a fairly weird poll about fic and warnings

[kindkit]

So I seem to be writing another fic that is (in part) about queer adolescence. Which means I once again confront the Warnings/Content Notes/Tagging Dilemma.

When the fic is done, I'll post it to AO3, which asks that its "Underage" tag be used "for descriptions or depictions of sexual activity by characters under the age of eighteen." Alternatively, you can "Choose Not to Warn."

In the fic in question, an adolescent boy aged about 12 or 13 experiences sexual pleasure and orgasm in the context of a mystical/supernatural experience. No other human (or any embodied creature) is involved. The sexual content is about six sentences long and fairly euphemistic.

Back in the day I would never have warned for something like that. But fannish norms have changed, often for good reason, and we're in a cultural moment of hyper-alert (not to mention anti-LGBTQIA+ moral panic) about kids and sex.

So take my poll and give me your opinion! Does a scene like this really meet the threshold of "sexual activity?"

NB in practice I will almost certainly go the route of tagging (either "Underage" or "Choose Not to Warn") with content notes, because I think content notes are a much more useful tool than a tag like "Underage" which can cover everything from skeevy (imo) porn to pretty bare acknowledgement that adolescents experience desire and sometimes have sex. But I'm curious about where opinions lie nowadays in these corners of fandom.

Feel free to take the poll whether I know you or not. Please bear in mind that it's about the specific fictional scenario outlined above. It's not a referendum on warnings/notes in general.

ETA: I forgot to add an option for "Tag 'No Archive Warnings Apply' and add content notes." Sorry!

Poll #27420

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 21

How to tag/content note this fic?

Tag "underage" and add specific content notes.
3 (14.3%)

Tag "choose not to warn" and add specific content notes.
11 (52.4%)

Tag "underage"; no notes needed.
0 (0.0%)

Tag "choose not to warn"; no notes needed.
5 (23.8%)

No tag, no notes.
0 (0.0%)

Something else.
2 (9.5%)

Comments

[kindkit]

My one caveat would be that if this is seven lines in, say, a 70,000 or even a 7,000 word fic, the proportionate lack of underaged sexual contact as compared to the rest of the fic (hey, sometimes it’s advertising, and people go looking for fic tagged Underage?)would steer me instead toward tagging CNTW and then a note about the seven lines that appear in chapter 7, as compared to if this was a 1,000 word fic.

This particular fic is probably going to be short, but it was an issue in my last fic, which was over 50,000 words long and contained a handful of references to underage sex plus a brief scene of consensual sex between two 15-year-olds. In the end I went CNTW + note, because I was super reluctant to tag a fic "underage" when the underage sex was incidental to the story as a whole.


(Part of the impetus behind my poll was the frustration of realizing that I was facing the same dilemma again!)

I feel that if it’s clear that what your adolescent character experiences is sexual in nature, many would err on the side of caution and use the tag plus notes

*nods* That makes sense, and I recognize the functional and in some cases legal appropriateness. And yet I keep wondering about the implicit definitional issues. Are "this 13-year-old has sexual impulses just like most 13-year-olds, and masturbates" and "this 13-year-old is having a full-on sexual affair with an adult, which the story treats as completely unproblematic except for some tropey angst" really the same thing? And I don't mean that the latter should be censored (I personally think there's an important line between pure fiction and CSA material where real kids are harmed), but it's interesting that fandom has landed in a place where all depictions of adolescent sexuality are treated as potentially Problematic.