On Fri, 24 Jan 1997 davidrow.ryoohki@pop3.hiway.co.uk wrote:

I, personally, think that you all can write whatever you like.
I ask for discretion on the part of the author.  Some people are going on
about it as if I were asking for totalitarianism.  I'm not asking for
control.  I'm asking for good taste.  Whose standards?  Society's.  

Ah yes, societies.

WHICH societies?
Yours in whichever US state you are in?
Mine, in England?
(I assure you, they aren't the same!!)

Or those in Canada, Australia, etc etc

(Don't give me that "How do we know what society's tastes are" line.  Some
of you know well that what you have written is far outside the boundaries
of good taste.)  It's not nice to wade through some dude's perviest take
on the series then get told "Well, you shouldn't have read it."  I just
want a bit of judgement.

Judgement?
Don't ask for judgement, lest you be judged.

Me. I'll ask for mercy...

Here's another interesting can of worms for you.  How do you define
"society" even with respect to just one nation?  Face it, everyone has
their own idea of what level of pervertedness is "acceptable" to them.
Some don't mind "lime" type stories where there are hints at a sexual
subtext but nothing explicit, but *do* mind lemons with even a standard
explicit heterosexual content.  Some draw the line at lemons.  Some draw
the line just a bit farther, at hard porn but hetero only.  Some draw
the line in a different direction, soft hetero or homo but no hard porn.
Some people know no limits.  A few people detest all of it, even
intimations.  I'm one of those latter ones.  I hadn't intended to say
anything because of that fact, but I thought I might as well.

You can try to figure out some sort of obscure labeling system if you
want, so people can try to tailor their reading material and not get
surprised by something that they'd be offended by, if you want.  That's
*a* solution.  Someone also mentioned that, by its very nature, Ranma
itself imposes an atmosphere conducive to limes, lemons, and beyond,
since Ranma starts off about people being cursed to be "aqua" something,
whether that be transsexual, from girl to cat (whatever the term is),
boy to pig, boy to duck, or whatever.  If you're that worried about this
kind of story, don't read Ranma, period.  That's another solution.

My point is that the only reasonably solid dividing line is between
content (even lime) and no content.  No content fics get no confusing
markers.  If you don't want to deal with all the crap, there *is* a very
simple solution.  All IMO of course.  IMO, anything from lime on down is
filth and not worth my time, but that could be just because I was raised
that way.  OTOH, it *might* just be because I believe in the old maxim
of GIGO:  garbage in, garbage out.  I'd rather not pour that kind of
garbage (IMO) into my mind.  God knows (and there have been studies
done) that it alters people's thinking, and I swore off mind-altering
stuff when I decided against making a habit out of alcohol.

Again, all IMO, delete at your leisure, replies to me and not the FFML,
etc.

Damon Casale, scyth@miis.edu / scyth@andrew.cmu.edu
Spam, spam!  WONDERFUL spam!  ^_^