Reply To: Violence and hatred

[Ginger Herten]

There is a really complicated subject that comes up over and over. The line between ok and not ok is fuzzy. When I’m called to make it, I try not to let my personal taste get in the way of the decision. I do always ultimately leave final decisions to HSNadmin.

When I’m considering whether or not a story crosses the line, one of the biggest factors I consider isn’t even the specific level of violence, but whether the story reads like a fantasy or whether it reads like something someone might actually do.

Obviously when you think a story crosses the line, go ahead and report it. If you don’t think it crosses the line, but also don’t feel the tags adequately warned readers ahead of time of exactly how violent a story was going to be, then go ahead and report that. We can address it and add more tags.

It really isn’t as simple as just avoiding all storys catagorized under “forced” or “punishment” since the definitions of those is pretty open to interpretation. For example, in a BDSM scene where there is a safeword, a scenario where there is an existing consent to being a sub, does it count as “forced” and “punishment” or as “consensual?” I know that I rarely spell out the whole safeword thing in my stories (really only in that one story with the safeword failure.) “Forced” can be particularly vague since one might be forced by circumstances.

Even defining violence can be tricky. Using 2 of my own stories as examples (I swear it’s just more convinient fro me, not because I think my own stories are always the best examples,) in “Tracking Devices” the main character sits down for her hair to be cut off with out anyone touching her, but in “Decontamination” the romantic interest is pushed down into the seated position then held there; if asked which was the more violent situation though, I would say “Tracking Devices” was. In “Tracking Devices,” the people cutting off the main characters hair are obviously not nice people, and the main character has reason to believe they might just kill her if she doesn’t comply. In “Decontamination” the nurse who pushes the romantic interest character down and holds her is caring and trying to be as gentle as possible even though she feels it is necessary to use force.

Anyway, long story short, I get why MOL doesn’t want to just skip every single story that falls in the forced or punishment catagories.