strikethorughing back

[filenotch]

My response to the strikethrough is not unmixed.

[ETA: Un-locked, but I'm not interested in wide linkage.]

[ETA: re-flocked. Just not comfortable with it out there.]

[ETA: Un-locked again. This is getting stupid.]

Comments

[droolfangrrl]

I have a 12 year old boy. He does NOT have unrestricted access to the net. I have no illusions that the net can be made safe for kids, except by strict filtering. I think I understand what you mean. What I'm trying to say is that I would sooner let my son play in a busy street than let him access the web w/out supervison. And that's how I deal with keeping the "kid" safe.

[filenotch]

That's an attitude I can respect. I don't want a world hermetically sealed for my protection.

[temporalrose]

My feelings are mixed too, but more of the principle vs practice variety. In principle, I feel that pedophilia=bad and should be stopped, and that fics of the chan variety are extremely off-putting. In real life, such a situation is enough for me to want to castrate the predator, or a feminine equivalent if suitable. Online, I just don't 'cliccy for ficcy

[filenotch]

I stayed away from HP for a long time, figuring that there had to be Harry/Snape and other cross-generational slash. My first exposure was a rec that pissed me off so thoroughly that I won't read anything by that author. Harry is about 12 in the fic, and while it accurrately portrayed the non-consent (how is knowing consent possible?), it also portrayed how it can transition for the chld from pure fear to mixed pleasure, fear, and shame

[kudra2324]

there's an article in yesterday's washington post about the difference between western european and american attitudes toward teen sex - with other teenagers, that is. it's pretty interesting.

[filenotch]

I will not use the word victim in this context, ever, because I refuse both victim mentality, and to cover my own complicity. I've seen too many cases of "tragedy happened to me, thus, I am stuck in my unhealthy and unproductive rut." Either I have a forebrain and capacity for control of my behavior, or I'm not a higher primate.

And thanks. Neither the young me or the current me would quite know what to do with a hug.

[kudra2324]

there's complicity and then there's complicity, though. much as a twelve year old sure as hell is incapable of informed consent, a twelve year is also not necessarily equipped to extract him - or her - self from a destructive situation. i do think that there's something to owning one's demons; to either trying to get help for them or to allowing oneself to drown in them, but i also think that owning those demons sometimes means realizing that you did the best you could in the situation you were in, even if that "best" isn't necessarily what you think it should have been.

or, you know, what monanotlisa said. plus the hug. virtual is maybe preferable, given the recipient?

[lttledvl]

Yes, this has truely been an interesting issue. I personally don't care for incest stories myself (main reason I've stayed away from a few fandoms that seem to be nothing but) they make me sick as much as pedaphelia does for you.

Not that I find those interesting either. I don't mind stories where the characters are teenagers, provided that both characters are in the same age group; a 16 & 17 year old together, I'm okay with that. 16 & 40? Not so much.

But I wish, like on a star or a coin in the fountain, that the writers would post it in 18+ forums.I would have thought they would too. But you're right, I've seen some where they don't and its probably because they want to increase their stories exposure. Yah sure, I'm all about getting lots of readers and reviews but that doesn't mean I'm going to make my explicit slash story available to minors. I am a Mom, and even though my kid is still a bit young for most internet surfing, I don't want him reading such things when he's 11. When he's older - like 16 or so, he can read

[filenotch]

16 & 17 year old together, I'm okay with that. 16 & 40? Not so much.

Yep. Teenagers have sex (gasp).

I have most of my smut unlocked, which probably makes me a hypocrite on the matter. As for love or physical intimacy, I'm considered unapproachable by a lot of people, which is funny, because cardamom_23 recently had me curled up next to her on a pile of pillows, nearly purring. (Yes, there were martinis involved, which probably says something. She can weigh in if she likes.)

When I read about situations like mine in literary fiction, they just piss me off, especially when they're saved for the big reveal at the end. There was a bunch of that stuff in the early '90s. Feh.

[cardamom_23]

Yes, well, a lot of people consider ME unapproachable too. Perhaps that's one reason we can approach each other, even if it does take etoh? Dunno.

This whole thing has been not unmixed for me as well. i hate censorship violently and have no respect for WfI and little to none for LJ's handling of it. But I do find a lot of the targeted content completely loathsome. There's no easy divide here. Parental vigilance is admirable but kids finds ways around it - I had researched my dad's porn stash pretty thoroughly by the age of 12 or so. Hot buttons everywhere - no easy outs - it's pretty damn messy and sad.

[filenotch]

Yeah that's the bitch, the hatred o' censorship combined with the urge to say, "But that is of the rails." I'd been through the porn stash, too, both Penthouse (oh, the letters!) and Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.

Now, at four in the morning and finishing my post-work bourbon, I want to make inquring cat noises at you, but that would be cute, or something.

[kudra2324]

it's such a complicated question. i am, in a lot of ways, a real absolutist about speech issues, even in this context, where lj's users don't have a "right" to free speech. i am the queen of worrying about slippery slope arguments, is the thing: berkowitz, for example, made a comment about how writing that dealt with a subject like incest needed to clearly condemn the illegal act. that makes me beyond uneasy, because what does condemn mean, exactly? who judges whether something is condemning a behavior? what happens if someone writes a story meant to explore the inconsistent consequences of sex between a sixteen year old and a nineteen year old? i can imagine a million different reactions to such a story, each determined largely by the past experiences of each reader.

there is, of course, a difference between an adult absuing a child and two adults having what would be, to many people, sex that is just as "perverted." i get paranoid, admittedly, because i never trust people in positions of authority to understand the

[filenotch]

I found the backdown, and Ellis pleaded being in pain and impatient on the initial post. He also decided not to update his LJ until 6A straightened this out, which was an interesting choice.

i can imagine a million different reactions to such a story, each determined largely by the past experiences of each reader

Or any story. That's the crux of the problem. It's like that scene from an old Rodney Dangerfield movie where he's taking college classes and gets Kurt Vonnegut to write his Vonnegut paper. The professor accuses Dangerfield's character of plagiarism, but adds that whoever wrote it didn't know the first thing about Vonnegut.

[kudra2324]

this reminds me of my favorite scene in annie hall, in which woody allen gets so fed up with the guy in line behind him at the movies - who claims to teach a class on the subject at columbia - blithering on about marshall mcluhan that he actually retrieves marshall mcluhan from behind a movie poster to tell the guy in line that he knows nothing about marshall mcluhan

[filenotch]

there are people who know more about us than we do about ourselves.

Yep, and especially in the sense of what readers bring to the story, what they can find in it. tessarae_ has been reading the novel and giving feedback on every chapter, in part because when she comments on my stuff, she notes things that I have no idea I'm doing--metaphors, turning points, etc. It's both fascinating and embarrassing.