Underage sex policy

[Helgamite]

Of course, you're only as safe as your last Supreme Court ruling (in the U.S., obviously), but Nabokov is still legal. And it doesn't come down to "but it's great art" (it's not) it "for him we make an exception" (we don't), but we were taught (and I believe law students are still taught) that words alone cannot be obscene, full stop.

(They can be profane, inappropriate, sickening or even dangerous, but not obscene. Once that is established, the laws you cite are inapplicable.)

Obscene here in America, can include sex or sexual situations.

https://answers.justia.com/question/2023/08/10/can-certain-subjects-be-illegal-to-write-975055

Literotica gets a mention in this.

https://law.stackexchange.com/quest...f-fictional-stories-involving-sex-with-minors

again, it falls to the definition of Obscenity. that is the key to this.

 

[Helgamite]

Of course, you're only as safe as your last Supreme Court ruling (in the U.S., obviously), but Nabokov is still legal. And it doesn't come down to "but it's great art" (it's not) it "for him we make an exception" (we don't), but we were taught (and I believe law students are still taught) that words alone cannot be obscene, full stop.

They can be profane, inappropriate, sickening or even dangerous, but not obscene. Once that is established, the laws you cite are inapplicable. I am not aware of any successful prosecutions for obscenity (including kiddie porn!) that did not involve imagery (still or motion). Writing about kidnapping a child in pursuit of performing unlawful sexual acts upon him is prosecuted under conspiracy or attempt and then only upon at least one predicate act (buying rope is something.)

https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/obscenity

 

[UtilityCurve]

Obscene here in America, can include sex or sexual situations.

https://answers.justia.com/question/2023/08/10/can-certain-subjects-be-illegal-to-write-975055https://forum.literotica.com/threads/whats-your-unusual-fetish-or-kink.1565570/post-98537629

Literotica gets a mention in this.

Https://Law.Stackexchange.Com/Quest...f-fictional-stories-involving-sex-with-minors

again, it falls to the definition of Obscenity. that is the key to this.

I applaud every attorney who counsels caution, but the justia.com URL does not state that mere writing can be criminal, only that counsel should be consulted. If competent counsel is engaged, (s)he should report that the number of successful prosecutions for obscene writing have been zero for decades, but that you never say never when district attorneys (or whatever the local jurisdiction calls them)/U.S. attorneys are involved; ethical considerations aside (a bad faith argument is sanctionable), they are not prohibited from talking a whack at a particularly heinous case. (That's part of the problem with the "American rule" versus the English practice of punishing dubious litigation by awarding attorneys' fees to winners.)

Your second reference, to StackExchange.com, merely refers to Literotica insofar as it refuses to allow text-based references to sexual activity regarding minors, not that the law has ever been used against it (or any other person or entity). Once again, it refers to obscenity, which while ultimately subjective, has not in several decades been successfully prosecuted against a mere writing.

I do not advocate "Lolita," but how can you pursue your argument in good faith when this particular volume has never been successfully prosecuted despite its prominence? This suggests an agenda (beyond the advice to "never say 'never'") that is unethical for attorneys in their roles as counselors and advocates (but is fine for literally everyone else). If you are not an attorney, of course you are allowed to misrepresent the law any way you choose; but lawyers do not have that option, either ethically or as a matter of liability for malpractice.

I have a LOT of disagreements with the state of American law, but as an attorney, I cannot counsel a client to behave in a manner consistent with what I believe it should be; my professional obligation is to give it to my client straight, as it is. I would counsel a client to write whatever disgusting thing (s)he might wish with a near-certainty that not only would no prosecution result, but that it woyld be nearly unimaginable that such a prosecution would succeed. And to not touch anything in my office so I wouldn't have to sanitize it after (s)he left!

 

[UtilityCurve]

https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/obscenity

You will note that the Justice Department says mere writing can be obscene under the Miller test, but that it cites no such successful prosecution. At all, despite decades of such writngs, a gazillion different prosecutors etc.

This is why Constitutional Law courses routinely state that a successful prosecution for mere writing is virtually unimaginable.

If you can point out a single successful prosecution of mere fictional textual descriptions of underage sexual activity (or even desire) since Miller, not only will I be indebted to you professionally, but I swear if you send me a (frozen, food safety matters!) dead crow, I will eat it on-camera AND repay your shipping costs!

 

[UtilityCurve]

This is a privately-owned and operated website. It can operate under any damn rules it likes that are more restrictive than what the law allows.

But as an attorney, I am going to object to any claims about what the law (dis)allows that do not comport with my understanding of the state of the law.

As someone (JaF0 perhaps?) had said, if you don't like the rules here, start your own damn website!

 

[Helgamite]

This is a privately-owned and operated website. It can operate under any damn rules it likes that are more restrictive than what the law allows.

But as an attorney, I am going to object to any claims about what the law (dis)allows that do not comport with my understanding of the state of the law.

As someone (JaF0 perhaps?) had said, if you don't like the rules here, start your own damn website!

like i said above, I'm for the rules on this site. they are perfectly done the way they are now.

one thing you and I have to understand that with "Obscene" being so undefined in the laws, It can be used. hard to fight, maybe and is proven so far. however. any DA or AG can use it to arrest, just have to prove it beyond a doubt AND show it violates first amendment. Obscene needs to be less broad and more restrictive in its language to not be used.

Feds now a days have been very aggressive lately in speech. and with Obscene being so broad. it wont be long before its used against writers. even if the writers win, at what cost?

yes I do agree, if the rules aren't liked by a certain person, they have every right to create their own site.

 

[geronimo_appleby]

there can't be much of this horse left. it's long dead and been flogged so much...

 

[Tigersman]

Unfortunately for the public the majority of all laws, both federal and state, are written by lawyers rather than people who are experts in a particular field. This leads to chaos such as in the current case of abortion. In this case we have lawyers writing laws that have no idea about pregnancy and how dangerous the condition is and what problems can arise. The lawyers write laws all too often without doing basic research into the area they are interested in. All too often laws are influenced by groups that have an interest but lack the basic knowledge of the subject matter.

 

[TheArsonist]

It's worth pointing out that the case Helgamite mentioned for someone getting prison time for written, fictional portrayals was (a) under Ohio state law, not the federal law cited, and (b) vacated on appeal.

Nevertheless, one can see good reasons why a site like LE might want to be very cautious in order to avoid any risk or prosecution or persecution, even if they have the law on their side.

Not to mention any considerations of taste, morals, or the audiences that would be attracted or put off by such content. (I'm reminded of the meme about how if you're running a bar and a Nazi starts hanging out there, you have to kick him out at once, even if he's not overtly bothering anyone, because if you don't, in a short while your bar will be a Nazi bar.)

So personally I fully approve of the ban, even if it leads to some distortions of realism (in porn – how shocking!), or precludes some passages that can be found not just in Nabokov but in Judy Blume. It makes sense to treat erotica differently than other literature.

 

[bejjinks]

When I drive, I don't drink. Not a single drop. I don't care about legally allowed, or "you can have two glasses and still drive perfectly fine."

I know myself. If I have one glass now, sooner or later that becomes, "Well, it was already a couple of hours ago, I can have another." Or, "It wasn't a whole glass, only half, I can have another." Or, "Last time I had two glasses and it was perfectly fine, I can have another."

And before I know it, I'm drinking a bottle of wine before driving and convincing myself that I've barely had a drop.

It's the same with Lit's under-18 rule. As soon as you start compromising, you've lost. Now it's, "But that's unrealistic, we should allow a little more leeway!" Next it's "But people have sex at 16 all the time!" And before you know it, people are complaining that they're not allowed to write about how they had an exciting experience with their cousin when they were both 12.

Respect the boundaries, because they're there for a reason.

It doesn't work that way for everyone. When I drive, I don't drink but I have no alcohol compulsion to keep pushing the boundaries.

The slippery slope fallacy fails because there are many of us who can draw a line and stick to it. What's more accurate is to describe it as a pending flood. You want the flood (to get drunk) but you tell yourself you only want one drink.

Similarly, bad people want to go all the way with children and they will come on here and try to convince us that they only want to change the rule a little bit.

 

[AchtungNight]

I believe there are some authors who can write stories about teenagers having sexual thoughts and maturely dealing with them. I'm one of those authors myself. But if the site believes it has to make its rules more important than reality, well, I can't argue with that. I personally wish we could make the line between positive and negative sex more clear and just discard the negative stories. But even I'm not sure where to put the line for that and make things acceptable to everyone. Maybe Laurel and Manu aren't either, so they're letting an age standard decide. I can allow them that.

 

[Yesok1]

I believe that for everybody's safety the rules are the rules. There maybe readers that take the wrong message from the stories.

Whilst there are topics and genres we can write in, that I do not agree with personally (my choie) I do not believe that the rules of underage sex (in any terms) should be broken.

It could be harmful and triggering for some, and used for the wrong purposes by others.

 

[cuck72]

You can say rules are rules, and we can argue the legal age being 18 as well. I can see maybe 16 or older, so you can have stories involving HS teens like freshmen, juniors, seniors BF-GF's who we all know have lots of sex. I was listening to a news story a few years back in my car, about how they had a study and found out that like 70% of kids as young as 13/14 in middle school had experienced oral sex. I was like WOW! but it's out there so much today. But I see we need legal age rules, or it can get out of control with some really sick people.

 

[Stopokochac]

I had similar issues. I wasn't able to even IMPLY underaged sex, so I ended up having to toss an entire story as it wouldn't have made sense without it. I even had a story get reject because the mods saw it as "playing doctor", and suspected there MIGHT be underaged people in the story. I saw a first hand account of teenage sex slip past the mods, but usually they are pretty strict about it. And it's not even about laws, because they make movies portraying underaged sex and pedophilia, and Nabakov literally wrote a book about a pedophile that became very popular. A lot of people can't grasp the concept that laws only apply to the real world, not fiction. This issue has come up a lot and we're still here, so I wish you luck. While I can understand certain restrictions, I do agree they took it a bit over-the-top, but at the end of the day it's THEIR website, THEIR rules. If that's territory they don't want to venture into, that's their right. I'm sure there are other websites that are less strict.

 

[Stopokochac]

I believe that for everybody's safety the rules are the rules. There maybe readers that take the wrong message from the stories.

Whilst there are topics and genres we can write in, that I do not agree with personally (my choie) I do not believe that the rules of underage sex (in any terms) should be broken.

It could be harmful and triggering for some, and used for the wrong purposes by others.

That's THEIR problem. I think ANYTHING can be taken or used the wrong way. There will always be one idiot who's triggered by something. No one's forcing anyone to read anything on this site. Fiction is just that, fiction. The problems arise when you try to bring fictional things into the real world, but it's not like underaged sex doesn't happened in real life. And people are always complaining when a story doesn't sound "real". Personally, I don't think art should be censored.

 

[KeithD]

Just put a cork into bringing "legal" into the discussion of Literotica's age limit policy. It's not illegal to write about below-eighteen sex in the United States. It's done frequently in the mainstream. Literotica has its policy for whatever it has it and wants to have it. It's not because of any law.