Topic: Should we have a tag for taking advantage of naivety?

8 months ago, this topic was brought up in the "Do we have a tag for that" thread:

horsecockforscale said:
Wondering if there's a tag for when a character has sex with a partner who doesn't quite understand what's happening to them- someone on a different level of intelligence or experience to the one initiating, such as a younger character or a pet. The receiving character might show a little bit of hesitation, confusion, or maybe eventually they're into it. The important thing is they're confused about the act, while the dominant partner is certainly not.

I've tried "naive" but that doesn't quite carry the same vibe. "Confused" tag mostly shows characters with floating ?'s and looking inquisitive, but it is not specific to sexual acts being inflicted on the uninformed. Certainly has overlap in "rape", but nothing to narrow it down.

In real life the equivalent would be taking advantage or grooming, but I see those tags don't exist or have other purposes, respectively.

Examples:
https://e621.net/posts/4427143?q=toast_%28r3drunner%29
https://e621.net/posts/1921268?q=parent%3A1921268
https://e621.net/posts/3964964

Strongly implied in this post and it's child post:
https://e621.net/posts/3835518?q=parent%3A3835518
https://e621.net/posts/3835519?q=parent%3A3835518

As someone who tries to cleanup virgin mistags, I end up seeing a lot of posts depicting this scenario (most recently post #5521877, which is a pretty blatant example). I'm wondering if this is common enough to warrant a specific "taking advantage" tag, or if it can be served by existing tags (naive + manipulation + questionable_consent, maybe)?

The concept described here is just naive questionable_consent.

eightoflakes said:
The concept described here is just naive questionable_consent.

questionable_consent doesn't always apply to these situations, as that tag only applies where a character's willingness to do something is in question. The examples in the quote, for example, don't show questionable consent, and post #5521877 if anything is explicitly_stated_consent ("If you say so. Just return it to normal." is giving permission/consent to do it, there's no visible reason to think he might actually be unwilling despite saying that).

naive would apply, but I don't know of a tag for "taking advantage" of it. It does seem a bit too close to TWYK to me though, relying on the interpretation of dialog or "vibes" of the post more than what's actually expressed. post #4427143 is given as an example, for example, but aside from bad_parenting (unless that's her older brother, or uncle?), there's no indication she's being tricked or isn't doing what she would otherwise do. This is fiction, not real life, and just as we don't assume rape for underage characters, I don't think we should assume someone's being "taken advantage of" for showing some naivete in some act.

watsit said:
questionable_consent doesn't always apply to these situations, as that tag only applies where a character's willingness to do something is in question. The examples in the quote, for example, don't show questionable consent, and post #5521877 if anything is explicitly_stated_consent ("If you say so. Just return it to normal." is giving permission/consent to do it, there's no visible reason to think he might actually be unwilling despite saying that).

As I understand the concept of consent, someone who doesn't fully understand what is happening can't fully consent. According to its wiki page the naive tag refers to a character not understanding that a sexual situation is sexual, e.g. they are taking part in a sex act but don't understand that they are. To me this is automatically questionable consent at best as they are not fully informed.

If questionable consent is intended specifically for situations where it's unclear whether a participant gave any sort of approval rather than situations where the validity of a participant's consent is uncertain then that should be made clearer in the tag's wiki page.

eightoflakes said:
As I understand the concept of consent, someone who doesn't fully understand what is happening can't fully consent.

We don't go by the legal definition of consent, or else it would get too messy with things like young characters, drunk characters, feral characters, boss/worker relations, and other situations where someone either can't technically consent or can't say no (whether or not they'd want to). Instead we look at a character's willingness to engage in some act. We also assume willingness by default, unless there's something visual to indicate otherwise, where it becomes either forced (clearly unwilling) or questionable_consent (can't say it's unwilling/forced, but it doesn't seem willing either).

Uh, informed consent isn't just a legal thing, it's a moral thing, Watsit. Someone taking advantage of a lack of informed consent is 100% an immoral act, and it's very reasonable if people want to avoid such depictions, just as they might want to avoid other depictions of manipulation.

This is fiction, not real life, and just as we don't assume rape for underage characters, I don't think we should assume someone's being "taken advantage of" for showing some naivete in some act.

Similarly, it's precisely because underage characters can give informed consent in fiction that I feel there's validity in distinguishing between those scenarios. It's entirely reasonable for someone to feel uncomfortable with realistic depictions of child exploitation but fine with ridiculous fictional scenarios like dominant young posts.

beholding said:
Uh, informed consent isn't just a legal thing, it's a moral thing, Watsit. Someone taking advantage of a lack of informed consent is 100% an immoral act, and it's very reasonable if people want to avoid such depictions, just as they might want to avoid other depictions of manipulation.

I wasn't talking morals, I was talking tagging. Just as we don't have sleep_sex imply rape/forced or questionable_consent, and we've had multiple discussions on whether we should assume/tag rape or questionable_consent by default for it, which come to the conclusion that they should not because it then becomes nearly impossible to "prove" they're willing (on top of not having a tag for it, and bringing to light a range of other scenarios where a character's willingness is equally vague/unspecified that we don't bat an eye at). questionable_consent and forced are about a character's willingness to engage in an act, and we assume willingness unless there's some visual indication that they aren't. Being naive isn't inherently being unwilling, otherwise everybody's first time having sex would be rape.

beholding said:
Similarly, it's precisely because underage characters can give informed consent in fiction that I feel there's validity in distinguishing between those scenarios. It's entirely reasonable for someone to feel uncomfortable with realistic depictions of child exploitation but fine with ridiculous fictional scenarios like dominant young posts.

Maybe, but you'd need a clear TWYS way to distinguish simple naivety from that naivety being taken advantage of, which I'm having trouble doing (those examples in the first post being clear examples of the concept being vibes-based, using subjective interpretation and not TWYS). It shouldn't require a ridiculous scenerio like dominant_young to say they're not being taken advantage of, otherwise it's no better than assuming they're being taken advantage of by default, which creates similar problems as not assuming willingness/consent by default.

I think we may be talking about two different things. I'm proposing a "taking advantage" tag precisely because such scenarios don't fit neatly into our definitions of questionable consent and forced. Such a tag wouldn't implicate any of the others.

Maybe, but you'd need a clear TWYS way to distinguish simple naivety from that naivety being taken advantage of, which I'm having trouble doing (those examples in the first post being clear examples of the concept being vibes-based, using subjective interpretation and not TWYS). It shouldn't require a ridiculous scenerio like dominant_young to say they're not being taken advantage of, otherwise it's no better than assuming they're being taken advantage of by default, which creates similar problems as not assuming willingness/consent by default.

I agree that the examples shown in the original post aren't the best, but I don't think this is anywhere near as subjective or unclear as you're making it out to be. If one character demonstrates that they don't understand what sex is (or even what sex organs are, as in post #5521877) and the other character does not explain or correct their misunderstanding, they're being taken advantage of. That's a very distinct scenario from simply being a virgin.

beholding said:
If one character demonstrates that they don't understand what sex is (or even what sex organs are, as in post #5521877) and the other character does not explain or correct their misunderstanding, they're being taken advantage of.

That example is another good demonstration. Where does it say he doesn't know what sex is? Or that he doesn't know what penises/erections are? My interpretation is he's confused about why he got an erection, like some kind of magic (as magic is mentioned) or some other trick causing him to become aroused unexpectedly, and is asking her if that's normal and to "fix" what she did. Especially for someone that doesn't look young in the least, I have trouble interpreting that as him not knowing what penises, erections, or sex are, only being confused about the more immediate situation of getting an erection over something involving magic. We don't see what brought them to this situation, that it may have been a pure accident or they both didn't expect that strong of a response, and he's giving her permission to handle it (and she just happens to really like what she actually needs to do). At most he can be called naive for not knowing what they/she did leading up to this situation, but beyond that is interpretation.

watsit said:
That example is another good demonstration. Where does it say he doesn't know what sex is? Or that he doesn't know what penises/erections are? My interpretation is he's confused about why he got an erection, like some kind of magic (as magic is mentioned) or some other trick causing him to become aroused unexpectedly, and is asking her if that's normal and to "fix" what she did. Especially for someone that doesn't look young in the least, I have trouble interpreting that as him not knowing what penises, erections, or sex are, only being confused about the more immediate situation of getting an erection over something involving magic. We don't see what brought them to this situation, that it may have been a pure accident or they both didn't expect that strong of a response, and he's giving her permission to handle it (and she just happens to really like what she actually needs to do). At most he can be called naive for not knowing what they/she did leading up to this situation, but beyond that is interpretation.

I think you are really grasping at straws for alternate explanations here. "What is that?" does not make sense as a reaction from someone who knows what an erection is. His stammering and overall dialogue sounds uncertain and hesitant, and she clearly has a sexual interest in him despite telling him she is doing this for a non-sexual reason. You have to admit that at the very least it strongly suggests taking advantage. (If nothing else, it reads like she is lying about this being situational sex, which I'd say is also an example of the trope.)

It's true that these sorts of tags are always going to have some wiggle room due to interpretation, but no more so than questionable consent, I would argue.

beholding said:
I think you are really grasping at straws for alternate explanations here. "What is that?" does not make sense as a reaction from someone who knows what an erection is.

It is if he's talking about having gotten on erection, rather than the erection itself. Given his apparent age, it doesn't make sense for him to not know what an erection or sex are, so it's quite reasonable to interpret that as him not knowing why he got am erection, rather than not knowing what it is. And given the mention of magic, which is a real possibility in a fictional setting, it's also very possible to think she's being completely sincere in what she's saying, and also happens to be a bit excited to do what she needs to.

beholding said:
His stammering and overall dialogue sounds uncertain and hesitant, and she clearly has a sexual interest in him despite telling him she is doing this for a non-sexual reason. You have to admit that at the very least it strongly suggests taking advantage.

It's possible sure, but there are other reasonable interpretations possible too. Like I said, it's not a good fit for TWYS when it's "relying on the interpretation of dialog or "vibes" of the post more than what's actually expressed".

More to the point, even if we did agree that some example depicted someone being taken advantage of, that doesn't mean it's still not a subjective interpretation that some other people can't reasonably disagree with. If we can't point to something particular in the image that unambiguously shows someone being taken advantage of, it doesn't really fit TWYS.

watsit said:
Given his apparent age, it doesn't make sense for him to not know what an erection or sex are

You yourself pointed out several posts upthread that we can't always apply real-life logic to fictional scenarios.

Your arguments about subjectivity are valid, but my ultimate priority is always to site usability. The facts are that this is a real trope that users do want to curate, just like other subjective/vibes-based tags like dominant/submissive, questionable consent, and forbidden relationship. And yes, I know those tags are also controversial and I myself have argued they need more stringency, but they still remain in use because the benefits outweigh the downsides. I think that saying "This functionality could be misused, therefore no one gets to use it" is fundamentally backwards in terms of what our priorities should be here.

And because I know someone's going to suggest it, "just make it a set" isn't going to work. Sets are hard for new users to find and search for because they're completely separate from the tagging system that's front-and-center. (Although I do have one for these scenarios if anyone is interested.) Common tropes deserve main tags so that people can reasonably find them.

...This might be easier if we ever get pool-level tags, since context often removes the ambiguity. That seems to be a pipe dream for the foreseeable future, though.

beholding said:
You yourself pointed out several posts upthread that we can't always apply real-life logic to fictional scenarios.

Yes, it is a reasonable interpretation that for some reason he doesn't know what an erection is, just as it's a reasonable interpretation that he does. My point is that relying on interpretation of some dialog for a tag is opening it up to multiple different valid interpretations, which results in a tag that can be validly added and validly removed from the same post based on how a given person reads it. That post in particular had someone add stated_virginity, presumably based on their interpretation of the dialog as him not knowing what sex is^* and so hasn't had any, while I interpret it differently in a way where there's no information on his level of sexual experience (but a reasonable stance is that someone his apparent age has at least gone through puberty and dealt with sexual arousal and attraction).

^{* Technically it's not valid regardless since the tag requires someone's virginity being "specifically stated", not inferred. The tag would be better named explicitly_stated_virginity, similar to explicitly_stated_consent; most if not all stated_* tags would be better named explicitly_stated_*.}

beholding said:
Your arguments about subjectivity are valid, but my ultimate priority is always to site usability.

Part of that usability comes from tags working on consistent guidelines. If different people disagree on the interpretation of an image, and a tag is applied based on how it's interpreted, the tag won't be applied consistently. It will be missing on what people think it should be on, and be on what people think it shouldn't be, arbitrarily based on who last handled the tag and neither can be said to be wrong, making it not useful.

beholding said:
I think that saying "This functionality could be misused, therefore no one gets to use it" is fundamentally backwards in terms of what our priorities should be here.

The issue isn't that the tag can be misused, but that the tag can't be well defined, to the point that its use is arbitrary. If two people can look at the same post and both come to reasonable conclusions on how to interpret it, where one reasonable interpretation says the tag applies and another reasonable interpretation says the tag doesn't apply, that's not a good foundation for a tag to work. It will end up added and removed based on a given person's interpretation, leading to tag wars and the tag being locked on or off based on the given moderator's interpretation (and different moderators can themselves have different interpretations, making the lock dependent on who handled it).

_{As an aside, forbidden relationship does look and sound very much like a lore/vibes thing, and probably shouldn't be a tag (only 13 uses, wouldn't be hard to get rid of).}