Hi CH Mods & Magnolia,

First, I mean these questions in the interest of our community and I am not trying to cause any drama. I just have a curious question and I'd like to see the thought process of the owners of the forum on this.

My questions come from this premise: The main part of this forum is not age-restricted and we ask that sexual content be restricted to the Adults 18 and Over section as a result.

So why is there a nympho/succubus/incubus discussion section outside of the Adult discussions section? And why are Concuan also discussed under Living Entities (and Averka, etc.)? As these are sexual spirits and entities shouldn't they only be discussed in the adult section of the forum?

Same question when it comes to navigating the CH shop website:

Why do succubus, incubus and nympho spirits not have an age restriction on viewing them in the shop? In fact, they don't even have the sentence warning that "You must be 18 and over to purchase this listing" (which Concuan do). Shouldn't access to view those listings be restricted by at least an age gate? In addition, does this mean the ones without this warning are being sold to minors?

I'm just curious about the control and application of ethics around this. It seems odd to me that threads about cultural appropriation are locked down, but there is much looser control around discussion of spirits and entities that are of a sexual nature.

I'm very certain there must be an explanation and I'm just missing it.

I can assure you, that there are conjurers who do not check the age of their customers when clearly selling sexual spirits. I'm not refering to CH at all here, I don't know about them, but I know others who don't seem to do, especially on the known chat servers. Some other conjurers again do have on their websites these under adult/18+ sections though.

From another viewpoint... under law, does this even fall under such restrictions? Since I do not think that any legal authority would consider this - unlike us - ... "real" nor would it fall under distribution of pornographic material or anything of that nature in most cases.

So, putting the ethical side aside, I wonder, is there a legal requirement here even at all applicable?

This might be a sensitive thread, so I want to be crystal clear that I am going to discuss things in terms of what my opinion is in the abstract and what I think is the *safest* practice. I fully believe CH follows practices they has thought through carefully and that they act from a place of good intent. I am interested in their views all the same.

For Jimy’s points: I think the closest you’d get to a legal problem would be along the lines of the laws applying to psychic services to minors, where they exist. That body of law can be a bit of a patchwork as applies to adults as it is. Some jurisdictions have laws about tortuous interference with the religion of a minor, and, although those laws are seldom used outside of custody situations, they do exist.

Really, though, as a practical matter, the legal considerations would be a bigger deal for the forums than for storefronts.

The ethical considerations are far murkier. Because if you start from the position that these are connections to objectively real autonomous beings, then it is very difficult to justify selling those connections to minors when the connections are marketed for the beings’ strong sexual nature and interactions.

The fact that someone somewhere makes certain sales in certain ways does not make those practices ethical in the least. The two things bear no rational connection to each other. It’s much like suggesting that because certain asymmetrical relationships in Ancient Greece occurred, they were ethically right. Some people simply cannot give the kind of consent needed to make certain activities an equal exchange, and we have to understand concepts like these better over the long arc of history. When we know better, we should do better. We now know better than to think children can consent to some activities. We often apply that to other relationships wherein there is an inherent imbalance of power.

Bindings could potentially be done with the same kinds of safeguards on the bindings as are already done to protect the live human companion from harm, I imagine. If one is going to sell bindings marketed as heavily sexual without regard to age, then this might be an okay way to do so.

As to Reg’s OP: I don’t pretend to know what CH’s practice is, so this is explicitly not a comment on any particular seller at all. I would say that as an inquiry independent of any specific conjuror or seller’s practices, it would be extremely problematic and would make me very uncomfortable to know someone sold bindings marketed as sexual to minors without even attempting to check their age in some way. This is part of why I do not sell portraits that display certain parts of the anatomy: I do not personally feel that I can verify someone’s age in a way that I personally feel is ethically adequate.

Personally, I would think that the sections for bindings marketed as sexual might be best suited to the 18+ section, or that the accounts of minors should be publicly marked as such. I think that’s the safest practice. I am, to be clear, not saying to do otherwise is a bad practice. But I think this would be the *safest* one. And I’ve said as much on the public record here before. While some raised objections as to the efficacy or practicality of such practices, I was not persuaded that they were not practices worth testing.

Hmmm, legalities aside, the ethical quandary was where I was coming from. Whether a minor is protected by law or not in regards to sale of spirit or magical bindings, I'd prefer to see the practitioners regulate themselves - not that I'm saying any of them currently do not do so, or that CH does not, somehow, do so. I have to imagine more goes on than I'm privy to. Alys explained part of my views far better than I could honestly.

I'm just confused at the pseudo-division in the forum because it seems incomplete. It's just odd. It's like there is a line drawn on the subject but not completely. I don't know how else to describe it.

I was just thinking if my younger nephew saw this forum a few years ago, would I want him to see discussion of those entities? And since I have participated in some of those discussions myself before thinking about it, it just gave me pause and made me wonder if enough is being done.

I do tend to think it’s an inconsistency that’s a relic of an older incarnation of the forum—but I do agree it at least feels like an inconsistency nonetheless.

It’s a worthwhile question for each of us to think through. I’m glad you asked it.

Our shop does require you to be 18 or older to buy anything at all, sex spirit or spell for good luck. That has been in place the entire time. It's not on individual listings because it pertains to everything.

The discussions about sexual spirits, as long as they are not x-rated, are allowed in the public area. Such as, what kind of offerings, how do they manifest, etc. If you are going to describe a sexual encounter, then that is considered over 18, and that's when the mods move those threads.

If there are inappropriate discussions happening in the public area, report them. Otherwise, benign discussions about being a Keeper of a sex spirit, if the question is not overtly perverse or sexual in nature, should not mean Keepers have to read through the x-rated area of the Forum to find an answer.

I do believe this has been discussed before.

This is a big Forum, so if you see something that has been missed, you can report it to us.

It also impossible with our current software to require someone to state they are over 18 to open a listing. I cannot speak to the full functionality of the new shop software yet. If a Concuan picture is racy enough it has an image cover, but again, regardless the shop isn't for anyone under 18, and parents who wish to buy their underage kids items can do so through the kids listings, or any listing they feel is appropriate. However, it's important to note that parents don't buy their kids sex spirits.

The threads on cultural appropriation were only locked down after they became nasty, and that would happen with any thread, regardless of topic.

This Forum, the site, and Shop weren't all created in a day, they grew over many years, a little at a time, so that would be the obvious explanation for the Forum organization. It migrated through 2 free Forum software packages and a handful of us manually moved the threads from the last free board to this one in 2008.

No matter what the discussion, if it's inappropriate in any way, report it. And bear in mind there are sections which aren't viewable without registration or membership.

Magnolia wrote:Our shop does require you to be 18 or older to buy anything at all, sex spirit or spell for good luck. That has been in place the entire time. It's not on individual listings because it pertains to everything.

The discussions about sexual spirits, as long as they are not x-rated, are allowed in the public area. Such as, what kind of offerings, how do they manifest, etc. If you are going to describe a sexual encounter, then that is considered over 18, and that's when the mods move those threads.

If there are inappropriate discussions happening in the public area, report them. Otherwise, benign discussions about being a Keeper of a sex spirit, if the question is not overtly perverse or sexual in nature, should not mean Keepers have to read through the x-rated area of the Forum to find an answer.

I do believe this has been discussed before.

This is a big Forum, so if you see something that has been missed, you can report it to us.

It also impossible with our current software to require someone to state they are over 18 to open a listing. I cannot speak to the full functionality of the new shop software yet. If a Concuan picture is racy enough it has an image cover, but again, regardless the shop isn't for anyone under 18, and parents who wish to buy their underage kids items can do so through the kids listings, or any listing they feel is appropriate. However, it's important to note that parents don't buy their kids sex spirits.

The threads on cultural appropriation were only locked down after they became nasty, and that would happen with any thread, regardless of topic.

This Forum, the site, and Shop weren't all created in a day, they grew over many years, a little at a time, so that would be the obvious explanation for the Forum organization. It migrated through 2 free Forum software packages and a handful of us manually moved the threads from the last free board to this one in 2008.

No matter what the discussion, if it's inappropriate in any way, report it. And bear in mind there are sections which aren't viewable without registration or membership.

Hi Magnolia, thanks for the detailed explanation! I figured the shop purchase thing was controlled by something that wasn't obvious from the outside looking in, and I'm glad to have that confirmed! I appreciate your clarification in the thought process behind non-adult and adult only posting about these spirits as well.

For me, I would not be here if I couldn't find information about my ubi, so it's important to have a public forum on the topic, and I can understand the need to hide some of the more explicit content from potential minors.

As far as buying a vessel, every reputable dealer I've looked into needs a date of birth to find an energetic match, anyway, so I don't see that being a problem.

I think it is important to reiterate that if you are going to share some very detailed information about encounters, that does need to go into the over 18 area, because while people are researching information in a general sense on sexual spirits (Ubis, Nymphos, etc) that they are not caught off-guard by X-rated material in the public areas.

The over 18 area is expressly for this purpose, so please respect others by using that area if any sexual Spirit Keepers want to share more detailed descriptions of tips and encounters!

One thing that helps screen out minors from making purchases is that credit cards require the applicant to be 18+ to get credit. A lot of the ways that a person could make an online payment require the buyer to be over 18. So a shop could, justifiably, presume that anyone using those payment methods has demonstrated to those companies’ satisfaction that they’re a legal adult.

It’s how I operate, too, though I don’t offer spirits of any kind, sexual or otherwise. I figure that if you were able to register yourself and your payment method with Etsy, then you’ve proven to some folks with expensive corporate legal teams that you’re old enough to transact business online. So if you can pass muster with them, you can buy from my shop.