Squick, salacious fics, a new guest for Friendship Isle...

Tabouli tabouli at unite.com.au
Tue Dec 18 13:07:38 UTC 2001


What a wonderful verb is "to squick".  Did you coin it yourself, Ebony, or is it an established representative of the English tongue?  (squick squick, said Wormtail, warding off Nagini with his silver paw...)

Mahoney:
> On one hand, what will be will be.  On the other (my own personal) 
hand, bleck.  Firstly, kid-sex (i.e. underage) is disgusting to me.

I'm pretty neutral on the subject of salacious fanfics, slash or het.  What I find interesting in any fiction is how the characters get to the point of having sex, not the sexual mechanics themselves (unless particularly relevant to the plot for some reason).  As for the underage sex can o' worms, I have mixed thoughts.  As I ranted a few days ago, I'd argue that the 'age of consent' is an arbitrary beast which is only the government's guess at how old people are likely to be cluey enough to do the deed, so to speak.

There's no argument about *pre-pubescent* sex (undeniably repugnant and almost certainly abusive and exploitative, thought I've heard anthropologists have tracked down societies where this is just part of play and apparently does no harm), but sex which occurs after puberty but before the "age of consent" is a greyer area.  If we avoid the issues of "morality" for the moment, many 13 or 14 year olds are capable of feeling sexual desire, and could therefore want and enjoy sex (as many do, research shows us)... the problem is more a power issue: are they old enough to say no if they want to, are they so immature and vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation and bullying that we should legislate them away from sex for a few more years?  The consensus seems to be yes, so we've set up this age of consent concept.

I dunno.  The messages about sex in "The West" are all-consuming and so contradictory.  If we set the media up to tell everyone that sex is the most important thing in life and you can't be happy or successful unless you're sexy and have a sexual partner or ten, and then tell 12 year olds ooo, but you're Not Allowed to do any of that for at least six years, and preferably not until you're married, is anyone surprised that kids are goaded into experimentation and crop tops and start dieting and developing crushes younger and younger?  Rebellion is COOL, and forbidden fruits are tempting indeed...

Amy Z:
> Sure thing, as long as you're not trying to fix Snape up with anyone 
(this includes dead people, yes, even nice young witches with dark 
red hair).  ::attempts Ricardo Montalban impression::  Welcome to 
Friendship Isle!

Can I bring Tom Bombadil?  I though Snape would like to meet him (maybe Tom can write him a few cheery songs to help him get over Lily...)

Tabouli.


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