so Harkness Test is telling us that 1. animal needs to be mature in her mind 2. animal can speak human language 3. it needs to sound intelligent, at least on a human level doesn't this allow a writer to write about a talking cat, let's call her Kitty. this cat can understand human language and also speak it, because she's either magical, or some kind of alien race. and she's let's say, 4 years old, which is very mature for a cat, or just her alien race. you see the problem here?, why doesn't this count as Bestiality, when all I did was give a small cat the ability to talk in human tongue?, and just made up an "alien/magic" story as an excuse. if I write about a sexual encounter with this cat, it will still be described like a person is having sex with a cat. isn't this still against the rules when I'm not writing this cat off as a hybrid cat lady? also, as I write I could describe the sexual act as "i'm doing it with a 4 year old named Kitty". which is not not only Bestiality, but also sounds like pedophilia. even tho the reader already knows it's not, the reader can still read as such because he was allowed to. I would like a clear answer on the subject, to make sure I don't go against the rules. it is very important to me to know what the limits are.
Here. Allow me to put it this way. Dragons. One of the key elements of having something that's a dragon, rather than a wyvern or a wyrm, is intellignence, the ability to speak some sort of civilised tongue (no matter how ancient), and carry on a rational conversation. Now, let's take a dragon. Call him Voxak. He's an adult black dragon, about eight hundred years old. So then, the question is - is Voxak in the same category as Kitty? On one hand, obviously yes. He's just a talking animal, like Kitty. But on the other, no he's obviously not. There's something that feels fundamentally different about doing it with a dragon versus doing it with a cat. They're both just animals, normal for their world, with the ability to talk. So why is it that sex with Kitty feels so much creepier? There are only three differences between Voxak and Kitty: 1. Appearence. Trivial. 2. Age. Voxak is several hundred years old, Kitty is four. However, both of these ages fall in the range of "maturity" for their species. 3. Suspension of Disbelief. This is the key one. Kitty, as something that looks like a common domestic housecat, has a higher standard applied to her sexual antics then Voxak. That's because Voxak is obviously fantastical. He automatically makes you stop looking so closely at the sexual minuate of the story, because it's a fucking dragon. It symbolises that all logic has gone out the window, so just sit back and enjoy the porn. Kitty, on the other hand, does not make you suspend disbelief. She is a normal housecat, albiet one with the ability to talk, and therefore we think her less fantastic then the flying scaly majesty of a dragon. She is more ordinary, more connected with our everyday lives, and so we don't think of her as magical. That (hopefully) answers the "feeling" part of it, now the next question is the "legal" side. To which the answer is "it depends on how wide your jurisdiction casts its net with regards to pedophilia". If Kitty can talk, rationally, intellignetly, then sexual acts involving her are not beastiality. But on the other hand... she's four years old. Some jurisdictions might accept the arguement that, as a cat, that's a reasonable age for her to consent at, but others would come down hard on you for that age. My advice? Don't mention the age. If you do, make sure that it's 18+. If that makes no sense, well then Kitty is an alien/immortal.
Technically...at least for my interpretation of the rules it does. She passes The Harkness Test. There's a whole subsection of the Furry Fandom that is exactly this thing. non-morphic or ferals are terms used to describe characters that do not share almost any human characteristics or traits. The thing is...The moment you gave it the ability to talk, the situation changed from a Plausible Real Encounter(where you're having sex with a cat) to a Fictional Encounter with a Fictional Intelligent Creature. At that point what's the difference between said talking cat and say...a Centaur? Or a Mermaid? Sure, they have human features, but their parts are all bestial. Or a more literal comparison. The myriad of pokemon fantasies. Keep in mind that pokemon are the animals of that particular world. They just are a bit more intelligent than real life animals. It's a gray area of the rules for sure, but there have been a few instances of Intelligent Animals being used in stories on the site. The most popular one, I believe is from hematoma's popular story The Virgin Heroine. Considering it counts as an adult for its species, I don't think you really have to worry about pedophilia. Yeah, it sounds a bit weird, but in context the bestiality thing is closer to a gray area. I do hope you get an official answer. I don't think there's been a clear response for this specific question of Animals that just barely pass the test. Although admittedly, the discussion has always been sort of shoehorned onto another rules discussion and not the focus.
what if a character is turned into a cat? that raises more problems. 1. does this new cat must speak in human language?, or was it enough to say "I agree to have sex with you as a cat" before hand? 2. I think the problem with "kitty" the cat, is that she's small, the dragon is big, and since it doesn't exist in real life (as far as we know). it doesn't raise the question, like you said. Kitty by all accounts still feels like "he is having sex with his house cat". so other than the age thing, I still didn't get a clear answer. Harkness Test is a nice way of trying to deal with a problem, but it's not solid enough, and has loopholes. if I transform myself into a dog and go have sex with my mother, how would that playout? because the entire sex scene will still look like a story on the "Bestiality stories page" this is not something I can just try out, and then get banned for life because I pushed my luck. no matter how you look at it, there will be a problem with a guy having sex with his cat, or a mother getting her rocks off with the family dog, which happens to be her son. totally different from a big centaur or a dragon, I realize it sounds like I want to steal a beg of gold in the off chance it doesn't belong to anyone. and I'm saying something like "but it just sitting there for hours, I don't know what to do, I can't just walk way, either someone comes and takes it, or I will"
Does the cat transform its hair color? Does the cat have some other unique trait besides talk human? If yes then I could believe it would pass the test, if not then I don't see it passing the test at all it will feel like bestiality.
Honestly some time ago i wondered if a story narrating of a man transformed into an animal(retaining obviously his intelligence, but either loosing faculty of speech or simply hiding it with everyone), written by first person prospective would have been acceptable. Never wrote even a single paragraph of that, too much of a hassle. I mean, i know that rules are needed, but writing with the costant worrying of tresspassing such a blurred line ...
Okay. The quickest, best way to answer this would be to write what you want to write, then keep it as a draft and ask a mod to look at it. If they think it's acceptable, they can approve it and you can move on, if they don't, well it can be deleted without any possibility of a ban.
you want me to write an amazing piece of work, wasting hours of my time on a 2-3 pages of sexual intercourse. just to have it censored? not cool..
I'd be fine with that. I know it sounds callous, but I'd seriously be fine with deleting several hours of work when it wasn't up to scratch. But if you're so worried about wasting time, then step it out in dot point format. That way you don't write anything that can't be quickly deleted/editted, and when/if the mods give it a green light you can quickly "fill in the dots", so to speak.
You've gone this far in pushing the subject what is another 2-3 hours of writing and getting the mods checking it out.
thank you for commenting on the subject, by the end we didn't agree on a concrete answer. well... that's life for you.
I think the bestiality rule could go. I'm not sure of the legality of it all, but I'm pretty positive Amazon and Barnes and Noble self published erotica has featured hard bestiality, and the harkness thing has massive grey areas around it. I'm guessing the mods have researched the subject more, but that's my feeling.
Beastiality is illegal in most countries, because animals don't have the capacity to consent. but so is rape and there's plenty of non-con fantasies here so....*shrugs*
Is murder still illegal? Because i see plenty of crime novels around... Seriously, writing about something isn't to equal to doing that something and shouldn't be pursued likewise. I'm almost embrarassed to have to write this. Another thing is apologia. Please don't start with morals, we're talking about rules.
I'm not the one you need to convince. I agree with you. I was just pointing out the odd difference between the fact that Beastiality is illegal in many places(and against the rules here), but so is rape and it isn't against the rules here. I'm neither a mod or an admin who can shed further light on the subject. However, it's plausible that there's a legal reason why it's not allowed that we(who are not legally responsible for the site) just aren't aware of.
It's exactly the same reason we shy away from underage: the broad definition of obscenity, which is not free speech. While production and ownership of videos or photos of even the very real act is apparently not barred in US law, distribution of any kind (including over the internet) first faces the Miller Test. And because so few people see porn to be of any literary or artistic value, the only test that could permit bestiality First Amendment Rights likely does nothing. The United States hosts both CHYOA and the original CHYOO, so we're perpetually bound by this absurd shell-game due to some uptight judges barring obscenity from The First Amendment without giving a clear definition of this non-protected term and no one has seen fit to correct this problem even as the internet makes the issues more apparent and more abundant. As such, we follow the example set by the underage rule and play bestiality close to the vest as well, since the consequences are almost identical, right down to the poorly defined protections for the site.
Animal don't need to give consent, unless you tie a dog, you can't force a dog to have sex with you (a cat would be way worse!) these rules are very weird, it's fine to force a human into a horrifying non-consent scene. even if it was done by monsters, but a dog - teenage girl penetration? nope, that's wrong. which doesn't make sense, the dog is giving censent with his body language. he's a damn Animal who is given free sex, you don't see him biting the girl, if anything he's to busy trying to put his thing inside her (true dog problem) 18 is also another weird rule, I started to have sex in my late 20's, kids these days are doing it at 9-11. no 18 year old guy dreams about sleeping with his teacher, he's focused on not failing his exams. it's when he's 15 that he wants her. which is why sex in school is so weird, most writers don't bother focusing on age, they know their readers want to imagine teen years. there are so many loop holes, it's like keep doing what you're doing, but wearing gloves. because if your skin touches whatever it is, then it's wrong. it's another one of these "human false logic", to make ourself feel "better", it's make believe to make life harder for no reason, other than another "believe" these rules are made up by weak people who are controled by people who made these rules, is Choya afraid of backlash?
Yes. The fact is if CHYOA is ruled to be obscene (as opposed to pornographic, which is somehow different), the site can be shut down if we don't rectify the problem soon enough. And because of how vague the law is, "soon enough" can mean the site gets pulled after 30 years, or it could equally likely be 30 seconds. It's an arbitrary law being left to the judgement of people with varying interpretations of leniency and potentially viewing their lone opinions as the consensus of an entire community. The site is essentially trying to survive a dictatorship it can't flee. Thus, we either put our heads down, find a third party to rectify the situation, or risk walking the site 13 steps to the gallows. Admittedly, bestiality as written porn across the internet hasn't been successfully prosecuted as transporting and distributing obscenity yet; in fact, the only thing that has been is underage. However, the law is vague enough to make it possible, and the world is getting sensitive enough that it might happen - it might also mean the non-consent may have to go as well. While we're vastly better off not allowing these changes to happen and remind everyone that sometimes fantasy is just fantasy and hurts no one so long as it stays that way, we're also better off not allowing CHYOA to be the first successfully prosecuted bestiality case. And the latter is far more manageable.
I suppose we will never find out if a magical talking "real life" cat making out scene (that sounded so weird), is ever ok. there goes my amazing chapter. sorry kitty, guess it wasn't meant to be
Of course this answers why Bestiality is against the site rules, but not whether a talking fictional animal which passes the harkness test would count as bestiality or if it would fall under the furryverse term "feral".
