The Place for Purging Porn and Pedo-Pandering (AKA P5 flag evaluations)

Since the Sengoku Rance thread is closed to all but P5, I'll bring this up here. Delete if it's inflammatory, but this is a point I did not see made.

People are arguing that "context matters" with respect to the scene cited by Komodin. According to WhatIsPorn that is incorrect. The character in question is a pre-teen, and the rules define visually explicit sex involving pre-teen characters to be criteria for cutting, context-be-damned. This is in contrast to scenes involving older teenagers, which apparently do require contextual consideration.

I won't claim to be unbiased, as I do feel anything related to Rance should be purged with a vengeance, but the above rule appears to be non-negotiable.

If "context-be-damned" were the rule, then several other works would already be gone. First I can think of being Lolita.

Along with It and that one movie. What was it, Mysterious Skin or something similar?

That part probably needs to be rewritten to only mean any depictions that mean for it to be titillating rather than disturbing or horrifying.

edited 23rd Jun '12 8:41:24 PM by TheFoxsCloak

I find it interesting how Tropers are so adamant in defending pornographic video games, and do so by comparing them to a legitimate work of literature.

edited 23rd Jun '12 8:43:47 PM by Samamander

I don't really give a damn about Rance anymore than I give a damn about It since I've read/played neither. My point is that if we take that wording as literally as possible, legitimate works would also be cut.

True, true. I'm too tired so I'm going to bed before I say anything I'll regret.

edited 23rd Jun '12 8:46:18 PM by TheFoxsCloak

It sounds like there isn't an official age for that character anyway? So it would still amount to a judgement call.

And that page does say "guidelines". To paraphrase something someone said before, if the answers were all that obvious there would be no need for a panel.

Also, I'll defend anything that I think isn't violating the rules, I don't care what it is.

edited 23rd Jun '12 8:46:33 PM by Morganite

I don't know the first thing about Rance, except that I saw a picture of him today and I want to punch him in the face. Dear Cernunnos, he's smugger than Ephidel!

The character in question is 12.

There is nothing visually explicit in either Lolita or Mysterious Skin, because they are books. It is telling that the movie adaptations do not include explicit sex scenes involving preteens.

No. I'm saying if a work has visually explicit sex involving a preteen, it is NOT okay. Not the same.

edited 23rd Jun '12 8:52:07 PM by ForlornDreamer

...So, you're saying, as long as a work doesn't have a visual representation of the act of sex in it, it's okay?

edited 23rd Jun '12 8:50:35 PM by Raidouthe21st

Having a visual representation of sex and showing a picture of somebody raping a child are not the same thing.

Okay. Because I genuinely didn't see how pointing to how two movies were censored to make them releasable for public viewing was relevant. My bad.

edited 23rd Jun '12 8:55:09 PM by Raidouthe21st

There are potential double standards when it comes to censoring explicit sex in textual and visual form when non-adults are involved, and perhaps the reasoning behind the differences is not bad. So be it.

@Forlorn Dreamer: And what's your source for that information? From Arha's post it sounds like just a guess. The (unofficial) alicesoft wiki think's it's guessing too. The profiles on the game's website don't show ages. No one I can find really seems *sure*. So once again it comes back to the panel deciding.

The Alice Soft Wiki figure is based on in-game text, which explicitly states her age to be "approximately 12." Unless one accepts the "approximately" to be a valid out, she is a preteen.

I'll recheck my source. It's probably wise for Arha to recheck his/hers as well. It's unlikely that an arbitrary age would appear on Alice Soft Wiki without official information, fyi.

edited 23rd Jun '12 9:41:55 PM by ForlornDreamer

I'm assuming that's what Arha's statement is based on though, and that sure doesn't make it sound like she's described as "approximately 12" in such words, just as too young for Rance.

No, my guess of about twelve was an approximation based on a little ingame evidence. Namely, Rance's strike zone is basically 15-30 in appearance. He assumes she'll look old enough in five or more likely three years, thus I assumed she's most likely around twelve.

Does this even matter, though? If she was thirty five her appearance would still be that of a twelve year old and it would still be a scene played entirely for horror.

It matters if the "preteen" clause in the What Is Porn page applies. Otherwise, why did Eddie and co. make the distinction between preteens and everyone else?

My initial source was old and admittedly not particularly reputable JustUSA Sengoku Rance discussion, so I'm making a second pass.

edited 23rd Jun '12 11:08:19 PM by ForlornDreamer

That's pretty much the question I think - whether or not something being played for horror could possibly be enough reason to keep it in the face of this sort of presentation.

Obviously, I'm thinking "maybe".

: But it also says right there at the bottom that they're guidelines, and the panel makes the decisions. I'm not seeing that many ways to interpret that last line.

edited 23rd Jun '12 10:13:32 PM by Morganite

Preteen in appearance, not age. A robot that is two years old but looks and acts thirty isn't going to bother anyone on the panel, but a thirty year old who looks and acts eight is going to set off a lot more alarm bells.

Her appearance and age are bother in the 10-13 range. She acts like a child, she's treated like a child, she has a child's age, therefore she is a child. Her rape is not played for titillation and most certainly not for humor. While Rance is certainly no Lolita and no one would claim that it is (and if they do feel free to ignore them) that does not mean that the precedent set by works like Lolita is completely invalid.

Lolita is not explicit about its sex. The prose in those scenes is positively purple, reflecting how Humbert refuses to acknowledge the reality of what he's doing. Plus, there's no way anyone in their right mind would find the book sexy. It's the most disturbing thing I've ever read (but it's still really good.)

Rance is explicit. It's a whole 'nother ballgame.

Agreed. It's an eroge, and a sex-heavy one at that. The creators intended for players to fap to that scene.

edited 23rd Jun '12 11:11:18 PM by OjamajoLimePie

Correct. My suggestion was never that the panel has to make a decision one way or another (obviously), but that the panel should consider the aforementioned guidelines in regards to making the decision. That context is suggested as a guiding principle in one case, and not the other is a pretty glaring discrepancy.

I don't find the suggestion that a scene is being played "for horror" in a self-described eroge series to be all that compelling a justification for it getting a pass, TBH.

That was poor wording on my part. It was meant to convey the apparent discrepancy in the guidelines.

edited 23rd Jun '12 11:14:34 PM by ForlornDreamer

Hmmm. Perhaps I was misunderstanding what you said in post 5926, and if so I apologize. But when you say things like "non-negotiable", it makes it sound like you're saying the panel *can't* decide that the context matters.

Everything has to be intended to be sexy in an eroge? I don't think so. If it was intended to be fanservice they'd have shown us a different part of the scene, or it would have been done by Rance or something. There are other sex cgs in Sengoku Rance that are not intended to be sexy at all. At least two of them, which are also performed by the bad guy.

I find it interesting how Tropers are so adamant in defending pornographic video games, and do so by comparing them to a legitimate work of literature.

You're assuming your conclusion here.

Also, There Is No Such Thing As Notability. Whether something is a legitimate work of literature is not part of the rules.

It's an eroge, and a sex-heavy one at that. The creators intended for players to fap to that scene.

I find this claim very doubtful, and this sort of question is why we need people familiar with a genre to be involved.