Survey on erotica/fic reading ages

[azurelunatic]

_greenie_ is running a survey on Age Restrictions in Fandom, and would appreciate people's input. Az-the-Elder pimped this one to me.

My comment on this:

Other age for reading -- my minimum comfortable average would be 13. I think that it would be a great idea for any site that featured explicit fic to also feature links to proper sex education sites, and emphasize that their fic was not intended to be representative of reality, and that the sex ed sites *are*, and if you are not comfortable with the sex ed sites, then you should not be reading this fic.

I say 13 as my minimum comfortable average and as my comfortable age for a child of my own reading explicit fic because that was the age that I was when I clearly remember having established an interest in erotic literature myself. Not all teens will develop an interest at the same age. I am sure that there are some people who do not show an interest in sexually explicit literature until 18 or after; I am personal friends with adults who were sexually aware and mature (and frustrated!) at eleven.

As I get more fanfic, I will probably start registering my site with net nanny software, because the decision to let young people have access to online erotic literature is ultimately up to the parents, and I feel that software like that is a good way to keep young people who are not sexually mature/aware from encountering material that would really boggle them.

I actually think it would be a good idea for me, and other people, to put the notice on fic sites that if you are becoming disturbed by material that you are reading at any time, to please stop reading it. When I was 16 or so, I ran into a very gross bit of ... well ... I think it was intended to be humiliation fetish erotica. It's a point of pride with me, or at least was at that time, that if I started reading anything, I would finish it, but I couldn't finish that, and the mental images from it squicked me for years. I think reminders that you can, indeed, stop reading it would be a good plan.

Comments

[pyrogenic.livejournal.com]

I think there is a specific danger in kids reading fetish erotica before they are sexually active -- I know it caused problems for me. OTOH I wasn't nervous at all really the first time I had sex 'cause I already knew so much about it. I thought I'd want to write more on this topic, but I'm feeling very lazy. Maybe if I can find that little blurb I wrote about it on a.s.s.m years ago...

[azurelunatic]

Heh.

Coincidentally -- remember "The Wash", where you put cleaned-up versions of interesting things that had been forwarded around forever?

Remember that office girl story? The one with the office prostitutes?

That's the one.

[pyrogenic.livejournal.com]

THAT is the story that squicked you?! I'm so proud! I remember that one. I think I thought it was clever. I guess it is pretty sick. Of course I always imaging myself as the bottom in these sort of stories...

[azurelunatic]

That's the one, all right. I do far better with BDSM-related stuff now that I've learned a lot more, but non-consensual or perceived non-consensual is one of the things that always makes me very very wary. Did you see the link from one of 'song's friends on master/slave dynamics with a "natural slave"?

...I really wish I'd gotten to read that piece before I let Shawn work me over.

[pyrogenic.livejournal.com]

Wow ... that is some pretty fucked up shit right there. I went back and re-read the story just now, and damn. It totally lulls you in with softcore, and leads you down a path of easy steps till suddenly it's past the line -- I can see why it made such an impression back then.

[azurelunatic]

*nods* That, and that Gor book that I swear I'm going to use for target practice some day -- actually, I think the Gor book just annoyed me. Another book I didn't finish. It was somewhere later in the series, where it mostly stopped pretending to have Plot, because I came across an earlier volume and was amazed -- space opera with BDSM, yay!

If I was ever going to write a piece on why young people should not be exposed to online written erotica, that "Service Girl" piece would totally be used to support my point. (Though I wouldn't write that -- I think the most that I would write would be something strongly in support of full warnings as properly archived fanfic is supposed to have.)

I know I was reading Elf's stories around the same time, and loved them. It was definitely the creeping-up factor, and the fact that it was a slippery-slope story, that freaked me out. (In fact, I may have read Elf's stories first.) (And I was reading Elf's stories on one of the terminals at the UAF library, which meant absolutely no privacy and my mother coming to fetch me at any given point in time.)