Handing Adult Content

[catsfilmingtea]

I recently accepted the order of a screenplay. It was my first gig. (Very excited.)
Perhaps this was my mistake and one that can be avoided in the future by myself and others.

I never discussed the rating of the material with the client.
I’m not a shy person and I’m not leery of adult content, but the piece that I read and was asked to edit was a screenplay that 1/4 of the way in had glorified rape scene after rape scene.

I explained to the person who ordered that I had to edit around these scenes and asked for forgiveness for not asking earlier what the content in the screenplay included.

Thoughts on how this was handled? How should I handle this better in the future? Does Fiverr have a way to keep my account safe while reporting such vulgar content? I don’t believe Fiverr would be a place that condones rape content. 😦

[rahulkajla1]

You should have asked about the content but I don’t think its your mistake as this was you first order. Even I took first order without having a look at content I am going to work with, but I was lucky enough to get a good content.

Anyway, if you are not comfortable with something like that I will suggest you to offer “mutual cancellation”. Also, for future, I will suggest you to clearly mention something like this “Sorry no sexually explicit content…” in your gig description. Hope it helps!

[fonthaunt]

It is really up to the seller to condone or not condone as they will when it comes to the internal content of a project. Fiverr disallows certain adult services (such as offering phone s*x as a gig) but sellers are independent contractors otherwise. People sell and buy all kinds of things on Fiverr than an average person might find highly unpalatable. Fiverr doesn’t really care if it isn’t on the public portions of the site.

You have to set your own guidelines and boundaries. For example, I have a gig where I read people’s Kindle books and if they want me to, I critique them. I have a statement in my gig description asking them not to order the gig without contacting me if the book is erotic. I am usually willing to read almost anything that amazon will publish if the buyer just wants me to skim the book and tell them if I thought the book would get sales for them.

However, if they are going to add an extra for a 500 word critique and the content is f3tish stuff, I may not feel able to give them real critique if the content is something I really dislike in the first place. I did learn this the hard way too and I’m sure you can see how it happens now. For next time, I would suggest adding some mention of first contact for subjects in genres you aren’t comfortable with. For this time, if the buyer is OK with it, fine, if not, you may have to eat that one and cancel even if you’ve already worked on it.

Fiverr is only going to care about whether or not the entire situation violates the terms of service or violates what you wrote in the exact gig description your buyer ordered. From what you’ve described, the buyer didn’t violate the ToS and you didn’t have a clause in your description on this one, so you’ll have to work it out. I do wish you the best of luck!

[eoinfinnegan]

You may find that the buyer was actually very careful about ordering from someone who didn’t have anything suggesting an aversion to adult content. Many people (myself included) won’t take those things on and so the fact you didn’t seem to have any issue with it, may have got you the order!
Don’t worry though, explain yourself politely and apologize, most likely the buyer won’t want you to work on it.
If you are uncomfortable with the material, how would you really “get into” the work.

[mariokluser]

If you don’t have objections against adult content in general but against the one you described you could add a sentence to your description like ‘If you have adult content you need to contact me first for a custom order. Otherwise I have to decline the order.’

[catsfilmingtea]

Thank you, everyone, for giving me such great advice. I wasn’t sure if a mutual cancelation will still have an effect on my rating or not. They accepted my cancelation, though and I’ll be sure to ask about the content before accepting more screenplays. On a bright note, I have already received another very pleasant order!