fozmeadows:

1. How do you define explicit? Does this mean no depictions of child abuse, even for the purpose of telling a story about how wrong it is and showing a victim’s recovery? Can younger teens have realistic sexual encounters in stories so long as nothing is shown on page, or is it wrong to imply explicit goings-on even if they’re not depicted? Where, exactly, do we draw the line between heavy petting and sex? Can a character have a wet dream or masturbate? Can a character think about sex in detail, even if they’re not depicted having it? I’m not trying to be difficult: I’m just trying to make it clear that what you’re proposing, even when you phrase it simply, is inherently difficult to implement. Stories would have to be vetted and actively moderated, a massive undertaking that AO3 isn’t equipped to manage, and any such process would still ultimately hinge on individual judgement, which means you’d still have people dissatisfied with the outcome.  

2. Teenagers who choose to ignore age-ratings and warnings for the material they consume are responsible for their own experience beyond that point: it is not the job of authors or the website to say, “Okay, we know this content is explicitly meant for adults, but let’s make it less adulty just in case a teenager gets in here.” You can’t protect people from their own bad judgement and its consequences without making their lack of responsibility someone else’s responsibility, which is decidedly unfair. 

3. Abusers groom victims with a wide range of material and arguments, and have done so long before the existence of AO3. Whenever this happens, we blame the abuser, not whatever story they used to justify themselves. This is also why, when murderers or other criminals take their inspiration from crime fiction novels or psychologically darker works, as has happened on multiple occasions, we blame the criminals, not their taste in fiction. Locking down on what can be written about child abuse won’t get rid of paedophiles, but it will make things more difficult for victims who use fanfic as catharsis.

Here’s the thing: tagging works on AO3 is how we protect vulnerable fans, by giving them tools to navigate away from distressing themes or content. Taking something away from one person so its mere existence doesn’t upset someone who was never going to read it anyway isn’t a protective act, but a judgemental and dismissive one. To use an analogy, there are plenty of people in the world with deathly nut allergies, but that doesn’t mean we ban an entire food group: it means we label things that have nuts in them, even trace amounts, so that nobody gets hurt. Do accidents still happen? Yes! Are some people assholes about food allergies and dietary restrictions? Yes! But does that mean the solution is to ban nuts entirely? No! And it’s the same with fanfic.