I'm currently writing a story where some characters become the guest of a goddess. With her infinite power she creates an apartment for them live in. The apartment contains portals to a few places one leads to her palace so they can give her some loving(part of the price of livimg there), a pocket universe replica of earth that they can shape as they want to do what they want(as long as it follows the sites rules) and a bar which is a gathering place since we has many lovers in a similar boat to them. However two of the characters are 18 so while I know they can go into a bar as per US rules I'm not sure if they can partake in drinking. If someone could help answer this I'd be grateful.
What if the character is from the UK? There's land beyond the ocean, you know? Besides, I don't think there's actually any problem in depicting underage drinking. It's just another crime, like murder, prostitution, rape, theft. I don't think any of those is being censured around here. Edit. To clarify. While depicting underage sex is per se a crime, depicting a crime, in this case underage drinking, it's not.
Don't have to... I mean... Fake ID is as common as DIRT here in the States. Very much that "Hot Fuzz" Scene
Only the themes described on the Rules page are prohibited. So, unless your story forces the characters to abide the US law, you're free to write about 18-year-old characters who drink alcohol.
I actually want to correct this -- in most parts of the U.S. (including where I live), you do have to be 21 or over to be allowed into an establishment that's strictly a bar. (But people under 21 are allowed, under most circumstances, in establishments that may seem like a bar, but are actually considered restaurants that serve alcohol. They're also allowed in the tasting rooms of breweries and wineries, which aren't technically considered bars, either.) That said, as others in this thread have pointed out, you're dealing with a pocket universe that the characters themselves can shape to some extent, so you don't have to strictly follow the laws that apply to the real world. Heck, you could use it as a way to show off the rules of the universe...
I've always found it hilarious that you can vote, go to war, and fuck at 18 in the US, but you can't drink until you're 21. Makes no sense at all.
You used to could in many states but it was changed in the early eighties because they did not want High School students to be able to buy beer. The idea was people 21 and older would be outside high school kids friend circles.
It was specifically to cut down on drunk driving (the campaign to raise the drinking age nationwide was spearheaded by a group called Mothers Against Drunk Driving). The general idea is that the younger you are, the more likely you are to make bad decisions -- in recent years, a number of states have raised their minimum driving age a bit for the same basic reason.
It doesn't matter if the described act is legal or illegal in the real world. It only matters if describing the act is legal or illegal in the real world. (Given that it is fictional.) E.g. - Homicide is illegal in the real world. Depicting fictional homicide isn't. - Consensual sex between two 17-year-olds is legal (in most parts) of the real world. Depicting fictional consensual sex between two 17-year-olds is against the law.
Remember, the types of content banned on this site, bestiality etc., are not strictly speaking illegal in the U.S., if they are just in the form of artistic impressions (whether drawings or prose). Laws were passed in an attempt to criminalize certain kinds of artistic depictions but were struck down on first amendment grounds. As I understand it, the rules on forbidden content have more to do with protecting the reputation of the site and its userbase than legal liability, which is still, no doubt, for the best. After all, it only takes one nosy blogger on a slow news day to find one story with an underage character to tar the whole userbase with the same brush. So since this is all a matter of media-driven moral panic avoidance and not legal liability, and underage DRINKING isn't what is going to whip the mob into a frenzy, I would say go for it. Edit: I should note that this is not the case in the U.K., which has much weaker free-speech protections than the U.S. The U.S. is really an outlier, globally speaking, in how strong the legal protections for artistic expression are.
Er, I'm not sure that's actually the case. I'm pretty sure both Friedman and mods have mentioned that the ban is, indeed, based on legal liability. Even if the administration of CHYOA are US-based, they are still subject to the laws of the physical location of their servers. And of course, CHYOA is accessed by people all over the world. I would imagine at least some would censor sites that contain bestiality and pedophilia.
In the case of child pornography, it doesn't matter at all if it is done in an artistic way. There are further exceptions to the first amendment. (Some issues might be in a legal gray area until there are clear precedents.) In some cases, you might win in court, though the question is if you actually want to risk it or rather make a deal. But even if you win, the site might have been shut down for weeks or months... So the rules are based on US law and are in place to protect the site from legal issues. Users who publish content on CHYOA might have to satisfy additional laws and regulations depending on their place of residence.
A purely textual depiction of 17-year-olds engaging in consensual sex would almost certainly be legal in the U.S. (there is certainly plenty of legitimate literature with that type of content), but it can be all too easy to go down the slope and wind up with something that might not pass the Miller test. Also, given that this site allows stories to contain images, and it's distributed worldwide to countries with a veritable patchwork quilt of laws about this sort of thing... well, it seems obvious that it's best to stay out of any legal gray areas, and have the site rules be as they are.
This is tricky enough. What do you mean, like a dry report? Who writes like that? Even the news reportes try to convey some emotions...
