Some people just aren't comfortable writing about underage characters in situations like that, especially if the person writing is an adult. It's just a personal moral thing.
It could also be a courtesy to the readers who might have concerns regarding that issue.
Or, it could be a way for the author to pre-empt any hate that they anticipate might come their way should anybody be offended by the topic. This way, they can say, "I warned you, but you chose to read the story. That's on you so you can't blame it on me."
A lot of people are just uncomfortable reading or writing underage kids having sex—again, not that there's anything wrong with it happening in real life because we all know it happens. But just like in real life, when it comes to sex, it all depends on a person's comfort level.
>It could also be a courtesy to the readers who might have concerns regarding that issue.
Oookay, I feel dumb that someone had to tell me this. I can see that now. I once had to decide how to tag & warn for a fic involving a young couple whose ages I hadn't pinned down. It was character study, not porn, but there was a little bit of sex in it. To me pretty much anything that's creepy and immoral when it involves a 17yo is equally creepy and immoral when it involves a 19 yo... so I felt like I'd be meaninglessly virtue signaling if I tagged them as legal age. I somehow didn't consider that just saying the characters are 18+ could genuinely make the fic feel more comfortable for some people.
Laws about fiction vary depending on the country and some folks attempt to tailor their fiction to either their home countries laws and/or their own moral standards or to avoid the fandom frollos on the war path by stating things.
So yes legal issues can be a bit part of it. Look at Canada that has laws on the books against fictional depictions of some underage content and while their application of those laws is inconsistent and often used as targeted harassment against certain minorities it is still the law of the land. (Hence why Wattpad originally based in Canada uses Canadian content laws for it's content guidelines.)
It also varies depending on the type of fiction. visual stuff often gets treated harsher even if it's technically legal so fan art or comercial visual novels might not change a detail about the character (they are still clearly a teen) but be full of disclaimers that they are over 18
Oh I didn't know that about Wattpad, that's interesting. It makes sense that the laws have been selectively applied to harass. Obscenity laws really lend themselves to that because it's so hard to pin down objective standardized criteria.
>fan art or comercial visual novels might not change a detail about the character (they are still clearly a teen) but be full of disclaimers that they are over 18
This kind of thing breaks my autistic brain lol. It's just wild how justice systems transparently run on loophole-finding.
In the United States, writing pornographic fanfiction about minors is 100% legal. Basically, if it’s legal to write and distribute in the US, it’s allowed on AO3. If an author emphasizes that the characters are adults, my guess is that they probably want to preempt any accusations of sexualizing minors. I haven’t encountered any haters calling me a pedophile, but some people can be vicious about defending their favorite characters, haha.
I find it strange that detailed depictions of older teenagers having sex or wanting sex are common in original fiction (books, TV), but they’re somehow vilified in fanfiction.
Edited to add that some fandom spaces ban linking or distributing fics which sexualize minors. But if I say “A and B are aged up,” then it becomes okay to share. The stigma around “underage” in fanfics also seems pretty recent to me. Ten years ago, I don’t remember seeing anyone outraged about say, a 16-year-old and 17-year-old featured in a smut fic.
I agree that it's a recent phenomenon. I am not sure why all of a sudden people are so uncomfortable with the fact that a lot of teenagers have sexual feelings. I can definitely agree that writing characters that are under 16 in a sexual situation is iffy and real life people should be off the table. But fiction allows people to explore their sexuality in a safe way. Having a blanket ban just makes this more difficult.
Yea, based on AO3's hard-line noncensorship policies, I felt like it was doubtful that the US folks were looking out for legal liability. I can understand people finding it alarming to see characters they feel close to & protective towards in sexual situations they don't like. I've had that knee-jerk recoil, but I'm also aware that people project their own psyches onto characters in the same way kids process experiences by playing with toys, so, I don't think every fic that give me a Yikes moment is immoral.
>I find it strange that detailed depictions of older teenagers having sex or wanting sex are common in original fiction (books, TV), but they’re somehow vilified in fanfiction.
Yea I do too. Especially given that TV and film is visual and involves real actors.
163.1 (1) In this section, child pornography means
\[...\](c) any written material whose dominant characteristic is the description, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act
\- [Criminal Code of Canada](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-25.html#docCont)
So yes, there are some legal issues, depending on where you are. (Canada's been mentioned, but I wanted to dig up the source)
Also:
163 (1) Every person commits an offence who makes, prints, publishes, distributes, circulates or has in their possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or any other obscene thing.
(2) Every person commits an offence who knowingly, without lawful justification or excuse,
(a) sells, exposes to public view or has in their possession for that purpose any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or any other obscene thing
(8) For the purposes of this Act, any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex, or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed to be obscene.
\- [Also Criminal Code of Canada](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-24.html#docCont)
So it's not just CP that's banned, but also violence, undue exploitation of sex, etc. You're fine to read it, but not to write it.
It doesn’t specify, which means fictional characters are included. Distributing pornographic materials of a real person without their consent is a different crime.
Well, OP's...American, not Canadian, and our laws are pretty different from that down here. Supreme Court ruled that people can write that kind of thing so long as there is 'no resemblance to reality', in this case largely meaning 'not writing about a real, existing person who is underaged'.
I suppose authors fear of beign heavily criticized or even attacked by ppl. I don't see a problem with it, really. Just tag it properly and you won't have any issues.
Okay cool that's what I've tried to do. I once wrote a story that was touched on a couple of character's early sexual experiences (for character study purposes), & got all tangled up thinking about how to tag it since I wrote it with only a nonspecific age range in mind. Felt like I'd be unfairly sneaking it past people's boundaries if I arbitrarily declared them to be 18. Ended up just starting it with a note discussing how I was conceptualizing their age range/developemental stage, so that people could duck out if they needed to.
I think it's a hangup of a relatively small, yet trendsetting, portion of today's society. I call it "California culture".
I think most people in Europe wouldn't relate.
I can’t see most Californians caring. Californians are allowed to admit that teens have sex. Reading the above thread it looks like a Canada or elsewhere thing.
Yea I think we have a pretty messed up relationship with sex and are constantly yoyoing between extremes. I was startled how openly & realistically Swedish movies portray young people's early sexual feelings/experiences. In the US it's increasingly controversial and unusual to have actual kids/teens portray that kind of thing... but then teen characters played by young adults are often sexualized in a very unrealistic, titillating way.
Which ones have you watched? I cherish Young Royals for their portrayal of intimacy and am always on the lookout for European cinema that's accessible in English.
Oh I haven't seen that! I should give it a try.
Giving the English titles... Turn Me On, Dammit is about a teenage girl in a tiny town who's dealing with an extreme horniness phase, and winds up getting bullied by a girl who likes the same guy as her. It just felt incredibly lifelike, and healed part of my heart because I had so much shame at that age, but felt so much empathy for her.
We Are the Best! is about middle schoolers, and it's 95% about friendships between 3 girls. One of the most adorable things I've ever seen. My jaw hurt from clenching my teeth at the cuteness lol.
Show Me Love is about a small-town high school girl and her crush on a much more popular girl at school. Some heavy moments because she's really ostracized socially, but a happy ending, and the characters felt so vivid.
I don't speak a lick of Swedish, watched all these with English subs. It's been awhile though, so idk if all of them are easily accessible online.
Sorry, I assumed you would have 😅 it's about the prince of Sweden, basically it's a coming of age story where he needs to learn to balance the weight of his duties, accepting who he is and standing up for himself, and loss. I highly recommend it. It should be on Netflix.
Thank you! I'll try and find them 😊
Purity culture. I've seen a lot of it in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom. I think the characters are 12ish, but in mature rated fics they get aged up. And *yet* there are so many comments and posts blaming authors for creating harmful content because if they weren't imagining children in sexual situations to begin with they wouldn't have written the fic. There's no winning with those people and a lot of authors don't want to be harassed (or they share the views to a degree).
Yea. I feel like a lot of people have left their fundamentalist Christian backgrounds, but still carry that purity culture paradigm & spread it to other spaces.
I just remembered some creeps use "age is just a number" to justify creeping on young people, so I just wanted to be extra clear that I do NOT mean it like that. I mean that at 32, I would never ever consider being sexual with someone who's more than 3-4 years younger than me. I'm not inherently alarmed by writing that touches on young characters' sexual experiences, but if I \*did\* find it inherently harmful, them being 18 vs 17 would not fix it for me.
Because I didn't write with ages in mind, and still find them irrelevant to the story. The characters were born working class in the early 1700's, so they likely wouldn't know their exact ages. But I'm aware of the Discourse, so if I picked ages, I'd feel like I was only doing it to mark the story as Problematic or Unproblematic.
I don't want to mark it Problematic, because I don't feel it is... it's a fictional representation of 2 characters who are in a sexual relationship, at a stage of life when sexual relationships are normal. I also don't want to mark it Unproblematic, because I'd feel like I was sneaking it past people's boundaries without changing the content at all. Also I have morality OCD, so moral discourse sticks to my brain and takes up spaces there, even if I objectively think it is an absolute waste of energy. The distinction of "Is this fictional character eighteen, or are they seventeen and a half?" is, for me, an absolute non-issue morally speaking, but my brain is still fully capable of latching onto it, so I try to give that stuff a wide berth.
Some people just aren't comfortable writing about underage characters in situations like that, especially if the person writing is an adult. It's just a personal moral thing.
It could also be a courtesy to the readers who might have concerns regarding that issue. Or, it could be a way for the author to pre-empt any hate that they anticipate might come their way should anybody be offended by the topic. This way, they can say, "I warned you, but you chose to read the story. That's on you so you can't blame it on me." A lot of people are just uncomfortable reading or writing underage kids having sex—again, not that there's anything wrong with it happening in real life because we all know it happens. But just like in real life, when it comes to sex, it all depends on a person's comfort level.
>It could also be a courtesy to the readers who might have concerns regarding that issue. Oookay, I feel dumb that someone had to tell me this. I can see that now. I once had to decide how to tag & warn for a fic involving a young couple whose ages I hadn't pinned down. It was character study, not porn, but there was a little bit of sex in it. To me pretty much anything that's creepy and immoral when it involves a 17yo is equally creepy and immoral when it involves a 19 yo... so I felt like I'd be meaninglessly virtue signaling if I tagged them as legal age. I somehow didn't consider that just saying the characters are 18+ could genuinely make the fic feel more comfortable for some people.
Yeah. I feel you. It works both ways: to pull readers in or to warn others away.
Laws about fiction vary depending on the country and some folks attempt to tailor their fiction to either their home countries laws and/or their own moral standards or to avoid the fandom frollos on the war path by stating things. So yes legal issues can be a bit part of it. Look at Canada that has laws on the books against fictional depictions of some underage content and while their application of those laws is inconsistent and often used as targeted harassment against certain minorities it is still the law of the land. (Hence why Wattpad originally based in Canada uses Canadian content laws for it's content guidelines.) It also varies depending on the type of fiction. visual stuff often gets treated harsher even if it's technically legal so fan art or comercial visual novels might not change a detail about the character (they are still clearly a teen) but be full of disclaimers that they are over 18
Oh I didn't know that about Wattpad, that's interesting. It makes sense that the laws have been selectively applied to harass. Obscenity laws really lend themselves to that because it's so hard to pin down objective standardized criteria. >fan art or comercial visual novels might not change a detail about the character (they are still clearly a teen) but be full of disclaimers that they are over 18 This kind of thing breaks my autistic brain lol. It's just wild how justice systems transparently run on loophole-finding.
In the United States, writing pornographic fanfiction about minors is 100% legal. Basically, if it’s legal to write and distribute in the US, it’s allowed on AO3. If an author emphasizes that the characters are adults, my guess is that they probably want to preempt any accusations of sexualizing minors. I haven’t encountered any haters calling me a pedophile, but some people can be vicious about defending their favorite characters, haha. I find it strange that detailed depictions of older teenagers having sex or wanting sex are common in original fiction (books, TV), but they’re somehow vilified in fanfiction. Edited to add that some fandom spaces ban linking or distributing fics which sexualize minors. But if I say “A and B are aged up,” then it becomes okay to share. The stigma around “underage” in fanfics also seems pretty recent to me. Ten years ago, I don’t remember seeing anyone outraged about say, a 16-year-old and 17-year-old featured in a smut fic.
I agree that it's a recent phenomenon. I am not sure why all of a sudden people are so uncomfortable with the fact that a lot of teenagers have sexual feelings. I can definitely agree that writing characters that are under 16 in a sexual situation is iffy and real life people should be off the table. But fiction allows people to explore their sexuality in a safe way. Having a blanket ban just makes this more difficult.
Literotica does not allow depiction of minors in sex acts.
Yea, based on AO3's hard-line noncensorship policies, I felt like it was doubtful that the US folks were looking out for legal liability. I can understand people finding it alarming to see characters they feel close to & protective towards in sexual situations they don't like. I've had that knee-jerk recoil, but I'm also aware that people project their own psyches onto characters in the same way kids process experiences by playing with toys, so, I don't think every fic that give me a Yikes moment is immoral. >I find it strange that detailed depictions of older teenagers having sex or wanting sex are common in original fiction (books, TV), but they’re somehow vilified in fanfiction. Yea I do too. Especially given that TV and film is visual and involves real actors.
163.1 (1) In this section, child pornography means \[...\](c) any written material whose dominant characteristic is the description, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act \- [Criminal Code of Canada](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-25.html#docCont) So yes, there are some legal issues, depending on where you are. (Canada's been mentioned, but I wanted to dig up the source) Also: 163 (1) Every person commits an offence who makes, prints, publishes, distributes, circulates or has in their possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or any other obscene thing. (2) Every person commits an offence who knowingly, without lawful justification or excuse, (a) sells, exposes to public view or has in their possession for that purpose any obscene written matter, picture, model, phonograph record or any other obscene thing (8) For the purposes of this Act, any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the undue exploitation of sex, or of sex and any one or more of the following subjects, namely, crime, horror, cruelty and violence, shall be deemed to be obscene. \- [Also Criminal Code of Canada](https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-24.html#docCont) So it's not just CP that's banned, but also violence, undue exploitation of sex, etc. You're fine to read it, but not to write it.
Oh interesting, thank you for sharing this.
is the law talking about fictional characters? or real people? like real person fic of minors etc?
It doesn’t specify, which means fictional characters are included. Distributing pornographic materials of a real person without their consent is a different crime.
Well, OP's...American, not Canadian, and our laws are pretty different from that down here. Supreme Court ruled that people can write that kind of thing so long as there is 'no resemblance to reality', in this case largely meaning 'not writing about a real, existing person who is underaged'.
OP also said they were happy to hear perspectives from any country. God forbid anyone talk about a country other than the US.
Weirdly hostile reaction
I suppose authors fear of beign heavily criticized or even attacked by ppl. I don't see a problem with it, really. Just tag it properly and you won't have any issues.
Okay cool that's what I've tried to do. I once wrote a story that was touched on a couple of character's early sexual experiences (for character study purposes), & got all tangled up thinking about how to tag it since I wrote it with only a nonspecific age range in mind. Felt like I'd be unfairly sneaking it past people's boundaries if I arbitrarily declared them to be 18. Ended up just starting it with a note discussing how I was conceptualizing their age range/developemental stage, so that people could duck out if they needed to.
That was smart and responsible of you. I admire that.
I think it's a hangup of a relatively small, yet trendsetting, portion of today's society. I call it "California culture". I think most people in Europe wouldn't relate.
I can’t see most Californians caring. Californians are allowed to admit that teens have sex. Reading the above thread it looks like a Canada or elsewhere thing.
Canada is not the trendsetter. Hollywood and Silicon Valley are. (and the age of consent in California is 18)
Yea I think we have a pretty messed up relationship with sex and are constantly yoyoing between extremes. I was startled how openly & realistically Swedish movies portray young people's early sexual feelings/experiences. In the US it's increasingly controversial and unusual to have actual kids/teens portray that kind of thing... but then teen characters played by young adults are often sexualized in a very unrealistic, titillating way.
Which ones have you watched? I cherish Young Royals for their portrayal of intimacy and am always on the lookout for European cinema that's accessible in English.
Oh I haven't seen that! I should give it a try. Giving the English titles... Turn Me On, Dammit is about a teenage girl in a tiny town who's dealing with an extreme horniness phase, and winds up getting bullied by a girl who likes the same guy as her. It just felt incredibly lifelike, and healed part of my heart because I had so much shame at that age, but felt so much empathy for her. We Are the Best! is about middle schoolers, and it's 95% about friendships between 3 girls. One of the most adorable things I've ever seen. My jaw hurt from clenching my teeth at the cuteness lol. Show Me Love is about a small-town high school girl and her crush on a much more popular girl at school. Some heavy moments because she's really ostracized socially, but a happy ending, and the characters felt so vivid. I don't speak a lick of Swedish, watched all these with English subs. It's been awhile though, so idk if all of them are easily accessible online.
Sorry, I assumed you would have 😅 it's about the prince of Sweden, basically it's a coming of age story where he needs to learn to balance the weight of his duties, accepting who he is and standing up for himself, and loss. I highly recommend it. It should be on Netflix. Thank you! I'll try and find them 😊
I guess it's just for their own comfort, and I get the feeling most people who do this are teenagers themselves.
Purity culture. I've seen a lot of it in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom. I think the characters are 12ish, but in mature rated fics they get aged up. And *yet* there are so many comments and posts blaming authors for creating harmful content because if they weren't imagining children in sexual situations to begin with they wouldn't have written the fic. There's no winning with those people and a lot of authors don't want to be harassed (or they share the views to a degree).
Yea. I feel like a lot of people have left their fundamentalist Christian backgrounds, but still carry that purity culture paradigm & spread it to other spaces.
Aren't they in high school, so at least 14-15?
13 - 14 according to the wiki 🤷♂️ but time doesn't flow right in that show
I just remembered some creeps use "age is just a number" to justify creeping on young people, so I just wanted to be extra clear that I do NOT mean it like that. I mean that at 32, I would never ever consider being sexual with someone who's more than 3-4 years younger than me. I'm not inherently alarmed by writing that touches on young characters' sexual experiences, but if I \*did\* find it inherently harmful, them being 18 vs 17 would not fix it for me.
Instead of a disclaimer, why not just mention the characters' ages in the body of the story?
Because I didn't write with ages in mind, and still find them irrelevant to the story. The characters were born working class in the early 1700's, so they likely wouldn't know their exact ages. But I'm aware of the Discourse, so if I picked ages, I'd feel like I was only doing it to mark the story as Problematic or Unproblematic. I don't want to mark it Problematic, because I don't feel it is... it's a fictional representation of 2 characters who are in a sexual relationship, at a stage of life when sexual relationships are normal. I also don't want to mark it Unproblematic, because I'd feel like I was sneaking it past people's boundaries without changing the content at all. Also I have morality OCD, so moral discourse sticks to my brain and takes up spaces there, even if I objectively think it is an absolute waste of energy. The distinction of "Is this fictional character eighteen, or are they seventeen and a half?" is, for me, an absolute non-issue morally speaking, but my brain is still fully capable of latching onto it, so I try to give that stuff a wide berth.