darn!

[holli]

Even though I am in no way shape or form a member of HP fandom, I decided to weight in on the fandom_scruples kerfuffle. Unfortunately, they disabled comments before mine saw the light of day. Phooey. Well, the gist of what I said (in response to a remark along the lines of "and you're okay with parents allowing their children to read porn?" which reached levels of sanctimoniousness that would have made my grandmother roll her eyes) was as follows:

First, I made a crack along the lines of "well, if you put it like that, any parent who doesn't strictly supervise their child's reading looks like a candidate for the blurred-out drunk lady in the trailer park on Cops."

In addition to that, I think those behind the blacklist are seriously underestimating both the intelligence and diligence of the average thirteen-year-old. Not to mention their capacity for embarrassment. When I was thirteen, I was already well into fandom, and well aware of the existence of slash and NC-17 fic. I certainly didn't seek it out; I had no interest in reading it, really, and on the rare occasions I stumbled across it I just hit the Back button and blushed at random for the next day or so.

Now, of course, I chatter gleefully with RL friends about the superhero porn I've just read. But I'm 18, and very warped, though more by exposure to fandom at large than by any of the naughty bits in fic.

Of course, if I had wanted to read porn at thirteen-- which I didn't and which most thirteen-year-olds either don't or can find plenty of at the nearest public library-- password-protected sites would have stopped me for all of thirty seconds. This is the Internet. It's hard to assume a false identity here in the long term-- we're geeks, and we notice when someone claims to be a thirty-year-old but keeps slipping into 1337speak and can't remember the Berlin Wall going down. But for the time it takes to fire off an email asking for access to a protected site? All the kid needs to do is run a spell-check and avoid telling the site owner that he or she r00lz.

Also, the blacklist person (or people, I don't know) doesn't seem to grasp that it is a parent's job to teach responsible attitudes toward sex and to monitor what their children are reading. My parents knew me well enough to not worry-- they knew that if I was reading something I was either mature enough to read it or immature enough to skip over the parts that made me uncomfortable. True, they didn't know just how much explicit material the Internet gave me access to, but they trusted me, and I don't think I've abused that trust. I hope most parents would have a similar attitude.

Anyway, those that don't-- those who want to actively monitor what their children read-- would be taking steps of their own to do so, and wouldn't need the rest of fandom to babysit their children.

In conclusion, very annoyed by people who appoint themselves Maude Flanders for the rest of fandom, which neither needs nor wants to be ordered to think of the children. Grr.

Comments

[cofax7]

Also, the blacklist person (or people, I don't know) doesn't seem to grasp that it is a parent's job to teach responsible attitudes toward sex and to monitor what their children are reading.

Wordy McWord, Holli.

[debg.livejournal.com]

Every point you made was spot on, and cogent.

I posted up a huge rant on the topic, myself.