A Word on Underage Fan Art

...well, a few words, really.

THE SITUATION: dA recently clarified the written explanation of their policy concerning depiction of underaged characters in sexual situations. Whilst the policy itself has never changed, the explanation did, and many people took this to mean that dA was having a sudden crack-down on art depicting younger characters in dodgy situations.

FANDOM'S RESPONSE: ...and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

A few people have emailed me and Noted me since the realitysquared journals that triggered all the fuss, and I've spent a week or so turning things over in my head.

Here is where I stand:

Let me start by saying that I'm on your side: I don't have a personal issue with slightly-under-18 characters kissing, hugging, holding hands or even doing the horizontal mambo; goodness knows most real-life 17-year-olds are doing so. Depictions of aged-up Ron and Harry doing the deed don't phase me; and if people are interested in Snape/Hermione, more power to 'em! After all, it's not real.

HOWEVER, me being okay with that kind of art or fiction, and dA being able to freely allow it on it's servers, are two different matters.

Generally speaking, we (as in dA) would prefer deviants to err on the side of caution when dealing with images like this. If you feel there's a chance the image might be deleted, don't upload it in the first place. There are plenty of online galleries that encourage work of a more adult nature (with broader boundaries as far as subject matter is concerned) where artwork like that can be uploaded for an audience who have gone to that site knowing that that's what they'll see there.

But dA has a very, very broad range of people to appeal to. Some are very young. Some are very religious. Some are very freethinking. So whilst you don't get to upload sexualised pics of slightly-underaged or aged-up characters, you'll also find that neo-Nazis can't diss other races on here, that hardcore bible-thumpers can't upload deviations telling gays they're all going to hell, and that twisted assholes can't upload photos of the kitten they gutted either.

These guidelines can be a pain sometimes, but they help us, I suspect, far more than they hinder us.

Now, I know it's upsetting when your fun fandom piece of two pretty-much-legal-anyway characters gets targeted by a rule designed to target paedophiles. You're going to have to take my word for it on this: dA is NOT trying to lump you into the same basket as those people. You're absolutely right, there is a MASSIVE difference between child porn and a picture of two seventeen-year-old fictional characters getting it on.

The problem is that there's no black and white here; there's no clear line where an image switches from "a bit of fandom fun" to "child porn". People keep asking us to set down more detailed guidelines. Is it okay to show a sixteen-year-old girl with cleavage wearing a bikini? Is it okay if that bikini is the g-string type? What if it's translucent? Okay, then what if it's a peephole bra? And what if she's just a year younger?

Follow that road long enough and you've got twelve-year-old cartoon fairies doing spreads at the camera. Don't believe me? I reported a piece just like that two weeks ago.

The problem is, we can't keep clarifying these guidelines in more and more exhaustive detail or we'll wind up with a legal-textbook-sized set of rules for dA that nobody will ever read! We'd begin defining it down to ridiculous details like whether depictions of a teenage girl in panties were okay if the panties were cotton as opposed to see-through lace. The amount of haggling over tiny details of allowability in this area is infinite, and it's a road dA doesn't have the resources or inclination to go down - simply because we trust our artists to be wise enough to self-govern.

A lovely fanartist Noted me today with her concerns, and ended her note with: "I will not, at least for DA based comissions, do any sort of above PG rating fanart of underage characters, and continue to post anything I am unsure of on other sites." That's exactly the kind of reasonable, mature, levelheaded attitude we're hoping to see from Fan Artists here on dA.

I know it's tough not to be able to upload all your artwork in the one place - believe me, I know personally; I've got artwork elsewhere on the web that dA wouldn't touch with a forty-foot pole! (Don't go looking now, kids.)

Some years ago, before this whole GD thing, I got into an altercation with dA in which a shmexay pic of mine was deleted for reasons I felt were unfair (like many of your recent pics, it was teetering on the boundaries of allowable content). Boy, was I ever pissed! I mean, that pic got more faves than anything else I'd ever uploaded! So I complained. I e-stomped my feet. I re-uploaded the picture (gasp!). It was deleted again and I received a formal warning. I roared some more.

...and then, you know what? I got over it, uploaded the darn thing elsewhere, and the world didn't end. Fast-forward to now and I don't feel as though my freedoms have been particularly stepped upon, and the rewards are more than worth it.

After all, I've seen the alternative.

I was a member of a very long-standing (far longer than dA) online art archive that DOES run on an "anything goes" basis. Anything can be uploaded there. ANYTHING. Skill level doesn't matter; violence, giant boobs, fetishes, Nazi propoganda, shitting dick-nipples (oh yes, they exist), it was all allowed. Complete, unimpeded freedom.

So the artists there cut loose. They uploaded all of the above and more. Soon you couldn't find a good gem of art because there were so many shitting dick-nipples to wade through. Guess what happened next?

The good artists left in droves. Some of them came here. All of them went to places that had rules and regulations which now and then kept them from uploading certain pieces of their own art, but in return they found places that weren't overrun with shitting dick-nipples. I guess they thought it was worth it.

So guys, don't panic. Nobody is telling you not to draw Draco and Harry getting it on, circa "age 16". We're just asking you to upload it someplace else. Your little sacrifice helps make this place a bit more comfortable for everyone else, and their little sacrifices help make it more comfortable for you. That's society, guys, and that's what we're all building here at dA - an awesome, creative online society. Thank you for doing your part to keep it that way.

~Tania

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