Let's talk about Story ID requests for erotica

Question

At the moment, so long as what we see on SFF is SFW, it is acceptable.

However, I'd like to discuss clarifying the scope of what is considered on-topic for SFF. Specifically requests for identifying erotica (usually in the form of fanfic).

Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is for questions targeted towards science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. This includes questions about:

• Plot, character, or setting explanations
• Historical or societal context of a work
• Behind-the-scenes and fandom information
• Story identification
• Franchise/series reading or viewing order

Some examples of the content I am refering to:

• Pls help me find this specific Zoro x Sanji or Kid x Law fanfiction
• Please help me find this Harry/Draco veela fic?

And a couple non fanfic that also exhibit an erotic nature

• Detective novel with sex, monsters and aliens
• Science fiction novel: sex scene with a lesbian and a monkey

At the moment it is considered on-topic because it is "story identification" and not explicitly forbidden.

To be clear, I am not asking for a clarification of policy, but a discussion and creation of policy.

Either we explicitly allow erotic story ID questions, or we disallow them.

Answer 1

They should be allowed.

• As long as it's SFF, it's fine.

  We are a site about science fiction and fantasy. And, let's face it... there are very often explicit scenes in SFF. And sometimes there is a book that is erotica that is a SFF story. It is about SFF, so that's one point in its favor.

• Context matters.

  It's been mentioned that it could potentially violate the TOS of SE. I disagree; that's not talking about cases like this. If you slipped in a porn link on SO, you would be heavily punished. Here too. However, on SFF adult material can relate directly to the site's topic. It's SFF; that's the point above. And would you consider every question on English Language & Usage asking about offensive words to be in violation of the policies? The context in which the questionable posts are being posted matters.

  Also — and this is important — such questions are not linking to or including sexually explicit things in the posts themselves. While there may be some inappropriate content in the story being identified, we're hardly going to link to videos because of a question. If all we are posting is that description of the story, perhaps a quote or two, and how we found it... I don't see why it should be a problem.

• This entire site is unprofessional.

  You're on a site about Harry Potter and Star Trek. I'd say that's about as far from professional as you can get.

• Young users

  This is a valid point. There are certainly young users who are on our site (I think it's relatively well known that I'm 15), but I don't think this should prevent the explicit questions. I might consider the use of spoiler markdown, but I don't think that young users really affect anything. It's an occupational hazard of browsing the Internet, unfortunately :/

TL;DR: As long as it's Science Fiction or Fantasy, it should be on topic.

Answer 2

If a question is overtly offensive, it should be flagged as such.

Gratuitous NSFW pictures, links to porn, unnecessarily graphic language ... all of these are at best things to be edited out of a question immediately, and at worst might be forms of trolling. These are the kinds of thing which really need to be off our site. I know nobody will disagree with this; I mention it only to highlight the contrast with the kind of content you're asking about.

Mature discussions of NSFW content are fine.

We have hundreds of questions which are about sex in one way or another. As pointed out in previous meta posts on this topic, things like Kirk's sex life in Star Trek, Jabba's intentions towards Leia in Star Wars, or the too-many-to-count rape scenes in Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire are all perfectly on-topic SFF questions and can be discussed in a mature and reasonable manner. Often sexual things are an integral part of a sci-fi or fantasy work, and as such are fair game for questions and answers on this site (provided they're not being discussed offensively, of course).

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So, coming back to your question ... story-ID is acceptable, and (reasonable) sexual questions are acceptable. Why shouldn't story-ID questions about sexual content be acceptable?

(I could maybe get behind the idea of using a tag for such questions, so that people can put it on ignore if they don't want to see any posts about erotica, but that's a discussion for another meta.)

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Just to address the specific counterpoints from your answer:

1. There are many places on the internet that one can find this sort of content. There is no reason SFF needs to be one of them.

   This isn't an argument in favour of disallowing anything. There are many place on the internet that one can find Q&A about sci-fi and fantasy, but that doesn't mean we should shut the whole site down.

2. Erotic literature is several levels removed from the universe in question. First it is a fanfic and not canon in any sense of the word, and second, it is not intended to expand, continue, or expound on the universe.

   But your question isn't about fanfic - it's about erotica in general, not all of which is fanfiction for a different canon. Again, consider A Song of Ice and Fire.

3. For various legal and SEO reasons, we are not allowed to post or link any sexually explicit or pornographic material. Any properly sourced answer to a story ID question looking for erotica would be pushing the boundary. And a question that goes into any sort of detail could be seen as explicit content.

   Re. sexually explicit or pornographic material, see my first paragraph above. If people are clearly posting in bad faith, then they can be dealt with accordingly, but most of the community is able to discuss erotica sensibly. Re. detail in questions or answers on the topic - again, let's trust our users to be Nice and reasonable. Offensive content can be flagged and removed. It would be kind of disrespectful to ban discussion about sex on the assumption that the community is unable to handle it maturely.

Answer 3

The fact that this site has decided (regrettably) to make fan fiction on topic does not mean that fan faction has to be on a par with professional science fiction and fantasy. Let's just ban all questions about erotic fan fiction. (If that gets rid of the majority of fan fiction questions, I don't see that as a problem.)

Answer 4

They should be allowed (but....)

This answer is primarily intended as a supplement to the current top answer. Erotica (including pornography) with speculative fiction themes should be allowed for all the reasons laid out there.

However, certain very narrow categories of story identification questions should be disallowed on ethical and legal grounds (not topical ones):

• Explicit pornographic works involving unwilling participants. With this, I am primarily thinking of works involving images of celebrities or ordinary people that are used without their approval to make pornography. These do exist, and some of these works may have speculative themes, but we should not direct people to them on both ethical grounds—it's dubious to help people find works that were produced in such an unethical manner—and legal grounds—such works may run afoul of laws against revenge pornography or misappropriation of image in many jurisdictions around the world.

• Pornographic works involving explicit depictions of sex involving children (or characters that appear to be children but are really 1000-year-old immortals or whatnot), particularly visual works, particularly non-cartoon works. Again, such works may constitute child pornography in many countries and run the risk of exposing SE to legal action. Ethically, such works may in some cases be produced by the exploitation of actual children, or if not, foster communities where such exploitation is justified or normalize such depictions. In any case, the possibilities here are much too dubious to allow such questions.

We should be reasonably strict when deleting such questions: if people are asking to find, for instance, a cartoon with sex between "little kids" or "a fan video with Angelina Jolie and an alien having sex," we should require them to explain how their work does not fall afoul of these requirements, rather than giving them too much of the benefit of the doubt.

Answer 5

Disallow Erotic Story ID Questions.

There are several reasons we should do this:

1) While adult content is tolerated, SFF - and the SE network as a whole - are still professional, work oriented sites. There are many places on the internet that one can find this sort of content. There is no reason SFF needs to be one of them. Users are allowed on this site once they reach the age of 13. While we don't have to cater to people of that age, neither should we ignore the existence of that demographic.

2) Just because something is set in an SFF universe, or has some of the qualities of an SFF world, does not mean that it should be on-topic. Intent should be taken into account. Erotic literature is several levels removed from the universe in question. First it is a fanfic and not canon in any sense of the word, and second, it is not intended to expand, continue, or expound on the universe. It is simply hijacking the names and places and applying them to content that has a completely different purpose.

3) Its an acceptable continuation of the Stack Exchange Network Content Policy. For various legal and SEO reasons, we are not allowed to post or link any sexually explicit or pornographic material. Any properly sourced answer to a story ID question looking for erotica would be pushing the boundary. And a question that goes into any sort of detail could be seen as explicit content.

In short, it is unprofessional, unnecessary, not really SFF, and significantly raises the risk of violating SE rules.