# "Aging up" vs. "Intent"



## Heimdal (Mar 23, 2012)

Recently I had been considering the whole "aging up" ruleset, and have concluded that it's a big pile of bullshit. I want to explain why, and propose an alternative for consideration.

The issue with "aging up":
It uses objective criteria that does not take into account any aspects of intent of the piece. This implies that such a ruleset was built up upon the notion that all nudity is porn. This is simply not true. To be blunt, I understand that an art work featuring a nude child, that is not intended as porn, is going to be a one-in-a-million exception, but this is still the angle an art website should build it's rules around. Is FA trying to be a classier porn site, or is it trying to be an Art site?

"Intent":
This angle may potentially be a bit more restrictive in some sense, but it has the artistic mindset written all over it. Consider the intent of a work. Objective illustration-focused "Aging up" is rife with issues and drama relating to style; would going by intent be worse? I doubt it, you would just be replacing it with issues of subjectivity. But this is an art site, right? You can't moderate art and avoid subjectivity at the same time (well you can, but art just becomes more of a coincidence than the point itself.) Art is arguable 50% bullshit, but 'intent' is the kind of bullshit that should be present and discussed.

For that matter, what is the intent of "aging up" a character for use in porn? To get away with it, of course. Let's cut the bullshit here, a person is attracted to the underage character, otherwise it would not matter at all if they used a different of-age character instead. Art is filled with a million shades of grey, porn is not. It has only one purpose, sexual arousal.

On the other hand, perhaps I missed something, and the "aging up" ruleset has always factored in after pornographic intent has first been established? But I have not seen this in any wording, and in any argument, so assume otherwise. Perhaps it's worth a thought?

Did that make sense? I hope it did. I just felt that "aging up" rules do not follow the preferred perspective for an art site, and there is a more in tune way to achieve the same results. Comments, criticism, addendums?


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## Ben (Mar 23, 2012)

Honestly, the site would be in a much better position if it had tag filtering, because then they could stop wasting time trying to enforce a rule that's actually fairly subjective in nature. Cub porn and loli/shota aren't my thing, but it just strikes me as a waste of time to try and regulate what does and doesn't fall into those categories.


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## Xenke (Mar 23, 2012)

"Audience"

Given the typical FA audience, any underage nudity (which given we're talking about visual submissions here, will almost always be judged as such subjectively) will always be perverted by some into something pornographic, regardless of intent. Additionally, outsiders[non-artists] looking into the site might interpret these things in a negative light. This makes banning such art a moral argument of course, seeing as while we might not like what other people may think of these things, there's no legal obligation to keep them from thinking it by withdrawing the content. The original intent of the policy was not officially based on morality, citing that with this art we would not be able to find a replacement payment processor, but after many many months we still have nothing to show for this shift in policy.

While the intent of the policy was valid, without any apparent effort to follow up on this intent we can assume that the policy remains for moral reasons. "We don't like this, so we're going to keep it off the site still", essentially. Unless you can appeal to the author morality on the subject, the general tenants of this policy will not be changing either. Despite the fact that they don't want cub/underage porn on the site (for initial and continuing reasons), at the same time I'm sure they didn't want to necessarily prohibit any more art than they had to, hence the "aging up" exception.



So in other words, "intent" was dropped because the policy first existed so that people looking in wouldn't have moral objections (relevant to underage stuff) to the site, and continued due to what is probably the owner's/staff's moral opinions, and "aging up" was adopted as part of the consequences of dealing with underage violations from a purely subjective visual standpoint. Unless the moral opinion of this genre changes within the site, the basic workings of the policy will persist.


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## Aetius (Mar 23, 2012)

Ohh jeez not another cub thread, just wait how butthurt mainsite people are going to get.


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## Heimdal (Mar 24, 2012)

Xenke has it.

However, that only furthers the site's actions as coming across as wanting to be a classier porn site. In terms of coherencey, it would be in the sites better interest to reinterpret the refferenced rules through a more artistic perspective. I guess I'm coming off pretty vague with this, but I'm sorta just saying that instead of baking bread on the BBQ, you should bake bread in the oven. The "aging up" ruleset is so half-assed and "willy-nilly" that it isn't at all consistent with the goals of an art site; moral and appearance aims can be achieved, in equal measure, without having to create spontaneous criteria for it's own sake.

On the other hand, I've always considered FA to be little more than a glorified porn site, the cub porn ban just maybe gave me false hope. It's a standard I completely support, but it really is just handling it like a porn site would.

I don't know if I added anything worth considering, or if I'm just tired. I'm not fond of FA itself, but I wouldn't have said anything if I just wanted to see it burn.


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## Stratelier (Mar 24, 2012)

If by "aging up" you mean "subject who appears to be under 18", the only reason for the arbitrariness of that rule is because of written laws on the US books which use 18 as a reference point.  Laws which FA is generally obliged to comply with.


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## Mxpklx (Mar 24, 2012)

I like to think of furry art as renaissance art. It's like when you see a painting of naked child angels over some holy person, that's not porn. Furry art is misunderstood in today's world. Maybe it was like that a long time ago.

It's like "Hello good sir! What art thou painting? Oh my Lord he's painting naked children! Guards arrest this man and have him beheaded post haste!" But then everyone liked it and it caught on. The End.

Yeah but I think if you were to draw children having sex, wtf.

Random Fact: rule34.pahael is making it mandatory for all porn depicting underage people to be removed. Can't tell if I should be surprised or not :/


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## Xenke (Mar 24, 2012)

Stratadrake said:


> If by "aging up" you mean "subject who appears to be under 18", the only reason for the arbitrariness of that rule is because of written laws on the US books which use 18 as a reference point.  Laws which FA is generally obliged to comply with.



Honestly not being a twat here, but can you cite the relevant laws regarding drawn underage pornography, in the sense of how FA would be involved in it's existence, and instances where legal action was taking upon a site violating these laws?

I've heard a lot about FA and CP law, but I can't recall any instance where such laws were cited (in a meaningful way at least, I think I recall people citing the entirety of CP laws and not specifying where it actually says these things), and I would like these laws for my own records (future discussions, etc).


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## Kahoku (Mar 24, 2012)

Xenke said:


> Honestly not being a twat here, but can you cite the relevant laws regarding drawn underage pornography, in the sense of how FA would be involved in it's existence, and instances where legal action was taking upon a site violating these laws?
> 
> I've heard a lot about FA and CP law, but I can't recall any instance where such laws were cited (in a meaningful way at least, I think I recall people citing the entirety of CP laws and not specifying where it actually says these things), and I would like these laws for my own records (future discussions, etc).



I don't how you would get momentum for that to go through the court system. I mean CP ( real CP ) is wrong, and should be punished swiftly. In Furry porn, art, what-have-you, I don't know how it could stand at all against it. Because it's fake, and yes it's porn ( talking back to Fur cub porn here ) but I don't see how you can push criminal charges with current laws. Unless, there is a law that specifically states CP can't be in art at all. 

:arrow: I feel like I should say this, I don't condone cub porn at all.


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## Trpdwarf (Mar 24, 2012)

Xenke said:


> Honestly not being a twat here, but can you cite the relevant laws regarding drawn underage pornography, in the sense of how FA would be involved in it's existence, and instances where legal action was taking upon a site violating these laws?
> 
> I've heard a lot about FA and CP law, but I can't recall any instance where such laws were cited (in a meaningful way at least, I think I recall people citing the entirety of CP laws and not specifying where it actually says these things), and I would like these laws for my own records (future discussions, etc).



Technically there is quite a bit of law that could be problematic if someone were to decide to take it that far. The Protect ACT of 2003 basically "Prohibits drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and  sculptures depicting minors in actions or situations that meet the Miller test  of being obscene, OR are engaged in sex acts that are deemed to meet  the same obscene condition. The law does not explicitly state that  images of fictional beings who appear to be under 18 engaged in sexual  acts that are not deemed to be obscene are rendered illegal in and of  their own condition (illustration of sex of fictional minors)." (ripped from Wikipedia)

Here is a relevant link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28319199/

Food for thought, if they are willing to prosecute someone for loli-porn in state FA servers are hosted in, what could they possibly do if cub porn caught their eye? It's likely it will eventually because of consistency with furries who get arrested as pedos having cub porn on the computers seized.


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## kayfox (Mar 24, 2012)

Trpdwarf said:


> Food for thought, if they are willing to prosecute someone for loli-porn in state FA servers are hosted in, what could they possibly do if cub porn caught their eye? It's likely it will eventually because of consistency with furries who get arrested as pedos having cub porn on the computers seized.



But, based on the lack of a business license in Virginia, FA is not a legal entity in that state, therefore I would assume the precedent of the 4th circuit court of appeals does not apply.  Then again, Im not a lawyer.

Then again, noone has actually gone and asked a lawyer about this stuff.

Edit to add:

I only really care because its looking liek you may be heading towards a point at which significant portions of your contributors will move to other sites, because of the harshening climate towards all sorts of art and a tendency towards no official explanation for strange actions taken by the administration.


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## Trpdwarf (Mar 24, 2012)

kayfox said:


> But, based on the lack of a business license in Virginia, FA is not a legal entity in that state, therefore I would assume the precedent of the 4th circuit court of appeals does not apply.  Then again, Im not a lawyer.
> 
> Then again, noone has actually gone and asked a lawyer about this stuff.
> 
> ...



Somehow I doubt having a "Business license" matters at all. We are a site that has our servers in Virginia. It is possible that Virginia legislature would decide to label cub porn as "Child porn". After all they already said "Loli-porn" is a no no even if it is fictional. They rejected the argument of "It's not real children".  The atmosphere is potentially very problematic here. It's not just a Virginia thing. World Wide there are groups looking to "protect children" some of them making the step to try to criminalize fictional child porn of all kinds. Furry Conventions outside the US have stepped up to the plate as "non profit organizations" and banned Cub Porn from it's dealer/artists areas. There are a few in the US that have done this as well because the risk is just too great. EDIT: Looking to see if I can find some good linkage for the world wide thing.

Huh Sweden(Canada has done something similar too) did this: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10349/ ,


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## kayfox (Mar 24, 2012)

> The PROTECT Act includes prohibitions against illustrations depicting child pornography, including computer-generated illustrations, also known as virtual child pornography.[1][2][4] Provisions against virtual child pornography in the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 had been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002. However, the provisions of the Protect Act are distinct, since they establish the requirement of showing obscenity as defined by the Miller Test, which was not an element of the 1996 law.



Since their applying the rules of obscenity, in order to comply with what you perceive as a legal threat, you will need to remove anything considered obscene anywhere in the United States.  So become Yerf.


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## Kahoku (Mar 25, 2012)

Trpdwarf said:


> Technically there is quite a bit of law that could be problematic if someone were to decide to take it that far. The Protect ACT of 2003 basically "Prohibits drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and  sculptures depicting minors in actions or situations that meet the Miller test  of being obscene, OR are engaged in sex acts that are deemed to meet  the same obscene condition._* The law does not explicitly state that  images of fictional beings who appear to be under 18 engaged in sexual  acts that are not deemed to be obscene are rendered illegal in and of  their own condition (illustration of sex of fictional minors)." (ripped from Wikipedia)*_
> 
> Here is a relevant link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28319199/
> 
> Food for thought, if they are willing to prosecute someone for loli-porn in state FA servers are hosted in, what could they possibly do if cub porn caught their eye? It's likely it will eventually because of consistency with furries who get arrested as pedos having cub porn on the computers seized.



But it does state it for (real CP) and not (alternative CP)? I am asking, because they made a law as I understand is for real children. But for drawn children (human) its illegal, and (other than human) its considered art and that is the defense correct? I am just a little confused because the highlighted I never heard of going into actual law.


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## Stratelier (Mar 25, 2012)

Jon_tou said:


> ... (other than human) its considered art and that is the defense correct?


I don't know if that has ever been tried in a real court, but you can't deny that kemonomimi-style characters and feral-style characters are two very different things visually.


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## Kahoku (Mar 25, 2012)

Stratadrake said:


> I don't know if that has ever been tried in a real court, but you can't deny that kemonomimi-style characters and feral-style characters are two very different things visually.



Oh I agree. I was just confused on what they (the law) would still consider that CP or not.


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## Stratelier (Mar 25, 2012)

Jon_tou said:


> Oh I agree. I was just confused on what they (the law) would still consider that CP or not.


Ambiguous acronym is ambiguous.  Please clarify.


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## kayfox (Mar 28, 2012)

I think this whole thing is getting absurd:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3293244/
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3294494/
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3308152/

I was also going to reference some artwork Geir posted, but apparently all the art related to this has been yanked.


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## Arshes Nei (Mar 28, 2012)

Stratadrake said:


> If by "aging up" you mean "subject who appears to be under 18", the only reason for the arbitrariness of that rule is because of written laws on the US books which use 18 as a reference point.  Laws which FA is generally obliged to comply with.



Hmm actually no. The reversal had to do with losing the alert pay account incident. The other problem were that laws overseas would block users overseas from viewing the site.

It's not so much a US law issue because, well it's art and legal. The problem had more to do with the threat of people in other countries no longer having access to the site due to their laws. If it's happened to any sites, I don't recall any big incidents. However, I think in this regard it's better "safe than sorry". The whole reason cub porn was reversed long ago is that it is legal in the US and it was hard to enforce amongst the site we're running into the same problems we had before. With the financial scare and overseas laws threatening to cut off a userbase from viewing the site, we're back to the hard to enforce problem since we're (at least I can speak for myself anyways) are fully aware it's subjective and can be difficult to enforce. 

I'm quite sure the public pressure and financial stake is very much the reason a site that has more commercial funding like Deviantart also took to the no "fictional underage character porn"(or accurately in DA's case, no mature art like nudity or sexual situations involving minors) rule. They don't allow aging up either. 

Just a little frustrated at the misconceptions as to why this came into place in this thread.


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## Kahoku (Mar 28, 2012)

Stratadrake said:


> Ambiguous acronym is ambiguous.  Please clarify.



Sorry for the long wait, I haven't been paying attention to this thread.
CP = Child pornography of if you meant what I meant by the law, I was referring to federal law.


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## Stratelier (Mar 30, 2012)

Arshes Nei said:


> Hmm actually no. The reversal had to do with losing the alert pay account incident. The other problem were that laws overseas would block users overseas from viewing the site.


Sorry, forgot about that.



			
				Arshes Nei said:
			
		

> I'm quite sure the public pressure and financial stake is very much the reason a site that has more commercial funding like Deviantart also took to the no "fictional underage character porn" (or accurately in DA's case, no mature art like nudity or sexual situations involving minors) rule. They don't allow aging up either.


Yeah.  Public pressure is also why the market demand for "extra lean finely textured beef" has suddenly fallen off a cliff in the past few weeks.


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