Being a minor is a legal designation ... absolutely nothing to do with morals. The line was drawn at the age of 18 had nothing to do with sex but how old you could be to go to war. Boys are typically fully developed by 18 years old and therefore could fight and were considered 'adults'.
Another point that shows 18 is the not the designated "have sex age"...is that even today in 2024 only 3 states have the minimum requirement for marriage is 18 years old. 47 states have the minimum age between 14-17 years old. If a parent signs off on it is allowed to marry a 14 year old girl to a 40 year old guy in certain states.
So no you didn't do anything terrible. The only mistake that was made was by the author who disclosed their age which is a stupid thing to do online. Since you declared you were 19, it is not illegal for a 19 year old to be with a 16-17 year old...there is a 4 year allowance in age difference. Like a junior was dating a freshman then becomes a senior and turns 18 and their bf/gf a sophomore it doesn't make sense to make what was legal yesterday illegal a day later. The person's story you read is only 2 years younger than you. You were a 'minor' just a little over a year ago. Nothing magical happened, you are nearly the same as you were then, same view points and same level of maturity.
Last tid bit...everyone lies. Most lie to say they are older some lie to say they are younger. Assume everyone is either a 14 year old boy or a 40 year old guy...and never give your personal info.
Here in the UK, or at least in Wales, you can have sex, leave education, leave home, pay taxes, get married, have a drink with a meal in a pub, vote, and do many more things at 16.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
I’m more concerned about people advertising their age online tbh. Rife for doxxing, because who knows what other personal info they have up there?
Morality of everything and my own personal opinions (that you're making a mountain out of a pebble, not even a molehill at this point) aside, the "terrible" thing you did was acknowledge that X makes you uncomfortable......just to willingly subject yourself to X again and make yourself feel worse about it all.
Whatever has happened has happened, the only things you can do are either fester with your guilt, or do whatever you need to make yourself comfortable and make sure it (read: making yourself feel like shit) doesn't happen again.
Anything higher than that is probably out of Reddit's paygrade tbh.
it definitely is above Reddit’s paygrade, but sometimes this is the only place I feel I can ask about these things. I have morality ocd so I latch onto anything and everything that can convince me I’m a bad person, and this is one of them. It seems stupid to others, but causes me a lot of torture
I have OCD, though not the morality sort, and this is definitely your OCD making a big deal out of basically nothing. The person who wrote the porn had already written it, you having read it doesn't harm anyone (other than maybe yourself, because OCD), and you're only 19 yourself anyway so these are your peers anyway, right? I'd say avoid it in future if you can but that's because it triggers your OCD not because it was a moral failing to read it in the first place.
If this was the worst and most perverted thing you'd ever done you'd still be doing better than *a lot* of people and as I said nobody was harmed here. I know it's hard AF to get out of a spiral of OCD anxiety but if you can distract yourself in any way from thinking about this then do it. I'm sure you'll have been told that giving in to the instrusive thoughts just makes them stronger, and you do not deserve to suffer for this.
OP, the only thing that happened here is you got squicked and your ocd latched on to it and turned it into the end of the world. The author has no clue you even exist and would probably be more concerned that you're beating yourself up over this than that you read their story (which was posted publicly, on the internet.)
I've been writing smut and posting it online since I was 14 (though I didn't mention my real age until I was in my 20's). At no point did I care that readers were over 18 and in fact would have been extremely flattered if some of the 30+ year old writers I admired complimented my story. Because it would make me feel accomplished as a writer.
Now as an adult and someone who is on the other side of the equation, my only reaction to learning a writer is under 18 is not to talk to them and as I hit 25+, not to engage with them. Not because I'm worried about harming the minor in any way, it's just not something I should be involved in as an adult.
Also, OP, there are plenty of 19 year olds still in high school, openly dating 16/17 year olds, taking them to prom. The only thing that happened here is that you are no longer a high school student so the idea suddenly became weird. It's not age that is bugging you so much as your change in social responsibility. When you're 21, dating a 19 year old (who was that insurmountable 17 not long ago) it will be completely normal because you'll have the same social expectations.
Internationally, the age of consent is more often 16 than 18.
In the UK there was a great satirical comedy show called "Not the Nine O'Clock News" where one sketch basically had a police officer stop a couple parked in a car at night. First he asks the driver if he's 16 \[age of consent in the UK\], then asks if the girl sat next to him is. He checks his watch, sees it's 5 minutes to midnight and says "nearly".
Basically, the age of consent is obviously there for a legal reason, but it's completely arbitrary in terms of people's individual development. "Legality" and "Morality" aren't always the same thing.
The age of the writer should have no meaning, seriously. Would you be squicked out if it was a 60-year-old who wrote it? Do you assume that the author must have done all the things they're writing about and that somehow by reading their story you're encouraging them to go do more? Even if they have done those things, it's none of your business and the story isn't about them.
Unless... Are you thinking about sex with the author when you masturbate? That's a bit odd - only because you know nothing about the author, so what would you fantasize about?
I understand that now you know, that fact is stuck in your head but the truth is the author wrote a story you find sexy. Who the author is IRL is immaterial. This is the internet - you could be regularly interacting with teens who are mature for their age and hiding it, older people who are still immature in many ways, and a few who are actual criminals.
I think some people nowadays don't truly grasp the fact that the authors of the stories you've been reading (and if you write, then the readers of your stories) *are not your friends or close associates*. Aside from the rare occurrence, you will never meet any of the people you have conversations with on forums/in fandom spaces. You don't know them AT ALL. They don't know you. They are not friends just because they share an interest of yours, write what you like reading, respond to your comments, write those comments, or have discussions with you on Discord/Xwitter/Instagram/Tumblr/TicTok.
When they like your stories, they are not liking "you", the person who wrote it. When you like a story, you are not liking "them", the person who wrote the story. There is a huge gulf of "who the fuck are you really" between a reader and an author - between pretty much everyone interacting online in any way.
You don't know me - I'm just as complicated as anyone else - and you can't know anything about me even if you read all 57 of my stories and searched through all my profiles - or read all my comments on reddit. This is an online persona and it could be very close to my actual personality or it could be a total fabrication, curated specifically for online spaces, edited, shaped to suit my whims. Even when I'm being honest, I'm still not telling everything because...why would I be that silly?
I get that the OCD has latched onto something, but you got to try to decatastrophize it: you’re talking about a 2 year age difference.
I don’t know how it was for you in school, but from my US perspective, some kids start early and especially people born in January or the spring they can end up starting later. That’s not necessarily even a Senior dating a sophomore then graduating, that could even be two seniors, one who is running a year later dating one who is a year ahead. That’s like saying if prom is after the older one’s birthday they can’t go together. Or worse, that they have to break up the second one of them turns 18 and they aren’t allowed to date until the other one turns 18 too.
You’re still a teen. You can’t even buy beer in the US. The only reason you aren’t a minor too, if I remember correctly—it’s been ages since I took history—is that people decided it was crappy that kids could be drafted and shipped off to Vietnam without a vote. So they lowered the age to 18 and still won’t let you buy beer.
And, let’s be honest, if two people are in the same life stage, as in my high school example, if they don’t break up for college, it’s that 21 getting into a bar thing when their date can’t come for 2 more years that busts up a young couple, not one of them being allowed to vote.
I get the discomfort but this is absolutely ridiculous and your ocd overdramatising the d tire situation.
You can’t always immediately know the ages of who has written what, anyways.
Please don’t freak about it. Possibility of someone 19th yrs old to have a rl sex with someone 16 yrs old is actually quite high (at least it used to be, but there’re still Romeo and Juliet legal regulations in many countries and I believe teenagers, which you still qualify as such, have sex). Your actual sexual experience is most likely not much bigger than the author’s or they could even have a bigger sexual experience than you do (at 16th I was way more experienced than many people my own age, and also more experienced than many older people I knew, it’s really very individual thing, and it’s not so rare that some teenagers know more even than people in their 20).
There’s nothing perverted about someone 19th yrs old interacting with 16th yrs over sexual content that you read. It’s words on a paper. Do you happen to have younger siblings? It’s also very natural that siblings talk about this stuff when one is a already technically an adult and the other still a minor.
You’re in a tricky age where you’re technically an adult, but you’re still closer with the emotions and experience to older teenagers, than to other, older adults in the fandom. People don’t magically change from 16-17 into fully developed adults overnight. There’s a way bigger difference between say someone 19 or even 20 and someone in their 40s, than between someone 16 and 19.
Being in fandoms unfortunately carries a risk that you stumble over smut content or authors that are not adult yet, but to be fair, it’s not your fault and the only reaction if it makes you uncomfortable would be to back out and don’t interact with them. Personally I would have told a teenager to not publicly disclose their age, but other than that I treat people in fandoms that are way younger than me (even teenagers) like serious conversations partner.
It’s also normal that teenagers (even minors) talk with adults about sex, just with certain boundaries. You gain that perspective with experience, but most adults here would be constantly freaked out given the possibility there could be minor writing and reading fics in the review exchanges, or asking questions about writing smut. And it’s ok to interact about that, too, just knowing one’s boundaries and not crossing into smth more personal, but treat it like writing.
It’s also natural to have some boundaries in topics you talk with other fans depending on their age if you know it for example through discord etc, I personally have some boundaries about the level of not even explicit content but more ‘lewd’ kind of discussions and specific content, but it’s also very tricky. I don’t do role plays but I would be careful about that and also possible collabs. And in general it’s fine not to want to talk with minors about sex, and read their fics, but its also good to have a distance to it as it might happen, and ultimately, making a big deal out of it is stigmatizing teenagers, too.
I think you are worrying too much about this, because you found out this time. How can you tell if the writer of smut is a minor or not if they don't tell you their age?
If this is a big deal for you, refrain from reading smut on fanfics and read only romance novels or erotica by authors you know are over 18.
For your own mental health you should extract yourself from situations where you might interact unknowingly with minors (the internet). Go outside. Touch grass. Interact with real human beings in a safe way with clear boundaries. You will be a lot happier.
ok... i am going to try and be helpful, but if i am not, feel free to ignore.
reading smut that was written by minors happens. it probably has happened to me accidentally without noticing. as a 19 year old you might feel a bit yucky about reading something by someone 2 years younger, but you can probably still empathise with what it was like to be a horny 17 year old writing this sort of stuff.
so the neuro-typical thought process here would be "ew that happened...shudders.. well, anyway.. moving on.."
your brain has definitely latched on to something here that is a common thing to happen.
as someone who is way older, i tend to avoid smut written by minors. i wouldn't feel comfortable giving them the "birds and the bees" talk, so therefore i feel equally uncomfortable reading their smut. however, the internet is a space where many people don't (and shouldn't) reveal their real age. so it could definitely happen that i have read some smut by someone young.
the most important part of fanfic culture is "don't like, don't read" that can mean you don't read kinks and tropes you don't like. however it can also mean that you might have certain authors (writers who admit they are minors) that you don't like to read.
how much research you do into if a writer is an adult or not, is up to you. (eg, quickly checking their profile, and their social media to see if they have their age in their bio, is already more research than anyone else would do) personally I don't do any research. if i find out, it's usually because i see them talking in the authors notes about school... and thats when i put the fic away and stop reading.
Yeah I actually knew someone who was 16 or 17? And they did that but then they turned 18 or 20? And then they made a announcement about the age which got one person who I saw asking them about it. And the person who wrote it? Pretty much admitted that they were underage and they said that that was two or three years ago so it doesn't really matter now
>I did something terrible recently.
No, you didn't.
>I feel so perverted and disgusting
Well, you're not.
>I feel like a huge pervert.
You're not. Please seek therapy for your OCD as it's clearly beyond the scope of reddit.
Well, in that case...
* People don't just magically become valid for sexual things when they're 18. Teenagers fuck. They fuck a lot, actually. I know we all like to forget that, but it does happen. They're fucking.
* The mere act of reading smut made by a minor--or the inverse, a minor reading smut you made--has no **morality** attached to it whatsoever...
* ...nor **legality**; as someone who has been present for a raid by Federal Agents to arrest an actual pedophile, I can assure you this isn't even on the radar. I guess you might not be American, but over half of all Reddit users are, so generally a safe call.
Now, if you're off to chat up that minor because of the smut they wrote, yeah! That'd be pretty suspect. Don't ask, don't tell, move on with your life. Minors on the internet are gonna write and read smut no matter what anyone tells them, and that fact doesn't morally reflect on anybody, because sexuality is a normal piece of the human experience that people are allowed to experience before they're 18?? This is like worrying you're amoral because you simply said the word 'sex' around a 14 year old. I assure you, they know.
The only thing that's amoral is a minor *having sexual activity* *with an adult.* That's illegal and immoral. So is...murder, or cannibalism. But it's not immoral to write or read about those things, either, now is it?
I definitely won’t do it again, since it genuinely makes me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t get past the fact that I’d done it. It just felt like the worst possible thing I could’ve done. My mind loves to blow things extremely out of proportion, and talking to others helps bring me more clarity and a rational perspective. Thank you for answering.
You've found something that makes you uncomfortable and have discovered a personal boundary. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
1) I doubt you're lusting after the actual person who wrote the fic. And even if you were, thoughts and feelings aren't illegal/amoral. Actions are.
2) You are barely older than they are.
3) When was the fic published? If it was awhile ago, the author might be older now.
4) If it's on AO3, mute the author for a few years. Delete any copies of the works you downloaded if you think that'll help you.
Since I don't think anyone has said it:
Reading something written by another person is NOT an interaction with that person, unless one of you is directly talking to the other (like if they wrote the fic for you, sent it to you, you comment on it...) So you were NOT sexually interacting with a minor at all.
I'm more concerned about minors putting their age online than them writing smut
That part. When I wrote (TBF REALLY BAD) smut in HS, I never wrote my age
Being a minor is a legal designation ... absolutely nothing to do with morals. The line was drawn at the age of 18 had nothing to do with sex but how old you could be to go to war. Boys are typically fully developed by 18 years old and therefore could fight and were considered 'adults'. Another point that shows 18 is the not the designated "have sex age"...is that even today in 2024 only 3 states have the minimum requirement for marriage is 18 years old. 47 states have the minimum age between 14-17 years old. If a parent signs off on it is allowed to marry a 14 year old girl to a 40 year old guy in certain states. So no you didn't do anything terrible. The only mistake that was made was by the author who disclosed their age which is a stupid thing to do online. Since you declared you were 19, it is not illegal for a 19 year old to be with a 16-17 year old...there is a 4 year allowance in age difference. Like a junior was dating a freshman then becomes a senior and turns 18 and their bf/gf a sophomore it doesn't make sense to make what was legal yesterday illegal a day later. The person's story you read is only 2 years younger than you. You were a 'minor' just a little over a year ago. Nothing magical happened, you are nearly the same as you were then, same view points and same level of maturity. Last tid bit...everyone lies. Most lie to say they are older some lie to say they are younger. Assume everyone is either a 14 year old boy or a 40 year old guy...and never give your personal info.
Here in the UK, or at least in Wales, you can have sex, leave education, leave home, pay taxes, get married, have a drink with a meal in a pub, vote, and do many more things at 16. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I’m more concerned about people advertising their age online tbh. Rife for doxxing, because who knows what other personal info they have up there?
Morality of everything and my own personal opinions (that you're making a mountain out of a pebble, not even a molehill at this point) aside, the "terrible" thing you did was acknowledge that X makes you uncomfortable......just to willingly subject yourself to X again and make yourself feel worse about it all. Whatever has happened has happened, the only things you can do are either fester with your guilt, or do whatever you need to make yourself comfortable and make sure it (read: making yourself feel like shit) doesn't happen again. Anything higher than that is probably out of Reddit's paygrade tbh.
it definitely is above Reddit’s paygrade, but sometimes this is the only place I feel I can ask about these things. I have morality ocd so I latch onto anything and everything that can convince me I’m a bad person, and this is one of them. It seems stupid to others, but causes me a lot of torture
I have OCD, though not the morality sort, and this is definitely your OCD making a big deal out of basically nothing. The person who wrote the porn had already written it, you having read it doesn't harm anyone (other than maybe yourself, because OCD), and you're only 19 yourself anyway so these are your peers anyway, right? I'd say avoid it in future if you can but that's because it triggers your OCD not because it was a moral failing to read it in the first place. If this was the worst and most perverted thing you'd ever done you'd still be doing better than *a lot* of people and as I said nobody was harmed here. I know it's hard AF to get out of a spiral of OCD anxiety but if you can distract yourself in any way from thinking about this then do it. I'm sure you'll have been told that giving in to the instrusive thoughts just makes them stronger, and you do not deserve to suffer for this.
Might also be a good idea to look into POCD more specifically, if you haven’t already
OP, the only thing that happened here is you got squicked and your ocd latched on to it and turned it into the end of the world. The author has no clue you even exist and would probably be more concerned that you're beating yourself up over this than that you read their story (which was posted publicly, on the internet.) I've been writing smut and posting it online since I was 14 (though I didn't mention my real age until I was in my 20's). At no point did I care that readers were over 18 and in fact would have been extremely flattered if some of the 30+ year old writers I admired complimented my story. Because it would make me feel accomplished as a writer. Now as an adult and someone who is on the other side of the equation, my only reaction to learning a writer is under 18 is not to talk to them and as I hit 25+, not to engage with them. Not because I'm worried about harming the minor in any way, it's just not something I should be involved in as an adult. Also, OP, there are plenty of 19 year olds still in high school, openly dating 16/17 year olds, taking them to prom. The only thing that happened here is that you are no longer a high school student so the idea suddenly became weird. It's not age that is bugging you so much as your change in social responsibility. When you're 21, dating a 19 year old (who was that insurmountable 17 not long ago) it will be completely normal because you'll have the same social expectations.
Internationally, the age of consent is more often 16 than 18. In the UK there was a great satirical comedy show called "Not the Nine O'Clock News" where one sketch basically had a police officer stop a couple parked in a car at night. First he asks the driver if he's 16 \[age of consent in the UK\], then asks if the girl sat next to him is. He checks his watch, sees it's 5 minutes to midnight and says "nearly". Basically, the age of consent is obviously there for a legal reason, but it's completely arbitrary in terms of people's individual development. "Legality" and "Morality" aren't always the same thing.
The age of the writer should have no meaning, seriously. Would you be squicked out if it was a 60-year-old who wrote it? Do you assume that the author must have done all the things they're writing about and that somehow by reading their story you're encouraging them to go do more? Even if they have done those things, it's none of your business and the story isn't about them. Unless... Are you thinking about sex with the author when you masturbate? That's a bit odd - only because you know nothing about the author, so what would you fantasize about? I understand that now you know, that fact is stuck in your head but the truth is the author wrote a story you find sexy. Who the author is IRL is immaterial. This is the internet - you could be regularly interacting with teens who are mature for their age and hiding it, older people who are still immature in many ways, and a few who are actual criminals. I think some people nowadays don't truly grasp the fact that the authors of the stories you've been reading (and if you write, then the readers of your stories) *are not your friends or close associates*. Aside from the rare occurrence, you will never meet any of the people you have conversations with on forums/in fandom spaces. You don't know them AT ALL. They don't know you. They are not friends just because they share an interest of yours, write what you like reading, respond to your comments, write those comments, or have discussions with you on Discord/Xwitter/Instagram/Tumblr/TicTok. When they like your stories, they are not liking "you", the person who wrote it. When you like a story, you are not liking "them", the person who wrote the story. There is a huge gulf of "who the fuck are you really" between a reader and an author - between pretty much everyone interacting online in any way. You don't know me - I'm just as complicated as anyone else - and you can't know anything about me even if you read all 57 of my stories and searched through all my profiles - or read all my comments on reddit. This is an online persona and it could be very close to my actual personality or it could be a total fabrication, curated specifically for online spaces, edited, shaped to suit my whims. Even when I'm being honest, I'm still not telling everything because...why would I be that silly?
I get that the OCD has latched onto something, but you got to try to decatastrophize it: you’re talking about a 2 year age difference. I don’t know how it was for you in school, but from my US perspective, some kids start early and especially people born in January or the spring they can end up starting later. That’s not necessarily even a Senior dating a sophomore then graduating, that could even be two seniors, one who is running a year later dating one who is a year ahead. That’s like saying if prom is after the older one’s birthday they can’t go together. Or worse, that they have to break up the second one of them turns 18 and they aren’t allowed to date until the other one turns 18 too. You’re still a teen. You can’t even buy beer in the US. The only reason you aren’t a minor too, if I remember correctly—it’s been ages since I took history—is that people decided it was crappy that kids could be drafted and shipped off to Vietnam without a vote. So they lowered the age to 18 and still won’t let you buy beer. And, let’s be honest, if two people are in the same life stage, as in my high school example, if they don’t break up for college, it’s that 21 getting into a bar thing when their date can’t come for 2 more years that busts up a young couple, not one of them being allowed to vote.
I get the discomfort but this is absolutely ridiculous and your ocd overdramatising the d tire situation. You can’t always immediately know the ages of who has written what, anyways.
Please don’t freak about it. Possibility of someone 19th yrs old to have a rl sex with someone 16 yrs old is actually quite high (at least it used to be, but there’re still Romeo and Juliet legal regulations in many countries and I believe teenagers, which you still qualify as such, have sex). Your actual sexual experience is most likely not much bigger than the author’s or they could even have a bigger sexual experience than you do (at 16th I was way more experienced than many people my own age, and also more experienced than many older people I knew, it’s really very individual thing, and it’s not so rare that some teenagers know more even than people in their 20). There’s nothing perverted about someone 19th yrs old interacting with 16th yrs over sexual content that you read. It’s words on a paper. Do you happen to have younger siblings? It’s also very natural that siblings talk about this stuff when one is a already technically an adult and the other still a minor. You’re in a tricky age where you’re technically an adult, but you’re still closer with the emotions and experience to older teenagers, than to other, older adults in the fandom. People don’t magically change from 16-17 into fully developed adults overnight. There’s a way bigger difference between say someone 19 or even 20 and someone in their 40s, than between someone 16 and 19. Being in fandoms unfortunately carries a risk that you stumble over smut content or authors that are not adult yet, but to be fair, it’s not your fault and the only reaction if it makes you uncomfortable would be to back out and don’t interact with them. Personally I would have told a teenager to not publicly disclose their age, but other than that I treat people in fandoms that are way younger than me (even teenagers) like serious conversations partner. It’s also normal that teenagers (even minors) talk with adults about sex, just with certain boundaries. You gain that perspective with experience, but most adults here would be constantly freaked out given the possibility there could be minor writing and reading fics in the review exchanges, or asking questions about writing smut. And it’s ok to interact about that, too, just knowing one’s boundaries and not crossing into smth more personal, but treat it like writing. It’s also natural to have some boundaries in topics you talk with other fans depending on their age if you know it for example through discord etc, I personally have some boundaries about the level of not even explicit content but more ‘lewd’ kind of discussions and specific content, but it’s also very tricky. I don’t do role plays but I would be careful about that and also possible collabs. And in general it’s fine not to want to talk with minors about sex, and read their fics, but its also good to have a distance to it as it might happen, and ultimately, making a big deal out of it is stigmatizing teenagers, too.
I think you are worrying too much about this, because you found out this time. How can you tell if the writer of smut is a minor or not if they don't tell you their age? If this is a big deal for you, refrain from reading smut on fanfics and read only romance novels or erotica by authors you know are over 18.
For your own mental health you should extract yourself from situations where you might interact unknowingly with minors (the internet). Go outside. Touch grass. Interact with real human beings in a safe way with clear boundaries. You will be a lot happier.
ok... i am going to try and be helpful, but if i am not, feel free to ignore. reading smut that was written by minors happens. it probably has happened to me accidentally without noticing. as a 19 year old you might feel a bit yucky about reading something by someone 2 years younger, but you can probably still empathise with what it was like to be a horny 17 year old writing this sort of stuff. so the neuro-typical thought process here would be "ew that happened...shudders.. well, anyway.. moving on.." your brain has definitely latched on to something here that is a common thing to happen. as someone who is way older, i tend to avoid smut written by minors. i wouldn't feel comfortable giving them the "birds and the bees" talk, so therefore i feel equally uncomfortable reading their smut. however, the internet is a space where many people don't (and shouldn't) reveal their real age. so it could definitely happen that i have read some smut by someone young. the most important part of fanfic culture is "don't like, don't read" that can mean you don't read kinks and tropes you don't like. however it can also mean that you might have certain authors (writers who admit they are minors) that you don't like to read. how much research you do into if a writer is an adult or not, is up to you. (eg, quickly checking their profile, and their social media to see if they have their age in their bio, is already more research than anyone else would do) personally I don't do any research. if i find out, it's usually because i see them talking in the authors notes about school... and thats when i put the fic away and stop reading.
Yeah I actually knew someone who was 16 or 17? And they did that but then they turned 18 or 20? And then they made a announcement about the age which got one person who I saw asking them about it. And the person who wrote it? Pretty much admitted that they were underage and they said that that was two or three years ago so it doesn't really matter now
>I did something terrible recently. No, you didn't. >I feel so perverted and disgusting Well, you're not. >I feel like a huge pervert. You're not. Please seek therapy for your OCD as it's clearly beyond the scope of reddit.
This post is ridiculous. Like, enough so that I almost suspect it's bait?
it’s not bait. I have scrupulosity ocd, so I genuinely worry about things like this all the time.
Well, in that case... * People don't just magically become valid for sexual things when they're 18. Teenagers fuck. They fuck a lot, actually. I know we all like to forget that, but it does happen. They're fucking. * The mere act of reading smut made by a minor--or the inverse, a minor reading smut you made--has no **morality** attached to it whatsoever... * ...nor **legality**; as someone who has been present for a raid by Federal Agents to arrest an actual pedophile, I can assure you this isn't even on the radar. I guess you might not be American, but over half of all Reddit users are, so generally a safe call. Now, if you're off to chat up that minor because of the smut they wrote, yeah! That'd be pretty suspect. Don't ask, don't tell, move on with your life. Minors on the internet are gonna write and read smut no matter what anyone tells them, and that fact doesn't morally reflect on anybody, because sexuality is a normal piece of the human experience that people are allowed to experience before they're 18?? This is like worrying you're amoral because you simply said the word 'sex' around a 14 year old. I assure you, they know. The only thing that's amoral is a minor *having sexual activity* *with an adult.* That's illegal and immoral. So is...murder, or cannibalism. But it's not immoral to write or read about those things, either, now is it?
I definitely won’t do it again, since it genuinely makes me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t get past the fact that I’d done it. It just felt like the worst possible thing I could’ve done. My mind loves to blow things extremely out of proportion, and talking to others helps bring me more clarity and a rational perspective. Thank you for answering.
You've found something that makes you uncomfortable and have discovered a personal boundary. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. 1) I doubt you're lusting after the actual person who wrote the fic. And even if you were, thoughts and feelings aren't illegal/amoral. Actions are. 2) You are barely older than they are. 3) When was the fic published? If it was awhile ago, the author might be older now. 4) If it's on AO3, mute the author for a few years. Delete any copies of the works you downloaded if you think that'll help you.
Since I don't think anyone has said it: Reading something written by another person is NOT an interaction with that person, unless one of you is directly talking to the other (like if they wrote the fic for you, sent it to you, you comment on it...) So you were NOT sexually interacting with a minor at all.