Weighing in on the great age debate.

[icarus]

I'm tired, so this is going to be brief.

Regarding the current age debate... I'll lock what stories I have to for the sake of legality, but I don't believe sex automatically means inappropriate for preteens and teenagers. Theme is what determines what is difficult for those "underage" to understand.

So I recommend my NC-17 Skinny Dipping for teens and preteens, because it is a very equal and generous encounter and deals with issues that are relevant to teenagers. I'd recommend both the R and NC-17 version Primer to the Dark Arts for the same reasons. Rising Sun is quite explicit, a very high R, but is perfect for teenagers who are constantly being fed an overly idealised, romantic notion of sex.

But I don't recommend my R-rated A Moment of Sin for teens and preteens, because of the cynical "using" world of prostitution, and the confusing moral gray areas involved in Snape's decision. Nor would I recommend Beg Me For It -- again, less because of the sex (though here some of it is non-con) and more because of the questionable decisions on the part of several persons. The fourth part (still in the works) SNAFU, has very little sex and may only rate an R by some standards. But, with the violence in it, that one I would object to teens reading.

An Elegant Man is one that I would lock because of the casual attitude about infidelity by Lucius.

On the other hand I have no difficulty with teens reading the Harry/Snape/Ron three-way in Unexpected Guest, because it's a very positive encounter and... it's just sex.

If you want your kids to have your values I suggest you:
a) teach them your values, and
b) monitor their internet habits if you're so concerned.

I think a) is more effective. There is no difference between my parents values and my own on this subject.

But don't expect me to conform to your values because you're kids are roaming wild on the internet. Whose kids are they?

My standards are my own, and I don't feel they should be imposed on others. Likewise, I don't feel anyone else's standards should be imposed upon me. Those of you who think the Silence of the Lambs is more appropriate for kids than a fluffy sex-romp with full frontal nudity -- I disagree.

Comments

[exbentley]

I personally think that of all your smut, the one teens are most likly to click on is 'Sex, Drugs and Death Eater Rock' purely because it has the coolest title.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

You know, that is a really good point. I hadn't thought about that, but I'd click on that title, too.

Personally, I think the cross-dressing and whatnot is fine in that story. I'd only be concerned about the casual drug use. *snerk*

Icarus

[tagore.livejournal.com]

But don't expect me to conform to your values because you're kids are roaming wild on the internet. Whose kids are they?

Quite.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'm seriously considering putting sarcastic pop-up warnings on my fics. *g*

Icarus

[setissma.livejournal.com]

Kudos for that intelligent, well-formed viewpoint. I wish more people who want to lock things up shared it. It's not, necessarily, that Sex Is Bad - it's that sometimes issues surrounding sex are hard to deal with. I know fics that, even with an awfully low level of sexuality, I'm not sure I'd ever hand to really young teenagers - Snitch! comes to mind. Then again, if you manage to reach your teens without being overly exposed to violence, kudos to your parents. My eight year-old cousin is allowed to play Grand Theft Auto. By the time he's fourteen or fifteen? I don't think all the violent fic in the community could phase him.

(And Silence of the Lambs gave me nightmares for weeks. I've not yet read a fic that could do that. *g*)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I know fics that, even with an awfully low level of sexuality, I'm not sure I'd ever hand to really young teenagers - Snitch! comes to mind.

Exactly.

Then again, if you manage to reach your teens without being overly exposed to violence, kudos to your parents.

They were pretty strict about it.

We were the only ones in the neighborhood who weren't allowed to watch The Dukes of Hazzard, while scanning Playboy was fine -- with a slight talk about objectifying women and that most women don't look like that, there were airbrushes and in some cases breast augmentation. Other magazines that were less respectful of women were off-limits. Mom had a more serious talk with my brother about the contents of Swedish Erotica, which she considered demeaning to women. I don't what she said, but it left him very thoughtful. He gave the magazine back to his friends and refused to look at it afterwards.

The only sexual movies that were banned were Cruising, because they felt kids wouldn't understand the S&M and assume that all gay sex was S&M (the gay themes were not a problem); The Postman Always Rigns Twice (STRONG objections to the infidelity); and American Gigalo, because it was a "very cynical" movie about people using each other.

(And Silence of the Lambs gave me nightmares for weeks. I've not yet read a fic that could do that. *g*)

I find that movie deeply disturbing. *g*

Icarus

[setissma.livejournal.com]

They were pretty strict about it.

Mine, really, weren't. I think it was more a matter of necessity than choice - my father was a single parent trying to write a dissertation, so, for most of my childhood, I was allowed to watch (for the most part) what I wanted. I can't ever remember a time when I wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies (so long as he was with me, until I was 11 or 12 or so), but I think the key point was that he taught me that there was a very big difference between how people treated each other in movies and how people treated other people in real life. More importantly, I had a "standard of acceptable behavior." People were to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter who they were, violence was not okay, and solving problems without conflict was the goal. (Which I think he showed more via example than ever having, you know, sat me down and said, "You always, always say sir and ma'am and don't be rude to people making minimum wage if they're not quite on top of things.")

On the other hand, I wasn't allowed to swear. Ever. I was told it made me sound uneducated, and there was no reason to do it. And that kind of stuck; I still shock people if I do. And the thing that really shocks people is that I wasn't allowed to watch cartoons, unless they were educational, like Magic Schoolbus or Sesame Street's cartoon segments.

But the thing is, I know of teenagers now who were banned from movies when they were young, and now there's an air of the forbidden about it - I never had that. Ever. So it was probably more effective than he knew, because by giving me the choice of whether or not I wanted to watch it, I typically didn't want to. But I wasn't allowed to watch Scooby Doo. And I still flip on the TV and if it's on, I'll tune in for a minute or two, until I remember just how dumb it was. *G*

I find that movie deeply disturbing. *g*
Yeah, but you must admit that the eaten-by-pigs scene in Hannibal was sort of cool.

[mentalstaples.livejournal.com]

I agree with stiletto.

But I don't recommend my R-rated A Moment of Sin for teens and preteens, because of the cynical "using" world of prostitution, and the confusing moral gray areas involved in Snape's decision.

That's one of my favorites. I love moral gray areas in stories. It makes them more interesting.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I find them personally fascinating. Obviously.

Icarus

[ursulakohl.livejournal.com]

Given the number of books by Mercedes Lackey and Katherine Kerr and other members of the "You can tell he is a villain because he engages in abusive sexual practices" school of fantasy-novel writing that I read as an early teen, I'm not terribly worried about the reading practices of current teenagers-- and if I were *going* to be morally upset I would save my outrage for, oh, the complete works of Roald Dahl-- but I have no objection to making people jump through a couple of hoops to get their smutty literature. I suspect in a lot of cases the hoops substitute for lurid cover art.

There are books I wouldn't recommend to kids, but more because they're confusing than disturbing. I know I hated China Mountain Zhang the first time through, because I didn't have the context for it.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I'm so embarrassed now because, um, I really like Mercedes Lackey. I mean, okay, okay, the abuse thing gets a little silly, but her whole compassionate Herald theory is just something I can really get into you see. *clears throat* But I will eventually put down my fairy tales and read Atlas Shrugged, I promise. After I've read the Lord of the Rings another 35 times, I'm sure.

*blushing intensely*

Icarus

[ursulakohl.livejournal.com]

Heh, Atlas Shrugged isn't remotely on my list. Though there was an objectivist conference when I was at UBC a couple of weeks ago-- really a baffling concept.

At some point it was my goal to read everything Mercedes Lackey had ever written, and I think I had actually done that up until about the time she was publishing the griffin & Storms of ___ trilogies, when I became frustrated by the lack of resolution, and stopped altogether. She provided a good chunk of my early sexual education, which is probably a lot more embarrassing than anything you could come up with ;)

[ursulakohl.livejournal.com]

Still reading Katherine Kerr, though I'm waiting for Rhodry to die . . .

[ceilidh]

My parents never talked to me about sex, but they weren't particularly prudish in terms of what I read. I remember reading and discussing Stephen King with my dad when I was in middle school - I think the first one I remember reading was It. Perhaps that explains my thing for group-best-friend-sex, lol. (It is where I got the idea for my very first smutfic, Veritaserum.)

What's even odder is that my dad would read them and pass them along to me with the swear words blacked out. Apparently they didn't mind me reading about underage sex with multiple partners, domestic violence, infidelity, or creepy sci-fi violence, but they didn't want me to read vulgar terms for it. *grin*

I have a good few years before I need to talk to my daughter about this sort of thing, as she is four. I did explain to her once that yes, boys can kiss boys as she caught a glimpse of some of the very tame Ron/Draco in my mood theme while sitting on my lap one evening. The R/S went over her head, I think, but she is familiar enough with the kiddie characters to realise that that was definitely Ron and Draco. I said 'boys can kiss boys sometimes too,' and left it at that for now - as she is only almost four.

I'd have a big problem with her reading my fics, EVER, even when she's forty. I mean, I'm trying to imagine MY mother writing some of the stuff I've written and me reading it - it would squick me to death. If she was interested as an older teen, I'd let her, but I'd probably hide for a while. I hide when my husband reads it. He's only done so a couple times.

[belleweather.livejournal.com]

My mother read an Original fic that I wrote that had a sex scene in it... it traumatized her nearly as much as it did me. Like it or not, there's a lot of me in what I write, and that's a side of me my mom ought never to see!

Given an honest choice, I'd rather give the sex scenes to twelve year olds and hire a damn good team of lawyers than let my mom see them again.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

What's even odder is that my dad would read them and pass them along to me with the swear words blacked out. Apparently they didn't mind me reading about underage sex with multiple partners, domestic violence, infidelity, or creepy sci-fi violence, but they didn't want me to read vulgar terms for it. *grin*

I was thinking about this in the kitchen, and suddenly got it: your parents viewed all stories as literature and not moral examples. So all subjects were fair game. Vulgar language is not particularly appropriate for kids, but literature, well of course it is.

I would never want my family reading my steamier stories. I shudder at the thought. My boyfriend occasionally betas for me however.

Icarus

[here-be-dragons.livejournal.com]

Those of you who think the Silence of the Lambs is more appropriate for kids than a fluffy sex-romp with full frontal nudity -- I disagree.

Yeah, I'll second this idea. As the parent of a young child, I'm far more concerned about the violence he sees, which seems to be the opposite of the way U.S. society seems to think - here, sexual content is considered far more "inappropriate" for children, which really bothers me. Sex is a natural, and hopefully beautiful part of life. Violence is an abberation. Also a natural one, and probably strongly hard-wired into us as a species, but still, I think violence is something that should be discouraged, while sex is something that should be encouraged (with appropriate limits, obviously - I'm not advocating sexual activity among children; just that they be taught that it's something lovely and not dirty). And, at least here in the US, society seems to be shoving our kids in exactly the opposite direction.

(Here via daily_snitch, btw)

[maelwaedd.livejournal.com]

Nice one.
I've been sitting here wondering if I was the only parent who was more concerned about violence than sex.

My daughter's only one, so I'll have a fair while before she's going to be reading. I was thinking the other day, though, that I'd much rather (when she's older than one and interested in sex, of course) she read well-written fanfic than, I don't know, the horrible stories that I'd chuckle over whenever one of my school friends managed to bring Playboy or something to the train station.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Sexual content is considered far more "inappropriate" for children, which really bothers me.

It's odd. My family's always been mystified by the anti-sex, pro-violence in this world.

Of course, I'm about to engage in the ultimate hypocrisy here, because I've just finished a very violent story for which I've been doing research for the last ten months -- including talking to Vietnam vets. So much for my pacifism. Note, I had no lack of lovingly produced, viscerally detailed war movies to study.

Is it pacifist to refuse to gloss over and glamorize violence? The Wild Bunch surprised me in how honest it was. The "heros" were idiots, the violence was senseless and hit innocent bystanders, and every few minutes the action stopped for a funeral procession, reminding you yet again how much it all cost.

Icarus

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

Great post - I agree completely.

Indecency laws are based on "community standards," which is utterly impossible to make any kind of sense of on the Internet (where one reader might be in the Netherlands and the next in Saudi Arabia). Do we conform to the most repressive standard to be on the safe side? Sorry, no. That would violate my core values, and I'm not willing to do that. Do we try to make a hodgepodge based on our own values and "common sense"? That varies so much from person to person and place to place, I think we're all better off acknowledging we don't really have real control over who reads our stuff, at all.

I can't agree with you more on the role of parents to teach kids their values, although it doesn't always work out. My own sexual values are quite different from my parents' (though not my political ones or our collective low opinion of censorship), but over time we've come to respect and understand each other and agree to disagree. Kids do grow up to become Other People, after all--that's kind of the point of having them--but I can see how that could be very hard for parents to accept. However, accept it they must, and the time they must begin to start accepting it is in adolescence, when kids are very interesting in exploring who they might want to become and getting out from under the parental wing. They have to be allowed to practice independence at that age; they need psychic privacy, and they need viewpoints that come from outside the family/school gated community. It's normal and healthy for them to have them, IMO.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Great post - I agree completely.

Thanks. I weighed in on the debate with much trepidation.

Indecency laws are based on "community standards"

The whole concept is very "small town" and just can't apply to a larger world.

I can't agree with you more on the role of parents to teach kids their values, although it doesn't always work out.

Yes, that's true. It's not something you can control or expect that your kids will agree. But if you take the time to explain your thinking, there's at least a chance of understanding and a meeting of minds. At the very least you will end with, "well, you may not agree, but while you're in my house you will respect my rules." Just making up rules without explaining the point behind them -- which is what people do with these "community standards" -- is begging for people to ignore them. Everything has to come from principles. Or it just doesn't fly.

Icarus

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

Those of you who think the Silence of the Lambs is more appropriate for kids than a fluffy sex-romp with full frontal nudity -- I disagree.


Wooo! Agreed. But unfortuantly I know SOOO many people who WOULD let their chicldren watch very violent horrific films long before soemthign with gasp sex between consenting adults in it. And they wonder why our society is screwed up and we have so much violence?

But thats how I rate my fics too- its issues of violence, drugs and questionable ethics etc that raise the ratings higher than the sex does. If someone has a problem with it- thats their problem, I list the subjects in the ratings spoiler.

And now I regret not having children of my own so I can point them to all the good fics out there.

Hm. Children.

Ok, regret passed! LOL.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hm. Children.

Ok, regret passed! LOL.

LOL! Okay, yeah. The closest I'll come to kids is my cat. He just doesn't seem to interested in my fanfic, except where he can sleep on it.

Icarus

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Hmmm; I would have to agree with you (even though I don't lock anything, because I don't think the law is really as problematic as most of fandom seems to think it is, based on what I see kids buying in Borders) that what I would RECOMMEND for people whose sexual values don't seem to be 'set' yet would be different than what I would RECOMMEND to someone whose are.

(Though I would include all the 16-17 year olds on LJ in the group of 'done'--one of them writes wickeder stuff than I do, yet personally is a virgin for her own well-thought-out reasons, and another one is considering marriage for her own well-thought-out reasons.)

I would, personally, not exclude preteens from reading things where the characters don't display my values. For instance, I think most preteens are aware that Lucius Malfoy ("An Elegant Man" being the only one of the above that I'm sure I've read) is not supposed to be a role model, and I think one of the skills preteens have to learn to make successful sexual decisions in life is how to navigate those grey areas. It's easy to know what to do when your choices are black and white; when one choice is grey and the other is greyer, that's the difficult part.

But personally, I am freaked out by the notion that say, Mercedes Lackey, is good reading for preteens. Who do eat her up. Her plot and characterisation I can't see working for anyone older than 13, but if I caught anyone I knew was under 15 and was in any way responsible for reading Lackey, we'd be having a talk about all of the explicit sexual violence--especially since Lackey's loving presentations of same disturb me deeply.

I wouldn't recommend my incest fics to people under 13; on the other hand I label them, and if anyone of any age who reads them anyway really is freaked out, as opposed to merely censorious, I'm happy to talk to them about it, and would encourage them to talk about it with someone they trust. While the most famous of them is a flowery PWP, I think the cues that it's not what I consider the 'healthiest' relationship in the world are there, and again...no-one ever said the Malfoys were supposed ot be Role Models, did they?

On the other hand I do not write some of the violent stuff Switchknife or GMTH write--but then again, I don't write what Lackey writes, either, and I think, frankly, that it's about the same on either side there.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

That should have read:

(Though I would include all the 16-17 year olds that I personally know on LJ in the group of 'done'--one of them writes wickeder stuff than I do, yet personally is a virgin for her own well-thought-out reasons, and another one is considering marriage for her own well-thought-out reasons.)

It also should've read 'teenagers' instead of '16-17 year olds' because I recalled just now that at least 2-3 of the kids on my flist are not 16 yet.

There are two reasons I hold the radical views that I do, possibly three. One is that I remember my own teenage years more clearly than most people do and had a lot of related issues in my personal life. Two is that my ideas of what kids were capable of were expanded and surpassed by my readers and my friendslist. A lot of people who do read my fic are in the 14-18 age group. I did not expect this, but I feel rather honoured by it, and getting to know these people really did open my eyes to a lot of things about them. Many of them are even more articulate and sophisticated than I was at their age.

The third possibly influential reason is that I was a teenager in the late seventies and early eighties, and society was, for a lot of reasons, less puritanical then than it is today. More bigoted, surely--it was much harder then to be exclusively gay or lesbian--but the backlash against open expression of sexuality that came into play after the AIDS crisis was not yet a factor in society, and at that time, the barriers in place today between teens and the rest of the world did not exist to the same degree. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is subject to debate, but I don't think it did me any harm and the kids who write to me after reading my fics are often the kind of kid I was, which doesn't exactly surprise me.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about this. I'm 5 years younger than you and the 80s were definitely when the winds began to change. I think you put that "barriers in place between teens and the rest of the world" thing very well -- they are there, and much stronger, than when I was a teen. Hell, I didn't get along too well with most people my own age; my friends were all fellow underground-music geeks into zines and RPGs (tabletop, this is pre-internet) who were in their 20s and 30s. There were a few other precocious teens around the edge of that circle too, and I don't think anyone thought it was weird. There was a little dating going on, but not nearly as much as some people who think that adults only hang out with teens for sex (now there's an offensive notion!) would think.

I find it very disturbing that hysteria "underage sexuality" and inappropriate adult interest therein is essentially the new Reefer Madness or Red Scare or urban legend about spider eggs in Bubble Yum or backwards masking on Led Zeppelin records or what have you. (Wasn't the "war on terror" supposed to replace that as a motivator for all-American fear and suspicion?) NOT to say that it doesn't happen for real of course, but must all social relations be poisoned by it? And since when are we actually unable to distinguish between actual children and teenagers, who last I heard were notorious for a healthy fascination with sexuality?

Speaking as the mother of an almost-nine-year-old girl...

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I personally would put "A Moment of Sin" HIGH on a list of stuff I'd feel comfortable with her reading when she gets to be a teenager. There's plenty of happily-ever-after fic out there. The grey areas and the acknowledgement of *consequences* in that story are the sort that can make a person THINK, and that's exactly what I'd want her to be doing.

When I was... fourteen? fifteen? One of my favorite books was "Christiane F.," a biography of a heroin-addicted teenage prostitute in Berlin around 1980. (Found it because I was a David Bowie fan.)

There's a big difference between "want to read about" and "want to emulate." In fact, I credit that book (along with Andrew Weil's "Chocolate to Morphine") with my decision never to touch cocaine or heroin (and both were available to me, were I interested) and my realization, the one time I smoked opium, that I liked it *too* well and would be better off never touching it again.

"A Moment of Sin" is an amazing story. Don't underestimate it as a force for good.

[xenoface.livejournal.com]

I don't have kids...(yet)

but if i did and they were at their (pre)teenage years, i'd definately have the same views as you would.

I'm still at my early twenties, studying arts and computer science and all that crap, so i'd know alot about the internet.

x_x

I wish i had met you sooner, back when i was still a teen when i discovered Sailor Moon pron at altavista... google wasn't even born yet! 0_o

-sam
http://samscorel.net

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Sam! I've missed you. How are you doing?

Icarus

[xenoface.livejournal.com]

Haha, i'm fine. I missed you too...

I was off teaching this american girl, Megan, how to speak Filipino. It took me awhile.

Right now? I'm on Adobe Photoshop, drawing Harry/Ron.

Any art you'd like?

-sam
http://samscorel.net