This site and tag could really use a reminder that we’re not all American.
We don’t all have the same age of consent (though Ido understand and agree with covering your ass from rp’ing with those underaged to you) and the American 18+ doesn’t mean that everyone under 18 has never had sex even if we pretend that people wait until they’re of age.
We don’t all go to American colleges, eat American food or grow up calling football soccer.
We don’t all know American geography or how the states work or how the infrastructure looks and works compared to our hometown.
We don’t all have English as our first language.
Roleplaying Homestuck in human environments (pre-game, post-game, humanstuck) typically place us in America, sometimes for completely logical reasons and sometimes not. Thing is, roleplaying a completely different culture is HARD. We have to learn social cues and customs, basic geography and the social perspective on it, often we also need to know the cultural climate, traditions, some more legal stuff and basically a shitton of other stuff (why are American tampons so long, i.e.).
Most of us sort of learn the gist of this stuff, through hanging on tumblr or interacting with americans or intaking american culture such as books or v-shows. Through all this we create an idea of America we use when we roleplay. Many of you might not even think of the fact that you have a culture but to us it become very obvious especially when we say things in the context of the roleplay which might not be completely true to the culture and we are d/c’d for it.
Most of the time it seems we are pretty good at avoiding situations in which this will show, but in some instances it’s simply impossible to know without having been there.
You Americans have got a good deal for free in that you don’t have to do as much research and also have your oen country as starting point more often than not. (Not to mention the english language.)
Honestly, this is just a reminder. I don’t expect any changes and I don’t really feel like they’re necessary. I do, however,wish that American roleplayers keep this in mind and be kind on those of us who are still learning. America is not a stick with which to measure the world.
Alright, look, I get the point of what you’re saying and a lot of it is on point, but the 18+ thing is just wrong.
Most Americans know that kids have sex before 18, unless they are fundie conservatives. That’s why there’s an ongoing argument about the importance of sex ed in schools, because kids will have sex whether they know about it or not. Americans are not en masse sitting there thinking boy it’s sure a good thing I protected those 16 year olds from the nastiness of sex! Those poor innocent babies!
They make the 18+ rule because in most of the states you can be arrested as a sex offender if the person you’re smutting with is under 18.
Doesn’t matter where they’re from. Doesn’t matter if the age of consent in their country is younger. Doesn’t matter if their laws are different. In America, you’re still fucked (figuratively) if someone finds you roleplaying sexual things with a minor. Even if the minor “consented” (because you cannot consent to sexual activity with an adult before the age of 18). There are some states where the age is younger, but all in all, it’s just plain safer to make that rule.
If some Americans really think most children don’t have sex until over 18, they’re either very misled or very young. But that’s not what the rule is about. You say you understand it but I’m not quite sure why you even listed it if you do, much less attached “but kids DO have sex younger than that” to it. Of course they do! Most Americans are aware of it. I’m not sure why you think that’s part of the issue.
Obviously the RP world in general needs to be less America-centric and there needs to be a lot more understanding of people from different cultures, but some of the people RPing don’t know any more about American colleges or bars or mass transit or whatever else than non-Americans do, because they’re very young. But I really think the auto-DC thing goes a lot further than that and needs a lot more discussion than just the culture it reflects.
The people DCing need to have a lot more patience in general. I’ve almost never DCed from a roleplay until it had run its course and I got bored. But I’ve gotten DCed on within my first reply to someone else’s post several times with no explanation. Was it that I moved too fast? Was my writing not good enough for them (even though it was often better than the prompt – not to sound arrogant, but honestly and truly)? Did they realize maybe they didn’t want that character after all?
It’s weird that on a medium that makes anonymous communication so easy, there’s so little of it. Very few of my RPs have OOC conversation between posts – but the ones that do are fantastic, because we get to work out where we want things to go next and what appeals to us. I’d just urge people to use the OOC box more in general. Talk to your partners! Ask them about their reply if you don’t understand it! Don’t be shy, it’s anonymous, they don’t know who you are.
Basically most of your stuff is correct and RPers need to think a lot about it but I’m not sure why the 18+ paragraph is even there. It’s not about what age people have sex at, it’s about the American laws.