Should we have a policy on questions about adult topics in SFF?

Question

While we have a long-standing policy that it's OK to ask about adult topics here - everything from sex to rape to bestiality - there have also been quite a number of questions in recent years which have stirred up controversy and disagreement within the community as to how they should be handled. Even mods exercising their discretion to close or delete such questions has often been met with resistance. For example:

• Has George R. R. Martin described the color of Daenerys' pubic hair in any book? - VTCed, deleted, undeleted; ensuing meta discussion.

• Did Draco Malfoy sexually assault Hermione Granger? - closed, deleted, reopened, undeleted, closed, deleted, undeleted, deleted; ensuing meta discussion.

• Godfather, Sirius Black - Dogfather as well? - closed, reopened, closed, deleted, undeleted, had more VTROs but now 2 VTDs; ensuing meta discussion.

Mod-deletion of such questions isn't a new thing: e.g. see What's the stamina of Wolverine on bed? from 2015, although in that case the community seemed fairly unanimous against the question and it didn't cause much controversy. On the other hand, we've also had many questions about sex and even rape and bestiality in children's books which have been well-received. Even recently, we have a clear policy that being about erotica shouldn't be a reason to consider story-ID questions off-topic.

Many of these questions have attracted custom moderator flags going both ways: some people flag to say "this question is inappropriate and should be deleted" and others flag to say "this question is bad but on-topic and should be reopened/undeleted". With so much disagreement among the community on each individual case (as evidenced by the close/reopen and delete/undelete wars on many of these questions), it's hard for moderators to know how to handle such flags. Obviously we won't be able to keep everyone happy no matter what, but ideally it would be nice to have a clear meta policy on questions of this type, which we can point to when taking action on them or handling people's flags.

Ideas I've seen proposed in comments include:

• that there should be some form of notability (e.g. "was Umbridge raped by centaurs" is OK because this is a widely-known fan theory, but "did Sirius Black have sex with female dogs" isn't because it's not a notable claim that he did) - but we don't have any such requirement for any other types of question, so this unprecedented criterion would require a clear meta consensus;
• that the question should be asked in good faith (e.g. questions which appear to be posted just for shock or titillation value aren't OK, but questions springing from genuine curiosity about a work of SFF are) - but judging an OP's motivation is always difficult, and even mods, who are more used to making such judgement calls, have often been called out on meta for exercising their discretion on such questions.

What should our policy be on how to treat questions on 'adult topics' like this? When should they be closed or deleted as opposed to simply downvoted?

Please propose and vote on possible policies below!

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EDIT to summarise the conclusion

After much debate, the voting has settled in favour of this answer (now +24/-3; the second answer is +19/-10 and says something similar, and the third answer is +15/-8). Executive summary:

• adult topics should never be a reason to close or delete an otherwise on-topic question;
• as always, downvotes are yours to use as you choose;
• any unnecessary prurience can be edited out if it doesn't affect the thrust of the question.

Following this policy, I've reopened the two Harry Potter questions from the bullet points above. In future, if you see questions of this type getting closed incorrectly, feel free to flag them (perhaps with a link to this meta) for mod reopening and locking if necessary.

Answer 1

The rules are fine as-is.

Reference:

• Should questions about sex and other adult activities be off-topic?
• What's our tolerance for adult content?

But phantom, there are so many arguments!

Hey, I didn't say that the whole situation is good - just that the rules are fine. Let's back up.

Based on the existing guidelines, adult content and topics are OK.

My answer on one of the previous questions mentioned that I was OK with the questions

[so] long as the question is written with a reasonable level of maturity and lack of vulgarity.

This answer was a net +25 score, with only one dissenter (likely the OP). The net +33 score did not establish any qualifications for questions, just saying that the content was OK.

But clearly the existing rules aren't working! So many arguments!

Some of these questions are kind of tasteless. Others are not. Some questions about sex and sexuality have high question scores and good responses.

So what's the difference between them? My very scientific research of looking at comments that are still available, and my ultra-reliable memory of comments that are gone shows us a few themes that keep popping up.

• terrible, borderline-offensive questions

• I'm voting to delete. Given the lack of notability in the claim, these sorts of questions could be asked endlessly.

• Prurient questions about bestiality are not suitable for a site aimed at a 13+ fanbase.

• It's got nothing to do with the subject matter, it's just a lousy question that deserved to be closed and deleted.

• Since it was a sexual question, failed any notability standards (link to plot, link to characters, link to SFF elements, etc)

So, based on negative comments, it seems that there is no question about them being "on-topic" - it's a matter of content. Primarily, either the content is poor, or the notability is low.

Low-Quality

Historically, we don't close questions just for being low quality. If the question is on-topic, it remains open and we downvote them as we see fit.

Notability

We are not [skeptics.se], and we've never had a "notability" requirement before, so I'm not really sure where all this is coming from. A bad, or poorly researched question is bad, or poorly researched question - and users are free to downvote them as they see fit, but they are on-topic. In our previous discussion How do we handle questions based on incorrect premise?, we decided that no special handling was needed. Either downvote, or attempt to correct OP either via comments or through an answer.

Prurient Questions (Intent)

As LethalCarrot points out in comments, the same question can seem more/less prurient just by changing the wording and provided background of the question.

1. "Young Griff is described as muscular and handsome and really get's my juices flowing, do we know if his pubes are described?"
2. "Young Griff has died purple hair and is claiming to be Aegon son of Rhaegar. The baby Aegon allegedly had the Targaryen traits (silver blonde hair) and Dany is described as having silver pubes. Do we know if Aegon's pubes are described as they could solve the mystery?"

Both Q's being what colour are Aegon's pubes? but different intent.

We've had discussions before (I can't find it on meta right now, it may have just been in chat) about removing "extra fluff" from questions - stuff like, "I was watching this movie and it made me think about..." because it's extraneous and has no bearing on the question. Also because it often clouds the intent of the question. But based on our discussion How do we feel about homework questions?, intent and reasoning behind asking a question is irrelevant.

Whether I'm asking about Wolverine's love life out of pure curiosity or seeking an answer for a paper has zero relevance on whether or not it is either a good question or if it is off-topic.

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So they're not off-topic by policy, but clearly people don't want these questions.

And yet, no one has articulated why or exactly what it is that they don't want. Instead, people are using the close/delete flags as super-downvotes.

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So, what do we do?

People are always going to use close/delete flags as super-downvotes. Even if we have a meta-established policy, it's just going to happen. Either people will disagree with the policy and continue, or people won't be aware of the policy. Policy should not change here. The policy itself is fine.

OK, so what do the mods do?

Follow existing policy. So long as the questions aren't vulgar or intentionally offensive, ask yourself "is the question itself on topic?" and act accordingly.

So don't do anything?

I'm not sure I'd actively support a movement to remove all extra fluff from questions, but I think trimming down controversial elements that don't make a huge impact on the crux of the question would be justifiable in situations like these.

Answer 2

Adult content is on-topic, but does need to treated with more scrutiny.

I think the question body here hits on the two points I agree with most... Notability and Good Faith.

_{To see what I think the policy should be, skip to the bottom}

The two ideas really go hand in hand. If you can show even a small amount of research as to why you are asking the question it usually demonstrate the same level of good faith. If you throw a two sentence question about two characters that don't interact much, and there is not even a slight implication from the source to confirm it, it makes me question why you asking the question.

Question on these topics tend to fall into the latter. What I notice is that people like to play Jump-to-Conclusions; they take antecedal evidence and use to it to make claims that almost, almost make sense but crumble under any type of scrutiny.

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Example 1:

Is Captain America gay? : The lowest voted question that remains not deleted (due to a moderator lock). It takes random evidence and forces a conclusion for the answers to confirm or deny. No notability and no good faith.

Counter Example 1:

In the films, was the portrayal of Captain America supposed to come across as gay? : While a controversial question itself, it maintained a positive score. It provides credible evidence from primary sources to reach a conclusion for the answers to expand and provide further evidence. Notability and good faith.

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Example 2:

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/181283/godfather-sirius-black-dogfather-as-well : I think that the question that sparked this meta also provides the best example of this plays out. The question provided not a stitch of evidence that this had happened nor why even why they might think it did. No notability and no good faith.

Counter Example 2:

What exactly did Aberforth Dumbledore do to the goats? - This question is also about the same touchy subject, but since it provides a reference from the work that gives evidence to the situation it was very well received. Notability and good faith.

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There many, many other examples like the ones shown. A question asked in good faith and that shows notability to the claim are well received. A question that does neither is not well received.

Posts should be required to show a minimal level of effort. This applies to all questions, but should particularly apply to questions that deal with adult topics.

Questions that do not meet quality standards can an should be removed. Again, this applies to all questions, but should particularly apply to questions that deal with adult topics.

This will not solve all problems. We regularly have meta discussion on just the closing of questions as duplicates, too broad, or primarily opinion based. I don't think any "policy" is going to change that. These discussion about closing and deleting are still going to happen. However, in the end this may give a starting point as to why...

Users with moderator tool privileges should close and delete these questions.

**To be clear I am not advocating adult content be off-topic, only that it meet the same standards as any other post. The only difference is that since it is questionable content, it needs to be removed instead of just "downvoted-to-heck".

Answer 3

We already have such a policy:

• If a question is on an adult topic, it's on-topic. No ifs, ends or buts.

  Also, "weird" "urges" is entirely in the eye of the beerholder. Some people like Carey and slashfics. Some people like My Little Pony. Some people like fiction that praises genocydal tyrants. Some people like Pokemon. Let's be a wee bit more tolerant here and not marginalize people based on our own subjective morality sense^[1].

• If a question is bad, you downvote it. VTC and delete are not super-downvotes.

• If a question violates the "be nice policy", it needs to be either edited to fix that, or in worst case scenario, deleted. According to general moderation principles, the former is preferred.

  Please note that this addresses the concerns over "tone", expressed in another answer. If the question has a poor tone, editing that tone out is usually not that hard.

• Unless someone invents real world mind reading machine, there is almost^[2] no legitimate way to generically determine the intent of the poster. So "it was a troll" or "it was to satisfy weird urges" (thank you very much for marginalizing people with unusual sexuality) is a personal subjective opinion of individual users, NOT a statement of objective fact that can be used to base a moderation decision on.

  This "no guessing intentions" is a policy on Skeptics, both regarding content itself (no questions asking about intentions) AND, more importantly, as I was repeatedly told by Skeptics moderators, regarding Meta issues (shouldn't assume site users' intentions). Over time, I have learned the wisdom of such an approach.

_{[1] - OK, let's marginalize people who like Twilight. I'm down for that}.

_{[2] - there are some very rare exceptional cases where the poster openly confirms their intentions - e.g. via a comment. In that case, it's quite OK to apply anti-troll policies}

Answer 4

Questions should be more than just the poster's speculation

I think we can all agree this deleted question is terrible

I've been lead to believe that their is a scene in either the book or the movie were Hermione is raped/sexually assaulted by Malfoy, did this actually happen?

Questions that simply speculate without any other references should be closed. The problem here isn't the adult nature, or even the speculation, it's the fact that there's nothing but the OP speculating. I don't think anyone wants a site full of questions like this.

This tends to be more prevalent in the adult realm, in that a lot of subject material (Harry Potter, LOTR, Star Wars, etc) never crosses that line into porn. For instance, we see Wolverine romancing women (and even bedding them), but we're never shown what happens in the NSFW realm (and it's highly unlikely Marvel would ever cross that line). Thus, asking us to estimate Wolverine's stamina in said situations leaves us with little but the speculation of the answerers. I would say we need to be just a bit more strict on adult questions for this reason. Promoting pure speculation on adult situations can go downhill really quick.

NSFW links should only answer questions

Generally speaking NSFW links are not acceptable on SO/SE. Since we're crafting policy for a site that discusses it, links to potentially NSFW material should warn people so they know what they're getting into up front (and ONLY to answer the question). SO really doesn't like exposing people to that stuff unintentionally

Treat sensitive issues sensitively

I don't think CMs would take kindly to anyone being cavalier about things like rape, incest, etc. But, increasingly, stories are going to such places. Don't be crass or crude about it. Discuss it like an adult. If it devolves, expect less tolerance for it (closure/deletion)

Answer 5

One consideration that appears to be missing from all the discussion here is Hot Network Questions. (This is based on my Ctrl+F of this question's page, so I may have missed some comments that mention it.) Since there are many users who access Stack Overflow, SuperUser, Server Fault, and other professionally oriented sties from work, keeping these questions from loading on their work terminals is desirable and prudent. But if one of them hits the Hot Network Questions, there is no way to control what pages the title loads on across the entire Stack Exchange network (as far as I'm aware). How can this be addressed/controlled?

In the same vein, is there any way for users who wish to avoid these questions to filter them out? Or do participants of this site have to accept the possibility they might be exposed to this type of content?

Answer 6

Why not take the Reddit approach and just expect people to use a [nsfw] tag?

Personally, I think it's silly, but it would allow sensitive members to filter out content that has any chance of seeming offensive.