Aria,
No, you were clear. You appear to me to be saying that other pornsites obviously can, so why can't we? That's a whole different issue to me.
No you misunderstand me. My point wasn’t that “everyone else can, why can’t we?”. But that since American law enforcement doesn’t prosecute the multitude of erotic literature sites that are a hundred times more sexually explicit then the Nfic archive , this form of erotica is obviously legal in the US.
I asked Americans on another site I frequent and endured substantial ridicule, not only for my taste in literature, but for how any Americans could believe that smutfic wasn’t legal.
As for the underage reader: they claimed that as long as the site does not go out of its way to recruit children for the express purpose of tainting their minds (something that is virtually impossible prove in court and now we are taking about sexual deviance like sadism or paedophilia), the parents have no legal leg to stand on. A button with above eighteen was more then enough legal protection for even the heaviest porn in the US.(commercial pornsites followed certain other rules in the nineties but that was overuled.)
A lot of them work out of other countries where US law enforcement really cannot do much to take them down. Or, they do happen to operate in the US and have managed to fly under the radar. Also, there is a *ton* of law enforcement work just to get rid of one, but naturally, even as all this work is being done, more and more sprout up.
Actually I have now been told that a porn site is MORE likely to be hosted in the US because of it’s very strong free speech laws.
That the LC fanfic community, that has the tamest smutfic I have ever seen, would be prosecuted or even sued for obscenity is just patently absurd.
Labrat,
What I meant is, it takes such little effort to be dishonest with the click button system that it might as well not be there, if all you have to do is click on 'yes, I'm over 18' and you're in.
With the password system, it's amazing how often we actually catch out the dishonest (and I'm not saying here how they trip themselves up.), simply because the system requires a little more effort to get there, even if you are being dishonest.
Personally, I only think it makes it harder for everybody to get in. When I filled in the form all I said was that I was over eighteen. I saw no way that you could verify that, which made me wonder why it was in place. I mean even if some ten-year-old fill in the blanks wrong, all she has to do is try a new email address. I can’t see that it would be much difference your system and the standard “I’m over eighteen” pop up. I can also not see why it's necessary to have stricter security measures on this site then bona fide pornsites. If people want porn I can't imagine way they would come here.
It generates a quite different impression in me whenever I see it. But, if it's widely used for nfic in other fandoms, I can understand why people use it and don't mean what I do when I say smut.
Does English have a word for ladies hm erotica, in my own language there is one, you know the creamy thighs bodice ripper thing, I thought smut was that word in English.
Alcyone,
I'll bite about the quote, because I think the question of why fanfics go towards "NC-17" territory and why people like them is a loaded one.
I’m sure there are many different reasons why women are into smutfic all people are different but as an all purpose explanation I thought she made a lot of sense.
