On ABDL-storyculture and Consent

[LittleLion]

EDIT: I had to repost this, resulting in the topic appearing twice in the list, but the first one is not readable. I happened to post it just as some issues with this part of the forum started to crop up, which appears to have broken things.

 

As you might know, I recently translated my story „A home full of boys“ into english in order to post it on a few related websites. That’s when I began to notice that there are some key differences between the german and international ABDL-communities when it comes to this aspect, which was a bit of a culture shock for me. These differences now (presumably) lead to a situation where I simply cannot post my story on one particular site.

While I worked on the translation, I noticed that many international forums, at least in theory, have rules against ABDL-stories involving minors. That is somewhat understandable, as countries like the US have stricter age of consent laws compared to Germany. At least depending on which state you are in, with the US in particular being quite chaotic in that regard – there’s everything from 13 (like Conneticut) up to 18 (like in Idaho), and that’s before you consider things like whether or not one of the people involved is in a position of authority over the other (which definitely should be a factor). In Germany, the age of consent is 14 for most intents and purposes. And if a forum is accessible to minors or even explicitly allows their involvement, sexual content should and must, of course, be restricted.

But that alone doesn’t sufficiently explain the difference if you ask me. For one because it assumes that ABDL-stories are automatically sexual content. An outsider might naturally assume as much and argue that the protagonists are automaticcaly sexualized / objectified. I can’t support that argument for two reasons, though.

Firstly, many story authors are minors themselves. The vast majority of people don’t discover their interest in diapers on their 18th birthday, I’ve seen stories from authors as young as 13. As a minor, you’re unlikely to write adult protagonists. And as vulnerable as the younger members of such communities are, and need to be protected from those who would exploit them, they also need the opportunity to connect with peers and older like-minded people, who are more experienced and can help them deal with the often mixed feelings that come with these interests.

But my second point is even more important: Most of those stories are about the author’s own fantasies and wish-fulfillment. Many write about the things they’d like to experience themselves or wish they had experienced (as kids). Sexual themes are, in my experience, the exception in such stories, and if they are present, it’s often in the context of things such as falling in love for the first time and/or coming out to, involving peers. So it’s the usual themes, just with this extra twist layered on top.

In practice, if the rules I described were enforced like that, we would end up with a very paradoxical situation where sexual ABDL-stories are considered legitimate (if the characters involved are all legal adults, of course), but non-sexual ABDL-stories are deemed dangerous just because minors appear as characters or are the protagonists.

And that is before we consider board-specific rules. On some sites I saw rules stating that characters below that age of 18 should not be portrayed as victims of abuse (or violence by caregivers in general). This rule is interesting to me because my story doesn’t clearly break or follow it – the protagonists are no longer in such a situation, but did experience it in their childhoods and occasionally talk about or remember it. And although I consciously avoid detailing that time too much and allow my readers to fill in the blanks, I couldn’t simply remove this aspect even if I wanted to. It’s a core part of my protagonists’ characterization, and the reason the Ziegler family even came to be the way it is portrayed in the story. That aside, plenty of children’s literature authors make a living writing children’s crime or adventure novels, where the protagonists sometimes end up being threatened, placed in dangerous situations, or otherwise experience violence.

In practice, I haven’t had any issues on forums and boards with such rules so far. Instead, my story ended up disappearing twice from another site, which does not mention any rules regarding the stories posted there – both times no explanation was given, even after I specifically asked for it. That site has no problem with openly sexual ABDL-content, so the only reason I can think of are the minor protagonists of my story. And given the dissonance I just described above, I think that’s a shame. I don’t think that’s in line with the spirit of the law, and reinforces the notion that all ABDL-stories are erotic in their nature.

[minachan16]

20 minutes ago, LittleLion said:

But that alone doesn’t sufficiently explain the difference if you ask me. For one because it assumes that ABDL-stories are automatically sexual content. An outsider might naturally assume as much and argue that the protagonists are automaticcaly sexualized / objectified. I can’t support that argument for two reasons, though.

Firstly, many story authors are minors themselves. The vast majority of people don’t discover their interest in diapers on their 18th birthday, I’ve seen stories from authors as young as 13. As a minor, you’re unlikely to write adult protagonists. And as vulnerable as the younger members of such communities are, and need to be protected from those who would exploit them, they also need the opportunity to connect with peers and older like-minded people, who are more experienced and can help them deal with the often mixed feelings that come with these interests.

But my second point is even more important: Most of those stories are about the author’s own fantasies and wish-fulfillment. Many write about the things they’d like to experience themselves or wish they had experienced (as kids). Sexual themes are, in my experience, the exception in such stories, and if they are present, it’s often in the context of things such as falling in love for the first time and/or coming out to, involving peers. So it’s the usual themes, just with this extra twist layered on top.

In practice, if the rules I described were enforced like that, we would end up with a very paradoxical situation where sexual ABDL-stories are considered legitimate (if the characters involved are all legal adults, of course), but non-sexual ABDL-stories are deemed dangerous just because minors appear as characters or are the protagonists.

 

I don't think there's a paradox at all to why stories focused on minor characters in diapers is frowned upon, especially when posted on an 18+ site. Correlations does not equal causation, but there is definitive room for skepticism when someone writes a story about a child wearing diapers, on a site primarily focused on diaper fetishism and the audience is 18+ in age. True, nobody here suddenly became ABDL when they turned 18. I was looking up stuff on 18+ websites as early as 14. I've heard others started lurking around when they were even younger. I think it's valuable to have that experience, to see that you are not alone, that you're not the weirdest person in the world, but I also think we have a responsibility not to interact, to portray our actions as those of reasonable adults, and that the same door will open to them once they come of age.

It is not our place to "protect" vulnerable minors who have an interest in ABDL. Many will tell you that is the excuse of those in the community who preyed on minors. Teenagers who know nothing of the ABDL community, finding it, and then an adult says "you need to be protected, we'll take care of you"? Put politely, that sounds like creep central.

You can reductively call it an "extra twist" or whatever, but there are real consequences about that "extra twist", not just for yourself but for the people who own the websites you post that "extra twist" on. And honestly, you shouldn't be concerned with minor authors on a website that doesn't allow minors to begin with. And if the story authors where you go are minors, and the website is 18+, you should be letting the mods and admins of said websites know for the safety of said minors and the safety of the website denizens.

[Babypants]

You have identified a real problem in the universe of fetish literature.  For example, on this site it is unmistakably clear that stories cannot involve the sexual exploitation of children, and speaking from personal knowledge, I can assure you that the administrators take this very seriously.  But what are we to do with stories that pivot around minors (on this site, younger than age 18) being abused non-sexually?  The first problem one runs into is a statutory definition of child abuse.  As you have noted, we have 50 states with 50 different laws, but the internet ignores state boundaries.  If you wish to establish a standard, should you go with the most permissive?  The least permissive?  Something in the middle that strikes you as "reasonable?"  Quite simply, the problem here is that our codes of law predate a technology that in this instance threatens them with irrelevancy.  One might assert that we need a uniform code that cuts across all web sites, but this leads inevitably to the question of who gets to make the call-- the most permissive?  The least permissive?  A "reasonable" compromise?

For the time being, at least, it appears that each author will have to decide for her/himself what constitutes child abuse and, just as importantly, will have to decide how to proceed if feedback from readers starts to make the author uncomfortable.    

[Elfy]

1 hour ago, Babypants said:

If you wish to establish a standard, should you go with the most permissive?  The least permissive?

Quite simply you have to go with the least permissive because otherwise the owners of the website can get in trouble.

---

Personally if I knew a minor had written a story I wouldn't read it. For one thing it is unlikely to be much good and secondly it just feels... icky. I want as little interaction with minors in general, yet alone on ADULT themed websites. As Mina pointed out, if you are on a fetish site and there are also minors on there then you really should think about whether that is a good place to be. Most of use discovered ABDL as minors, but there is a big difference between peeking over the fence and seeing what's going on in the ABDL world and interacting with people who are adults on a topic that is, for a lot of people, sexual.

I think everyone knows it is impossible to keep minors away from things they shouldn't see. There's no shortage of places they can go to see and read things they shouldn't and as long as they don't interact they will likely not get in trouble for it. But if you know and tolerate of minors in your space things become very difficult. If your site has sexual content then, by default, you are knowingly allowing those minors to access it. You are actively putting them in a sexually charged place with people much older than them who can manipulate and take advantage. It is putting children in danger. Even if you yourself wouldn't do anything untoward (though talking to a minor on an adult site is in itself creepy) others will.

The rules on stories here aren't that strict on minors and we very rarely have to step in to ask for things to be changed or deleted. No sexual content means just that. Rarely we have to step in for other reasons if the story is too "extreme" in other ways. We understand that naturally, with age play, some people want to write characters that are children and that is fine... you just have to be very careful with what you do. Personally, I don't write minor protagonists any more to steer away from this situation completely. I never felt comfortable with it to begin with.

[ValentinesStuff]

Erotica does not have to include sex or even sexual situations. All it has to do is sexually stimulate someone. In that way all literature is erotica. Because someone somewhere is going to find it stimulating.

 

Being asexual I don't want to read about sex, whether it involves adults, children, or tentacled space monsters. 

 

Most websites I've seen have some rules posted somewhere. They've ranged from pretty much anything goes to people under the age of 18 do not exist (oddly diapers, furniture, toys, clothes, and everything else necessary for their existence did). I've also seen stories that ranged from adults having sex with a diaper present to stories where you don't even know the gender of the protagonist and sex isn't mentioned.

[Babypants]

1 hour ago, Elfy said:

Quite simply you have to go with the least permissive because otherwise the owners of the website can get in trouble.

---

Personally if I knew a minor had written a story I wouldn't read it. For one thing it is unlikely to be much good and secondly it just feels... icky. I want as little interaction with minors in general, yet alone on ADULT themed websites. As Mina pointed out, if you are on a fetish site and there are also minors on there then you really should think about whether that is a good place to be. Most of use discovered ABDL as minors, but there is a big difference between peeking over the fence and seeing what's going on in the ABDL world and interacting with people who are adults on a topic that is, for a lot of people, sexual.

I think everyone knows it is impossible to keep minors away from things they shouldn't see. There's no shortage of places they can go to see and read things they shouldn't and as long as they don't interact they will likely not get in trouble for it. But if you know and tolerate of minors in your space things become very difficult. If your site has sexual content then, by default, you are knowingly allowing those minors to access it. You are actively putting them in a sexually charged place with people much older than them who can manipulate and take advantage. It is putting children in danger. Even if you yourself wouldn't do anything untoward (though talking to a minor on an adult site is in itself creepy) others will.

The rules on stories here aren't that strict on minors and we very rarely have to step in to ask for things to be changed or deleted. No sexual content means just that. Rarely we have to step in for other reasons if the story is too "extreme" in other ways. We understand that naturally, with age play, some people want to write characters that are children and that is fine... you just have to be very careful with what you do. Personally, I don't write minor protagonists any more to steer away from this situation completely. I never felt comfortable with it to begin with.

Well said.  Like you, I would never write a story with a minor protagonist, much less one being humiliated/abused.  I have seen replies to such stories on this site that I sincerely hope never come to the general public's attention.  Indeed, I wish that the administration would give thought to how to keep minors off this site, and beyond that to police access in general.  The battle to separate AB/DL from pedophilia in the public consciousness has been hard fought for decades, and the battle is still ongoing.  The ground won is not ground that I would see easily surrendered.

[LittleLion]

I'd like to clarify that my post was not specifically written for this board, so it was not written with it's specific ruleset in mind. Given that my story caused no problems that I'm aware of after being posted, I did not memorize the rules of each specific site.

7 hours ago, Elfy said:

Quite simply you have to go with the least permissive because otherwise the owners of the website can get in trouble.

That is, of course, correct. It's the only way website owners can truly be safe.

As for stories written by minors, the one I mentioned was the most extreme example I knew of. In the vast majority, you do not know (which is a good thing, minors should generally keep their age to themselves on sites where adults are present). You can still usually tell since they are less likely to pay attention to spelling and grammar (sometimes to a point where their story, no matter how good, simply becomes unreadable), and almost always have predictable and non-sensical plots. I'd say that a major part of stories published in german spaces are like that, and could arguably be removed without anything of substance being lost.

Of the stories written by adults concerning minors, in my experience (at least on the german boards I come from) they not only don't concern anything explicitly sexual, they do not even really concern ageplay the way most of us here would probably define it. The reasons why there is a character still in diapers vary, but those stories are ambitious enough to want to be proper stories with consistent characterization, arcs etc. first and foremost.

6 hours ago, Babypants said:

(...)The battle to separate AB/DL from pedophilia in the public consciousness has been hard fought for decades, and the battle is still ongoing.  The ground won is not ground that I would see easily surrendered.

On that note, there will be an ageplay group on the Cologne Pride parade this year (and there also was one last year). As far as we know, it's the first of it's kind worldwide. I really hope all participants take care to present themselves in a suitable way.