Of course, these spaces are only meant for adults. They’ll say as much, and they’ll drop the hammer on anyone who admits to being underage. But the key word there is “admits.” It’s trivially easy for a kid to lie about their age to get into such places - and even if they require some form of verification (such as a scan of an ID), it’s not much less trivial for a kid to use a fake ID, someone else’s ID, or a photoshop of their own ID. And they’re going to do it in huge numbers, because teens are horny and impulsive and don’t know what they’re getting into. There is no way to keep them out that is absolutely guaranteed to work in all circumstances - at least, not one that I can think of.
And now these kids are in an NSFW space, interacting with grown adults in a sexual context. Even if no one knows they’re a kid, even if no one deliberately targets them, the adults in those spaces are having inappropriate sexual interactions with the kids by being in conversations with them about things like kinks, porn preferences, &c. that adults should not be talking with kids about - and thus those adults become complicit in something terrible without realizing it or intending to.
It’s the anonymous and depersonalized nature of these online spaces in particular that makes this such a problem, which sucks, because there are many people who have a legitimate need for such spaces - LGBT people in reactionary environments, people with embarrassing but harmless kinks who might face ostracism or loss of their jobs if those around them found out, etc. But the anonymous nature that offers so many benefits is inextricable from its inherent awful risk to children.
I’m not really sure where I was going with this. It just sucks and it’s a bad situation and I wondered if anyone else had thoughts to share.
That’s the double-edged sword of anonymous spaces. I have been in the spaces as a minor/very young adult, and I turned out ok
barely legal sex stuff
Hell, I let a dude jerk off to me on Omegle when I had just turned 18.
Teens are going to explore sex. It’s natural. A safe, well guarded space for it is better than a church.
I was reading this and thought it was odd because I personally experienced what you’re afraid about as a minor and I guess it was pretty dangerous or whatever but I never felt that traumatized by it. I was mostly just surprised to think that this sort of thing wasn’t a normal experience for people, I guess I assumed ‘covertly entering adult spaces anonymously’ was a typical way people who came of age with the Internet around encountered adult topics.
It sounds like you are saying the risk comes from interacting anonymously and at no physical proximity to adults, and having conversations about sexual matters.
What are they are risk of?
It seems to me that there is a bigger problems with zero-interactive aspects of sex on the internet: endless streams of videos, animations, images, etc.
There is also lots of non-explicit dialogue about say, relationships between people, power dynamics, etc that kids are actively encouraged to engage in. Example: the recent “your body my choice” thing repeated by 11 year old boys all over.
Back when I was a kid, I was very fortunate to get access to online places where adults were chit chatting about sex in a (more or less) good way. Saved me a lot of turmoil to just understand certain things right away.
Also I made use of resources that were intentionally created for teens. I specifically recall https://boards.scarleteen.com/ which is apparently still around! We had other pre-socialmedia spaces. Of course the problem then is how to keep the adults out.
Yeah I remember being like 11 or 12 or so in the 90s and finding a “teen sexuality” board where even my under developed mind could tell it was adults encouraging children to do bad things. I backed out rapidly. I’m glad I had that instinct. In the modern era when I was moderating a large discord community I realised there are a lot of people who stumble into these spaces and end up groomed into becoming groomers themselves later on.
Then they just like, can’t even seem to see how creepy and fucked up their behaviour is. I almost feel like the situation is worse now than it was when I was young and on the early internet interacting with older-than-me but still young gen Xers, with pretty much zero reference point for what was or was not appropriate. I dunno. It was all text based for me back then and some inappropriate stuff happened that did not mess me up anywhere near as much as the consensual activities between myself and my peers in the real world.
CW: Hey its me I (was) kid in the post
It was the same thing for me with omegle/chat roulette. I was 13 or 14 interacting with people twice my age sometimes. It wasn’t until several months ago (late 20s) that I realized how fucked up it was. Especially considering they knew my age.
After a while I decided normal porn was much more efficient and went back to that. These minor/adult interactions didn’t seem meaningful to me at the time. However, I was highly suggestible and had little, if any, capacity for meaningful introspection back then. I don’t know if it gave me any trauma, but I know I was unable to consent. It makes me feel deep unease to remember this, I might be disassociating a bit, I can’t tell. I have no idea how I’d go about understanding if/how this affected me and my sexual development back then.
CW: more detail, and an epiphany
Actually, I’m quite certain that experiencing video sex with adult strangers before gentle intimacy with peers did fuck me up. I’ve still never been held or anything. Maybe this is part of why it’s so hard for me to create real intimacy with people I’m attracted to. Sexual intimacy doesn’t make me feel vulnerable at all, while non-sexual intimacy with someone I’m attracted to is terrifying. Maybe this is why I get so nervous when I try to connect with people I’m attracted to. I think I haven’t taken that nervousness seriously enough until now.
It sorta makes sense now why everyone thinks I’m about to pounce on them and always waits for me to initiate everything. Why people basically see horny as one of my personality traits. I’m only capable of embodying one kind of desire, and people interpret that as conscious when it’s not.
Well, I might cry later but thats ok. Thanks for making this post and showing concern to people like me.
Edit: lmao I’m nauseas now
I was a really young nerdy kid, and coming from the Soviet Union like the only thing I cared about was computer. I was obsessed with computer since playing Doom as a kid in a cyber cafe. I got my first computer at the age of 8-9 after we had immigrated. I was about 10 years old when I was trolling AOL chat rooms by myself… and I had a lovely 640x480 web cam… and yeah. A lot of this brings up uneasy memories.
I think the horny categorization does fit me. I’m not like a gooner or anything but my partner would agree 100% with the statement: “thinks I’m about to pounce on them and always waits for me to initiate everything. Why people basically see horny as one of my personality traits.”
I don’t experience issues with non-sexual intimacy, but I wanted to let you know that you’re not alone!
… Maybe this is part of why it’s so hard for me to create real intimacy with people I’m attracted to. Sexual intimacy doesn’t make me feel vulnerable at all, while non-sexual intimacy with someone I’m attracted to is terrifying. Maybe this is why I get so nervous when I try to connect with people I’m attracted to …
Thanks for sharing. Realizing this in itself indicates that you are your path to recovery.
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Sorting this might be too much to do by yourself and good therapy from someone who understands can lighten your load. So, don’t hesitate to get professional help.
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Please take rest and try to relax for now. No need to reply.
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If underage people are putting themselves in that situation, it’s kind of on them. If they’re massively underage, it’s on their parents. These are spaces that need to and should exist in a society with healthy views on sex.
Idk, I’m a queer person from one of the oldest generations that grew up with the internet, in the age where everything was pretty anonymous, and even as a young teen it was really easy to discern the limits of my comfort with topics relating to sex and steer clear of things I didn’t feel I could handle. (Mostly in the context of fanfic for me.) I grew up in a reactionary area with a homophobic family and literally only had the internet to learn about queer topics, including queer sex. I don’t think children need to be shielded wholesale from sex-related content that they themselves are willingly seeking out and exploring — I think a lot of the puritanical narratives around “protecting” children are derived from the greater cultural tendency towards reaction and the “parents’ rights” rhetoric that sees children as property. (A topic for another time is how outright puritanical society and especially the internet has gotten in the last decade, in part related to app store, advertisers, and payment processors’ guidelines effectively censoring the web.)
Like you said, if kids are determined, they’ll find a way to circumvent any age verification. If they’re keeping their ages to themselves, they’re unlikely to be a target for diddlers, which seems like a good thing for their safety. It’s a bit of a violation of consent for the adults in those spaces, but I think adults should also be exercising some discretion on the understanding that they don’t actually know the people behind the other accounts either.
On one hand, I see your point, but on the other hand, I can’t help but think back to
CW: CSA
that thread from a year back dealing with the blowback of the time a guy in his 30s got involved with a 15 year old who claimed to be a 19 year old. There was a pretty clear consensus that he was 100% at fault there regardless of his intent with one highly upvoted comment saying he should be killed. Sure, there’s a clear difference between inhabiting an NSFW space with an anonymous person who it turns out is underage and having physical relations with a 15 year old when you’re a grown adult, but at the same time, the thought of putting myself in a situation where there’s any possibility of having anything in common at all with that creep makes my skin crawl. Like, I don’t care how good the odds are, I don’t want to take a gamble on being that guy, you know?
That whole thread has been thoroughly nuked and I was touching grass then so I have zero context for it. I can only reiterate my last point: I think adults should also be exercising some discretion on the understanding that they don’t actually know the people behind the other accounts either. It’s really, really easy to not do creep shit, all you have to do is not be a creep.
Your explanation does help me understand why this place feels way more reactionary about sex compared to before my grass-touching, though, so thanks for outlining what happened there
Yeah… Free and open access to porn and NSFW spaces is really not good for young people’s development.
