Discussion about rules and especially the 'underage' topic

All I can say is yikes at the amount of pedophile apologia going on in the comments, I’m out. Enjoy your incoming pedo infestation and the site ending up like CYOC.

All I can say is yikes at the amount of throwing the word “pedophile” at people who, in most countries, could legally and, in many people’s views even morally, do this in reality. This is not pedophilia by any measure.

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It would be interesting to have an actual conversation about the topic, as there are many things in it to discuss: the laws on the topic, freedoms between the individuals involved, the various kinds of mediums that should and shouldn’t be allowed to be given expression, but it’s unlikely anyone is going to want a civil discussion lol. It’s just one of those things. The topic causes an automatic emotional, downright hysterical, response. And then they wonder why their comments get removed. Well, last time I checked, “Die pedo scum,” and “I don’t like this sick stuff (my personal, subjective opinion FYI)” are not arguments . They are opinions or simply expletives. I would totally be game to talk, but it is clear that they don’t actually read what you say, and also employ fallacious arguments if they attempt to argue- “Isn’t it obvious that sex with a 16 year old is wrong?” The fallacy here being that they have no evidence or answers to the topic, and are probably appealing to the popular answer- “Of course it’s evil, wrong etc.” They should remember that not too long ago the popular “truth” was that a virgin gave birth to a son, and this son walked on water. Please feel free to debate, but bring something to the table!

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Thanks anonymous52, you’ve put my own thoughts into words just perfectly.

I really hoped my rant could inspire a productive discussion about some things. But that hope was really naive, I guess.

It is unfortunate. Because it is these hard topics that have lots of things for discussion in them. But, they are under the “explosive emotional trigger” range, along with other taboo topics in society like incest, and nowadays, the increasing ‘sensitive subjects’ that are being added from the political realm, and touching people’s day to day lives.

Funny thing about the MonsterMash Lolita comment. I pose a question to those so easily slinging the word pedophile around: Would you rather have an ACTUAL pedo get off to a book, and satisfy quote unquote ‘sick’ urges that way, or actually do something to a defenseless child? A little food for thought. There’s no denying pedophiles exist. How can they be dealt with in a way that isn’t “kill them all!” ? Clearly that has failed, since they go into hiding, and then potentially get into a situation where a child IS abused. How can we protect the children? It is becoming harder in this internet age. Perhaps him jerking off to Lolita is much safer than him actually doing something… hmmm.

Lol I don’t care if they answer, and they probably shouldn’t, as it will be a simple, emotional response, but this is the proper place for discussion, so yeah, that’s it I guess.

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One of the anons may have had a point about how we interpret the phrase “puberty”. I think we all agree that we don’t want stories about 14-year-olds on the site. But it’s at least possible that someone could be finished or in the later stages of puberty by that age. I personally interpreted that to mean that the person should be in their later teens, but I can see that not everyone would necessarily take it that way.

So, I’m thinking that maybe it would be better to actually say “late teens” instead of “late stages of puberty”. Some may interpret that as 16+ while others will interpret it as 18+, but I can’t imagine that anyone would interpret it as including 14-year-olds. There is simply no way that wording can be understood that way.

Edit: Or, perhaps include both wordings: “in their late teens and having mostly finished puberty”, or words to that effect.

It is always helpful to make things more clear, true. But I’m afraid it probably won’t fix anything. Those people saw 16 year old in a story, with a mindset that anything under 18 is pedophilia, which is the incorrect definition. They won’t change, no matter how clear the rules are. The rules should be firmly stated, because they are fair and valid. Those people are still in the wrong. The best that can be done is if 16 yr old or whatever is going to be in a story, it should be made clear so those people can avoid it if needed, for legal reasons.

The moralism can go to hell.

I like “mostly finished puberty”.

“Late teens” is a bit too vague. I don’t care about the age, really. Like we’ve got a lot of north-african migrants who grow an impressive beard and look like 20 or older but are actually just 16. And we all know that there are 20-somethings who look and act like they’ve never even started puberty.

I understand that the law needs an age. But here, in this case, we can read and value the spirit in which a character is described. If he’s described as being childish and immature (in body and mind) then the story is out.

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@RobinHood70 - I would definitely say that a more prescriptive set of rules / guidelines is needed on this subject!

Totally appreciate @Corin‘s desire not to be overly prescriptive, but the current rules are so loose that they’re open to a LOT of interpretation. That’s definitely going to leave some people uneasy as to just where “the line” would be drawn

(Case in point, me, who genuinely thought that the Martin’s OP was making a case for 14/15 being OK)

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I’ve been thinking about this today, and for me personally, I don’t like the fact the story explicitly states the main character is 16, especially in the synopsis.
I have just quickly scanned through the story, and despite the authors justification the age helps setup the story for later developments, I don’t see what difference it would make if the main character was even 30 or 40 years older. Naivety isn’t exclusive to younger people.
Personally I feel 16 has only been used in the story to provoke a response.

I’d much prefer no stories that have characters either stated as under 18, or described as not having completed puberty, in sexual contexts.

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And you are perfectly correct to state that as your preference. We cannot know the true motive of the author, whether or not he did this to be provocative. It’s true that a 40 year old can be naive, but in terms of likelihood, and for added realism, who is going to be more sexually naive/ more naive in general, the 16 year old, or the 40 year old?

Neither do I, I’ve explicitly written many times that I’d rather see that an author doesn’t state the age of his protagonists at all. Writing about “a high-school senior” is good enough (and more descriptive, too!).

I also don’t understand why the author chose to write it like this. It could be that he actively wanted to provoke that reaction. We might never know. As a matter of fact, neither muscle growth nor milking is fitting my personal fetishes, so I really don’t care too much for that story myself.

But I stand by my decision that it doesn’t violate any of the site’s rules.

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So im going to start by saying that Martin isn’t condoning pedophilia. There was a story that had a protag that was way too young, and as soon as I pointed it out he messaged the author and fixed the issue. And the late stage puberty concept makes a lot of sense from a common sense stand point.

However, there are a few issues I’d like to point out here. The first is the legal issues. While the age of consent varies based on country, state, province, whatever, as Robin pointed out, there are also laws about writing about people under certain ages (18 at the oldest usually) that apply to people regardless of anything else. More importantly, it means that someone reading about characters under certain ages can be arrested for child porn.

(Brief tangent here, while pedophilia technically refers to children before puberty, the LAW in most places will treat you the same way if the person is a minor, so both forms tend to be lumped together in discussions. Worse, saying “it’s not pedophilia, it’s this other thing” has become a way for certain people to deflect the actual arguements being made and is thus basically a dog whistle regardless of the actual intent. )

So the real problem here from a legal stand point is that regardless of the country you’re from or the country of the person writing, you’re held to this (arguably arbitrary) standard. So if I’m from the US (even a state where 16 is legal) and reading a story about a 16 year old, I’m on shaky legal ground and could be arrested. This isn’t a US only thing either (great speech by the way), but applies to many other countries across the globe. Worse, it’s applied harsher to gay men and used as an excuse to target them, because global homophobia. (This is tangential to why a 15 year old who takes nudes of themselves is technically producing child porn).

Related is the huge problem of sexualizing teenagers (especially in the US but other places as well). Lolita (not a teen but bare with me) was SUPPOSED to be a condemnation of that attitude. That’s one of the reasons why Nabokov explicitly didn’t want a picture of a girl on the cover. However, no one would publish it, until it got published in a porn mag. Since then it’s fallen victim to the satire paradox (where satire is indistinguishable from the real thing) and pretty much every reprinting has a girl on the cover.

So when we get to teenagers, we have things like Tom Holland as a 15-16 year old or Riverdale, actors in their 20s playing 14+ characters. I doubt a lot of people actually know what a teenager looks like, because they do NOT look like adults. 25 year old student teachers (women) regularly complain to me that they’re mistaken for students, and I’m just “the fuck? You’re clearly NOT a teenager”. This problem is just as bad for guys. Puberty (the mental changes in particular) doesn’t actually finish up until mid to late 20s, and guys start later making the age harder to figure out for some people. And I’ll once again admit this is a US problem, its definitely not unique to here.

And it’s not that fiction like Riverdale or stories on this site will convince people to go out and sleep with teenagers. That’s not how media influences us. However what media does do is influence how we view the world. So Riverdale et al influence what we think teenagers look like, and how we think it’s ok to treat them. Beliefs, not action.

And yes, there is PLENTY of stuff out there in the mainstream that sexualizes teenagers, and I also disagree with it. But it’s also (mostly) straight stuff and this judged less harshly.

The stories I personally have a problem with are the ones that describe things like “teen flesh” or the like, even when the story claims the character is in college or doesn’t otherwise mention age. It’s a fetishization of youth. Im not saying that you can’t be attracted to people who are young, my friend is attracted to young looking twinks, but when it focuses on them being a teenager, it’s really weird.

Also OBVIOUSLY teenagers have sex. They have it with each other and with older people and no amount of laws will stop that reality. However, when it comes to a site where you explicitly have to be over 18 to use, it’s probably best to try and cut down on that because people under 18 aren’t even supposed to be using it. If people wanted to personally age the characters down in their heads I can’t stop them, but for many people all over the world, it’s very important LEGALLY that they not be reading on a site where the characters are under 18.

(Sorry about the long rant that’s all over the place. I can give clarification on anything)

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I know from experience that there’s no way to win with this.

If you make the age hard and fast, some people will complain that it’s not the “right” age and that it’s draconian and over the top and how dare you!

If you don’t make the age hard and fast, other people will complain that the rules are not clear and they wish they’d known that ahead of time and again, censorship! Because you’re the one deciding.

There’s no perfect solution. People need to grow up and understand that, as Martin said, different places have different laws. He sets the rules on his site, and if you don’t like them please quietly fuck off without making a fuss and ruining things for everyone else.

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Two things. One, maybe it’d be best to direct literally everyone in this thread’s attention, including Martin apparently, to part 8 in this site’s TOS?

8. Governing Law
These terms and conditions are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of California and you irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in that State or location.

I could be wrong, but I feel like the age of consent in California is a little higher than 16. “Moral imperialism” be damned. But if that doesn’t apply, it certainly does to Patreon, who would not be happy to hear this website hosts underaged content.

Two, and this is just a nitpick, but the Romeo and Juliet law isn’t nationwide in the United States, and it only applies to people between the ages of 15 to 17. It does not apply to 35 year olds who want to jerk off to 16 year olds. Thank you.

I don’t think anybody was arguing that Romeo and Juliet laws are applying to 35 yr olds interested in 16 year olds. It was explicitly stated that it was about a 16 year old having sex with a 13 year old, or whatever. The terms of Service do state California law, true, that would have to be changed to be valid. There is a small issue though. I’m not the expert, but isn’t the pornography law in the U.S referring to visual representations? I thought I read somewhere that written sexual acts may not violate a law. Obviously I’m referring to something like this about a 16 year old. I’m not condoning written works involving 5 year olds. Isn’t that writing protected under the first amendment or whatever amendment. Maybe someone could post the particular law here.

You’re right in saying that Romeo and Juliet laws (there’s more than one, it’s a broad category of laws in many jurisdictions) don’t apply to a 35 year old who wants to jerk off to a 16 year old, but I don’t think you’re right in the way you meant it. As I mentioned in the story thread, regardless of your personal comfort level with it, it’s not even remotely uncommon for guys to be attracted to older teenagers. This has been studied and confirmed repeatedly. That doesn’t mean, however, that they would actually do anything about those interests. What they desire has no bearing on the actual laws in place in their jurisdiction, however. It makes no difference if someone is 35 or 75 and jacking off to a 16 year old because that’s going on in their head and nowhere else (at least as I understand your statement, since you didn’t say having sex with a 16 year old). Thought crime isn’t a crime anywhere, as far as I know. Even if they’re literally having sex with a 16 year old, in many jurisdictions, that would be legal. Vilified, to be sure, but still legal.

But none of that matters! In the end, the only thing that matters is whether they’re viewing material about a 16 year old. That’s a whole different ballgame governed by completely different laws that usually have nothing to do with age of consent. You’re correct that the age of consent in California is 18, but that’s completely irrelevant to the discussion. The “age of pornography”, for want of a better term, is what rules in this situation. That’s almost certainly 18, and my best information is that’s the case both in California and in Germany.

We can theorize about this and say “it shouldn’t be this way” or “it should be this way” all we want, but in the end, the law is the law, and as has been pointed out, people can be jailed for reading stories sexualizing those under 18, and the website owner can be jailed for hosting stories like these. The penalties for these sorts of infractions are not trivial. In some jurisdictions, you might even be required to register as a child sex offender, all just for reading/writing/hosting that kind of story…even though literally nobody was actually harmed/hypnotized/whatever. From my point of view, anything outside of a discussion of the actual laws that govern this site, its readers, and it’s owner, is all just hand-wringing.

I just found this in a quick google. It says “involve or depict”, and I believe “depict” is usually taken to include written material.

Making sure our activities are within the law is of course crucial.

Outside that, I believe the kind of comments received follow the general recent trend of virtue signaling. The goal is to caracterize people based on identities (racist, queer, sexist, non-binary, pedophile-enabler, etc…) and having reduced them to that, decide if they’re good or bad or if their opinions should be censored. It’s very obvious here that the goal of “calling out” potential pedophilic behavior in those comments is not really because they care about children being abused; it’s all posturing and acting as “holier-than-thou”.

Now, if we actually care about the subject enough not to reduce it to hair-splitting about definitions, we must start from why pedophilia is bad and what we want to avoid. As in all abuse, it is about power, in this case, using the power of maturity to abuse the innocence and trust of children. So the kind of stories to avoid would be those that focus on that particular power dynamic, adult vs child. Martin’s rule about allowing teenagers that are no longer innocent but in the late stages of puberty, often sexually active, avoids those kind of stories. It’s not black or white or age mathematics. We could have a story where a 24-year-old has the mind of a 10-year-old and the tool of control is psychological abuse through being perceived as a trusted guardian. That would be pedophilia. On the other hand, a precocious 14-year-old who is already sexually active and far from innocent being hypnotized into having sex with the controller would not carry the same moral stigma.

Even the law recognizes the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law: that’s why we have judges and juries and lawyers. If it was all black or white, they would not be needed. I can see easily a case of being brought to court for the story of the 14 year-old above and the judge ruling that it is not pedophilia because of the absence of the adult vs child power dynamic.

I commend Martin for not giving an inch to those virtue-signalers, and I trust that if he saw a story that had any hint of true pedophilia in it, he would reject it, and most people here would be disgusted by it. I don’t need some neo-progressive telling me if I’m a pedophile or not, I know perfectly well I’m not and that Martin is not one either. So to those who try to portray him as one, fuck off!

I recommend the book “The Coddling of the American Mind” about this phenomenon: https://heleo.com/three-great-untruths-harming-young-americans/19321/

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There was an interesting case in Canada about this topic. Canadian Border agents seized a shipment of French graphic novels depicting a sexual relationship between a father and son that were being imported to a small LGBT bookstore, about 15-20 years ago.