So first a clarification, this will be regarding US federal law because ao3 is hosted in the US and thus US law would apply to any legal cases. I am not well-versed in other countries’ laws so I am unsure if similar situations would be the same under those laws. I’m also going to be using federal law when I can because I do not have the patience nor time to look at the millions of different state and territory criminal codes that exist.
tw pedophilia, child abuse, sexual exploitation, rape, etc.
I wanted to do a piece on (you guessed it) what the title is about. Recently we’ve been seeing a lot of rhetoric arguing against the ability for nsfw fic to exist in fandoms originally marketed as kids shows (but also other fandoms).
First, I’ve seen accusations of pedophilia towards adults that do write such fic and then arguments saying “semantics” don’t help the situation. I think that first and foremost there should be the realization that “semantics” are how the world operates. The law operates in semantics, really petty semantics but semantics nonetheless, and in debate word choice and clarity are what matters most (I personally suck at debate so I hope this is clear).
[I’m going to get into the whole issue of morality v legality later dw]
Pedophilia, in criminal law, does not actually exist as a piece of law. Instead what is considered pedophilia falls into two main categories: sexual exploitation of minors and statutory rape. Federally, sexual exploitation of minors (18 U.S. Code § 2251 - Sexual exploitation of children), which includes child pornography, refers to visual depiction of minors in sexual situations (this is a vast oversimplification that works for this purpose) - I believe that state/territory criminal code is similar in the main points. To my understanding, it specifies visual depictions because those images/videos are permanent with the state of the internet today and can negatively impact that individual. Visual depictions show an individual’s face in a way that other media forms do not.
Criminal law is charged with protecting people who exist in the real world and can be negatively affected by something.
This is not to say that writing underage sex is not a bad thing (I do believe that it is) but to say that accusing someone of pedophilia/child pornography/etc. is not right and can have a negative impact for people’s irl lives.
If writing pedophilia/statutory rape was illegal (it is not), many forms of media (books, tv, movies) would be impacted (e.g. riverdale, easy a, secret life of the American teenager, gossip girl, euphoria, pretty little liars, 90210, one tree hill, Lolita, skins, prep, the twilight series, perks of being a wallflower, vampire academy, and many, many more). The crux of the matter is really: is it a visual depiction, and is it a real life person.
And now we get into the legality vsmorality bit. We’ve established that it’s not a crime, nor is it against ao3′s TOS.
Morality seems to be the case that most people are making regarding nsfw content of characters that were underage in their canon material.
The case here is a little more grey rather than black and white and I firmly believe that we can all go around in circles arguing about it because it is grey. You might think it’s immoral to write nsfw content (whether it’s smut, gore, etc.) of characters that were underage in their source material (though I ask you to realize that people age, fictional and not, and perspective change with it), but those are your morals. And while you can attempt to convince people otherwise, it is not right to force people to ascribe to your morality over something as trivial as fanworks. Other topics would definitely have me saying otherwise, but these are fanworks. They’re meant to be a way for people to explore themes and content in different ways
Here’s the other crux of the matter, characters are fictional. They can age. Their creators have aged and are exploring themes interesting and important to them through their content. You might not want to see nsfw content, and you don’t have to. Many creators don’t want their nsfw content viewed by people who don’t want to engage with it (for whatever reason) or underage people. And there are ways to not see that content, which people should employ.
[The internet is a place where this kind of content exists, has always existed, and should always be able to host because otherwise the implications for free speech, etc, are terrible - which I may tackle next.]
The moral and legal argument kind of sucks and I get it, I don’t want to see nsfw sexual content sometimes (for various reasons, and I did engage with it as a minor) and I take steps to ensure that I won’t (through blocking tags, filtering them, etc.) when I feel that way.
And one last thing, I am sorry to say that underage people have sex (the objective proof for that would be teenage pregnancy). It happens (because of a lot of different shit that’s a whole different topic) and its not bad. Consent is important and will always be sexy but the view that sex is always a bad thing comes from conservative voices (and other things i’m not particularly well-versed in so i won’t go further into). Sex is not bad. Sex is normal. And people should be free to explore it in whatever way they like (as long as it is legal, safe, and healthy).
[And in my opinion, fanworks can be a healthy(er) way to explore sex. As a minor, the sex ed I got was atrocious and fic actually taught me a lot. But by choosing to engage in that material (even just choosing to be able to view it), I knew what I was getting into. If you don’t wish to see it, block it, don’t look for it, and utilize filters.]
hi, sweetie! thanks for getting back to me, and thanks for taking a look at my blog :) i really appreciate it! i’m just going to address your first point, because, y’know, i can tell that trying to talk to you about the rest of the points isn’t going to go anywhere! thanks for the block, by the way :))
so. hmm. i really want to talk about the part where you said “Shipping Zuko or Azula with anyone is a bad idea. They were children who were extremely abused, which is one good reason for them not to be shipped with people.”. i am only going to be talking about this statement, purely bc i can’t rest until i address this. my response is: what??? hi. i’m an abuse survivor. i was abused by my stepfather from the ages of seven until fifteen. it left me extremely mentally scarred. i have depression, anxiety and ptsd as a direct result of this abuse, and it fucked me up. i want to be really explicit that this has been a major part of my life that i’m recovering from to really enunciate the fact that i take. so much offence to this statement.
normally on this blog, we don’t like to take offence to a whole lot of stuff. we simply don’t have the energy. but this. “abused characters cannot be shipped with other characters”. this legitimately offends me. and i would say, justifiably so. i’m not sure if you meant for it to be taken this way, but to me it sounded like this infers that abused people cannot find love. that abused people are too “damaged” to have access to fulfilling relationships that teach them that love can be healthy and that love is possible. and that’s not an okay stance to take. for a very long time, i didn’t believe in love. i thought that every relationship i would ever be in would be like my mother and stepfather’s. it took me a long time to believe in love again. being abused does not mean that i am undeserving of love, it’s not unhealthy for me to fall in love, and being in a healthy, post-abuse relationship with someone who actually respects me should not be stigmatised.
there’s a reason that gaang fics centered around zuko’s abuse and the gaang finding out about zuko’s scar are so popular. there’s a reason that zutara and zukka fics where zuko is exploring healthy love after being traumatised are so popular. it’s because these fics symbolise hope. hope that love is real, and that healthy relationships are possible, and they’re just fucking nice and cathartic to read. zuko is allowed to be shipped with other characters, because his abuse does not and should not prevent that. azula is a character worthy of redemption, and she deserves love too. she’s fourteen. she still has time to learn and grow and unlearn behaviours that ozai manipulated into her.
because, yes, i’m turning this into an azula-deserves-redemption post, being the “favourite” child in an abusive situation feels like life or death. you don’t want to be mistreated, and you don’t want to be hurt. this becomes a very real competition between siblings. my little sister and i ended up hating each other by the end of our abuse, because we were in such fierce competition of being the “favourite” child. this is why azula is the way she is. and this can be unlearned. she can be deserving of love, eventually. i don’t want this response to get super long, so i’m going to leave it here. i don’t know if you intended that one-off statement to be read that way, but jesus christ, please, please never say that again. it’s such a hurtful belief to hold. abuse survivors should not be prevented from loving relationships purely because of their trauma.
If you’ve “accidentally” disabled the content filter on ao3 (which admittedly simply warns you that you are about to read a rated fic [mature, explicit, not rated] and asks if you’d like to continue rather than completely preventing you from reading it), here’s how you re-enable it.
First, go to your ao3 account profile. Then go to preferences. And then uncheck that box in the display section that says “show me adult work without checking”.
Once its unchecked, ao3 will start asking if you want to see a fic that is rated. You can still opt-in to reading that fic but if for some reason you didn’t check the rating or tags this will give one more checkpoint where you can simply choose to not engage with something you won’t like.
