I was inspired for the first time in years to write about something on a personal level. I could think of no where on "The Catbox" to put this, which is probably just as well since it is not going to be flattering to the people who are involved in this. I do not mean to flame these people, but I do strongly disagree with what they are doing, and so, I am writing my opinions here.

What I am talking about is a website called "Fandom Scruples" (http://www.livejournal.com/users/fandom_scruples/), which was started on a community called "Live Journal". The website focuses on fan fiction writers and basically tells people they are out of line for having R rated fan fiction on their sites. Fandom Scruples then proceeds to "blacklist" sites that make R rated fan fiction "too accessible" to minors and encourages people to boycott those sites.

One of the main things that always irritates me about sites like this is that there is usually a group of five or six people who are dictating what "too accessible" is and are mainly using this as an excuse to get people to censor their works, which I believe is wrong. Most of these sites do not have a set system of figuring out what sites are making things too accessible through a system of standards, such as how many screens you have to go through to get to the fan fiction, whether there is a warning at the beginning of the fan fiction telling children not to read, etc. Instead these people are just telling you that these sites make things too accessible to minors and expect you to take their word for it. Personally? I do not believe in censorship. When I was a minor I read on a college level and I understood the things I read. I was constantly running into problems with the library and what books I could and couldn't take out due to my age. If my father had not taken an interest in what I was reading and what level I was reading at, things would have been difficult for me to get books that I would have enjoyed reading.

And I think a lot of this boils down to exactly the situation that I just referred to from my childhood. It is NOT the responsibility of webmasters and webmistresses to help blacklist anyone's site because of what those people write and how accessible those writings may be to minors. Parents should be watching their children and figuring out what they are interested in reading. They are the parents, we are not. If a child comes onto my site and clicks on one of my "R" rated stories in my fan fiction archive, I warned them that the material isn't suitable for children. If they go to my links page and click on an "R" rated link, I warned them about mature content. And I KNOW most webmasters and webmistresses do the EXACT same thing I do. If minors read those stories or go to those links...I did what I felt was acceptable measures to assure that they would not go there ignorantly. I know for a fact that I and most webmasters and webmistresses I know are not going to stop writing just because some people get ticked off that we are writing questionable material not suitable for minors.

I am a webmistress who writes fan fiction. I write some that is "R" rated. I am an adult and I do not think it wrong that I write stories on adult levels sometimes. I have the freedom to write these stories and to publish what I want on my website. Heck, I pay for that priviledge and most webmasters and webmistresses I know do as well. If you do not want your child to read "R" rated material, don't let them. It is not my responsibility to make sure your child doesn't read that material, it is yours. I'm sorry to sound mean, but that's the truth and the way it simply is.

In conclusion, I am encouraging anyone who reads this to go to the "Fandom Scruples" and read whatever you want. I'm not going to tell people to boycott the page...that'd make me as bad as the people who are sitting in judgement over so many others. If you want to use "Fandom Scruples" as a guide to your webnanny software or whatever...I encourage you to do what you want. That is your right and priviledge (at least in my country).