As a victim of abuse, I find it extremely offensive that there is artwork posted on this site that depicts the rape and torture of innocent men, women, and children. Whether it's a cartoon, a photo, or a literary work, I believe that allowing these things to be posted and shown to the general public is a form of encouragement for these kinds of behaviors.
I believe that a sub website or a rape label should be implemented if Deviant Art doesn't want to discriminate toward this group and remove their work entirely. If the rape label were implemented, the site could make it so even with the mature content filter turned off, those of us who find such works offensive could check or uncheck a box to keep it from appearing during our searches and from the front page.
Rape isn't just mature content. It's a criminal act that stays with victims forever. The site displays art with adults and children in chains, crying and beaten with descriptions and lines of commentary about how sexy it is. True, they remove art depicting children when reported, but I don't believe that just because someone is over the age of 18, it's okay for them to be victimized either.
The argument against this would be, "If you don't like it, don't look at it", however, if the mature content filter is off, (or on in some cases, if the artist failed to claim it as mature content) these works pop up on the front page without warning and there is also no warning when it's on another user's front page whose account you may want to check out. There is no way to block it from being seen with the "mature content filter" off. People shouldn't have to be exposed to seeing someone bound and in tears at the mercy of their attacker just because they're okay with nudity and turn off the filter. It's a different thing entirely. It's criminal, it's harmful, and it most certainly shouldn't be something that we just let slide in the name of art. There are fetish sites for things like this. I don't think Deviant Art should be one of them when it has so much more to offer and such a wider range of users, most of which use the site professionally and I don't believe are in favor of such horrific depictions either.
I'm petitioning so that offensive works depicting rape and/or torture of an unwilling victim doesn't become something we, as a culture, become desensitized to.