Need some advise

[Squallfan]

Hey all. I just wanted to ask everyones opinion on this. I just started posting some of my stories on Deviantart.(my penname is Cloudfan there) Every single story I write is adult in nature, which is why I always post here on AFF.

Anyway, here's my problem. I have already had a girl favorite one of my stories, and when I looked at her profile, it said she was 15 year old!!! At first I was upset, but I have it in the proper section, and it's marked as mature, so I thought the hell with it, I'm not a babysitter. I keep my own children away from such adult things, that's all I'm worried about.

Then today when I checked my account on DA, I got a personal message, this one from a different person. Here is what they said, word for word.

Hi, I've read several of your fanfiction on Adultfanfiction.net. I have had a hard time finding smeone who writes well, and after coming across several of your fics that I liked, I realized they were all by the same author. I checked, and found you were on deviantart as well ^^ Lucky me. Anyways, I'm under 18...so I don't have an account at Adultfanfiction.net, but I wanted to review your stories...

Love em. I can't remember at the moment which ones I've read of yours, but i know I loved em. I just got done reading the "Lessons" for FFXII. Awesome. You're an excellent writer and it's a little hard to find anyone of your calliber (sp?) in the fanfiction field.

Hope ya keep writing, and I'll keep reading.

How under age she is, I don't know, because this person doesn't have their age viewable in their profile. Now I'm feeling guilty all over again, because under age kids are reading my smut! But she visits AFF too, so what the hell????

If young ones want to find this stuff, they will I guess. If she wants to keep reading, apparently I can't stop her. I just wish she hadn't sent me a personal message. I would have rather stayed in the dark that she was underage.

Should I message her back and scold her for reading stuff that she shouldn't? Or should I just ignore it altogether? I honestly don't want to interact with her at all, but I wouldn't mind some suggestions from my AFF Forum friends.

[redsliver]

My advice is to pass on her user names to the admins in case she ever tries to sign up on AFF but otherwise I'd ignore her outright. If you're worried about underagers reading the smut, stick to sites like AFF that actively work to keep underagers off the site.

[DarkCabaret]

Well she is under-age and I agree with Red to make sure you pass on a screen-name to the admins. I know I started reading 'mature' fiction when I was about 16, but then it wasn't a huge deal. It was a somewhat big deal but not like it is now. (That was 4 years ago for whoever is wondering.)

It's nice to see she complimented you, not many kids do that anymore. However if she is underage I would probably send her a message stating that on normal circumstances it is meant for adult viewing only and she needs to be careful reading that type of thing.

[Guest Serenanna]

Yeah, I'd just pass on the name and ignore it too. Whether we actively try to police or not, the underagers are still gonna get through eventually. It's the powerful compulsion of porn. I read my first lemons in 8th grade and started to write them at 17. For myself, I just disclaimer the heck out of my stories even if no one seems to bother to read them anyway, and ignore the ones that seem much to immature to handle it.

Ok, I admit it, I do talk to some of the high-school fangirls if they go out of their way to contact me and are mature about it. Really, think of the fangirls. >.> We were as young and immature as them once. They all need some fanfiction hero to look up to.

Sere

[Guest Alien Pirate Pixagi]

I agree with the whole thing about just passing on the screen names and ignoring it. If you DO want to send something to her, perhaps keep it along the lines of "Please stay off AFF.net, they can get in trouble if you're caught on the site." or something like that. Telling a teenager to not do something like read erotica that they actively seek out it pretty silly if you ask me.

Don't feel guilty because they read your work, no matter the age. If she wants erotica, she'll get it somewhere. The internet has that wonderful free flow of info thing. If you don't want kids to read your stuff, then don't put it somewhere they can get it.

The way I figure it, if they're actively looking for porn, ain't much to do about it. I honestly doubt they're going to get warped by erotica. But then, I didn't know people actually wore things because celebrities do... so yeah...

[Guest WFK]

I agree with Pixagi. I think that erotica, much like music, won't rot your brain. Besides, with drugs, unprotected sex, etc...reading, is really the least of the problems. Rules are in place for a reason, though. And I agree with that fully as well. Discourage them, yes. But have a hernia? Maybe you should hold off on that one.

[Leonhart29]

I have a friend online that has been reading my stories since I posted them and I valued his input very much as he's well spoken and one hell of a writer in his own right. The only problem? He was 17 when he started reading them - and that gave me pause to think. He didn't tell me about it until after he had turned 18, and as I see him as my brother in all aspects of the word accept the blood tie, I laid into him big time for it. It wasn't for the fact that he was reading smut before his 18th birthday (who hasn't?) it was because he put the site in danger. And he agreed with me, but not everyone is this thoughtful or this able to take it. If I didn't have a soft spot in my heart for him I wouldn't have bothered. I would have reported him (if he had been under aged) and gone on with my life. But as he was 18 when he told me about it I didn't (if he had still been under aged I would have reported his ass quicker than greased lightning). The point being though - kids will find a way - be it lying on the age verifier or getting an older friend to sign up and using their account. It can't be stopped, it can be lessened and the site can cover its ass, but kids will find a way. I say report the person and then let it be. What I find troubling is that someone who has their age as 15 on their profile could even gain access to your stories... to me that means that the security is way too lax, and I don't think I would trust my stories to the site. This isn't your fault - it's the site's - and worrying about is only going to give you a stomach ache and one hell of a headache.

[Iggy_lovechild]

Pass on her name if it'll make you feel better, otherwise I'd say don't worry about it. No matter what you do or how high a rating you mark your story, someone underage is going to read it.

This is something that has bugged me in the past too. I don't think about it as much anymore, especially when I consider that I used to do the exact same thing.

[reine Seele]

*shrugs* Started reading porn because no one would tell me what sex was. Wrote some at fifteen, signed on AFF at 16, got kicked off, and now I have returned at 18. Kids are kids, they do what they want. If parents care, they'll monitor better. God forbid if I catch my kids watching porn someday. I'll beat them. But y'know, it's not really your problem. Just forget about it. You're not the world police and chances are you'll never meet this girl in real life. Also, if she's read your story, she's read others. Kick her off of AFF and she'll go back to FF (there's porn there too, and I know cause I write it >.<). But don't beat yourself up over something you can't control. I never care.

[EveKnight75]

I remember that there was this one person who was a huge fan of one of my fics and he wrote good smut himself. The main problem was that he reviewed my fic and admitted in the review that he had just turned 16. If that review were at FF, I wouldn't have cared despite the fact that it's rated M. But it really irked me because this age admission was in a review at AFF after he had reviewed the same fic at FF. I chose to send him a warning about discretion because I was somewhat sympathetic to him. I started reading smut at 14.

I did report him and kept the review up as evidence. One week later, he made the same admission in his story's disclaimer after he had joined the site. I had to report him again, and I was extremely pissed off this time. I liked him as a reviewer, I liked him as a writer, but I can only tolerate so much stupidity. I deleted the review once the second report was acknowledged.

Tell this fan: "I'm glad you like my work, but please use some discretion when reviewing and don't admit to being a minor. You're incriminating yourself and you put me at risk. I'm afraid I'll have no choice but to report you in the future for the sake of the site, the story, the readers, and myself. Whether or not you continue to visit adult sites is up to you. All I ask is that you be smarter about it."

So I've just re-iterated what others have been saying. It's the most balanced response I can think of. If this reviewer heeds your warning, apologizes, and exercises some discretion, then good for the reviewer. If not, you can rest knowing that you've done your part to address the issue tactfully.

[Squallfan]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I've decided to just ingnore her little message all together. According to her message, she doesn't have an account here on AFF, and DA isn't exactly a mature site, even though there is mature content allowed there. If I do see her username on aff, I'll be sure to let the admins know.

And I sure don't feel as bad now as I did.

[taker]

Frankly my dear, I think you should message her back saying your stories are adult in nature and therefore she should not be reading your material. Losing one fan is better than the headaches that'll come if you don't do anything and she takes it out on you. Hey that's just my opinion.

[DodgeSuperBee]

I was wondering about this myself. I write for a G-rated fandom *cough*Cars*cough*, so it's not surprising that I have gotten comments from younger readers on my M-rated fics on FF.N and dA. Some of them have even written their own mature fanfiction (not on AFF.N!) before I posted mine. My opinion is that if you're careful to rate your FF.N/dA/LJ fanfiction appropriately, it's up to the reader to decide if he or she is mature enough to read it. It's also up to their parents to decide whether they are okay with their child reading something adult in nature. AFF.N policy is different, so if a minor admitted he or she read my fanfiction on this site, I'd reply asking them not to violate the site rules and insisting they wait to review the fics until they're of legal age.

As a parent, I won't have a problem with my kids reading and writing adult stories once they're in their teens. I read plenty of that myself as a teen (my dad had a large sci-fi collection and I knew which books had the juicy parts in them!) and it doesn't automatically influence you to rush out and do all the things you're reading about -- despite years of reading M-rated stuff, I never went all the way until my wedding night. (Hmm...sometimes I think I didn't do that stuff because I spent so much time reading sci-fi, but I digress.)

What I would be careful about is your correspondence with your younger fans. There's probably a chance of getting in trouble if you respond inappropriately knowing they are underage. I would steer clear of getting into heavy discussion about the adult content of your story, as you never know when their parents could come across their email account. They might assume you're discussing something other than fanfiction with their child. I might hesitate to beta-read a minor's M-rated fic, but that situation hasn't come up yet.

Edited June 29, 2007 by DodgeSuperBee