For the longest time the site rules at PaperDemon.com have stated that Shota artwork was not allowed. Defining what Shota and Lolicon are is a very difficult task. I've mostly heard Shota described as underage boys in sexual situations with Lolicon being the female equivalent. But what defines under age? I suppose it would mean whether the person is an adult or a minor.
But how do you determine visually what the age of the character is? It's quite subjective trying to determine if a boy depicted in a sexual scene is 17 (a minor) or 18 (an adult). If he's 17 its shota, if he's 18 its not shota.
Up until recently I never really had to think about it and define this rule. I believe only once in our history have we ever deleted an artwork for being shota. But now we are having a lot of artists hop over from yGallery and suddenly we are faced with drawing the line in the sand.
DeviantArt's solution to this was to go by whatever age the character is in the series (if its fanart) and that you cannot age the character. This seems ridiculous to me because I believe the artist should be able to age the character and it would also be a pain for our moderators if we had to go look up on wikipedia the age of every darn character depicted in a sexual scene in the Red Curtain. Plus we'd still be confused about what to do for original artwork.
I've given it a lot of thought and have decided that we will continue to disallow depictions of pre-pubescent and pubescent minors in sexual situations. However, artwork that depicts post-pubescent minors in sexual situations will be allowed. Visual indications of breasts, hips, thighs, and pubes are signs that the body has reached physical adult hood. This is the best way that I could come up with to visually determine which artwork is and is not allowed in our gallery because these are all visual signs of adulthood that can be measured.
However, some people still do not feel comfortable seeing post-pubescent minors engaging in sexual acts. For these works, we have created a Shotacon and Lolicon galleries in the Red Curtain. All Shotacon and Lolicon works must be submitted to these galleries. If you do not wish to see these artworks, you can filter it by going to Members Area > Profile/Account Settings > Filters.
I hope most of you will agree with this redefined rule. If you have any questions or wish to voice your opinion about this, feel free to reply to this news post or send me a private message. Public discourse preferred :)
Shotacon and Lolicon in the Red Curtain
