Is There an Age Limit/Minimum on Characters?

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TragicTrees

TragicTrees

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I saw someone mention it, but I haven't seen it in the rules? So I figured I'd ask if there was!!
 
I'm fairly certain there are no age requirements for characters, at least as far as the site as a whole is concerned. Specific games might have rules regarding how old your characters can be, but you'd have to ask the GM's about that.

The only references I recall for strict age limits/requirements have to do with the age of players -- and that rule is basically that people need to be honest about their age when making an account so that teens can't enter the adult libertine section and adults can't enter the teen section. And Iwaku's pretty strict about that.

As for characters, though? I don't think there are any rules about that.
 
To clarify, anyone in a Libertine/teen roleplay can not depict a character under 13 in sexual situations as per federal law o.o Apart from that, characters can be as old or as young as you want them to be as long as the GM doesn't say otherwise (they ultimately determine what you can and cannot do in a roleplay).
 
Noctis the Devious said:
To clarify, anyone in a Libertine/teen roleplay can not depict a character under 13 in sexual situations as per federal law o.o Apart from that, characters can be as old or as young as you want them to be as long as the GM doesn't say otherwise (they ultimately determine what you can and cannot do in a roleplay).
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This is the same for Libertine role-plays, not just Liberteen? Man, something really squicks me out about adults role-playing thirteen year old characters in sexual scenes. I also thought I remembered reading something by a staff member about not using characters under the age of 16 in adult/Libertine role-plays, but I could be misremembering things.
 
Opal said:
This is the same for Libertine role-plays, not just Liberteen? Man, something really squicks me out about adults role-playing thirteen year old characters in sexual scenes. I also thought I remembered reading something by a staff member about not using characters under the age of 16 in adult/Libertine role-plays, but I could be misremembering things.
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Same but adults do that v.v As far as I know, the minimum age has always been thirteen.
 
Noctis the Devious said:
Same but adults do that v.v I mean, to each their own but that's deffinitly not for me. As far as I know, the minimum age has always been thirteen.
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May be messed up, but 13 is the minimum age because any sex scene with a character younger than that constitutes as writing child porn. O: 13 and up there are no legality issues, so we don't prevent people from writing that.
 
Yep, Peregrine and Noctis are correct, minmum age of 13 for any characters in sexual roleplay situations, anything goes for non-sexual roleplay. I agree that having that low a minimum is kinda gross for adults, but here at Iwaku we're all about letting people have whatever weird fun they like with roleplaying so long as it's not illegal. We're not in the business of moral policing, and that's a good thing. :P
 
Peregrine said:
May be messed up, but 13 is the minimum age because any sex scene with a character younger than that constitutes as writing child porn. O: 13 and up there are no legality issues, so we don't prevent people from writing that.
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I thought child porn usually constituted anyone under the age of consent.
Which if Iwaku is following American law should mean any character under 18. o_o

Like, I'm not complaining.
Although 13 I feel is too low, 18 is certainly too high for general RP purposes (personally I'd set it around 16).
But... The law seems contradictory here.
 
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Bunny Fandom said:
I thought child porn usually constituted anyone under the age of consent.
Which if Iwaku is following American law should mean any character under 18. o_o

Like, I'm not complaining.
Although 13 I feel is too low, 18 is certainly to high for general RP purposes (personally I'd set it around 16).
But... The law seems contradictory here.
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I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not actually an expert on anything to do with the law, just some guy with access to Google and a heavy interest in First Amendment rights and the laws that pertain to them. I also had nothing to do with determining the basic rules for the site, so I could be mistaken about what exactly led to the decision to set the age limit of 13 for characters in sexual roleplay. If an admin or someone else who's been around much longer than me comes along with a correction on the decision making process for that, then they're probably right. So, that out of the way, here's how I understand it.

The reason for the low age minimum is because the US federal law for child pornography pertains only to images. Some state laws for child pornography only say "material" involving sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (which by federal law means anyone under 18), but federally speaking it specifically uses the word "images." The laws that we actually have to work with are obscenity laws, which are far more flexible but definitely apply to written material. There's a subjective test used to determine if something is obscene, and basically what it comes down to is that 13 is the average age where the body matures enough to be capable of reproduction so it can be easily argued that 13 year old people doing sexual things is just a natural and not obscene, but prepubescent kids being put in sexual situations is unnatural and morally reprehensible and obscene. In truth Iwaku is taking a bit of a risk in allowing any written depiction of minors involved in sexually explicit conduct, but since obscenity law is a huge subjective grey area we're probably okay so long as we prohibit the obviously obscene stuff and enforce that prohibition harshly.
 
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As I don't really engage into this sort of stuff it shouldn't concern me, but I don't honestly get why two adults having a private RP can't be the ages they want to...

I mean, pedophilia is wrong and all, but I see no harm in writing and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is one of the best literary works ever.

Also, if a character is a vampire, forever stuck in a body 13 years old or younger, but age wise he or she is centuries years old, can such a character be put in sexual content in an RP between two adults?
 
Hades said:
As I don't really engage into this sort of stuff it shouldn't concern me, but I don't honestly get why two adults having a private RP can't be the ages they want to...

I mean, pedophilia is wrong and all, but I see no harm in writing and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is one of the best literary works ever.

Also, if a character is a vampire, forever stuck in a body 13 years old or younger, but age wise he or she is centuries years old, can such a character be put in sexual content in an RP between two adults?
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The reason you can't have a character younger than 13 in a sexual scene, even in a private roleplay, is because it legally constitutes as child porn in the US. Which is suuuuper illegal. We are already pushing the boundaries by allowing characters under the agent consent, but writing a character under 13 puts you solidly into the realm of a felony. O:
 
I understand we don't want to break the laws, I was not aware that literature could be considerate illegal, in my view child porn should only be illegal when child are actually involved, since often this happens as results of kidnapping, rapping and stuff and even if it was consensual a child lacks the maturity to take that sort of decision.
But when it's a creative art work such as writing or art (I often find drama about this on deviant art) where children were never involved, I understand it can be a bit obscene but makes no sense for me being illegal.
Pedophilia is a mental illness, unless the pedophile engages into physical activity he or she can not really be held responsible for his or hers thoughts and preferences.
In my view, denying them any forms of outlet, such as literature or art, can desperate them enough to cause them to engage into stuff that's really bad such as child porn, kidnapping and rape.
But I don't make the law, just posting my opinion...

Also, why does the internet has to obey USA law, this is an international community, I am not American myself and I RP with other people who aren't either... How come the USA imposes their law here?

What about the scenario with the vampire character?
 
Hades said:
I understand we don't want to break the laws, I was not aware that literature could be considerate illegal, in my view child porn should only be illegal when child are actually involved, since often this happens as results of kidnapping, rapping and stuff and even if it was consensual a child lacks the maturity to take that sort of decision.
But when it's a creative art work such as writing or art (I often find drama about this on deviant art) where children were never involved, I understand it can be a bit obscene but makes no sense for me being illegal.
Pedophilia is a mental illness, unless the pedophile engages into physical activity he or she can not really be held responsible for his or hers thoughts and preferences.
In my view, denying them any forms of outlet, such as literature or art, can desperate them enough to cause them to engage into stuff that's really bad such as child porn, kidnapping and rape.
But I don't make the law, just posting my opinion...

Also, why does the internet has to obey USA law, this is an international community, I am not American myself and I RP with other people who aren't either... How come the USA imposes their law here?

What about the scenario with the vampire character?
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The server that hosts the forum is based in the US, thus US laws apply. Jurisdiction is a complicated issue when it comes to the internet, but basically the owners can be held liable for things under US law because it's based in the US. Attempts to prosecute foreign users would get far more complicated, but basically everywhere has child porn or obscenity laws that can apply to written stuff. Banning it is for both site and user safety.

As for the vampire thing, it's not about the numerical age so much as what is being depicted and what laws are coming into play. Some places have or had laws that care only about the age number, others are more loose with it and could prosecute someone even if the character is stated to be far older than the age of consent. Obscenity laws in particular tend to be based more on whether or not something feels inappropriate rather than technical details. I personally would choose to disallow the child-bodied vampire engaging in sexual conduct because this is one of those grey areas where it's better to be safe as possible, but it would come down to a discussion amongst security staff or get booted up to the admins to make a call on it.
 
Well it was a hypothetical question so it doesn't really matter, but I was curious, thank you for clarification.
 
I don't know why, but I always assumed that there was a limit for the age difference when playing a character under the age of sixteen. Like a thirteen year old character could be with anyone eighteen or younger, while a sixteen year old character wasn't restricted by an age limit other than the no one under thirteen rule. I want to say I read that somewhere, but I might just be imagining it. =/
 
Nydanna said:
I don't know why, but I always assumed that there was a limit for the age difference when playing a character under the age of sixteen. Like a thirteen year old character could be with anyone eighteen or younger, while a sixteen year old character wasn't restricted by an age limit other than the no one under thirteen rule. I want to say I read that somewhere, but I might just be imagining it. =/
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No, we do not enforce an age difference rule, we just enforce the age limit due to legal issues as Jorick explains above. If it's not illegal, Diana sees little use in making it a restrictive rule regarding what a user can and cannot write.
 
Noctis the Devious said:
No, we do not enforce an age difference rule, we just enforce the age limit due to legal issues as Jorick explains above.
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Huh. I guess I assumed that since anyone younger then sixteen usually does not have the right to consent in most states. I guess to each their own.
 
It is kind of weird but yeah, to each their own.
 
Nydanna said:
I don't know why, but I always assumed that there was a limit for the age difference when playing a character under the age of sixteen. Like a thirteen year old character could be with anyone eighteen or younger, while a sixteen year old character wasn't restricted by an age limit other than the no one under thirteen rule. I want to say I read that somewhere, but I might just be imagining it. =/
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You, or whoever may have posted that as an incorrect explanation of the rules, must have gotten it confused with some real life age of consent rules that work that way. :P
 
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