I haven’t been following the Sex topics in Active furore too closely, beyond agreeing on one of the early threads that it would be better for the Board to revert to the way it was - out of Active, with a longer qualifying time to be able to post.
However I’ve just read a thread which, on the face of it, is just reminiscing about posters’ ‘first times’ but which includes numerous disclosures of underage sex, including some that involved grooming, and one or two that are genuinely heartbreaking testimonies of child sexual abuse. They are particularly jarring interspersed as they are between end-of-pier type humour and jokes of others’ experience.
As I just posted there: “there is a reason most ‘mainstream’ dedicated end-user sex sites like Literotica, BDSMLR etc don’t allow stories or posts that are explicit about underage sex even when clearly written by adults, and will remove such posts when brought to the moderators’ attention. I used to work in the CJS and I’m afraid to say that such descriptions - even when expressed in short and simple terms - have currency among paedophiles. Part of my job was keeping the video testimony of CSA victims and any associated transcripts locked away so that they didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately it’s not just explicit photos and videos that they get off to.”
For clarity, by “explicit about underage sex” I mean making specific reference to, not that the material has to be particularly sexually explicit. The exact same thread would simply not be allowed to stand on Literotica’s chat forum, for example.
While there have always been examples in other parts of the site of posters making disclosures of having been abused, that is a very different thing to sharing it in a section that only the most naive or wilfully obtuse would deny will be used in part for titillation. My issue isn’t that the thread is particularly sexually explicit - it mostly isn’t, and I’m pretty broad-minded… in context. But no one could argue that “where did you lose your virginity?” is masquerading as a support / how to / informative thread; it’s for entertainment and kicks only, be the latter humour or a sexual thrill. (A few posters on that thread have been supportive to those who disclosed their abuse, but ‘support’ is clearly not the original purpose of the thread.)
IMO it is extremely remiss of MN to disregard the ‘good practice’ rules that other sex sites maintain for handling material relating to references to underage sex/CSA, both because of the type of person attracted to those sites if such rules aren’t in place and from a liability / arse-covering perspective. This, combined with the lack of any age verification or warning for that part of the site, makes it even more obvious that MN don’t understand what is involved in safely and legally hosting a ‘sex chat site’ or part thereof.