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To put this in the simplest terms possible: Yes.

No, this has nothing to do with some hand-wringing, chest-beating, painfully reactionary 'Why won't someone think of the children?!' Helen Lovejoy-esque moral panic on main street. It's kind of pointless to spend too much time worrying about hiding the children's eyes from something that - once they hit their teens, at any rate - they're probably going to be actively seeking out for themselves because they're fourteen, curious and hormone-ridden. As long as there've been dirty stories and naughty pictures and any social concept of the term childhood, there've been kids who society still considered of an age to need to be sheltered from such things trying to nick them from the grown-ups.

That's what kids are like: they want to see the porn because it's naughty and grown-up and this, they think, is what adults do. And, in most cases, they'll find a way to get hold of it because kids are a lot more resourceful than adults give them credit for.

That being the case, precisely why do I think that content warnings matter if barely anyone reads them? Well, honestly, I think they matter because of the aforementioned fact that kids are horny, curious and resourceful and will find some way of seeing the porn whether we the grown-ups like it or not. Content warnings are important as much to cover the website owner's back as to hide the children's eyes - or, for that matter, the eyes of the sheltered and easily shocked, depending on what the porn in question involves.

Put it this way. If someone creates a site that has adult content and fully disclaimers it, then is contacted by some Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells wringing their hands about how their sweet, innocent little Hugo or Jocasta was caught browsing their horrible site and how could you think of leaving such filth somewhere that children could find it?!, the fully disclaimered-up webmaster has a watertight fallback position. That position being that all their adult content is explicitly labeled as being for adults only, and if Hugo and Jocasta were caught reading it that is because they - the precious little darlings themselves - merrily ignored those warnings. It won't stop Disgusted from fulminating, of course, but it at least means they don't have much grounds to formally complain. Their child ignored a clear warning that the site they were visiting was not for minors and they themselves took no steps to monitor their children's online activities. The webmaster took reasonable precautions and if those weren't enough that's the fault of Disgusted's horny kids, not them.

It's also not the webmaster's problem if Disgusted ignores their disclaimers and surfs on into their pit of virtual depravity then decides Oh Wait I Am Horrified Down With This Sort of Thing. There was a warning; it was ignored. Anybody who ends up brain-scarred as a result has only themselves to blame.

Grown adults should have the maturity to take responsibility for their browsing habits, but since they don't content warnings only make sense.

As far as creativity goes, a warning doesn't actually hold anybody back. It just informs a potential onlooker, quite calmly, hey, this might not be for you and lets them make an informed decision about whether or not it actually is. I don't really see how hanging a sign at the door and politely telling anyone who visits 'hey, before you walk in you should probably be aware of this' could possibly stifle anyone's creative expression. Nobody is saying that you can't do whatever the Hell you like after that point, but as long as you've made it quite clear that (to stretch this metaphor to breaking point) you've painted the living room hot-pink, fitted a fluffy white carpet and filled it with lime-green sofas nobody who walks inside can claim they weren't warned about your eye-searing taste in interior decoration.

I write fanfiction. Yes, I'm one of those fangirls and have been for quite a while. I'm quite happy to disclaimer my work because I'd rather that it was read by people who were actually likely to enjoy it, and I don't feel that my creativity or artistic expression is at all stifled as a result. Posting a content warning doesn't mean that I am no longer allowed to post the content in the first place: It just makes sense to leave it somewhere thirteen-year-old Jocasta can't stumble access it while on the lookout for a Livejournal icon, and if she does anyway it's between her and her dad to sort out quite why she wanted to read about violent gay rape. It was, after all, clearly labeled 'violent gay rape', not 'free Livejournal icons', so it wasn't like there was any innocent mix-up. It's the virtual equivalent of putting the porn on the top shelf. Nothing's going to stop a kid from getting it down if they're determined enough, but that doesn't mean there's no reason to at least try and keep it out the way of the underage.

My only issue with content ratings is this: I don't like the idea of restrictions being made on the basis of age alone, with no explanation given other than 'this content is inappropriate for minors'. Without any kind of context as to what exactly is so inappropriate about the content in question there's no way for a prospective viewer to make an informed decision on whether or not they want to see that, and thus the warning itself is worthless.