Fics with slash, children's books, the purpose of my schpiel on warnings (in

[Judy <judyshapiro@directvinternet.com>]

Laura Ingalls Huntley said:
>>>As for the question of student-teacher relationships 
(or, in a more general sense, sexual/romantic 
relationships between children and adults) -- I, for
one, think adults who have sex with children are evil. <<< 

Ok, we definitely agree on that!  (Or at least, that the act is evil;
I see some pedophiles as evil, and some as pathetic and ill.) 

Laura continued:
>>>That said, I have absolutely no problem with fanfiction that
involves such adult/child relationships. ...I don't feel the need to
be "protected" from them by warnings or labels, and I certainly don't
think the authors are doing anything wrong.  Fiction is fiction, kids,
whether it has "fan" attached to it or not....<<<

This overlooks the possibility that fiction could affect people's
behavior in real life.  One of the reasons that child pornography is
punished so heavily is that pedophiles have often used it to try to
convince kids that sex between children and adults is normal.  I don't
know how serious a danger this is with fanfiction, but I don't think
it should be summarily ruled out. 

Sexual violence in media is a particular problem even when chidlren
aren't involved. Sexual arousal is self-reinforcing -- in other words,
exposure to violent pornography may make a person gte aroused by the
idea of raping someone. Once a pattern of arousal is established, it
is extremely difficult to break. 

I see violence in fiction as a serious problem.  The Columbine
massacre brought this issue to the attention of the public, but there
had been extensive research for decades indicating that violence in
the media leads to real violence. Sure,*most* people won't become
violent from exposure to depictions of violence, but suppose only 1 in
100 does?  That one person could do a lot of damage. Putting warning
labels on fiction won't fix this problem.  The kids killed at
Columbine may have had parents who scrupulously kept them away from
violent material.  But, they still wound up dead when two of their
classmates decided that shooting people was cool. 

[Of course, this has nothing to do with straight versus gay themes in
fiction.  Most violent pornography involves men attacking women.  And,
this should probably be obvious, but we can pretty much rule out the
possibility that reading slash will "make someone gay."  Sexual
orientation seems to be fixed quite early in life, probably before
birth.]  

John said:
>>>Frankly, children shouldn't be running around on the internet
unsupervised. It is not the responsibility of anybody but a child's
parent or guardian to monitor their child's internet usage. <<<

I don't think this is realistic.  Parents aren't able to look over
their children's shoulders every moment. (One of my nephews got caught
sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night to surf the web.)  I am
hoping that the .kid extension gets implemented; this would make it
easier for parents to keep kids away from stuff they aren't ready for. 

-- Judy