FF.net Ratings

[summers.65 at osu.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 944


The mention of ratings on ff.net brings up something I've been thinking
about lately, to wit, how one should rate one's work.

When I began posting Paradigm of Uncertainty, I rated it R.  It's still
rated R.  The content doesn't really justify this rating.  There's no
explicit sex (I usually cut away, though there has been a bit of feeling-up
recently), no horrible swearing, and the violence isn't very graphic except
perhaps when various people get stabbed.  I didn't rate it R because I
thought it contained objectionable content, I rated it R to communicate
that the story was intended for grownups to read and wasn't really suitable
for 11-year-olds, to whom PG-13 is fair game.

I'm wondering if I should change the rating to PG-13.  I've gotten a few
mildly irate emails from teenagers who think I'm saying they can't handle
this subject material.  Not really the point.

I recently had a bit of a heated email exchange with a young woman who
wanted to join my mailing list, but couldn't because the parental controls
locked her out (the list is indicated to be for grownups).  She wanted me
to subscribe her myself, I refused.  I told her that if her parents didn't
want her reading stuff for adults then it wasn't my place to contradict
them.  While I doubt that anything on the list or in the story would give
them problems, that's not my decision to make.  As an author and a list
administrator, I think it's better to err on the side of caution and rate
the story perhaps more severely than it merits on its face.

Any thoughts on this rating system and its implications?
Lori


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Lori   "Scrambled Eggs Super"  Summers

        Reality is for people who can't face drugs.

Last movie seen:  "X-Men" (most excellent)
Reigning car-CD:  "This Time Around"  Hanson (shaddap, you)
Current book: "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson
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