Topic on Talk:Femme Fatale

Neither Femme Fatale nor Fille Fatale is a complimentary thing to call someone, so the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment could apply to Real Life examples - and that's been enough to add NRL to other pages.

In addition, there's the whole "underage eroticism" thing for Fille Fatale.

Opinions are requested. Am I off-base here?

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I just put a link to this discussion on Talk:Fille Fatale.

I am hesitant to agree with NRL for both of these pages, if only because of historical (recent and not) examples that could fit -- Mata Hari and Amy Fisher both come immediately to mind.

If they do go NRL, I would note that the Spear Counterpart to Fille Fatale, Kidanova, has no problems with Real Life examples, regardless of how minimal as its section is. If underage eroticism is a concern for Fille Fatale, perhaps Kidanova should be rewritten to remove the implicit congratulations and encouragement a precociously amorous boy is offered by the article and its examples. (It's an interesting contrast -- a precocious girl is damaged or a danger, a precocious boy is to be celebrated.)

"It's an interesting contrast -- a precocious girl is damaged or a danger, a precocious boy is to be celebrated."

And neither should be celebrated - the only reason the trope is written that way is because of the societal bias where all boys are expected to be """ladykillers""" and perform accordingly from unreasonably young ages. Men and other people "read" as masculine who are abuse victims tend to not be taken 'seriously' for this among various other reasons - those who were abused as minors even less so.

To put it shortly, regardless of what's done with the Fatale tropes, I absolutely support a Kidanova rewrite that removes those, but at least discusses the reasoning and rationales that can lead to that mindsets.

And then you get into the highly-manufactured moral panic about kids learning of non-straight sexuality at a young while, while this sort of thing is marketed at them all over the place and expected to be... but I digress.

I'll concur with Lequinni here, at least with regards to Femme Fatale - stick to historical/documented examples, anti-gossip reminder, CEJ rule, etc. I'm inclined to say the same for the other trope, but that's something I have to think a fair bit about first.

I said this in other cases of polemic tropes, and others will agree with me: restrict the possible examples of these tropes to the historical and the well documented cases, add a reminder that ATT isn't a gossip site, and Rule of Cautious Edited Judgement on all of this.

I'd stick with well documented historical examples if we must cover IRL versions, and they should be written as neutrally as possible with links to sources if need be to avoid any possible issues with spreading gossip.

We appear to have consensus for Femme Fatale, but the discussion isn't even a full day old yet. Let's let it run for a bit.

And, by all means, we need to continue discussing Fille Fatale. EDIT: And Kidanova. I've just put a link to this discussion on that trope's Talk page.

I'd do the same for them we are doing for this page, just to be on the safe side.

Agreeing with Geth here.

Likewise.

And since I'm the one who brought it up, it'd be silly of me to not chime in with my own "yes".

Well, I feel that what's being proposed for Femme Fatale should also be done for those two - at minimum. I'm internally mulling over whether or not that's "enough" or if the fact said tropes concern minors might not warrant a bit more... and whether or not that's looking for genuine considerations or just a "think of the children" impulse.

Since we've reached consensus on Femme Fatale, I've added the requested "historical examples only" note.

What do we want to do with Fille Fatale and Kidanova?

• Add a "historical examples only" note
• Request No Real Life examples at all
• Something else (please specify)

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Hey, why wasn't I pinged!?!? Am I not important enough!? /j

That was me being too lazy to actually keep a list of frequent Tropers, and going through a few days of the Recent Changes instead. Sorry about that!

I was joking, you silly person!

If possible to keep out of the gutter/legal trouble, option 1. If not, option 2.

I'm gonna lean towards option 2.

I'm going to toss in a "Something else (please specify)": Rewrite both Fille Fatale and Kidanova to make them a single consolidated trope about underage seducers, and include a discussion of Audience Reactions of both "this is a good thing" and "this is a bad thing". Mark the new trope as NRL, because this is something in real life that really needs to be referred to child services instead of being posted to a wiki.

I would oppose that, it would be like fusing Ms. and Mr. Fanservice together when what defines sexual attraction/seduction for both genders are pretty different. Create a super-category may be valid but fusing the pages, no.

Excellent points.

Which option do you like, if any?

I'm not big fan of judging any person by fictional standards of personality. Fille and Femme Fatale implies a woman is "bad". I do not think we should judge real life humans by those standards. So no Real Life Examples. I think "Underage Seducer" may be a good name for the super-category.

I of course also means not men/boy should be judged as "bad".

Then just select one of the other options and/or suggest another "something else".

I am with HornyLikeIAmA14YearOldGirl here against Robkelk's fusion rewrite proposal, for the same reason that they are tropes with different functions and implications that besides being about underage people approach to romance and sex have not that much on common. Fille Fatale is an underage seductress, with actively sexual undertones, while The Kidanova is a preteen boy with the trappings of The Casanova and/or the Chick Magnet, whose antics are PG at most. Discounting the double standard, they are different tropes

My vote is for "Historical and documented examples only", with an adding of create a subcategory for "underage romance" and group these controversial tropes with the other romance-related tropes for underage people like Puppy Love, if the Admins consider it convenient.

Echoing Lequinni's thoughts on this. Other than that, I don't really have much to say.

I would also go with documented cases only, maybe with an additional hint that our website is not there to spread gossip and harm people's reputations. Maybe similar to Pedophile Priest, but not quite as restrictive, since being a Fille Fatale or Kidanova doesn't in itself constitute a crime. It just puts you in a morally "dirty" area, especially the Fille Fatale who is sexually seductive and selfish, which is often seen as something sinful and "bad" especially in women.

(A historical documented case would be okay, but let's say calling a living celebrity this is borderline at best. Especially when it's YMMV and has never been stated by a credible source so far.)

Thanks to a weekend trip I'm coming in late to the back half of this discussion. I think Lequinni's on the right track here... but maybe we can recast both tropes as gender-neutral? (If that's even possible? A female Kidanova would impose all kinds of creepy overtones on the men she's attracting/attracted to and come right back around to Fille Fatale, it seems...)

Looks like I'm outvoted, and the consensus is to put the same disclaimer on Fille Fatale and Kidanova that we put on Femme Fatale.

Doing that now.

One last question: Should we complete the set and add the same disclaimer to The Casanova?

Sure.

The problem is that the list can go on and on... one could do the same to Casanova Wannabe, Kavorka Man, Abhorrent Admirer etc. (With that last one really not being complimentary.)

It's less about "this could be rude to call someone" and more "there are little to no conceivable scenarios in which this is a positive thing". e.g., a Casanova Wannabe isn't a designation indicative of "quality" as a person the way, say, Kavorka Man would be, and Abhorrent Admirers need not be physically so. Besides that, there's not nearly the same type of ramifications for listing examples for those, I'd think.

...none that would have to be stated outright, anyway. I'd think those are ones where we could trust editors to exhibit common sense and not ignore distinctions.