Update: Still waiting to hear any response from Knighty. In the meantime though, acclaimed author TAW weighed in on the controversy, suggesting that the rating system needed to avoid "additional complexity." Below are TAW's impressions of the issue.

"No, I completely disagree. There's no need to add additional complexity to the current system. Is it a comedy with adult themes? Mark it Mature:Sex and Comedy. There doesn't need to be a separate "Adult Comedy" tag any more than there needs to be a separate "Romantic Comedy" tag. The maturity rating describes the content of the story, not the intent--that's what the real story tags are for. We don't need descriptive duplication." -TAW

While I can respect TAW's opinions, I felt compelled to respond in a rather lengthy way; so much so I felt it warranted becoming its own blog post.

You can find part one of this discussion here.

The short recap is, I feel that Mature stories should be split into two categories. The first one would be for adult audiences, telling mature stories without graphic descriptions of hardcore sex and gore. The other would be for explicit stories with graphic descriptions of hardcore sex and gore. Raunchy comedies with sexual themes and full-fledged pornography are rated differently in the real world for a reason, but they're currently treated the same here. Below is my response to TAW's comments.

"Thank you very much for your feedback. It's good to get some perspective from one of the more illustrious authors on the site.

Drawing parallels between how films are rated and how fanfics should be rated was one of the main points of conversation. Hailing from England, you're the perfect person to weigh in on this discussion, as your country's movie ratings system varies wildly from that of America's rating system.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) currently has these ratings:
'U' Universal, suitable for all
'PG' Parental Guidance
'12' Suitable for 12 years and over
'12A' Inappropriate for younger audiences
'15' Suitable for 15 years and over
'18' Suitable only for adults
'R18' Hardcore pornography

While the Motion Picture Association of America has these ratings:
'G' General audiences
'PG' Parental guidance suggested
'PG-13' Parents strongly cautioned
'R' Restricted
'NC-17' No-one 17 and under admitted

In the United States, children can see R-rated movies when accompanied by an adult. The the only film category that kids are prohibited from seeing in U.S. cinemas are ‘NC-17’ films, which is roughly the equivalent of the U.K. ‘18’ rating. (Information courtesy the Students' British Board of Film Classification)

However, a major difference between these two "adult-only" categories is their marketability. The MPAA has stated that ‘NC-17' does not mean “obscene” or “pornographic" and should not be treated as such. The rating simply means that the content is appropriate for adult audiences only. In spite of this, movie distributors view the NC-17 rating as commercial death at the box office. Studios will frequently fight the decision, and often make whatever cuts are required by the board to achieve the much more financially desirable R-rating, and thus reach a far wider audience.

Due to the stigma associated with the rating, many large U.S. retailers refuse to stock ‘NC-17’ DVDs. Some critics of this policy have noted the irony that the same stores will sometimes sell 'Unrated' versions of movies that would probably have received an ‘NC-17’ rating had the distributor presented the film before the MPAA for classification.

The situation is very different in the UK, where an ‘18’ rating is certainly not perceived as disadvantageous, or threatens the commercial success for a film. Indeed, many makers of horror/thriller type works hope to receive an ‘18’ classification to validate their claims of ‘scariness.’ In addition, a retail or rental outlet would not refuse to stock an ‘18’ rated DVD or Blu-ray, and no cinema chains in the U.K. refuse to show ‘18’ rated films.

I could go on ad nauseum about how sex and violence are rated differently between the two ratings systems, but I'll just share one particularly notable example. In Mike Leigh’s comic biography of composers Gilbert and Sullivan, Topsy-Turvy (1999), the film was rated ‘R’ in the U.S., because of a single, comic scene of two topless women impersonating marionettes in a historical burlesque-type routine, in what might possibly be a Paris brothel. The rating reason provided was ‘A scene of risqué nudity’. The BBFC decided to pass the same film with a ’12’ rating. (the ‘12A’ rating wasn't created until 2002, otherwise it would have received that instead) Accompanying the '12' rating was consumer advice indicating the film contained ‘single instances of nudity, drug use and strong language’. The BBFC considered that the context of the burlesque world inhabited by the composers in their line of work, and the lack of any overtly sexual overtone, allowed this scene to be contained at a lower category, given it was an isolated incident in a work not aimed at children.

The point of all this is that just like the 'NC-17' rating for U.S, cinemas, the Mature rating on this site carries a stigma. Without a way to filter out Mature stories tagged with "Sex" or "Gore" tags, too many Mature rated stories that have no explicit content are getting lost amongst the clopfics and gornfics. I'm not advocating separate tags for "adult comedy" or "romantic comedy." I'm just saying we need a ratings system that doesn't try to fit "stories appropriate for adult audiences" in the same box with "hardcore pornography." -Bronystories

FIMfiction.net has an NC-17 rating. It's called "Mature." We need an 'R' rating; or at the very least, a way to filter out explicit content, while still being able to view mature stories.

As always, I appreciate any and all feedback. Thank you for your time.

Update:TAW read the original blog post and responded to it. I have included the answer below.

"I can see where you're coming from, but I still disagree. The maturity rating system is not and should not be one that describes the intent of the author, merely how far they go. In that case, then *yes*, adult comedy should be rated as explicit, because it *is*. There is no reason to give it a free pass simply because the explicit descriptions are a vehicle for humour rather than erotica, because that's not what the maturity system exists to classify. There's no need to introduce a more complex classification system into this, and certainly the moderation team are kept busy enough with the current flood of stories/video games that adding classification on top of that is a complete non-starter.

I can appreciate wanting more specific handling for the sort of thing you write, but I think it's ultimately quite misguided. If somebody is looking for adult comedies then Mature:Sex/Comedy is where they want to be, and if they were completely against adult content to the point the mature tag held a stigma for them... then they wouldn't be reading adult comedies. We cannot possibly individually classify every possible genre and subgenre, nor should we try." -TAW

Here's my reply:

"As I read your response, I realized that I may have been the wrong person to champion a revised ratings initiative. People glance at my stories and see that a majority of them are explicit clopfics. They can't comprehend why I would take issue with the status quo.

"Why do you care about changing the ratings system?" they might ask, "Including a distinction for non-explicit mature stories wouldn't affect you, since you write clopfics."

The changes I'm proposing wouldn't affect me that much, because this isn't about me. I can go about happily updating an explicit story like 120 Days of Blueblood and not bat an eye, knowing that with very few exceptions, anything can be said or done in it. The Mature rating has hardly any content restrictions.

To make a comparison, let's say I worked as a porn director in an alternate universe where America had a ratings system similar to the one currently on this site. Films had one umbrella rating that encompassed everything from 'R' to 'XXX' films. Something is wrong when my hardcore porn is sharing a rating with films such as Schindler's List. Alien and The King's Speech.

The proposed changes are to help the people who enjoy reading and writing mature stories that contain no explicit material by including a way to filter out clop from searches.

However, it's not essential to make a massive change, when a small one could help. Mature stories can be given "sex" and/or "gore" tags. Would you be in favor of allowing people to filter out stories marked with sex or gore when they search mature stories?" -Bronystories

Update: TAW's response:

"I'm not saying "Why do you care?"
Far from it, those of us who use the system to its limits are the only ones who can truly see them. I wouldn't trust anybody but a mature writer to comment on the status quo.

Your hardcore porn doesn't share space with Alien, unless you and I watched a very different film. I suppose at a stretch you could say Mature:Gore, but then the gore wasn't explicit and the film is praised for atmosphere and tension, not visuals. In either case, rating it Mature:Sex would be a gross misuse of the system.

The maturity rating is not about intent. Whether the explicit sexual descriptions are there for erotica, comedy, atmosphere, tension, shock value, artistic metaphors, introspection, character development, or any of the infinite spectrum of what you could be doing with it, it is still explicitly sexual, and should be marked as such. If Adult Comedies start getting their own section segregated away from what you don't want them near, then what else should? Where does it end? Mature:Sex and Comedy already denotes an adult comedy just as well, and has the advantage of being part of an existing system that can describe if not all, a majority of stories, through a combination of two separate metrics--combining them would NOT help matters. It would make classifying adult comedies slightly easier, but then other stories start to feel like second class citizens, and thus need their own section. End result, a minor increase in whether an author feels they've been tagged right and a massive increase in complexity, not to mention the implementation and maintenance costs.

Just because an adult comedy does not have "His ding-dong rocketed into her vajayjay with the force of a million sonic rainbooms" in it doesn't make the themes any less explicit. Explicitness, ironically, can be implicit. A sliding scale from "Sorta Explicit" to "Hardcore Horse Sex" would make it easier to classify stories, but with the downside of being impossible to police, hell to manage or maintain, harder to understand for users (Who, judging by existing tagging standards, already don't actually get it), and so on. Every system is a balance between expressiveness and ease of use, and while adding complexity can sometimes increase the former it never increases the latter.

We already can filter searches by Mature:Sex and Mature:Gore. Given that it's a binary choice, searching for one implicitly filters out the other. What functionality exactly is missing from that? " -TAW

Here's my reply:

"Mature Categories gives you the option to search for stories tagged with "Mature:Sex" "Mature:Gore" or "Mature:All." Searching for "Sex" will filter out "Gore" and vice versa, unless a story is tagged with both. Then it appears in either search.

If you look at the search page, you'll notice that the "Categories" and "Mature Categories" are set up differently. Categories gives you an option to check the types of stories you want included in your search, while marking an 'x' over the genres of stories you want excluded from your search. There is currently nothing like this in place that would allow people to exclude mature stories marked with sex or gore tags.

Just as the Categories section allows you to filter out dark or sad stories from your search, people should be allowed to filler out stories with the "Mature:Sex" or "Mature:Gore" tags, which they currently are not able to do. The ability to filter out stories marked for Mature levels of sex and gore would go a long ways towards what I'm trying to accomplish.

My goal is for people to be able to find Mature rated stories, while filtering out other Mature stories marked with "Mature:Sex" and/or "Mature:Gore" tags." -Bronystories

Update: TAW's response:

"That seems purely theoretical, is there any story marked both? Certainly a tiny minority. It hardly seems like a big enough reason to require a rating overhaul.

There's no need to support filtering /out/ sex or gore when the two are so rarely seen together." -TAW

My reply: I... I mean... I've got nothing. I don't know what I could add at this point.