Underage readers?
Dear Prudence: Help! My 13-Year-Old Daughter Has Been Reading Pornographic Fan Fiction.
(I've also posted this on Tumblr)
Q. 13-Year-Old Daughter Reading Porn Disguised as Fan Fiction: I discovered my 13-year-old daughter has been reading fan fiction for a very popular all boy band which describes in explicit detail sex acts between the male band members. I immediately instituted parental control and blocked the sites. We had a brief talk-need a longer one, but I’m not sure what to say? This can’t be good for her at 13-reading about explicit sex between ANY two people. Am I overreacting?
Click the link for the answer from the advice column, which I think is pretty decent overall.
The “porn disguised as fan fiction” question makes me wonder if that was worded that way by someone working on the advice column as click bait. No doubt there’s porn in fan fiction, but not all of it is, but there’s no need to “disguise” it because most have ratings, tags, and trigger warnings to advise the reader of content.
My main question for fandom is do you think the parent freaked out due to sex acts, or that it was gay sex acts? They say it can’t be good for her reading about explicit sex between ANY two people, but I wonder if the gay thing tipped the scales, especially since it’s a female reading it. That could definitely baffle a parent who might expect her reading m/f or maybe even f/f explicit works. Why would a girl read about two guys, right? :-)
Secondary question for fandom is how do you feel about underage readers of explicit fanfic? Did you, as Prudence talks about in her answer, find ways to experience the “naughty” things adults didn’t think you were ready to read or see? I know I was reading adult level books with sex scenes by age 10. Bless grandma’s stash of romance novels. ♥
Personally, I think teens have natural curiosity about sex and relationships and will find reading or visual materials one way or another. For example, my library is part of a digital consortium to offer eBooks. There’s over 50 libraries in our group, and a lot of variety in what’s offered. There’s M/M fiction that, like slash, is mostly written by women for women. There’s also F/F, but not as many titles are available to purchase (anyone with author suggestions let me know). There’s also threesome and moresomes in various configurations. In larger libraries, you’ll see print versions on the shelves too. So there’s non-fanfic versions of what she’s reading available, and there’s no age limit on what you can check out, and unless a parent knows the teen’s card number and password, they won’t know what’s been checked out on her computer or tablet. But it’s from a library, so most parents don’t think there’s anything explicit their child could access. Oh, sweet innocent parent. Bless.
So maybe it’s not her favorite boy band doing the deed, but it’s still available as an alternative if sites are blocked. And there are so many fanfic sites, the parent probably doesn’t realize they may have blocked favorite sites, but there are others. And kids generally know how to around filters or site blocks anyway.
Irony: I learned how to get around a filter imposed on the library where I work against our wishes while attending a library conference with a session discussing the ethics of what to do if you discover a library customer was bypassing the library’s filter (often mandated by federal law if you want to receive federal funding or discounts on Internet fees). The majority were of the opinion that as long as it wasn’t to access child porn and the like, they didn’t care. They didn’t want the filters in the first place.
The reason I wanted around the block? To access Tumblr during my break. It finally got whitelisted though.
(I've also posted this on Tumblr)
Q. 13-Year-Old Daughter Reading Porn Disguised as Fan Fiction: I discovered my 13-year-old daughter has been reading fan fiction for a very popular all boy band which describes in explicit detail sex acts between the male band members. I immediately instituted parental control and blocked the sites. We had a brief talk-need a longer one, but I’m not sure what to say? This can’t be good for her at 13-reading about explicit sex between ANY two people. Am I overreacting?
Click the link for the answer from the advice column, which I think is pretty decent overall.
The “porn disguised as fan fiction” question makes me wonder if that was worded that way by someone working on the advice column as click bait. No doubt there’s porn in fan fiction, but not all of it is, but there’s no need to “disguise” it because most have ratings, tags, and trigger warnings to advise the reader of content.
My main question for fandom is do you think the parent freaked out due to sex acts, or that it was gay sex acts? They say it can’t be good for her reading about explicit sex between ANY two people, but I wonder if the gay thing tipped the scales, especially since it’s a female reading it. That could definitely baffle a parent who might expect her reading m/f or maybe even f/f explicit works. Why would a girl read about two guys, right? :-)
Secondary question for fandom is how do you feel about underage readers of explicit fanfic? Did you, as Prudence talks about in her answer, find ways to experience the “naughty” things adults didn’t think you were ready to read or see? I know I was reading adult level books with sex scenes by age 10. Bless grandma’s stash of romance novels. ♥
Personally, I think teens have natural curiosity about sex and relationships and will find reading or visual materials one way or another. For example, my library is part of a digital consortium to offer eBooks. There’s over 50 libraries in our group, and a lot of variety in what’s offered. There’s M/M fiction that, like slash, is mostly written by women for women. There’s also F/F, but not as many titles are available to purchase (anyone with author suggestions let me know). There’s also threesome and moresomes in various configurations. In larger libraries, you’ll see print versions on the shelves too. So there’s non-fanfic versions of what she’s reading available, and there’s no age limit on what you can check out, and unless a parent knows the teen’s card number and password, they won’t know what’s been checked out on her computer or tablet. But it’s from a library, so most parents don’t think there’s anything explicit their child could access. Oh, sweet innocent parent. Bless.
So maybe it’s not her favorite boy band doing the deed, but it’s still available as an alternative if sites are blocked. And there are so many fanfic sites, the parent probably doesn’t realize they may have blocked favorite sites, but there are others. And kids generally know how to around filters or site blocks anyway.
Irony: I learned how to get around a filter imposed on the library where I work against our wishes while attending a library conference with a session discussing the ethics of what to do if you discover a library customer was bypassing the library’s filter (often mandated by federal law if you want to receive federal funding or discounts on Internet fees). The majority were of the opinion that as long as it wasn’t to access child porn and the like, they didn’t care. They didn’t want the filters in the first place.
The reason I wanted around the block? To access Tumblr during my break. It finally got whitelisted though.