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At this point I remembered that SE published an entire excellent series that relates exactly so this issue. For anyone who hasn’t read the Tricky Subjects series, I highly recommend it.

@obrian-of-the-surface-world I think that example is a good one to demonstrate how this topic has reached the end of its usefulness–I absolutely think watching horrific events in the evening news should be looked at under the same lens as an R-rated movie, as regards whether your kids should watch it.

I firmly believe these basic truths:

1. Certain elements of fraught content exist in the real world, such as sex and violence. Real people engage with these in real life.
2. Reflecting the reality of the world and of human experience is one of the most important elements of storytelling. It’s one of the primary ways you approach capital-T Truth in storytelling.
3. Exposure to these elements in a story can be irresponsible depending on the maturity of the audience.
4. “Safe” to “unsafe” is a spectrum which will vary widely across each different element for a given audience. For some audiences, no amount of sexual content is safe. This is not the case for every audience.

Figuring out how to serve a particular audience will do us much more good than trying to decide whether a vague rating system designed for movies should apply to anything that isn’t a film released into American theaters.