Forums » RP Discussion » Why won't some adults play with people under 18?

Okay... I seriously want to know why people do this whole "I only RP with people who are 18+" thing. It makes absolutely no sense to me. As someone who is not yet 18, but has been doing adult content RP for at least 2 years now... Why? Just why? Is this about content? In which case, I still don't understand it.

And if it's about writing abilities, I'd like to point out that age doesn't correlate to skill level in all cases. I've met people under 18 who are amazing writers and I've met people over 18 who, honestly, need some help in their writing.

I really want to know why people do this. And I also want to know why some of them wait to say something about until after the RP has started... if you insist on letting me down for some reason that makes absolutely no sense to me... at least do so before we start... -_-

I don't understand. And it frustrates me to no end because I don't get the reasoning behind it.

Yeah, I get why you think that, but no matter how well you write I don't think RPing anything 18+ with a minor is good. If someone's parents happened to see what you're RPing and aren't that light about it, who are they going to blame? Of course the older person because we should've known you're a minor or things like that. It's happened to me before but the person I was RPing was pretty dishonest about their age. I'd rather not run into that conflict again. Keep it safe with 18 and older.

I do agree that they should lay this out first before they begin RPing you. It wouldn't exactly be fair to start first, giving you the excitement of it before they turn you down because of your age.

Honestly, I wouldn't care. As long as it's not me.

As far as I myself am concerned, I'm above the age of consent in my current location. Which means, it's not punishable in any way, shape, or form. Therefore, I still feel like it's less than fair to me to have people refuse to RP simply because my physical age is a few months short of being a legal adult.

I have had it happen twice where RPs started, they asked my age afterwards, and when I told them they cut it off. Which is really unfair... to anyone who it would happen to, honestly.

Yeah.. It's just the general rule.. A few months can't kill though. If you only have that much longer to wait then it shouldn't be all too bad.

It doesn't make having an RP cut off now any less frustrating. And it most definitely doesn't make instances where I've been locked out of things due to my age any less rage inducing. (Another site I use can put mature tags on groups and when that happens anyone under 18 can no longer access it, but they're still in the group and get the group messages, but have no ability to reply to them. It forces you to wait until you're 18, potentially years, to get back into the group and resume RPing in it.)

That's why they should check with you first. It would really suck for you to join an RP, have already been a part of the plot and all then you're suddenly shoved out because of your age. Again, it wasn't really fair for them to do that. Guess they want to save themselves the trouble in case something problematic (as my situation) comes up.

It just feels like they totally wasted my time and energy for no reason. It would've been nice for them to mention their rule before we got into discussing a plot or starting the roleplay.

I strongly dislike people who treat me a certain way because of my physical age being less than 18. As someone who is more mentally mature than most people my age, I relate better to adults and prefer the company of people older than me, but that doesn't mean I refuse to talk to or RP with people my own age or younger. I've been discriminated against enough times based on age that I refuse to do the same to others.

IF I were to have my say, I'd say that it's not a bad idea to instead of refusing to RP, agree on doing something like fading to black or not going into the details to avoid making the content mature. It's less of a let down for the younger party and there's nothing wrong with an RP that has limited to no mature content in my opinion.

I can understand concerns of getting into or causing trouble, because I know that if my parents had their way, I wouldn't do those things, but I'm my own person and I'm at an age where I can make my own choices. While it doesn't entirely make it right or fair in my mind, it's probably best for me to drop this now before I work myself into a complete state of irrational anger.

http://www.rprepository.com/community/newspost.php?post=143

There are many places where it's illegal for an adult to roleplay adult themes with you at your age, even if it's okay where you are. Their physical location and local laws determine what they can legally do or not - regardless of what's okay where you are. This is especially true for people who live in different countries. Overall, the laws are so mixed and sometimes obscure that it's better to prevent issues than to apologize later when issues arise.

That said, I'm 26, and the idea of roleplaying sex with someone under 18 is pretty unsettling to me. Even moreso when they're only 16 or god forbid younger. Fade to black scenes? Still uncomfortable to me. You're still a child, we're probably a decade apart - it doesn't feel right.

You say you've been roleplaying adult themes for at least 2 years now. You may have unintentionally put many people at legal risk, which is extremely uncool and worrisome. It's not just your hide you need to consider - someone can legitimately go to jail because of this attitude, and that's extremely alarming.

No, you're not legally an adult yet so your parents still have every right to make these choices for you, especially if you still live with them. You may have a mature attitude for your age but you're still a kid in the eyes of the law.

Edit: Just to clarify, while at 18 I was legally an adult, my parents were still legally responsible for me until I was 21. It was only then when I was truly considered my own person and responsible for all my actions as far as the law goes. It didn't matter how mature I was in my head or how responsible I was.

I can get that. I would do fade to black instead of no RP at all, especially when the other character really has some good potential.

Hope this doesn't effect you too badly. You'll be 18 soon and you won't have to worry about it beyond that point.

9 years. It'd be 9 years age difference, tops. I suppose I don't understand it being unsettling because I'm the younger party and I see myself as almost an adult. But then, because of my age, someone a decade younger than me would be straight up robbing the cradle... and completely disgusting. And way BEYOND illegal. Whereas, I'm of an age where technically speaking I can give consent.



It was adults who I met through RPing who started me in mature RPs. They were the ones putting themselves at risk, and they didn't care that I was younger than they were. While I don't still talk to the person who first cybered with me, I still am in contact with the person who taught me how to RP sex and do it well. He is a good 4-5 years my senior.
I never would've started without being taught by adults like them. So, I suppose you could blame them. And it has been mostly adults, on a different site than this one, who have continued to willingly teach me and have sex RP with me over the past 2 years in full knowledge of my age. At least one person I can remember was in his 30s and was more than proud to try to get me to do it in a public forum as opposed to privately, which is the only place I will even consider it because I'm a somewhat private person most of the time.
They taught me in either ignorance to the laws, or in blatant disregard to them.


In the states, as far as I'm aware, I'm at an age where when it comes to sex, I can give consent and my parents are extremely unlikely to be able to override my consent, if at all.
Starting in December, I'll be a legal adult and my parents won't be legally responsible for me, but until I get a job and live on my own, they'd be technically financially responsible, but that's different.


The character dynamic was going to be amazing... I was pretty pumped for it because I was going to use a character that I hadn't been able to use in a while. Huge letdown for me. At the very least, he could've said we'd wait until I was 18 to start or something... even just having to wait a few months for the RP would be less of a letdown than a total shutdown.

Can't say that that's good. Okay, they shouldn't have done that with you, but please be aware that they can still get in trouble for that. You may know how to RP to those sort of things, but you can at least abide to the rules of this site. Like the link Sanne gave, it really risks the site's existence. Anything can happen and please be aware of that. I really love this site and would like to keep it friendly for everyone. Legally, you're still underage. That is that. Besides, if it really bothers you there's other places you can RP for that stuff. As far as your Kudos go you're a great RPer, but please don't risk anything for your sake, adults' sake, and the site's sake.

9 years or 10 years; it hardly makes a difference to how I feel about it. I know what it's like to be your age and I know how immensely huge the mental difference is between my 17 year old self and my 26 year old self. It wouldn't feel much different to me whether you're 12 or 17.


I'm not sure what to say to this. For starters, all these adults were doing highly illegal things. You didn't know any better, and I'm sorry your ignorance was taken such advantage of. However, none of this makes it right for you to be upset that people are not willing to put themselves at risk by denying you sexual roleplay. Please put yourself in their shoes - just because it's okay for you, doesn't make it automatically okay for them.


I'm not an expert on the US laws so I can't say if my situation was the same as yours is.


The issue I'm having with your entire topic is that you're making a huge fuss over how something that is not okay should be okay. You have to understand that other people can go to jail if you encourage adults to roleplay with minors when it's illegal for them to do so, because that's ultimately what you're trying to convey here. You're promoting the idea that because you were 15 and adults roleplayed sex with you, it's okay. It's so very very very very very much not. And just because those adults should know better, doesn't mean it's okay for 15 year olds to go along with that because they don't carry responsibility. They do too.
Edit: I realized after posting how this sounds, and I want to reiterate that some sense of responsibility falls on your shoulders when you're ready to roleplay (or even have) sex. If you're old enough to do that, even in your own eyes, you should be old enough to understand the responsibilities you carry. Just like it's your responsibility to protect yourself during sex, it's your responsibility to know when it's okay for you to roleplay sex with someone else. If you don't, then in my respectful opinion you're not mature enough to do either.

So please be very careful with how you debate this topic because of the serious consequences it can have, okay?

I'd like to point out that you being old enough to give consent doesn't make it legal for an adult to accept it. Those are separate laws. Similarly, if both parties are underage and there is a notable age difference, the older party can still go to jail, regardless of consent.

Side note: You aren't really coming across as a mature person right now. To be entirely honest, I've never seen a post from you that didn't make me think of you as a teen. Had I guessed, I'd have thought you were around 15.

I only do those sorts of things part of the time anyway, and I only do so in PMs. I wouldn't want to do something if I knew it was a problem for the site. If I wanted only sexual RP, I would go somewhere else, but that's not what I mainly look for in RPs, it's simply an element in a percentage of my RPs, not all of them. And I'm not saying that I'm proud of my sexual RPs or that it's acceptable that adults taught it to me when I was only 15... it was wrong of them, and it was unfair to me that most of them both expected it and demanded it from me. They instilled some less than healthy habits in me and I'm still learning how to cope with these habits and control them. And I do know I'm responsible for my own part in it and letting them influence me.

I do like this site and the people on it for the most part. And that's saying a lot because I'm not the most social or friendly of people. But 9 times out of 10, I have no complaints about anything on the site. And I wouldn't want to do something that would hurt the site. I keep myself clean in public forums as much as possible and avoid doing or saying inappropriate things, as well as keeping my less than kind comments to myself in accordance with the rules.

I haven't had any real problems or given anyone a reason to complain about me outside of one or two cases where I accidentally said something that sounded impolite when it wasn't intended to be impolite.


It's not that I'm being denied sexual roleplay, it's that I'm being denied a chance to RP with them at all, no matter what the content might've been. We hadn't even discussed the RP going in that direction. It was setting up to be an adventure RP, with the two characters more likely to be in conflict with each other rather than interested in each other.

If it was an RP that I knew was going to have sex, I'd have dropped it without complaint. Again, we'd said nothing to each other about there even being a possibility. I have been denied an RP, in the past, due to it being set up for sexual themes, and I never complained publicly or to the other person.

I'm not saying it's okay. I'm not trying to say it's okay. If I could go back in time and do things over, I would've not met a lot of those people and then some. But I can't change what happened.

But, yes, I understand what you're saying. I'm really not trying to promote underage sexual activity. I apologize profusely if it sounds like I am. I think I totally got off track in what I was trying to say.

My main problem was that we hadn't even said there was going to be mature content, beyond an assumption of violence due to it being an adventure roleplay, in this particular roleplay, but because of my age, it was cut off anyway, without discussing alternatives or simply fixing on a path in the RP that would avoid mature content entirely.

If he'd been straight up looking for sexual roleplay, I wouldn't have been as likely to reply to his RP idea in the Find RP list in the first place. Because I don't go blatantly looking for sexual roleplay, excluding rare occasions where I make exceptions.

Of all the RP ideas that were in the list, that was one of the least sexually geared ones of the list. There's like 3 or 4 on there right now blatantly asking for sex of some kind, and I haven't even touched those ones because I have no interest in a plot driven by sex.

I can't vouch for others as to why they'd cut off an RP with someone under 18 if there's no sexual content involved. I know that sometimes my non-sexual, non-violent roleplays have somehow turned into sexual and/or violent stories that weren't appropriate for minors. Perhaps if someone has experienced this before they want to avoid issues and just stick with 18+.

I know that in TGT, many people who don't RP sexual things still aren't comfortable roleplaying with minors because they just generally don't feel comfortable interacting with minors. They're used to adults in adult settings and even if someone appears mature for their age, there can often be pretty big clashes in knowledge and experience due to the age difference.

I have a friend who I befriended when they were 14 and while they're pretty mature, in many ways I can still tell they are still a kid. Some of the things they say or do are typical teenager things that really put emphasis on the fact we are now 11 years apart. While this bears no relevance in our roleplays, I can imagine that things like these can throw other people off quite a bit so they prefer to play with people their own age.

Really sorry to hammer on this, but it's irrelevant where the sexual RP happens. If it's illegal for the other person to engage in sexual roleplays with someone of your age, the interactions are still recorded on the server and the site is still responsible for it. Private group, private message or public forum, any form of illegal activities puts the site at risk. So please be super careful with that.

Edit: Also bear in mind that when you turn 18 and you end up RPing these themes with someone who's under 16/not at the age of consent yet, you're the one who can get in trouble too! These things are tricky and sticky and risky in so many ways.

It's not just public sexual RP that could get the site shut down. Even if it is done entirely in private, as the host of the conversation or the method by which the parties met, the site could still get shut down.

Yes, what you are describing sucks. But many people simply find it easier to stay safe that way - nothing to keep track of, no need to hold things back should something come up. A lot of folks don't plan for sexual stuff, but also don't want the flow to break if it comes up. It may not always be polite, but it is reasonable.

And now I run off back to work...

Did you make sure they didn't say anywhere that they only RP with adults? It sounds like the person should have been more clear, but many only put it in their profiles.

I was not aware of this until today. Every site I've used up until now has simply had the rule that what happens in PMs stays there, and they never mentioned legal issues beyond what was public.

I'm trying to kill the habit... I got mildly addicted to sexual roleplay (Not proud of it) thanks to someone (who is no longer part of my life) demanding it from me on a daily (often multiple times a day) basis because they were addicted. Killing a habit like that is really hard because the rewards center of my brain has been trained to reward me for it, even when I know it's not okay.

And yes, I'm aware. But, I'm already nit picky about who I RP with, so I doubt it will be a huge problem for me... assuming I won't be swamped with schoolwork and no longer actively RPing to start with.


I checked. It was an anonymous character, so if their profile said something about it, I had no way to know. But their character profile says nothing about age. And they never said anything in the OOC PMs we sent back and forth before starting. It wasn't until the starter was sent that they asked me.

I wouldn't because I could get in trouble being older.
As the laws in Canada for doing sexual things with a minor, even online, can get me in big trouble.

But I don't mind rping in general with people under 18, just timeskip or use the fade to black method for the sexual themes.

This about sums up my view of it. I personally do not RP sex (Fade to Black only) but even then, my RP's can still involve material that may make people uncomfortable along the lines of gore, manipulation, psychological conditioning, interrogations and so on as the plot and character requires it. To me, 'adult themes' is like the Watershed at 9pm. This is, by definition, "Unsuitable material can include everything from sexual content to violence, graphic or distressing imagery and swearing".

I am a lot more comfortable RPing with those who I at least know are adults OOCly. In relation to Furcadia, I'll be happy when the Adult Verification system comes out.

Okay, so here is where I stand on this issue, because this is important: I am planning on having children one day, I plan on teaching high school and I plan on being a foster parent.

Even such things as fade-to-black and even two characters kissing could lead me to losing all three of those. There is no concrete law out there that says I cannot cyber, but having been in contact with a lawyer at my university and a foster care orientation, I could literally lose everything I hope for in my life time, even if I am unaware that the second person is younger than 19. I cannot implement a don't ask/don't tell policy, because if someone out there violates this and we engage in even minor romantic RP, I could lose access to 5 years education/training, any children I have and any children I plan on fostering. My entire life hinges on other people's honesty, that's how important this is for me. I will play with anyone, but if even a hint of romance (even a one-sided crush) comes up, I have to ask your age.

Because of this, I'm not even sure if I would be comfortable ever doing this with someone who was even just turning 19. If it ever came out and they thought that I was doing this before they turned that age, there could be an investigation. It's not likely to happen, but I am not going to risk it.