As much as writers and artists don’t like to have their work adulterated, we have to be aware of the audience we are writing for and cater to that audience.
If you’re writing for a primarily 13+ audience, it is important that you take into consideration the 13-year-olds in that audience. All content needs to be suitable for them.
That means sexual and violent content should be kept to an appropriate level for that audience.
And no, you don’t get to decide what qualifies there. You have to check the platform you’re using for its rules and guidelines. Plus, it’s always a good idea to check the rating systems of the country you live in.
If you want to have a global appeal, check a few other countries’ rating systems, too.
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This is another thread I’d rather bump than close.
There’s the interesting debate to be had here of whether or not a platform should be lenient with these kinds of rules or even change them completely if someone who breaks them or bends them becomes popular.
For instance, Youtube wanted to be more ‘family friendly’, and while the way they went about it was a uge issue and I don’t agree with it in the slightest, they should be able to enforce this rule no? It is their platform after all. So why did people not rail against it when the more popular channels were able to get away with it? In fact, because they enforced it better than somewhere like Episode, people railed against the platform for having these rules in the first place! It’s an interesting split in opinion
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I’m surprised this hasn’t been bumped.
I wish people would understand this instead of making excuses. “Well, most children watch p*rn and have s-x and know about it.” Okay–And? How is encouraging it further a good thing? They always talk about how kids act too grown yet expose us to different things that are for adults.
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Bumpity bump!
I couldn’t agree more. Anyone that is under the age of 16 shouldn’t be exposed to sexual content as this can encourage them to do things they shouldn’t be doing or saying! It’s disturbing as hell to see anyone under the age of 16 talk about female body parts in such details.
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My thing is it’s up to the parents what they’re willing to expose their kids to if it’s above their age rating — and of course they’re going to find stuff.
But we shouldn’t be allowing kids to see things that are universally not accepted to be from their age range easily. It should be hard. And the only way it should be easy for them is if their parents directly give them access
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Yup, it’s crazy that there are such careless parents that let their 9 year old look at porn or any adult rated movies (talking about films that are 18 and over like Green Street, Football Factory, The Human Centipede etc.) or read these porno magz or them erotic novels.
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I disagree with the arbitrary line drawn at 16 here, considering 16 is the legal age of consent here, and it’s far younger in other areas of the world.
Sex should be something we learn about from a young age 
It’s as simple as that, and I’m sorry, but I’d always rather have positive portrayals of consensual sex in media rather than no portrayal at all. Because abstinence-only is proven to be detrimental and lead to steep increases in teen pregnancy/STI rates
I do not, and will never understand our societal fear of sex. It’s actually somewhat alarming that proper gun use and safety is seen as better somehow than safe sex. What the hell kind of nonsense are we teaching our kids??? Take life before you make it? 
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But I do agree that sex education should be mandatory in every secondary school. I’m not sure about primary school though a lot of children do hit puberty very early like 8-11 years.
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Yes, and I feel positive portrayal in the media is just as mandatory. People may not like this, but it is proven fact that the media we intake does have some impact on how we act as adults nevermind as children. And especially as young teens, the single most formative time of your life, we need positive portrayals of this kind of thing.
Take a country where there is no positive portrayal of sex or sexual relationships available to young teens and even young adults, Japan. The society has massive issues with repression and sexual assault/misconduct. They have specific words for train gropers and stalkers. Our portrayal isn’t up to snuff either, in the west. People are still lulled into abusive relationships because of the toxic ways it’s shown.
The way to fix it isn’t to just get rid of it entirely, it’s to encourage a positive portrayal. Otherwise, we may as well censor all media
Guns and gun safety? No-go. Violence, even in self-defence? Nope. Those are positive portrayals of something that could potentially lead to negative consequences, so we can’t show it
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And this is a more poignant one that sounds the exact same as removing sexual content from media to me.
You may as well remove all kinds of religious ideology and religious people as well at that point. Religious people on the whole are fine, they’re perfectly nice and perfectly safe. But there is that off chance a young teen could look further into it and become radicalised, even with a positive portrayal. So I guess we should censor that completely as well
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Religion can definitely be an issue. Especially when you hear children say really strange things that you instantly guessed that they’re brainwashed. For example, I have heard one Muslim boy said that Mother’s Day is haram just because his mother said that. I don’t see what’s problematic about celebrating a day with your mother, it’s not sinful as honour killing.
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My thing is… why are we so adverse to introducing children to sex Ed from an early age? Is it because we have old fashioned ideals being fed to us and we’re buying into them? Like, what’s the real problem in introducing kids to basic concepts (not teaching them how to have sex, but having age-appropriate sex education)?
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Exactly, but positive portrayals of religious people should be celebrated just as much as someone using appropriate force in self-defence, practicing proper gun safety, or yes. A positive, healthy sexual relationship.
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In fact, in countries where they do that, the teen pregnancy rates drop dramatically
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Tbh, the most important thing is to accept critiques and listen from your audience. That way, you will know what your audience needs.
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Now you have mentioned this, something came to mind. I’ve noticed that there are some pre-historic dinosaurs who are completely ignorant about healthy & positive relationships. Like they push a woman to get married but lose their s**t when the woman wants to divorce the toxic husband and expect them to “fix things” when that wouldn’t work because of how toxic the husband can be. Also, they shun women for dating as dating is a way of experiencing a relationship.
I know that came out wrong but you get what I mean. I have seen this all from these radical Muslims who are very very misogynistic. I can find a Tumblr post with this if you like. So you can understand what I’m trying to say there.
Edit: Not sure if you can see this but here’s what I was trying to explain
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