What happened to RavishU? Is this the Ravishment University?

[RaymondPISTACHIO]

What I will tell you is this: You will not casually joke about raping some other user's ass here, be they female or male. First and final warning.

I assure you, Lois is female.
I know this because we really did have a rape-lationship.
And after it was over, she became intolerant of my views, to the point of censorship.
Which was unfortunate. I take no pleasure in the irony that she herself has now been censored.
I would prefer NOBODY gets censored.

As for joking about rape (and anal rape in particular), if you've read my stories, you know that rape-comedy is kind of my genre.
I was under the impression that I was welcome here, even with my often off-putting sense of humor.

That being said, my fling with Lois was no joke. The time I spent with her before she became all censor-y is something that I remember quite fondly. And I assume she felt the same way about me, otherwise she wouldn't have flown here to see me.
Twice.

[Claire]

What I will tell you is this: You will not casually joke about raping some other user's ass here, be they female or male. First and final warning.

I assure you, Lois is female.
I know this because we really did have a rape-lationship.
And after it was over, she became intolerant of my views, to the point of censorship.
Which was unfortunate. I take no pleasure in the irony that she herself has now been censored.
I would prefer NOBODY gets censored.

As for joking about rape (and anal rape in particular), if you've read my stories, you know that rape-comedy is kind of my genre.
I was under the impression that I was welcome here, even with my often off-putting sense of humor.

That being said, my fling with Lois was no joke. The time I spent with her before she became all censor-y is something that I remember quite fondly. And I assume she felt the same way about me, otherwise she wouldn't have flown here to see me.
Twice.

If you are unable to distinguish between humor in a story and harassing a real person with your "jokes", then you are not welcome here. Go nurture your martyr complex somewhere else.

[Blue]

I was a member of RavishU from pretty much the beginning and had close contact with Lois, albeit only via email, etc. We actually wanted to meet in person, but unfortunately, that never worked out due to health reasons.

At first, RavishU ran smoothly. There were never any problems, even when stories involving minors were posted. And as more and more German members joined, Lois asked me if I would be willing to take on the moderation role for a separate German section, ensuring that discussions didn't get out of hand. This was no problem at first. I had to issue a few warnings, but after that, the forum quieted down again. Unfortunately, this also meant that while many stories were posted, there were virtually no comments. This prompted one or two authors to withdraw and stop posting any more stories.


It only became truly problematic when more and more protests arose across the internet addressing the topic of "sex with minors." Whether in photos, in posts like Instagram and Facebook, and especially on pages like these, this led to more and more pages being abandoned by their operators or closed by third parties.

Anyone who has followed RavishU for a while will have noticed that this forum suffered the same fate. It was precisely at the moment when the two new moderators, especially @Claire, were trying to rid RavishU of prohibited content (that alone was a huge task; I also helped here in the German forum, as time allowed, to check German stories for prohibited content) and, at the same time, to breathe new life into the old RavishU with a new forum structure and new rules.
Unfortunately, this failed. On the one hand, I was very sorry about this because of the many good stories posted there.
But when I see how this new place is slowly but surely developing, my regret is now limited.

And I fully understand that the moderation team here is taking every possible measure to prevent inappropriate posts from threatening to close one of the last remaining forums on this topic.

Anyone who thinks they can cause a stir with their extreme views is in the wrong place. There are other places on the internet for that.

With a little goodwill, all members here should be able to practice healthy cooperation without the moderator team having to resort to censorship or even excluding members.

My2Cents

[HumiliationInc]

There's no such thing as free speech on a web forum as forums are private spaces where the owners and moderators have the purview to determine what they want to allow on them. And that's typically a good thing. In all of my time on the interwebs, anytime I've come across a forum or message board dedicated to uncompromising free speech or no censorship, it inevitably just becomes a cesspool. It never becomes the high-brow discussion board where people can talk about the darker side of Nietzschean philosophy or real politick analysis of foreign affairs or whatever heady but un-PC discussion its naïve founders think is going to take place on there. Nope. Instead, it just becomes a magnet for racists, misogynists, cranks, pedos, etc. who flock there because polite society doesn't put up with their views.

With that said, it is possible to over moderate or inconsistently moderate a forum. But that's not really the issue regarding our recently banned friend here.

[JTCK]

Thank you for the summary. It's a shame about many great old stories that were lost with RavishU. But now I understand the background.
And hats off to you for putting in the work to renew RavishU. I already found that admirable back then. Criticizing is one thing, but actually rolling up your sleeves and making changes is something entirely different.

And then – after all the work the site was simply shut down – and you rolled up your sleeves again and built an entirely new and better site from scratch. Respect!

[JTCK]

What I will tell you though is this: You will not casually joke about raping some other user's ass here, be they female or male. You can do that all you want after they have agreed to a role play with you, but you will not casually make such remarks about other members of our community. First and final warning.

Thank you for the clear words. And also thanks to the other commenters for their wise words on censorship and necessary (!) moderation.

Isn't it ironic? A forum like this is one of the few places on the internet that I know of where people predominantly communicate respectfully. And when they don’t, a moderator steps in with a sense of balance.

[Claire]

@Blue Thank you for the insight into RavishU's history! And in case you feel sad that our efforts to make some changes to RavishU failed: I don't think what we were trying to do "failed". I thhink we were just too late. When it came to questionable content, the site was probably cleaner than it had been in 10 years when it was finally shut down. I'm sorry, though, Blue that the time and effort you, Vela and me put into making these changes was for nothing in the end.

@HumiliationInc I couldn't agree more with you.

@JTCK Thank you for the kind words. I would also like to point out that it wasn't me alone who did this. The forum was in a kind of beta test for almost one month and a half and especially @Vela Nanashi helped with a lot of things and still does so when it comes to customizing the various extensions that this forum uses. A lot of what she does is barely visible to the normal user visiting the forum. But @LaLia and @Shocker were also part of the beta test and helped shape this place into what it is now. So it was not me alone who did this.

Thank you for the clear words. And also thanks to the other commenters for their wise words on censorship and necessary (!) moderation.

Isn't it ironic? A forum like this is one of the few places on the internet that I know of where people predominantly communicate respectfully. And when they don’t, a moderator steps in with a sense of balance.

I think the more difficult the subject matter is that your community deals with, the more careful you have to be. If you leave a place largely unmoderated, chances are you are left with a community of edge lords. If behavior like what we saw here was accepted, chances are that people like you leave the forum behind. But more than that, I very much appreciate you and the others in this thread showing that you are not ok with this kind of behavior either. I think it is imortant that not just admins and moderators but the community at large signals that this behavior is not tolerated here.

[HistBuff]

The main issues with RU have already been very well covered in this thread. I was on RU from late 2019 to the bitter end. In my first two years there, I saw the very last of those years where RU ran rather smoothly, and I remember there was quite a bit more feedback and activity then. Most of my early stories had UA content because back then, it wasn't an issue at all. There were actual pedophiles there too, but they were a small minority. Most writers simply took advantage of the freedom to create stories that sounded real and vivid, no matter the context.

The issue came from a major societal shift where anyone under 18 suddenly became a "child" and bringing in a 17-year-old character became offensive. This way of thinking really caught traction in the late 2010s. This trend was reflected on the Internet as a whole, with pressure on Web hosts to pay more attention to the content they allow on their platforms. All of a sudden, having UA content in a sex story became a really really bad thing and an extremely sensitive topic.

***

So where does that put me as a writer here? I personally feel that the more freedom I have to create, the better. This has to be put into balance with the safety of this site and the vision of this site's administration.

As a writer, I simply have to strike a balance between creativity and living with the rules in place. For some types of stories, I'll be honest, it sucks -- Having bad guys rape three girls and not caring about one of them being 16 or 17 is a great way to establish how ruthless and immoral they are, and there's no real substitute for this. Pure high-school stories are out, and that sucks too, especially for consensual. But for most stories it's not a problem and you can actually have underage characters play an important role as long as they're not sexualized. I'm not gonna lie and pretend it doesn't change anything, because it absolutely does. So I want to strike a good balance and write great, creative stories that are allowable here. I'm very much in agreement with @Blue about RU's fate.

[LtBroccoli]

The main issues with RU have already been very well covered in this thread. I was on RU from late 2019 to the bitter end. In my first two years there, I saw the very last of those years where RU ran rather smoothly, and I remember there was quite a bit more feedback and activity then. Most of my early stories had UA content because back then, it wasn't an issue at all. There were actual pedophiles there too, but they were a small minority. Most writers simply took advantage of the freedom to create stories that sounded real and vivid, no matter the context.

The issue came from a major societal shift where anyone under 18 suddenly became a "child" and bringing in a 17-year-old character became offensive. This way of thinking really caught traction in the late 2010s. This trend was reflected on the Internet as a whole, with pressure on Web hosts to pay more attention to the content they allow on their platforms. All of a sudden, having UA content in a sex story became a really really bad thing and an extremely sensitive topic.

***

So where does that put me as a writer here? I personally feel that the more freedom I have to create, the better. This has to be put into balance with the safety of this site and the vision of its administration. I've looked at our host's policy on UA and the language is alas very generic. "Under Legal Age Nudity" https://abelohost.com/acceptable-use-policy/

Do they mean pictures? Written depictions? There's no telling, but it most likely refers to visual content. The language is fuzzy and our administrators no doubt opted to err on the side of caution (I don't really know -- ask them). "Legal Age" is of course a no-brainer as it is generally understood as 18.

As a writer, I simply have to strike a balance between creativity and living with the rules in place. For some types of stories, I'll be honest, it sucks -- Having bad guys rape three girls and not caring about one of them being 16 or 17 is a great way to establish how ruthless and immoral they are, and there's no real substitute for this. Pure high-school stories are out, and that sucks too, especially for consensual. But for most stories it's not a problem and you can actually have underage characters play an important role as long as they're not sexualized. I'm not gonna lie and pretend it doesn't change anything, because it absolutely does. So I want to strike a good balance and write great, creative stories that are allowable here. I'm very much in agreement with @Blue about RU's fate.

Well said HistBuff. Freedom of speech on the internet lasts just as long as the host is willing to tolerate it. Not every website hosts its own server. On the contrary, most are beholden to the rules and regs of their host, and hosts don't like getting dragged through the mud because someone thinks that even recognizing the existence of sexually active teens a week from the age of majority is the same as trying to screw little kids. It sucks as a writer, but if it means that I have to play nice and not include UA characters or I have to age them up, so be it.

The restrictions suck, but at the same time they also provide new challenges. How do you tell the story now? How do you paint your character as a bad guy when what he's doing now is perfectly legal and acceptable? For example, in the original versions of my Bob stories, the girls were not 18 yet. Bob's banging girls that one of them isn't even old enough to drive and he's damn near 30. His disregard for the law helped make him a bad guy. Plus, it was the 90's. If I had a dollar for every one of my classmates or friends from high school who banged someone in their 20's or 30's, I could buy a new video Super Nintendo game. But with the new version, I went with the "Unreliable Narrator" method to tell the story. He purposely told a roomful of lawyers the girls were older than they were. If people want to read between the lines they can come up with their own ages, that's on the reader. With other tales I'm brining over, there's other ways make a square peg fit in a round hole. It might get weird explaining how the petite Asian prodigy who is in her first year of high school and taking college courses is also 18 but it's either suspend reality for the rules, or suspend the story or site.

For legal reasons, if anyone asks all of the characters are either at least 18 or played by actors that are at least 18. It's kind of hard to get upset about "teen characters having sex" when I grew up watching 90210 and most of the "teens" were pushing 30 in real life.

[HistBuff]

IMPORTANT CHANGE! READ THIS!

Our site's host has recently changed the language of their prohibited content. https://abelohost.com/acceptable-use-policy/

The old language said, "Under Legal Age Nudity"

It now says "Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or any depiction of minors in a sexual context (including but not limited to nudity)."

This is a deliberately wide-net language that creates this climate of witch hunting that became so prevalent on the Web in the last few years.

It could prompt this site to rewrite their rule about "No Sexual acts involving underage(<18) characters" since you can have an UA character in a sexual context without any sexual act being performed, and since the language casts a super-wide net, a "sexual context" could involve anything that any reader could decide to get offended about, such as a grandpa kissing his granddaugher good night. I'm not even sure I can now merely mention or imply that a given girl got married at 16 (without telling more -- which is OK as per this site's current rules).

This pretty much bans the use of UA characters in any meaningful role in a story. Some of my stories including Festung Breslau could have to be pulled because of this. My latest chapter in my current story (World Championships) will likely get pulled as a result of this change (I wrote it according to the old language that simply prohibited "under legal age nudity" so it was ok to have my 21-year-old dating a 15-year-old girl as long as I did not depict anything overtly sexual).
I think I'm pretty much done here. I'm just fed up with those policies that seem never satisfied and always need to get more and more restrictive.