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Translating adult content - what is your opinion?
Thread poster: Inez Ulrich
Inez Ulrich
Inez Ulrich  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 23:46
Member (2016)
English to German
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TOPIC STARTER
... Jun 14, 2020

Elena Feriani wrote:

Hi Inez,
Like Teresa, I have a couple of things that I refuse to translate, like gambling-related material, fake news, scams, religion...
As far as pornography is concerned, I'm comfortable with translating texts (sex toys descriptions and packaging mainly) and when these jobs come up I have no problem with working on them. What I have a problem with is the visuals. I don't want to see anything! I know there is a demand for subtitles, for example, but I'm not interested at all.
If you are comfortable with a job, go for it! This is the best part of being freelancers, that we can decide for ourselves


Thank you, Elena, that helps a lot, too! I really appreciate everybody's input here - thanks, guys!:)


 
Inez Ulrich
Inez Ulrich  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 23:46
Member (2016)
English to German
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TOPIC STARTER
Thanks all! Jun 14, 2020

Thanks to all, you have really helped me making a decision and feeling comfortable with it - I will give it a try and can decline at any time if I think it is not sth I can do, but at least I want to try.

Zibow Retailleau
 
Inez Ulrich
Inez Ulrich  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 23:46
Member (2016)
English to German
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
interesting! Jun 14, 2020

Hwaet wrote:




I can see how one might second-guess a translation of an adult text. It's honest work, but most of us don't generally have a need to write about such things. Unless some of you are secret fanfic writers.

No one has asked for a polished Old English to Modern English translation (there's so little surviving OE texts anyway - I expect academia has the market cornered), but I occasionally get research tasks that require reading (and maybe a rough translation) of a medieval text, for the purposes of fact-checking an article discussing that text or a word origin - something like that.


yeah..it is not that I was looking for sth like that, I was offered that job, and that made me start thinking about all this. I'm way clearer now thanks to all your input

As for the OE: it is too bad there are not many such jobs around, of course due to the limited supply of texts, but it is highly interesting anyway, also the research you mentioned! At university, we had so many interesting things to learn and research, I miss that sometimes, but it is such a long time since I was there...maybe I should start another studies?


 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 23:46
Member (2003)
Danish to English
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I would not do it, because I would not be good at it Jun 14, 2020

In principle I would not object, unless it was also promoting illegal activities.
I don't have problems with healthy sex between consenting adults, but reading about it does not interest me either.
My mother used to say: 'Sex is not a spectator sport!'
It is not an area that just any translator can take on.


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Angie Garbarino
Rachel Waddington
Philip Lees
Dan Lucas
Inez Ulrich
Sheila Wilson
 
Sarah Lewis-Morgan
Sarah Lewis-Morgan  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 23:46
Member (2014)
German to English
+ ...
It is a tricky subject... Jun 14, 2020

I have written a few romance stories - I actually started almost for a dare when I said to a friend that I reckoned it was easy to write for Mills and Boon. I got a few of the nice rejection letters so I kept trying, but eventually gave up - some years later I dragged out the manuscripts, edited and updated them and put a few of them up on Amazon as e-books. One of the reasons I failed to attract M&B was because I found it really hard to write the obligatory sex scenes without laughing. It reall... See more
I have written a few romance stories - I actually started almost for a dare when I said to a friend that I reckoned it was easy to write for Mills and Boon. I got a few of the nice rejection letters so I kept trying, but eventually gave up - some years later I dragged out the manuscripts, edited and updated them and put a few of them up on Amazon as e-books. One of the reasons I failed to attract M&B was because I found it really hard to write the obligatory sex scenes without laughing. It really isn't as easy as it might seem, and I pretty much skirted around the sex bit in the edited versions because there was no pressure on me at that stage. I once rejected the offer of a translation related to penis enlargement for a similar reason (the PM apologised profusely, as she didn't speak German and hadn't realised what the content was. She was more embarrassed than I was, I reckon). Unless there was anything illegal involved my reasons for not taking the job would not be moral ones - for moral reasons, for example, I would definitely refuse to translate anything for the tobacco industry.Collapse


 
Laurent Mercky
Laurent Mercky
France
Local time: 23:46
Chinese to French
+ ...
Yes Jun 14, 2020

Hi,

In fact, I would.
Many years ago, I translated a commercial about dildo
anyway, we are not kids anymore ^^


 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Oooh, yes please! Jun 14, 2020

That is precisely why I decided to learn Swedish all those years ago 😂😂

But I’ve never been asked😢😢

After watching Fäbodjäntan, eating falukorv has never been the same again😂😂


The Misha
Mervyn Henderson (X)
expressisverbis
 
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei  Identity Verified
Ghana
Local time: 22:46
Japanese to English
Not for me, thanks Jun 14, 2020

For moral, ethical, religious and personal comfort reasons, I don't translate any adult content. In fact, I gave up an easy and regular gig translating 'otome' (girls') smartphone games because even the consensual stuff was a violation of my good conscience. Backing out of a regular project like that can leave clients in the lurch, so nowadays I just don't accept such projects to begin with.

MollyRose
 
mona elshazly
mona elshazly  Identity Verified
Egypt
Local time: 00:46
Member (2016)
Italian to Arabic
+ ...
I would refuse doing it Jun 14, 2020

For me, I refuse to translate such content for religious and moral beliefs. It is a big fat NO THANK YOU.

Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
MollyRose
 
finnword1
finnword1
United States
Local time: 18:46
English to Finnish
+ ...
probably not Jun 15, 2020

I primarily do patent translation. Nobody has asked about a sex toy patent (so far).

Nadja Balogh
 
Philip Lees
Philip Lees  Identity Verified
Greece
Local time: 00:46
Greek to English
Comfort and competence Jun 15, 2020

Teresa Borges wrote:

I try to leave my causes, my biases, my likes and dislikes and my morality at a good distance from my translation desk, but for me it is a question of comfort level


I've written a fair amount of fiction, across a range of genres, and it was the occasional sex scene, when I judged that such a thing was necessary, that gave me the most difficulty. As somebody else here wrote, sex is not a spectator sport and I found it as hard to write a convincing sex scene as I would to commentate on a football match, largely because I wouldn't enjoy being a spectator at either.

If you can't write about something effectively, you can't translate it properly, either. I would also decline religious texts for similar reasons.

On the other hand, I don't think I would have any trouble translating information leaflets for sex toys, or whatever. It would be the marketing aspect that would give me more trouble than the sex aspect.


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
expressisverbis
Sheila Wilson
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:46
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Ramen Jun 15, 2020

Chris S wrote:
After watching Fäbodjäntan, eating falukorv has never been the same again😂😂

Tampopo left me feeling much the same way about ramen, not to say raw egg, when I was a student - although I should add that it's an excellent and very funny film in its own right.

Regards,
Dan


Christopher Schröder
 
Mervyn Henderson (X)
Mervyn Henderson (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 23:46
Spanish to English
+ ...
Spectators Jun 15, 2020

I’ve done it before, and no problem with it, with a big no-no to anything involving children and extreme violence. Like actors do, it might help if you try to think yourself into the part! I feel it is a “spectator sport”, though, albeit a rather hushed sport kept to oneself for obvious reasons, because most people get all hot and bothered seeing or reading about other people, either accidentally or on purpose. Is it 80% or 90% of all Internet hits worldwide that are porn sites? I rest my ... See more
I’ve done it before, and no problem with it, with a big no-no to anything involving children and extreme violence. Like actors do, it might help if you try to think yourself into the part! I feel it is a “spectator sport”, though, albeit a rather hushed sport kept to oneself for obvious reasons, because most people get all hot and bothered seeing or reading about other people, either accidentally or on purpose. Is it 80% or 90% of all Internet hits worldwide that are porn sites? I rest my case.

In Barcelona, in the days before e-mail and Internet, I answered an ad in the paper to translate “erotic content”. When I rang, the man said I’d have to go to the office because he couldn’t possibly talk about it on the phone, it was so highly erotic and fetishistic, and might even be considered disgusting. When I arrived there was a big office with about twenty people all working on magazines with all kinds of themes. My man said they specialised in fetishes, and showed me a mag on foot fetishes. But, he said, what he wanted me to translate was quite borderline, and had in fact been banned in the UK. He then showed me a few bondage mags, which I flicked through, and said that was all right with me. He told me not to decide right now, but to take them home and really think about it. Actually, I didn’t see the problem, because it wasn’t anything different to what I already knew about – a lot of latex, masks, handcuffs, whips, plus the usual body parts interacting. Maybe they were just behind the times in Spain. The texts alongside the photos were quite steamy, of course, but nothing you wouldn’t expect, and fairly easy to translate because they weren’t very creative, let’s say. I rang him later and said I was up for it, but for some reason they never rang back.

Doing it creatively is difficult, though. I’ve written quite a bit of it myself, and you do tend to run out of nouns and adjectives and adverbs, body parts, metaphors etc. once you’re done with all the usual suspects in the language. And it’s largely hush-hush, too, so I decided to test-drive one of my stories with the most prim and proper girl I knew at the time, reasoning that if she liked it, people who weren’t so prim and proper would like it even more, but I still thought she’d be horrified. It was a bit of a perverse way of going about things, but then the story concerned was kind of twisted like that too. A few days later she told me blushingly she’d found it terribly lewd and even disturbing, so apparently that was that. Then she asked rather timidly if I had any more! I had to laugh. But I reckoned I’d secured an approval of sorts, so I thought it was better to quit while I was ahead.


[Edited at 2020-06-15 11:30 GMT]
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Christopher Schröder
Andrew Morris
expressisverbis
Sheila Wilson
 
Yolande Hivart
Yolande Hivart
Austria
Local time: 23:46
Member (2016)
German to French
It really depends on the intent and the autor Jun 15, 2020

When I was a preteen, there was a book series called laila. On the cover it was very fairy like, somekind of fantasy story with horse in a stone age setting. Nice horse on the cover. I blushed a lot when I read it, hat has soft porn description on nearly every third/fourth page - and this over a serie of 7 books. My parents never knew about the true curiosity as a child of continuing to read the whole series.
I think that kind of soft porn I could translate without a problem - but I would
... See more
When I was a preteen, there was a book series called laila. On the cover it was very fairy like, somekind of fantasy story with horse in a stone age setting. Nice horse on the cover. I blushed a lot when I read it, hat has soft porn description on nearly every third/fourth page - and this over a serie of 7 books. My parents never knew about the true curiosity as a child of continuing to read the whole series.
I think that kind of soft porn I could translate without a problem - but I would burn it if I had a daughter wanting to have a fairy horse story. It gave me sex in my imagination even before I knew how to handle it.

Then as a court translator, I am happy in this country not to be translating for Romanian (where they have a lot to translate for the red light district). When I prepared for the exam, they recommanded me to read the translation of 50 shades of grey to lean how they talk into that context. Luckily i haven't needed yet to learn that language in German - apart for the prosecution side but there there is more a distance of shame. I have no problem translating it.

What gave me problems once was the description of a penis ring and the man describing the advantages. Having a virtual penis to feel like a man was a little too much for me. But I had to finish it, I was too far into it to be able to refuse the translation. I think if I come to something that graphic and i get the ability to refuse it without upseting a big client, I would do it.

Translating the texts for a LGBT website has never been a problem.

I would refuse to translate sex exchanges for a pornographic magazine. There I will not tell you why.
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Maciek Drobka
Maciek Drobka  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 23:46
Member (2006)
English to Polish
+ ...
No Jun 15, 2020

My personal 'no' would be in line with my beliefs.

Other than that, however, there's so much human exploitation linked with the porn film industry that I'd advise anybody to steer clear of any work that included porn films/videos.


Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
MollyRose
 
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