both fyi and tl;dr
7/6/11 19:25![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schmericaSo, for those of who have seen X-Men: First Class and want fic, there is good news and bad news! The good news, there is already a very active kink meme going on, located here: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
1stclass_kink! On the other hand, I personally cannot recommend the community ever, because I find some of the rules and decisions the mod has made to be actively offensive.
To quote from the rule post:
1. This is a KINK meme.
It is for porn. It is for random crack and smut. It is for FUN. If one poster's kink happens to be your anathema, avert thine eyes an' scroll on by.
2. No kink too vanilla, no perversion too strong... Except THAT one.
From G-rated baby squirrel adoption to NC-17 rated anathema insertion - prompt away. But please bear in mind that prompts involving shota/chan/underage characters in sexual situations ARE NOT currently permitted on this meme.
So, to be clear: this is a kink meme, and even in the very midst of the language of kink positivity these memes are based on, it stops to police and shame one specific kink - and, honestly, not that unusual of one.
I myself have been open about my underage kink forever. While I don't have any interest in, for example, sexual content about prepubescent children, I find stories about teenagers discovering and exploring their sexuality to be fascinating. I mean, for goodness' sake, my first fandom was Smallville.
But for this fandom, I can't think of a single prompt I would want to give that would be underage. That's beside the point. The kink singled out could be scat or vore and I would still find it unacceptable for a kink meme.
The mod goes into further detail in the discussion post here.
I am gonna go ahead the quote the reasoning almost in full here:
The spirit of a kink meme is to fetishise, sexualise and promote turn-ons. Prompts and fic involving underage characters in sexual situations fetishises, sexualises and reinvents childhood itself as a 'turn-on'. That's pretty much the legal definition of paedophilia. Paedophilia is illegal in the most countries.
So, no it's not against the spirit of a kink meme to prohibit the promotion of child-focussed erotic material. Especially when LJ could close the meme down for such an infraction.
There will NOT be a warning system for anyone who posts prompts or fic where underage characters participate in sexual situations. If it's against your values to post-date the timeline of the prompt to age-up an underage character then DO NOT post the prompt. Prompts where a character is recounting their experiences as a childhood abuse survivor is a separate issue, as that has been known to help real-life survivors of abuse come to terms with their own experiences through writing and reading. The same can be said for fiction depicting adult rape, non-con, dub-con, drug/drink influenced sexual activity, and extreme violence. I'm no one's therapist, but I can't deny anyone an outlet for their own catharsis.
Okay. The mod does go on in other comments to go into more detail about being afraid of LJ shutting down the comm. While I suppose this could be theoretically possible, it's not a particularly realistic worry, honestly. As I said above, underage is not a particularly uncommon kink in fandom: there are thousands upon thousands of communities and journals that might include two fictional 16-year-olds getting it on without any such interference. In any case, the manner in which both the rules and first response mention such a danger only secondarily gives the impression that it is less important than the fact that it's just gross.
At this point we get to the second reason I don't feel comfortable supporting the com, which is the position on trigger warning systems, which several people suggested in the same thread. The mod responded thus:
There is no warning or trigger list because this is a kink meme. If you don't like something, or it disturbs you, scroll past it - that's Rule #1.
and
If you're triggered by something specific (for a mild example: feet) then seeing 'foot fetish' in the header should be clue enough to scroll past it or jump to a new page ... What the poster above was asking for was a trigger LIST - a separate list of everything prompters should warn for ... If I did that, I'd still be writing the damned thing by Xmas. So, I'm leaving that to the discretion of prompters and readers, the use of headers, and the knowledge that this is a kink meme with just enough offensive content for everyone
Which is to say, a) "You shouldn't be on the kink meme if you're can't handle seeing something you don't like!!!" and b) "ANYTHING could trigger somebody, it's impossible to cover EVERYTHING!!!" which are pretty much the two most annoying arguments people put up on the subject, and which I can't respect.
As I said, it's a pretty active comm, and during my first look through there seemed to be some quite fic in there, so if the things that bother me aren't big deals for you, it would probably be a quite positive experience for you! But for me, these are dealbreakers.
1stclass_kink! On the other hand, I personally cannot recommend the community ever, because I find some of the rules and decisions the mod has made to be actively offensive.To quote from the rule post:
1. This is a KINK meme.
It is for porn. It is for random crack and smut. It is for FUN. If one poster's kink happens to be your anathema, avert thine eyes an' scroll on by.
2. No kink too vanilla, no perversion too strong... Except THAT one.
From G-rated baby squirrel adoption to NC-17 rated anathema insertion - prompt away. But please bear in mind that prompts involving shota/chan/underage characters in sexual situations ARE NOT currently permitted on this meme.
So, to be clear: this is a kink meme, and even in the very midst of the language of kink positivity these memes are based on, it stops to police and shame one specific kink - and, honestly, not that unusual of one.
I myself have been open about my underage kink forever. While I don't have any interest in, for example, sexual content about prepubescent children, I find stories about teenagers discovering and exploring their sexuality to be fascinating. I mean, for goodness' sake, my first fandom was Smallville.
But for this fandom, I can't think of a single prompt I would want to give that would be underage. That's beside the point. The kink singled out could be scat or vore and I would still find it unacceptable for a kink meme.
The mod goes into further detail in the discussion post here.
I am gonna go ahead the quote the reasoning almost in full here:
The spirit of a kink meme is to fetishise, sexualise and promote turn-ons. Prompts and fic involving underage characters in sexual situations fetishises, sexualises and reinvents childhood itself as a 'turn-on'. That's pretty much the legal definition of paedophilia. Paedophilia is illegal in the most countries.
So, no it's not against the spirit of a kink meme to prohibit the promotion of child-focussed erotic material. Especially when LJ could close the meme down for such an infraction.
There will NOT be a warning system for anyone who posts prompts or fic where underage characters participate in sexual situations. If it's against your values to post-date the timeline of the prompt to age-up an underage character then DO NOT post the prompt. Prompts where a character is recounting their experiences as a childhood abuse survivor is a separate issue, as that has been known to help real-life survivors of abuse come to terms with their own experiences through writing and reading. The same can be said for fiction depicting adult rape, non-con, dub-con, drug/drink influenced sexual activity, and extreme violence. I'm no one's therapist, but I can't deny anyone an outlet for their own catharsis.
Okay. The mod does go on in other comments to go into more detail about being afraid of LJ shutting down the comm. While I suppose this could be theoretically possible, it's not a particularly realistic worry, honestly. As I said above, underage is not a particularly uncommon kink in fandom: there are thousands upon thousands of communities and journals that might include two fictional 16-year-olds getting it on without any such interference. In any case, the manner in which both the rules and first response mention such a danger only secondarily gives the impression that it is less important than the fact that it's just gross.
At this point we get to the second reason I don't feel comfortable supporting the com, which is the position on trigger warning systems, which several people suggested in the same thread. The mod responded thus:
There is no warning or trigger list because this is a kink meme. If you don't like something, or it disturbs you, scroll past it - that's Rule #1.
and
If you're triggered by something specific (for a mild example: feet) then seeing 'foot fetish' in the header should be clue enough to scroll past it or jump to a new page ... What the poster above was asking for was a trigger LIST - a separate list of everything prompters should warn for ... If I did that, I'd still be writing the damned thing by Xmas. So, I'm leaving that to the discretion of prompters and readers, the use of headers, and the knowledge that this is a kink meme with just enough offensive content for everyone
Which is to say, a) "You shouldn't be on the kink meme if you're can't handle seeing something you don't like!!!" and b) "ANYTHING could trigger somebody, it's impossible to cover EVERYTHING!!!" which are pretty much the two most annoying arguments people put up on the subject, and which I can't respect.
As I said, it's a pretty active comm, and during my first look through there seemed to be some quite fic in there, so if the things that bother me aren't big deals for you, it would probably be a quite positive experience for you! But for me, these are dealbreakers.
Tags:
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(no subject)
8/6/11 02:29 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 02:32 (UTC)Are there alternative kink memes? I would support them.
(no subject)
8/6/11 02:37 (UTC)I am real cross
(no subject)
8/6/11 02:38 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 02:39 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 02:46 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 02:43 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 02:52 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 03:03 (UTC)I've run several active kink memes although I had to turn them over to other people once I just got too busy. While I agree the Trigger points could have been made more gracefully I don't disagree with the sentiment. It's really difficult to keep up with a trigger list when there are a lot of active prompters and fillers. I'm not entirely sure it would be possible to do even if there were several mods. Asking people to warn for common triggers and providing a list was about the best we ever managed when I was involved with kink memes and even then it was difficult to police the prompts and fills to make sure they had the appropriate warnings.
I guess what I'm asking is do you think there could be a happy medium between "trigger warning free zone" and "trigger warning list"?
(no subject)
8/6/11 03:53 (UTC)Honestly, I do think that is what being suggested. I've never modded such a time consuming comm, but I can appreciate the amount of work that goes into. I think a good faith attemp would be, after hearing people's suggestions, to go ahead and say, okay, guys, if you include non-con or character death, please put a warning. You know?
(no subject)
8/6/11 16:31 (UTC)You've reminded me how I should stop making assumptions about all fandoms based on the ones I've been in. With the kink memes and their associated fandoms it is considered standard practice to warn for non-con and character death. I've never thought of them as Triggers just standard warning practices. I agree with you that asking people to warn for triggering content and providing a short list of common triggers is reasonable.
(no subject)
8/6/11 03:15 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 03:44 (UTC)Underage ain't my cup of tea, personally, but I hate the reasoning that anything written involving minors and sexual stuff has to be pornographic, too.
And I think most writers are intelligent enough to realise that certain things may be triggering. If you're going to write, say, a graphic and awful rape scene which you're hoping will move/horrify a reader, it doesn't take much grey matter to work out that this might genuinely upset someone or give someone who's survived sexual assault PTSD flashbacks.
Furthermore, as I've seen with many kink memes (or a few, at least-- one of these being the biggest and one of the best known KMs in cyberspace)-- Kink Memes often diverge from kink and move into other areas. Perfectly vanilla, benign, G-rated stuff can be requested. So... no underage characters in there, either?
(no subject)
8/6/11 03:50 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 03:58 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 03:45 (UTC)http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/
(no subject)
8/6/11 04:01 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 04:04 (UTC)(no subject)
8/6/11 05:00 (UTC)This makes me want to tear my hair out. Pedophilia and underaged fic are not the same. They are DIFFERENT, legally and morally. So is child pornography and written erotica. GAH.
(no subject)
8/6/11 05:22 (UTC)No it's not. Child abuse/molestation is a crime, pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder.
Unless they are banning prompts about all illegal acts I don't understand their reasoning. Prompts and fic about rape fetishize, sexualize and reinvent rape as a turn on. Rape is illegal in most countries.
The wording on "no perversion too strong... Except THAT one" comes off as super judgmental. Wanting a fictional account of two 'underage' teenagers having sex is hardly the height of perversion. Pretending that people who want to prompt for that are basically child molesters is ridiculous.
(no subject)
8/6/11 12:54 (UTC)I don't even understand how someone could get to this conclusion about all underage fic ever. Like, seriously, what the fuck? Especially when underage fic to some people is totally legal to others, like, 16 is two years underage in a lot of places in America, but totally legal here.
And how difficult is to to just say something like, "you need to warn for anything you think might be triggering and not be a dick"? Why are people so stupid? Is it seriously saying, like, "you don't need to warn for stuff like rape if you don't want to, that's cool, whatever! But DON'T YOU DARE EVEN THINK ABOUT PROMPTING ANYTHING INVOLVING A 15/16/17 YEAR OLD HAVING SEX"? Urgh.
(no subject)
9/6/11 12:06 (UTC)(no subject)
10/6/11 20:37 (UTC)If you really like fantasies involving paedophilia, you'll be happy to know two cases involving adult men who photoshopped 10 to 13-year-old girls' heads on nude adult women's bodies had their convictions for child pornography overturned. And one was extra creepy as the guy photoshopped his OWN daughter's head onto a nude woman.
Yeah, I find the fanfic obsession with porn distasteful and have since disowned the practice publicly, ESPECIALLY stuff like "Snarry".
I also don't think it's consistent to complain about not being allowed to portray underage sex and then turn around and demand trigger warnings. If you want it open to all things, you get the writers who want to surprise readers also.
(no subject)
10/6/11 22:56 (UTC)If you don't like porn, fine. If you don't like Snarry, cool, WHATEVER. No one gives a fuck. Get the fuck out of our space if you don't like something that we're doing; we don't need you watching out for our souls~ or whatever the fuck it is you're doing here.