Re: fic To those who wait; (HEAVY NC17!) Willow+co rescu...

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

Okay, folks, ease off.

> Research? Wow, I missed 4 states, 

No, you missed what the poster said.  California is one of only 4 states
in which the age of consent is *as high as* 18.  In the other 46 states,
the "legal age" is *lower than 18*.  

(When I was growing up in New York, it was 17.  And much younger in some
other statesin some southern states [and, weirdly, New Hampshire] it
was as young as 13.)

> excuse me if I'm "spouting off" if incest bothers me. 

I fail to see what your dislike of Buffy/Dawn has to do with your false
assumptions about age-of-consent laws.  Are you saying you only object
to Buffy/Dawn because of Dawn's age, that when Buffy's 31 and Dawn 25,
you'll be all for it?  Somehow I doubt that.  In which case "Dawn's
underage" and "Dawn's her sister" are separate issues.

> Patrick's British? Who cares? How does that >affect what can be posted? 

Well, I'd think conforming to the law in his country would be the proper
standard to which to hold him.  There are 200+ nations in the world, are
we going to hold everyone to the most restrictive one out there?
Because I'm pretty sure that this entire subject (sex, not just
lesbianism, much less incest and age-of-consent questions) is completely
illegal in several countries.

> Yes, American law comes into play. 

Why?  Patrick is "publishing" his fic in Britain.  To say that it can't
violate US laws is reminscient of the cuckoo birds who tried to shut
down Greg Palast's investigation of George H.W. Bush's connection to the
Barrick Corporation (a Canadian-American goldmining concern with myriad
scandals in its operations) by claiming that since Palast's US-based
website could be *viewed* in Britain, he was in violation of Britain's
libel laws (which put the burden of proof on the accused, rather than
the accusersee the famous McDonald's case, for instance).

There's a reason why the sleazy "lolita" websites are all
Russia-basedit's because Russia's age-of-consent is 14.  And then
there's a question of whether emailing is equivalent to publication,
anyway. 

As far as standards wrt BtVS, I think the aired show gives us a
guideline on this.  Buffy had sex (heteropenetrative, chance-of-pregancy
[since it turned out Angel was mistaken about that] sex) less than 24
hours past her 17th birthday, and despite California's laws, the show
got into absolutely zero difficulties over that.  And there's nothing in
"Surprise" to indicate that Buffy is waiting for January whateverth to
get here so she'll be legalthe issue doesn't come up.  I think 16 is
a perfectly fair and normal standard for this (heck, there's a classic
S1 Buffy/Cordelia NC-17 fic, and y'know, Cordy's probably 15 for almost
all of sophomore year&) and I don't see any reason to bar fics where
Buffy and Willow consummate after, say, "Halloween" (as opposed to maybe
3 months later), just because the idea of Buffy/Dawn upsets you for what
are IMO different reasons.  (Such as the incest aspect or the difference
in their ages or the fact that Dawn was written so immaturely on the
show that some fans object to her having the same sort of sexual choices
her sister had at that age.)

So, no, I don't think Patrick's fic violated an age-of-consent standard.

Now as for the incest aspect&originally we had a clear "no B/D" rule,
and then Pat Kelly's B/D fic was accidentally reposted by someone who'd
forgotten that was the pairing and I was all "huh? what? don't we have a
rule?"  but the list survived and there was some talk about it not being
so bad as long as it's clearly marked (which Patrick's was) and not the
primary romantic focus, and so I didn't feel an urge to rain thunder on
this one ex post facto.  Now that we're back to "No B/D, period", fine.

Ironically, had I had the chance, I would have rejected "To Those Who
Wait" from postingbut for entirely different reasons.  But that's a
separate post that I'll try to get up later today.

Dan

PSodd note on incest:  I was once asked to do some research on
California's anti-incest laws by a British author who was writing a fic
where Buffy had been sent to jail because she was in a consensual
relationship with Dawn, and the author wanted to know exactly what she
would have been charged with and how long she'd have had to serve.

Since I know where to find the California Civil Code on-line (I had a
rent dispute once), it was no trouble to find the Criminal Code as well,
and this is what I discovered:   Buffy would only have been breaking the
laws against underaged sex, as both incest and homosexuality have been
decriminalized in California.  

(The relevant section was [and is still] entitled 
"Bigamy, Incest, and The Crime Against Nature", but all but the
anti-bigamy laws have been superceded by subsequent amendments.  As I
say, an odd fact.

Oh, and sex with minors is only a felony if, IIRC, the adult is over 21
and the minor under 16 [or the adult over 18 and the minor under 14].
So technically, Buffy only had legal worries from January through
September, 2002, more or less.)

Not that I think this justifies B/D (and it does not in any way loosen
the B/D ban here), but as the legal issues have been raised, I find it
interesting that the actual law here is relatively forgiving.



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Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."
Buffy:  "I kinda love you."
                     'Choices'

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