I said over a decade ago FA's policy on underage characters was unenforceable, and I was right! Furry is full of big-headed creatures and most of the media we like features primarily underage characters. Now even that policy is not enough. It would never be enough. These things are determined on vibes alone, on someone's feelings on the matter, and those feelings are as arbitrary as they are escalating. Instead of telling people to just not look for fetishes they don't like (or, my goodness, implementing a functional tag blocking system, lol), this is a moral dictate. And it's one that can never be satisfied because as anyone who's been on social media knows, the appetite for new people to throw into the clout volcano is endless and will eventually become a circular firing squad. I'm a leftist and I'm saying this.

And for that matter, in the intervening years, we've learned what most of us knew intuitively: Even drawing underage cartoon porn on purpose doesn't actually hurt anyone. I made a big journal on this you can read here:
https://inkbunny.net/j/478002-Norit.....-no-heres-why-

So why am I making this journal on a dead account? To crow? Not really- it's to point out that this is a cyclical problem we have in this space. Once upon a time there was a movement called the Burned Furs, a bunch of reactionaries who were either self-hating, immature or simply trying to gain clout with people they deemed "normal." They hated porn, but also regularly seemed to focus on queer elements because they saw that as inherently sexual. They tried hard to convince people in high places to ban porn and anything that didn't pass muster with your average non-furry. Eventually they fizzled out because their fights became internecine and their standards utterly impossible for even members to pass.

If all that sounds familiar, it should- it's what's happening now, again! Sometimes it's a right-wing group ("moral degenerates!"), sometimes it's left-wing ("we're protecting children, somehow, just trust us!!"), but it's never actually political- that's just the smokescreen they use to gain legitimacy. These anti-fetish, anti-porn reactionaries come out of the woodwork and try to throw a bunch of scary words at you to make you submit to their worldview. Don't let them! They're silly bastards who often hide terrible secrets of their own- did you know that more than a handful of these "anti underage art" people have been convicted on charges of grooming minors? Weird, right? As it turns out, if you want to groom teenagers, the best way to do that is to start a moral crusade they can join in on and feel like they're making a difference.

The moral of the story is, if you want to help people who get traumatized when they see certain fetishes (like I do with gore, PTSD has more than one cause folks) don't ask the admins to ban a fetish; ask them to implement a functional tag blocking system. Whatever you do, don't listen to these reactionaries, and dear god don't give them any power.