possible that at least a certain proportion of the population are susceptible to influence by certain kinds of fiction.

But with both violent and wierd sexual fiction there's plenty of evidence that many people can create and consume this stuff without ever going on to emulate it, so any effect it has is diffuse and indirect in most cases. In my opinion, "You are creating art which has a reasonable chance of encouraging susceptible people to commit a crime" is not the same as "you are guilty of this crime", though it is a valid criticism.

Something that came up in the hoohah is that some people think creators have absolutely no responsibility towards the reactions people have to their creations, even if those reactions could have been predicted. I disagree. If you know there's a fair chance that a certain negative repercussion is likely from your work then you have to take that into account and weigh it against the artistic merit or whatever, the same way as you weigh up the consequences of any decision.

But every action we take may have negative consequences, and once it gets past a certain point you just have to let it go. The situation where I've seen this discussed has been communities of fanfic writers. Apparently these communities do keep an eye out for anyone who looks like they might be an actual paedophile, and afaict there's no evidence of anyone in the fanfic community being one. So it's a pretty theoretical threat.

Off-topic re age of consent

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, yes, I agree it's dumb, but it's so obvious why that's infuriating that I didn't feel the need to go into it :)

Also that's partly just an example of two parts of the law being inconsistent, if the sexual age of consent and porn age of consent were changed to match it wouldn't be so bad. Though it wouldn't change the silliness of pretending that someone at 17 years 364 days old is exactly the same as a prepubescent child and completely different to an 18 year old. I mean I realise you have to draw the line somewhere, but while the law may be black and white(*) morality isn't.

(*)Though I think it does make the disctinction anyway

[dr-jekyl.livejournal.com]

Damnit, I swore up and down blind that I wasn't going to get involved in these debates anymore, since my view is closer to the mainstream than to fandom, but here are my thoughts anyway.

You’re fixing a male friend’s computer. He writes a lot and writes well, so you decide to do a bit of spying, snoop on some his forthcoming work. Several of them are pretty much no more than a protracted and graphic sex scenes involving a rather masculinised adult female and her 11 year old female student. On other parts of his hard drive are pictures, often lovingly drawn or carefully photoshopped, of this couple in a variety of sexual acts. Maybe you recognise them both – they’re characters from a tv show and are played by real people of a similar age to their characters.

Are you squicked? Does your opinion of him change? Do you start to wonder why he finds this sexually appealing? Sure, it’s not child porn per se because, as pointed out, it doesn’t actually harm any children, but it is porn featuring a fictional child, one that’s that is portrayed by a real life child, and your male friend is the one writing it, reading it, drawing it.

Of course, he’s male, and we all know that male sexuality is inherently more harmful than female sexuality. It’d be totally ok if your friend were a chick, right?

So, really, for me, it does comes back to my opinion of you. If you draw/write and read, say, 11 year old Harry Potter/Snape because you find the idea to be teh hawt and it gets you off (and not because there is a greater story to tell about the implications of ‘love’ between a grown man and a child) I'm going to think that there is, indeed, something wrong with you and you should seek help. I may well think that you’re a pervert, and a lot of people would probably agree with me.

As for the difference between fictional depictions of violence and depictions of sex... Does reading a detailed murder scene make you want to go out and commit murder? You sympathise with Hannibal Lector, even cheer him on, but do you then go out and do what he does in the books? No. Do you go out and do something that even remotely approximates what he does? Do you read about murder and then go out and, say, go mug someone? Not likely.

But does reading a detailed sex scene make you want to go out and have sex? Often that’s the very point. Do you go out and do what’s in the story? Probably not. But do you do an approximate? Do you then go out and have sex with an adult partner or masturbate while thinking about what you’ve just read, even to the point of pretending that you’re one of the participants? Maybe.

Mind you, the kinds of stories we’re talking about here are, in fact, graphic depictions of sexual violence, as minors are incapable of giving consent, much less informed consent.

So, to sum up this longwinded post: while I don't actually equate this kind of fanfic with child porn, I still think it's porn that features minors, and they can look the same to the untrained eye. More if you get off on porn featuring minors, I think there's something wrong with you. I also really don't think that it should be encouraged in any respect, because the last thing I want is an environment where attraction to pre-pubescents is seen as both a normal and healthy expression of human sexuality.

Re: anything that makes fanficcers go away = awesome!

[alias_sqbr]

I don't know, the most logical approach would be to crack down on copyright infringement and that would mean taking away your icon.

Don't like people who like feet, huh?

[alias_sqbr]

I agree that equating the desire with the action is wrong, though of course since the main time this stuff comes out is when someone is convicted for sex crimes the disctinction is often rather theoretical. I think we're a long way from anyone publically admitting they're attracted to children unless forced to by circumstances, but that day may come eventually.

There are groups which offer support to people who find themselves drawn to pedophilia, I came accross one recently (I don't remember how, it may have been from Penny Arcade. The internet is a crazy place) That said, I have also encountered people online who claim to have worked to help rehabilitate ex-child molesters and many tend to see all porn-about-children as encouraging the offense. As I said to myfyr above, I don't think it's as simple as either "porn always encourages action" or "porn always discourages action"

[evil-megz.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to clarify something with you. For a bit you were talking about 11yr old HP/snape fic, and then at the end about attraction to pre-pubescents. Now I guess 11yr old HP would be at the borderline of pre-pubescent and pubescent, but I'd imagine most of the fic out there is on the pubescent side of the line (I'm not the least bit into it myself so I'm just assuming there).
While I agree with you that attraction to pre-pubescent children is and should be considered abnormal and possibly 'unhealthy', attraction to pubescent children is actually entirely natural and rational from a biological and evolutionary perspective. Our society puts moral restrictions on it which most people abide by, but if somebody feels attracted to a teenager it is still arguably a normal and healthy expression of human sexuality.

[evil-megz.livejournal.com]

I agree it's not as simple as one way or the other... actually I think it's probably almost always a bit of both. I also believe, however, that the positive effect of one will almost always outweigh the detrimental effect of the other, if for no other reason than how if fake child porn encourages pedophilia, the presence of real children will encourage it much more.
Compare it to somebody who gets a supersized macca's meal every day with a diet coke or normal coke... the normal coke will make them fat compared to the diet coke, but either way they'll still probably die as a result of obesity.

On that which we agree....(went over character limit :))

[alias_sqbr]

My point is not that porn-about-fictional-children isn't bad, it's that actual child porn is much, MUCH worse, and so to equate the two you not only denigrate the makers of the fictional stuff (unfair, but not something I can get that fired up about) but you also elevate actual child molesters.

I don't have a problem with people going on long rants about the evils of porn-about-fictional-children. I have problems with people deliberately blurring the distinction between porn-about-fictional-children and porn-made-with-real-children in order to take a dig at the first sort using the emotional reaction to the second.

Now I do disagree with you somewhat about the morality of porn-about-fictional-children, but I think that argument is less important.

I'm going to argue it anyway because I like discussing stuff that makes me think :)

I didn't say I was in favour of this stuff either, and I agree that porn is a different kettle of fish to other kinds of fiction. Though I have read what felt like violence-porn which disturbed me by the sheer joy taken in unpleasantness, and I am also squicked by non-erotic romances which celebrate imo dodgy power imbalances, and other non-porn fiction which seems to me to encourage Bad Things in the reader.

But....

Re: On that which we disagree....

[alias_sqbr]

Even if everyone who writes and reads this stuff is perverted and messed up it seems pretty certain that few if any of them are actual child molesters. So at worst we have people with a mental illness encouraging each other in their illness. Which, you know, bad, but it's their choice and hurting yourself isn't the same as hurting other people. If there was evidence that anyone involved in these communites was a child molester that would be a different story.

Secondly you gave a pretty extreme example: saying that I think not all porn involving people under 18 is neccesarily harmful (but I'm not sure) doesn't mean I don't think some of it is a Bad Thing. The stuff livejournal banned involved older teenagers. While I personally am bothered by fiction about 17 year olds having sex with their teachers, that sort of story is so common that it's hard to justify calling it a perversion. You are welcome to argue that all porn about pre-pubescent children is automatically bad (you certainly won't get a lot of opposition from me), but then that excludes most of the porn that got banned by livejournal.

Not to get all TMI but: I don't like porn. I am squicked by it in general. I am also squicked by bad things hapening to children, and unequal power relationships (including large age gaps). Also BDSM, polyamory, RPS, gory first person shooters, getting hugs...lots of things(**). I'm pretty neurotic :) So yes, I would be bothered if I found that sort of porn on someone's computer, but I would also be somewhat bothered by any sort of porn (especially if he'd made it himself)(*) Yet I have to accept that a LOT of people own porn, and don't seem any worse for it.

My mum read some of the horror I was reading in highschool and was deeply, incredibly shocked. She can't stand horror, and can't understand how anyone can enjoy it. She genuinely had trouble seeing me the same way afterwards, and I am one of the least violent people you are likely to meet. She also has a strong gut feeling that homosexuality and sex before marriage make people unhappy, though she doesn't think they make you a bad person.

One of the reasons I got involved with these sorts of dicussions (I started going to slash discussions at swancon long before I started reading fanfic) was to try to get my head around the fact that lots of perfectly nice women I know write porn of a sort that bothers me. Specifically, one of my best friends got into Snape/Harry after the first movie came out. Lots of things bother me, and while I do think it's important not to ignore my instincts I also think it's wrong to follow them unthinkingly when there's absolutely no evidence that this behaviour is doing people any harm. I've heard fairly persuasive arguents both for and against this stuff, and I'm still trying to figure out what I think. On the whole, as with most things, I think you can only really judge each piece individually, in context, and grand sweeping statements miss the complexity of the issue.

Note: my cat kept walking over my hands while I typed this, blame her for any typos.

(*)As an aside: as a child I actually came across soft-porn an adult I knew had written on their computer, it lowered my opinion of them because it was so badly written and they had been dumb enough to leave it where people were likely to see it :)
(**)Hopefully it goes without saying to anyone reading this who likes porn, hugs, polyamory etc that I am aware that I am the wierdo here, not you :) A lot of these squicks have become worn down by being constantly surrunded by people who they clearly make happy though part of me is certain that deep down you are all made utterly miserable by your disgusting obsessions with hugs

[mandragora2003.livejournal.com]

I must admit;I find myself squicked by the underage slash for a slightly different reason than the "it might promote the offense" one.

People convicted of child sex offenses often(*) have significant misconceptions as to the sexuality that a child feels; they will attribute adult notions and feelings *and motivations* to a child's actions. Which means, as noted above, that innocent behaviour on the part of a child may be perceived as being overtly sexual; even flirtatious. In this, they fail to understand that children have utterly different thought processes to adults. Not to mention a widely disparate set of priorities.

It concerns me that people can write fics in which a child (especially a pre-adolescent) acts with adult intent. In which behaviour is rationalised in a way that a real child would never manage. I say this because by making the underage character a willing participant in the process it implies that they are "just a small adult". To imply that they will a) cope with the incident as being normal, b) find it enjoyable and rewarding and c) have no fallout later in life from the abuse is misleading, and dismissive of the real-life victims of abuse.

To put it into fan-fic terms, it is the worst out-of-character that can possibly be done. Even the ones where Snape is all sweetness and light, and really just a noble misunderstood soul who wants to have lots of friends doesn't come close. He may be on the good side, but he's still a snarky bastard. And children are still children.

Now, the waters do muddy a bit when it comes to post-adolescents. Certainly, a fifteen year old has sexual impulses (duh!). What they do not have is maturity; a sense of proportion about relationships, a solidified sense of worth, and a formalised self-identity. By ending up in a non-platonic relationship with a significantly older person, the development of these fundamental aspects of character may become distorted. The younger person may try to delay their own development (in order to please the older one), become overly dependant, start to indulge in adult risk-taking (to appear more mature!) etc. *And that assumes that they are in a voluntary relationship*. When the sexual nature of the situation is not welcome, they can be incredibly badly hurt; some do not recover, and for some the situation becomes terminal.

*Those who have no such misconceptions about the cognitive processes of the pre-adolescent brain must, therefore, be fully aware of the lack of any excuse for their behaviour. ie they know that they are causing active harm by their actions.


Darn. I've ranted again. I'll shut up now.

Re: On that which we disagree....

[mandragora2003.livejournal.com]

On that age gap thing; someone told me about a rough formula to judge the acceptable age difference between a couple. Take your age; halve it; add seven. That's the youngest socially acceptable partner for you. Similarly, take seven from your age, then double to get the oldest you can date before people get squicked. Strangely, this kind of works, although not so well once you're over fifty-odd.

Another way we agree I forgot

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, and I am actually rather annoyed at the "female sexuality and porn= always good, male sexuality and porn=always bad" attitude common in a lot of fanfic circles. The "women aren't child molesters" argument is pretty shaky too, once you take into account the cases of consensual sex with teenagers (which is, after all, what's depicted in most of the fics, afaict)

Re: Another way we agree I forgot

[mandragora2003.livejournal.com]

hear, hear.

[alias_sqbr]

Nah, ranting is ok. I'm a bit sleepy to reply right now, but I agree. Then again, the teenager-who-acts(and looks)-like-an-adult trope is hardly restricted to fanfic, it pops up everywhere: Buffy, anime schoolgirls etc.

Re: anything that makes fanficcers go away = awesome!

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Oh! I must have forgot to put it through the Make Into Original Art Photoshop filters.

Re: On that which we disagree....

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I've heard of that. I still find the idea of getting with a 21 year old gross myself, but I have pretty narrow tastes :)

[alias_sqbr]

Something which has been brought up in the discussions I've read about this stuff is the difference between fantasy and realism. Pretty much all romances (which in the case of fanfic, is a superset of the porn) have unrealistic portrayals of relationships, often romanticizing stuff which would actually be really unhealthy in real life for dramatic reasons. Not just the portrayal of teenagers, but the way women tend to be dominated by strong, overbearing men (leading to rape fantasies taken to it's extreme), the glamorisation of what is effectively stalking, lots of stuff. It's one of the reasons I don't like Georgette Heyer(*)

There's this divide between people who object to fiction encouraging unhealthy attitudes and those who see it as a necesary vent for people's fantasies. I tend towards the first group, but that may be because I can't suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy it. There's people who object to Pirates of the Carribean becuase of it's unrealistic portrayal of pirates, but I'm not quite as extreme a proponent as that :)

I tend not to read stories about teengers since either they're out of character or they're about realistic teenagers, neither of which is very appealing. But even fanfic about adults often makes them (imo) out of character in order to satisfy the readers desire for shmoopy romance or adorable hijinks or whatever. It irritates me (...except when it happens to be the sort of unrealistic story I like, in which cases I enjoy it.) For example, Spike/Buffy romances tend to totally gloss over some Serious Issues they would have to overcome and to me it often reads as misogynistic and condoning rape.

(*)Aside: local second hand bookstore has a bunch. Are you still looking for any?

[nico-wolfwood.livejournal.com]

Okay, my comment couldn't post as it's about a thousand characters too long so I turned it into a post. See here (http://nico-wolfwood.livejournal.com/8462.html) (it's friends locked so lemme know if it's inaccessible)

Re: anything that makes fanficcers go away = awesome!

[alias_sqbr]

Heh. That and a filter which puts mustaches on people (proving they're overage) and noone gets banned!

[alias_sqbr]

Nope, I can see it. Will reply when not at work and thus rather furtive about posts on such topics :)

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a problem with LJ indulging in censorship in borderline areas such as depictions of fictional child sex.

My reasoning is that all shared publishing spaces prior to the network-of-friends blog-space also censored content, mostly based on commercial reality via broad reader consensus. In other words: we sell to readers, most readers object to child sex, so child sex is out.

The reasoning behind the censorship is not based on a set of perfectly rational ethical "first principles". It's based on the site moderators' vague interpretation of what is, and isn't a horrible faux pas. This is necessary, because the times when artistic merit beats out the conventional mores cannot be predicted by a simple algorithm.

And therefore quoting from American Psycho (not child sex, but pretty horrible in parts) may be fine, or even par for the course, on LJ, but posting your Harry deep-penetrates Ron fanfic may not, and there's no argument the perps of said fanfic can put forward to trump that -- it's too bad.

The Internet is still a big space and they're still free to post up their "harmless" child sex stories in an alternate part of it. Although leaving the Internet relatively censorship-free in a broad sense may be desirable, I personally prefer to operate in parts of the net that are frequently exorcised of distasteful garbage. Moderation is an Internet norm without which most net communities function badly.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

"This is necessary, because the times when artistic merit beats out the conventional mores cannot be predicted by a simple algorithm."

It occurs to me this comment is slightly amusing in light of the fact that the first time Six Apart did quash a bunch of "paedophiles" on LJ they were using a simple pattern-matcher to identify them (and thereby got a few arguable false positives).

But anyway. Everyone can find a reason why their chosen vice is "objectively fine". But it's not an objective standard being enforced -- it's a rough clone of a social standard developed by a vague process of consensus.

Unfortunately because the net covers a lot of geographical and cultural space there are some practically disjoint communities, with correspondingly disjoint standards (wacko fanfic writing communities come to mind) that fall under LJ's aegis, and in some cases they may justly feel that having their own widely accepted internal standards on content, they should be allowed to police themselves without outside interference.

In my opinion the correct solution for such disjoint communities is to create their own spaces, so that they can do their own thing, instead of bleating at commercial entities that are permitted to do what they're doing under the terms of use of the sites they're constructing and maintaining at no expense to those communities.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the real concern of censors like those at Six Apart is maintaining social acceptability, not a particular ethical standard. The problem they face is that the social standards in counter-cultural communities like those of slash fanfic writers (who deliberately push all kinds of boundaries of humour and good taste) have diverged significantly from the norm.

Jokes about incest and adult-child relationships are ordinary within those communities and their members understanding of them is disconnected from the reality of these things when they occur in the real world.

The disconnection forms the basis of the standard validatory social transaction of the fanficcer, which is for one to propose something that would be "shocking" to a "mundane" (e.g.: Dean and Sam are so having sex, or Snape and Remus would be a hot couple), and the other to respond in a way that resists the "mundane" reaction (e.g. to be enthusiastic, or to disagree with the suggestion on minor grounds of taste or a technicality from "canon", rather than on the more normal grounds "you have a sick mind" or "that's obviously false and there's no evidence for it whatsoever in the source text, and I can't believe you idiots spend all your time on this crap").

By repeatedly engaging in this basic transaction a community with its own conventions is formed the members of which feel a sense of kinship with others who get the in-joke / secret handshake / transgression-as-sophisticated-microethnic-hyperglyph thingie.

One thing that annoys me is that having rested the value of the slash community on their ability to shock the mundanes and to resist the normal modes of media consumption, slashers bemoan their ejection from mundane spaces instead of celebrating it. Shouldn't they want to be censored by the establishment? Isn't that kinda the point?

[nico-wolfwood.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[alias_sqbr]

Shouldn't they want to be censored by the establishment? Isn't that kinda the point?

And some of them feel that way, and think the logical response is to retreat to locked mailing lists and private websites etc. A lot of them bemoan the increasing visibility of fanfic in the media. I think the issue is that there was this perception that livejournal was fan friendly and not part of the "mainstream". Some share my opinion that livejournal is well within it's rights to ban whatver it likes as long as it's clear and consistent about it (which it hasn't been) but others are very idealistic about free speech and stuff, and thus contantly dissapointed by the practicalities of the internet.

Slashers are not a monolithic entity. There's a large proportion of them who are heavily against incest or underage sex and many would be happy to see those elements gone. (though some feel solidarity regardless)

Not that I feel all that qualified to speak for slashers, since I like nice, non-controversial (apart from the copyright thing) gen stories :)

[alias_sqbr]

I agree with pretty much everything you've said, I realise I didn't explicitly say that in principle I don't have a problem with livejournal banning stuff that it feels offends people, regardless of illegality or morality. I do have a problem with the way they've handled things, but that's largely coincidental to my argument.

The conversation went something like this:
LJ: *starts banning people based on "bad" interests*
Slashers: Are you banning people based on their interests? Becuase we can get rid of anything you find offensive.
LJ: Of course not!
LJ: *bans people based on interests*
Slashers: Hey, no fair!
LJ: Everyone we banned is a paedophile
Slashers: No they're not!
LJ:...oh, you're right. *unbans eeryone except definite paedophiles*
Slashers: Hmmph. So what exactly is grounds for banning?
LJ: Being a paedophile, encouraging the abuse of actual children
Slashers: Not fictional porn about fictional children?
LJ: Haha, no, that stuff is totally cool. We're only after actual child molesters here.
LJ: *bans people with fictional depictions of sex involving fictional teenagers*
Slashers: They're not child molesters! Those pictures aren't even of children!
LJ: It was child porn. People who make child porn are paedophiles. Unless you write it down, in which case it's totally cool. Because we're totally cool and love fandom and freedom of speech and all that.
LJ: ...oh, and we're banning anyone who links to this stuff too. Unless we're certain it was an accident, because we're all friends here! We just hate paedophiles.
Slashers: Grrr!
LJ: ...uh. So maybe we'll unban those people. But that stuff is totally against the rules, and it always was.

Basically they're trying really hard not to look like the bad guy or even admit they're doing this for commercial rather than moral/legal reasons, but the only way to do that is to try to make the people they're banning look as bad as possible and pretend the rules they're setting up are obvious and minimalistic. I mean they could definitely be worse, and I understand why they're doing what they're doing, but still.

That said, I think the people who think they can move to a smaller livejournal clone and not have these issues come up are kidding themselves.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm all for slamming Six Apart for being a bit clueless in their approach to content control.

Re-reading your post and summarising:

One, carnal fantasies about kids aren't necessarily controllable or deplorable, provided they are kept in check and not acted upon. They're not a Good Thing but maybe in some people's cases they can't be helped.

Two, there are valid aesthetic justifications for the depiction of unsavoury activities in fiction, and whilst on the one hand censors must take these justifications into account and not make decisions based on a blunt "ethical" analysis, writers must also not be permitted to defend unjustified and harmful unsavouriness on grounds of artistic freedom.

Three, these issues arise in any sizeable creative community and there will always be transgressive play at the boundaries of the mainstream regardless of how broad or narrow a community's scope becomes.

Four, therefore pursue policy in relation to these matters with sensitivity and wisdom having acknowledged that hard and fast rules simply won't work as perfectly as might be imagined.

[alias_sqbr]

One, carnal fantasies about kids aren't necessarily controllable or deplorable, provided they are kept in check and not acted upon. They're not a Good Thing but maybe in some people's cases they can't be helped.

Agreed. Though something I have learned which changed the way I view this stuff is that not only is most of this stuff about older teenagers (who, lets face it, are attractive to a lot of people, for good or ill) but many of the women writing aren't (or claim not to be) attracted to real teenagers at all. Apparently the root fantasy at the base isn't about being the adult in these scenarios, it's about being the child. As such it's not a cathartic relief of pedophilia, but simply part of a larger pattern of women fantasising about being subjugated or otherwise passive, something which can be seen in pretty much all romance novels ever. (One of the major reasons I Don't Read Romance Novels despite having a soft spot for happy romantic stories when feeling sick)

Which, in my opinion, is still pretty disturbing, but in a very different way :) While I understand intellectually the difference between "Self aware, feminist fantasy using skeezy gender tropes to help women express themselves the only way they feel comfortable after being brainwashed by the patriarchy" and "Offensively sexist tripe", they tend to look identical to me. And in fanfic the place we're supposed to find "equality" is the women-free world of slash (and only in the non-yaoi-eque subset of that), which doesn't feel like a step up to me. Anyway, I digress :)

I agree with all your other points as well. The "It's ok to write wierd porn" crowd divides into two groups: the "I agree we have to be careful about the effects of our works, but I've thought about it and feel it's justified" crowd, who I don't always agree with but understand the POV and the "Anyone who thinks artists should have to bear any responsibility for the effects of their works is stupid and backwards and pro censorship" crowd, who cheese me right off. One of them gave the example of some famous writer who wrote a story glamorising a teen suicide. A bunch of teenagers then committed suicide, and the author added a forward to discourage this. The woman gave this of proof that authors are under this absurd pressure to worry about stupid things their adience may do, while to me it's a perfect example of the sort of thing authors should have to worry about. If you know your work is likely to make a few people kill themselves, then you have to ask yourself: is it worth telling? The answer may be "Yes", but I think the question should be asked.