To The Underaged Teen Who Found My E-Rated Fanfiction

First of all, what are you doing there? This stuff isn't for you; it is for grown-ups. That's why there's a big warning that says you should only click "I Agree" if you are an adult who wishes to see adult content. By clicking "I Agree" when you are not an adult, you lied.

But I want to talk to you about how great your adult content is!

Kid, for an adult to have sexual conversations with a minor, regardless of who initiated it, is a felony. I'm sure you're a delightful person, but you are not worth going to jail for. Please do not comment on my E-rated fanfic; I'd prefer you did not read it at all. It'll probably still be there when you turn 18. Wait until then.

But your fiction has offensive content in it, and I'm offended!

First of all, I live in the United States, where there's a nifty little thing called the First Amendment. It says I am free to write about whatever I want, even if it offends some people.

Secondly, I warned about every bit of possibly-offensive content in the tags. (I also rated it Explicit, meaning "for adults only," but you chose to ignore that too.) I do this specifically so that people who are offended by those things don't read my fanfiction.

Thirdly, nobody forced you to read a single word I have ever written anywhere. YOU chose to click on an E-rated fic. YOU chose to click "I agree" even though you are not over 18. YOU chose to ignore all the tags warning you about what was in the fic and read it anyway. Nobody forced you to tap your phone or click your mouse on any of that; you made the active choice to do so yourself. If you cannot take responsibility for what you choose to look at on the Internet, then you probably should not be on the Internet unsupervised, and definitely should not be on a website made for adults like AO3.

But some of that stuff is illegal to do in real life!

The reason that that stuff is illegal to do in real life is because it hurts real, live people. That is literally the entire point of laws--to minimize the amount of harm that gets done to real people who exist in the real world. Fictional people, by definition, do not exist. Because they do not exist, they cannot be harmed by people writing words about them. Please dedicate your energy to helping real people who are being harmed in real life, instead of obsessing over fiction.

But what about my rights?

You have the right to not read fanfiction that you think is going to offend you. You have the right to click the "Back" button on your web browser. You have the right to go read something else instead. You have the right to feel however you feel about the things that you do read. You do not have the right to decide what other people get to write about on the Internet. That is called "censorship," and it has no place in a free society.