Deletegate

[foudebassan]

I have kept very quiet on this matter, but lit_gal has posted an entry that sums up what I think about this better than I can do it myself.

The short story is: I don't like censorship any more than the next person, but in the precise case of pedophilia, you'd need far more censorship than the few deleted journals to shock me. Yes, 6Apart didn't go about this like they should have, yes, deleting literature and RPG journals was a stupid thing to do; but if they did suppress even one real pedophile comm, I don't care about the collateral damage.

The pedophile comms didn't hurt anyone, you say. They should have been monitored by professionals to catch pedophiles in the act.

No. I'm sorry, but no. Discussing sexual relations with young minors among like-minded individuals is not an exercise in free speech. It blurs the reality between fantasising about something you know is wrong and forbidden and fantasising about something you know is a wank-fantasy for many other people. It makes those so inclined much more likely to act on their desires. I don't want this happening. I don't want anything that could possibly encourage people to act, even if it means catching them red-handed.

I am being hypocritical here, you say. If rapefic, slavefic and powerfic comms are allowed, where people like me can discuss non-consensual acts, why should pedophiles be specifically targetted.

That's a tougher one. I suppose I am a hypocrite. I want to keep a safe place where I can fantasise about raping and enslaving grown-up men, but I want to deny pedophiles the same convenience. The only difference is that the "victim" (fictional or real) is mature enough to discern right and wrong, to know when they have been slighted and are more likely to survive relatively unscathed - not to mention that it is more difficult to harm a grown-up than in child IRL in the first place. So yes, I'm a hypocrite, but those few years make a world of difference to me.

So - sorry, but I won't get my knickers in a twist about the LJ deletions, especially as the fandom journals seem to have been all restored now. I am ready to fight for my little corner of the Internet, but not on this issue. On anything but this issue, as a matter of fact.

Comments

[cosmo-jenny.livejournal.com]

I just critize the way they did it and by which motivation.
There was actually mor collateral damage than it did good.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

They did botch it, and they sounded like they'd try to repair the mistakes they made.

[cosmo-jenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah and this is one thing I account them for.
But the way they executed that deletion was more than clumsy and insensitive.
I keep repeating myself but would it have been such a stress to look over the rest of the interests, the actual profile and maybe into the journal?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they really did make a mess of it. But even then, I look at the names of some of the comms they deleted ("childlove" - ahem!) and think that as long as they restore the literature and fandom journals, all in all, the purge wasn't a bad thing.

[cosmo-jenny.livejournal.com]

The purge wasn't a bad thing at all but the way they did *eyeroll*

[scatteredlogic.livejournal.com]

I think the line for me blurs when it comes to sexual fic about adults/kids because (besides being personally squicked) I have the nagging (and unsubstantiated) feeling that some adult somewhere is reading it and isn't able to draw the line between fantasy and reality. Or who reads it and thinks, "Cool! That's really hot. Hmm, what if I were to actually try that? Come over here, kid."

I know that there have been studies that say fiction has an effect on people and studies that say that it doesn't. Statistics can be easily manipulated to show whatever result is desired. But that doesn't change that feeling that I have. ~shrug~ I'm not sure that I'm explaining this well at all here.

[scatteredlogic.livejournal.com]

And I just realized that I didn't address the actual pedophiles that congregated on LJ. I agree with you. I want them gone. I don't want them using this space (or any other) to share tips and tricks and fantasies.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I believe the counter-argument is that they'd go "even deeper underground", wherever that is (is LJ underground already?) but hey. What keeps law-enforcers from going "even deeper underground" too?

[scatteredlogic.livejournal.com]

~nods~ Law enforcement officers do go "deeper underground." They don't stop looking for them just because they aren't being conveniently served up on an LJ platter.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

And being chased from one medium after the other does convey the impression that it is indeed wrong and forbidden, one hopes.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty confident that reading slavefics isn't going to make me enslave men, but I won't automatically believe the same thing of pedophile fics. Which, again, makes me a hypocrite. Ah, well.

[scatteredlogic.livejournal.com]

Well, me, too, I suppose. ;)

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Hypocrites of the world, unite! We have but our chains to lose; there is a world to be won ;)

[harrietvane.livejournal.com]

I generally agree. As long as my sandbox isn't threatened, I don't mind the actual paedophiles and dodgy sorts being booted. That said, it's an interesting line as to where we draw 'child'. In Japan, the age of consent is 13 (though there's immorality laws within prefectures). In the UK and many parts of the West, it's 16. In some places, it's 18. In Australia, it's 16 for everything but anal. Does the squickiness come into play if the story is about two 17-year-olds? About one 17-year-old and an adult? Is it only really under-16 that is a worry? There's no decided line in the sand, and it makes it very hard to judge against when defining the kind of stories that might encourage paedophiles other than, like obscenity, to say that one knows it when one sees it.

[dacian-goddess.livejournal.com]

I think paedophilia is specifically defined as physical/sexual attraction to prepubescents - under 12-13 I think. As long as that's a psychologically defined delimitation, with existent and proven boundaries, I think we could probably set an upper age limit with a safe margin (an additional buffer) - something like, say, 15 and draw that as our line in the sand (age-wise).

Personally, I'm rather squicked if one of the participants is under 15-16 and there is a 10+ age difference... It just feels too horridly imbalanced, and I can't accredit any believability to a PWP.

[harrietvane.livejournal.com]

Well, while I agree that paedophilia should generally refer to prepubescent attraction as it usually is clinically, that isn't how the term is widely used in the press or commonly. Hebephilia (the sexual attraction felt by an adult toward an adolescent), as Shiv pointed out the other day, is seen by some to be linguistic shiftiness and a new concept. It's a question of where modern morality intersects with biological and historical considerations.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I've always understood pedophilia as meaning "attracted to individuals too young to give informed consent to sexual participation". Puberty has little to do with ability to consent, has it?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

It does depend on a variety of factors - what they were doing, snogging isn't fucking and fucking isn't playing BDSM, and all that still depends on the partner's age. Isn't it like porn, though - you can't define it, but you recognise it when you see it?

But fiction does allow for some leeway - in HP we have time-turners and various spells to change people's ages. And when push comes to shove, all it takes it to label something AU and whoops, here they are, still at Hogwarts and over 18 all at once.

[http://users.livejournal.com/butter_cup_/]

I respect your opinion, but I think this could be a dangerous position for the fandom to Take.

It isn't a free speech issue at all, as it isn't the government deleting the journals. It's LJ's bandwidth and they can allow it to be used as they see fit.

I don't like chan fics. I don't write them. I don't read them. If a forum wants to ban them, that's fine with me. If they want to allow them, that's fine with me to. I reserve the right not to click the link.

I don't think anyone in the fandom should be calling for any fiction to be banned based on what they find squicky and distasteful. I'm guessing that to most people outside the of the fandom, writing Harry Potter porn falls in the deviant category. If not deviant, then very questionable. If anyone disagrees, I dare them to print out what they're reading on writing in the fandom and share it with their co-workers. I dare them to start posting their fics under their real name.

What? Not game?

Yeah, me neither. I'd lose my job.

Actual pedophiles using journals for the criminal purpose of soliciting children should be banned, prosecuted and thrown in prison. People writing fiction should be left alone, even if we find their fiction disgusting, unless we're willing to be banned because someone else finds our fiction disgusting. The fandom journals were only restored provisionally. What argument would you use if Six Apart decided to reinstate the deletion?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I don't think of it as a squick and distastefulness issue at all. Where I live promoting pedophilia is a crime, and some of the chan out there definitely falls in this category (posting fictional yet realistic stories about adults abusing children can be an incentive to actually abuse children). Now LJ is based in America where this is not an offense, and I respect that, but if I am caught watching graphic pictures of a grown-up with a child in a NC-17 position, I can have legal trouble.

This shouldn't be a problem, there are usually ample warnings and I don't click on everything, but I cherish the idea of a place I can relax in, ie, with porn and free speech, that would be within the law, and I won't condemn LJ for trying to provide it, even if they went about it in a disastrous way (for which they've since apologised).

[http://users.livejournal.com/butter_cup_/]

I think we disagree on what constitutes promoting pedophilia. Over here, promoting pedophilia is a journal that gives tips on stalking and luring children. That IS illegal. Photographs of children and adults in NC-17 positions ARE criminal because an actual child was molested in the making of said pictures.

Creative products such as drawings and fiction, no matter how distasteful, aren't illegal in this country because, for the moment, we don't criminalize ideas. But, not to worry, the religious fundamentalists are working to change that. (Although they seem more interested in banning depictions of naked Jesus sculpted in dark chocolate.)

Again, LJ can do whatever they want. It's their sandbox. I'm just saying that if we're going to make these what-about-the children arguments to eliminate one type of fiction, we should prepare to have our own fictions deleted for the same reason.

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Pictures / drawings are illegal here - they extended the definition to include pseudophotographs so that paedohiles couldn't escape prosecution merely by photoshipping iamges, or arguing that they had been photoshopped.

There are moves afoot to include fiction now, so as to enable them to prosecute paedophiles more effectively because they find the loopholes and move into them with their offending behaviour.

And if fandom doesn't get to jerk off to pictures / stories of kiddies being fucked as a result, I'm crying no tears.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I really do see a major difference between chan and all other types of fiction. It might be cultural - our fundies aren't as rabid as I understand yours to be, so I can't bring myself to really expect a war on porn - but I'll keep a wait and see approach on this one.

[vanityfair00.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Could have been handled better, as in they should have waited for key people to get back from vacation before letting upper management do anything stupid, but at the core of it, they were after people I'm not too sad to go and have apologized and fixed the rest. Even their corporate money minded motivations (don't you love that alliteration) don't strike me as evil, but then I work at a large corporation. I expect that sort of thinking day in and day out.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I do love the alliteration. Their multinational multilateral money minded motivations...