So the Purity Police have discovered fanfic on Livejournal and numerous Livejournal fanfiction communities have been deleted after complaints were filed. Some of the communities had been in existence for years. Multiple communities have been deleted as well as some private journals.

As an example, here's a blog by one of the owners of one of the deleted communities, Pornish-Pixies.

Yes, it had questionable content, but it was fictional content, and I have never heard the slightest indication that there was any illegal activity associated with the community. Moreover, it was a safe place for such content -- it was friendslocked, meaning only members could view the content, and this kept unsupervised children from reading it. Additionally, it was by invitation only, which reduced the likelihood of a kiddy claiming to be older than they really were gaining access to the material.

There are accusations in fandom that the group behind the complaint that resulted in Pornish-Pixies' deletion is Warriors for Innocence. Take this with a grain of salt; I haven't seen any proof. However, Liz Marcs on Livejournal has an excellent analysis of the group here.

My readers should make their own decisions on this one after reading her entry because I'm honestly not sure what to think. I do agree that they sound like a vigilante group.

On the subject of questionable content in fanfic I will be the first to admit that I am squicked by certain themes. For example, I rarely read Fullmetal Alchemist fanfic without a recommendation from a friend because of Roy/young!Edward stories, and I'm not real fond of Smallville stories with Lex/young!Clark, either. MacLeod/Richie stories for Highlander strike me as all sorts of wrong and don't get me started on Wincest (Supernatural slash with incest themes). My reaction to Wincest is generally a big shudder. I could go on, but I think that's enough examples and my point is that there's quite a few stories out there that makes my eyes bleed and my blood pressure start to rise and which causes a reflexive twitch of an upraised index finger right over the back button on my browser.

However ...

I will defend, heartily and with enthusiasm, the right of fanfic writers to write these stories, and readers to read them even if I personally think they're gross. We are not talking about actual crimes -- by definition, fiction is fiction. I may object, sometimes strongly, to some people's fantasies as presented in their stories, but I am not going to tell anyone that they can't write about them, post them in appropriate locations, or enjoy reading them.

A friends-locked invitation only Livejournal that can only be viewed by the adult members? This is an appropriate and responsible place to post smut.

And, also, while a good bit of fanfiction gives me the creepy crawlies -- particularly stories with underage characters or fic with incest themes -- there are also stories on the same themes which have substantial literary and artistic merit.

(I should mention at this point, were this a normal blog, I'd start linking to stories as examples to back my points up but I honestly do not want to provide the Purity Police with any assistance in finding stories. Linking to my examples in this blog would be like waving a red flag before a bull and I'm not going to do it.)

It would be nice if someone could make the really icky stories go away, and let us keep the good stories, but who makes that distinction? I sure don't want that job and I  for damn-sure don't want the Purity Police deciding what's got artistic merit. I suspect their opinions and my opinions do not agree and that, additionally, the Purity Police's opinions would conflict with the opinions of the majority of fans out there.

I write fanfiction and I have done so for twenty years. I am quite comfortable with the moral ground my own stories cover but I suspect the Purity Police might see things differently were they to read my stories. Off the top of my head, I can think of several areas they might find problematic in my own fiction.

I have teenagers having sex in my stories, because teenagers do. Teenagers without hormones? This would sorta be unrealistic.

I have a pedophile in some of stories ... a bad guy ...  who eventually gets his head lopped off by a very pissed off Immortal. Before he does, however, there's a scene with a fourteen year old girl that also involves quite a bit of alcohol. In a certain light, this could be seen as gratuitous, but the scene is there for a reason: I wanted to show one way that pedophiles operate, and I wanted to show what was going through the girl's head as well.

Truthfully, I have multiple sex scenes in various stories -- I don't write extremely explicit sex(*) but sometimes specific details are necessary for forwarding the plot so I don't necessarily fade to black.

In my fic  I have one male/male relationship with one of the characters being slightly underage by our (US) laws because he is seventeen. I have one story that has a humorous but somewhat graphic opening involving coitus interruptus between a human and a demon who are engaged to be married. I also once wrote a joke fic that involved e-mails between most of the characters of Disney's Gargoyles -- and let's just say the innuendo was rampant and silly and multi-layered and the fic  was very well received. And that's just a quick list off the top of my head.

I maintain all of my stories have artistic merit -- generally, I have a point for what I write (though the joke fic was purely for entertainment value!) -- but the Purity Police could well see things differently. It would be very easy for the Purity Police to misrepresent the content of my stories and twist my intent around to look like something nasty and evil.

The link above for Pornish-Pixies is about a fanfic community that was deleted because of incest fics. While incest fanfic isn't my cup of tea, stories about incest can have artistic merit.

I can think of one or two Supernatural Wincest stories which have been recced to me and which deal with the topic in an intelligent manner. I am not going to link to it, but one I am specifically thinking of covers other character's reactions to Wincest.  It was a very thought provoking story. If both adults are adults and consenting, does society have any business dictating what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms?

I'm not going to answer that question right now (that's a blog for another day) but the story argued both sides of the coin and quite successfully, too.

Pornish-Pixies was deleted for incest, but it seems some other communities have been targeted for sexual content involving underage characters. Not, mind, real people, but fictional characters. While I am one of the first people to stand up and protest stories advocating pedophilia or which portray sexual activity between very-much-older characters and minors (chan), some of the stories on these communities had to do with teenagers and didn't deserve deletion.

There's a world of difference between a six year old and a sixteen year old. I suspect that true kiddy porn involving stories about small children would have been met with open hostility on most of the communities targeted. I was not a member of any of the communities and so I can't say for sure, but I know fandom and fanfic writers in general well enough to predict the response. (There may have been some specific exceptions judging by the names of the communities but they'd be the exception, not the rule.)

Not all stories involving sex and teenage characters are written to titillate. Some of them are coming-of-age tales, some have a point to make about teen romance, and there are quite a few fanfics where the author simply forgets the age of the characters and the fact that they are minors is never addressed. Of course, a significant percentage of the stories are just smut, but again, we're talking about teens, not children. There's a significant difference.

Additionally, I can think of many accepted stories that are part of the mainstream literary consciousness that involve minors doing the wild thing. Romeo and Juliet comes to mind. Romeo and Juliet is not kiddy porn despite the fact that in some versions of the play Juliet is only thirteen. If you would like a more recent pop culture example, try Buffy -- Buffy was a minor at sixteen when she had sex with Angel.

It appears that some of the Livejournal communites that were deleted had adult material involving teenagers. Some of it may have been squicky but it likely wasn't illegal and did not represent actual real life illegal activity.

And, unfortunately, the sort of vigilantes who complain about friends-locked, private, age-monitored livejournal communities are also the sorts of vigilantes who don't stop. One of my concerns is where will it stop?

What's next?

If I were orchestrating a campaign of vigilantism against fanfic porn I'd start with the obvious and large communities and the members of them, but then spread from there.

Having succeeded in convincing Livejournal to take down a few journals and communities they'll likely go after more, and start going after more individuals. Also, since one group has succeeded in shutting down some communities I'm willing to bet that other vigilante types, encouraged, are going to join in the fray both with Livejournal and other communities and ISPs. I'm picturing a whole army of sanctimonious, righteous Purity Police scouring the internet looking for smutty fanfic and reporting it to the relevant ISPs.

Got a smutty fanfic on your blog?  Bye-bye account.

Got a web site that has an NC-17 lemon on it? They could promptly contact your ISP and have the plug pulled on your web site. (Check the TOS for your ISP if you are running a Web site. Many of them have clauses regarding "obscenity" that could lead to the deletion of your site if you're reported.)

Are you sharing rated fic on a Yahoo or Google group? Zip goes an e-mail to Yahoo or Google and poof goes the group.

I feel this is all too plausible, all too scary. There are also other tactics that they could use which I am deliberately not mentioning because I don't want to give them any new ideas.

However, this plausible scenario of the zealots going after fanfic based on content that they disapprove of is why I am speaking up. I hate confrontation, but this is important enough for me to say something.

Again, I may not agree with the content of all of the fics out there ... but I am for damn sure going to defend the right of fans to read and write fanfic with said content. I am outraged that a bunch of outsiders feel they have the right to dictate what we as fans can read, write, and post in protected forums. I cannot stand by on this one -- it's an issue important enough to me that I'm willing to stand up and make my voice heard.