NSFW RP: consent, minors, and other boundaries

I see the discomfort, but... I think there's a distinction here which matters, between "explicitly sexual" and "implicitly sexual". Fade-to-Black is how you avoid explicit sex, by using implicit sex.

But if someone would be uncomfortable with even implicit sex in a situation, then a fade-to-black is imposing an implied sexual narrative on the thing, and it's no more avoiding-sex than saying something like "and then they knock boots". Because it has become a euphemism used to indicate that sex is happening, without going into the details.

 

Well, exactly. I don't think it's generally inappropriate.

But both of them are sexual, even though they are not explicitly sexual. So if an adult uses either of them in an RP with a minor, that is at least potentially getting into the territory of "drawing minors into sexual situations". Even though the sexual content is implicit.

Is it a problem for minors to read things that have such implicit sex? Generally no. Is it a problem for minors to participate in such things, with adults? Quite often.

So to clarify, my concern here is not the specific words "fade to black". It's "if you're an adult and you're RPing with a minor, you should probably avoid turning it sexual, even if the actual sex stays mostly implicit and off-camera". Should that be an absolute 100% rule? Probably not. But it's a really good default starting point, because that kind of thing has a long track record of working out badly.

And I think the concern here is a perception that, in some cases, techniques like euphemisms or fade-to-black are used specifically to include sexuality in an RP where it is probably-inappropriate, or at least potentially so. So it's not that people are thinking that fade-to-black or whatever is More Sexual than explicit sex scenes. It's that if you wouldn't include sex scenes at all normally, and then you decide it's okay if they're implicit, you're increasing the degree to which a minor is ending up in a sexually-charged social interaction with an adult, and that has significant potential to be a bad thing even if they think it sounds fun at the time.

 

There will be a large nsfw section where those concerns are meted out by you and your partners that you can do implicitly sexual or totally nonsexual things in without fear if that's your concern.

 

I don't agree. I think it amounts to claiming "your representation-of-yourself and my representation-of-myself have sex" is "too far", and... well, yeah, I think it usually sorta is when one party is a minor.

I do not think I have seen anyone actually object to sex which is implicit and does not involve a minor. I've seen objections to explicit sex with minors present, and implicit sex with a minor involved, but no objections to implicit sex with minors merely present.

I know nothing about the logistics and legalities, but I do in principle like the idea of minors having the option of doing things like that socially with each other. On the other hand... It might also make sense for minors to do that somewhere other than here. I don't know.

But to clarify: I am not really comfortable with the idea that the mere fact that minors could read a thing would make it not okay for people to even imply sex, that's... pretty extreme purity culture.

I understood this to be applied specifically to cases where the minors were involved in the scene/story.

 

I mean, we're not gonna be killing people who violate such a "rule". I think if you make sure that any RP partners are comfortable with the level of sex-implication you are doing, before it happens, and it's clear enough that they're allowed to say "no", then you should be fine.

 

Well, if we were going to make really definite rules, sure. And expect people to reliably guess in advance.

But if people, say, just avoided implying that their characters were fucking other people's characters unless they had a clear and probably explicit go-ahead signal and/or some pretty solid indication of age, I think the problem would largely evaporate.

A big part of this, I think, is more about establishing a community norm, not a "rule". Not a thing that is there to be Enforced, with jackbooted mod thugs to punish wrongdoers, but a social recognition, say, that "even merely-implicit sex can be really uncomfortable for people so be careful and generally avoid having adult/minor RPs turn sexual", and then people don't have to feel as worried that their expression of such a preference will get mocked or dismissed. (Which may be a silly worry, but I think people understand that with this many abuse survivors, we have a lot of people who expect their boundaries to be disregarded if they can't point to something external.)

 

Avatars, maybe. Personae. There's enough selfhood tied up in RP for a lot of people a lot of the time that it's a reasonable thing for people to feel even when it isn't necessarily accurate.