Well, I can give you some empirical evidence if you like? Good few years ago now, I had relatives staying over, and one day they and my family decided to go for a walk. I couldn’t be bothered, and my young cousin, 13 at the time, was feeling a bit poorly, so she didn’t want to go either. She plays WoW, and had brought her laptop, so I said “Why don’t we just make a couple of alts, and go levelling” as she looked a bit bored and mopey, she perked up and we made a couple of brand new humans, we were having a rattling laugh, sat next to each other at my gaming table, In reflection, I should have thought about this, maybe ‘human’ wasn’t the best choice, but hey ho. You can guess what happened next. It was awkward enough having to go "Ah, I know the quests are sending us to Goldshire, but lets not go there, lets just level up by killing some mobs in Jangolode Mine.
Pretty much as I’d said this, she got an absolutely disgusting /whisper, because, hey, she was a girl, she’d made a female character, and when I say disgusting, I mean the sort of shiz that made my blood boil. I have never wanted to be able to reach through a computer screen and punch someone so much. She laughed nervously, but clearly was unsettled, and said she’d had enough of playing and was going to go to her room (Actually -my- room, I always get kicked out and have to sleep downstairs when we have guests!) and for the next two days, she was pretty withdrawn, and normally she is a very vivacious person. I mean this message was disgusting, starting out with calling her someone who looked like a ‘filthy wh0re’ and moving on to what the sender would like to do to her. -I- then felt guilty, and thought "Crap, I should have said “No, not Humans, lets roll Orcs, or Forsaken” and then I thought “No, hang on, why should I have? Why should she be subjected to this shiz?”
She’s obviously moved on, and is now an adult herself, but aged 13 it clearly had a massive impact on her. I still feel guilty to this day for not thinking it through, but then why should I have to think like a nonce in order to protect my young cousin? Why can’t they just not behave like nonces? I mean that person actually committed a criminal offence, because it -is- a criminal offence (under UK Law at least) to send sexually graphic content to a minor, whether pictorial or textual, and yes that applies to online games, and no ‘I didn’t know how old they were’ is not a legal defence. They outright committed a criminal sexual offence against a child.
It is -that- simple. Its not a moral crusade. Someone committed a sexual offence against a child, and people are defending that?
You say it is no different to p0rn? I will point out the exact difference. If a kid looks at p0rn, they are -choosing- to do so, and it does not involve another party, they are not being subjected to it by an adult, which also by the way, is a Criminal Sexual Offence.
If it is two consenting adults, who know, -incontrovertibly-, that they are both adults, and no “She said she was 16” is not Incontrovertibly, and they do it in a private place like an Instance where no one can see it, then frankly, it is no more or less illegal than ‘Sexting’ your partner. That’s fine. But if you don’t know the age of the person you are talking to, then you are a potential Nonce.
I am not an Anti-ERP crusader, I’ve sent, and been sent graphic naughty messages in my time, but only to people that I was in a real life relationship with, and never via a medium where -anyone- else, child or grown-up could see them. It isn’t a ‘Puritanical’ streak that drives my loathing of public ERP, it is the fact that it is so inconsiderate, unthinking, and potentially, yes, Criminal.
It annoys me when people go “think of the Children” hah hah, as if that’s funny. As if actually worrying about the state of formative minds is in some way a mockable thing… It is incredibly easy to respond to legitimate concerns with buzzwords and memes. Perhaps if some of those people who say “Oh, but won’t people think of the children” actually stopped and -thought- about the children, then they might change their mind.
So don’t say it doesn’t effect kids. It does. That is all.