watsit said:
Because they're pictures of real children? A drawing of a fictional character is not doing harm, but a photo or video taken of a real young person is.

That same argument was made against violent video games. "People who like shooting characters in video games have possible subconscious desires." Same argument can be used about furries/anthros... you could just look at normal humans, but you specifically like characters in sexual situations that have animal parts; they represent things, possible subconscious desires. Diapers, which are largely used by babies and young children? They represent things, possible subconscious desires. "Possible" is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting there. Also your use of "subconscious desires" comes across as "thought crime".

Sure I used the word possible because I can't read minds. But I think when you purposely insert yourself into a piece of artwork doing something like that it reflects on your character. You're not just pretending to be Niko Bellick (sp?) you're using your own personal fursona to depict something. Pretending to do immoral acts is always better than doing them in reality but how does one guage whether or not someone wants to act them out in real life?

pheagleadler said:
But I think when you purposely insert yourself into a piece of artwork doing something like that it reflects on your character.

Not everyone inserts themselves into the artwork. I'd say the majority don't, as the majority of people that enjoy such art don't have their characters in it (if they even have characters). Moreover, what reflects on your character is what you actually do. The mind if a really fucked up place, no one is free from impure thoughts, but it's how you conduct yourself in the real world that should matter. Whether it's adult cub art, feral art, or furry art, decrying people because of their thoughts when they don't do anything bad is how you get witch hunts.

pheagleadler said:
Pretending to do immoral acts is always better than doing them in reality but how does one guage whether or not someone wants to act them out in real life?

Well, I can say forcing fictional content into the dark underground recesses is not something that helps. Letting it out into the light helps, as people who may be more prone to such issues don't feel ostracized in talking about it and have a better support network to get whatever help they need, while people who enjoy the content without any issues can be left in peace. Pushing that kind of otherwise harmless content to the underground, where people are more likely to run into more harmful stuff along side it, and people who are prone to issues are less able to get the help they need and become more likely to harm both themselves and others, is not how you make it better.

pheagleadler said:
Um...so why do we arrest people for child pornography then? They're just images /s

I know you meant that to be sarcastic, but I would not put cub/young/loli content under the same category as child pornography. Child pornography involves the exploitation of real minors that can include acts of harm, violation, and sexual abuse while drawn artwork only involves the artist and their imagination.

Granted people have been arrested for possessing loli content in the US, but they have either taken a plea deal or were convicted on Obscenity charges.

The problem I have is these images represent things, possible subconscious desires. Sites like FA don't ban this type of content for no reason.

Like many public and mainstream websites, FurAffinity banned such content because they have to consider potential state laws and advertisers. It would be easier legally and financially to ban these content in the first place to avoid any hassle in the future.

That is what Pornhub did back in December 2020 by nuking about 80% of their existing content. Most stuff did not go through a screening process and thus may be involving real exploitation of sex actors and/or minors. They had received many complaints about this, and to curb any repercussions legally and financially, they chose to nuke everything and only allow verified members to upload content.

E621 is fortunate enough to be hosted and funded by Bad Dragon, and in return, we run ads on the website. Thus, we do not need to worry about finance.
As for state and federal laws, there is nothing so far in Arizona that prohibits such content and anything above would require it to fit into the federal Obscenity law.
To top it all off, we do not allow any real-life pornography on the site. We also have a screening/approval process in place for all content uploaded here, so that any artworks that did involve the exploitation of minors and/or animals are removed immediately.

Sure I used the word possible because I can't read minds. But I think when you purposely insert yourself into a piece of artwork doing something like that it reflects on your character. You're not just pretending to be Niko Bellick (sp?) you're using your own personal fursona to depict something. Pretending to do immoral acts is always better than doing them in reality but how does one guage whether or not someone wants to act them out in real life?

It does not matter who the characters represent, it can be just an OC, a fursona, or even their actual human selves drawn in. The argument would still be the same in that the actions were "immoral".
What people do in their artworks has no bearing on what they would do in real life.

As hypothetical examples:

• I can fantasise about wanting to be dominated by wolves and be brought into their pack as a breeding tool; however, I wouldn't purposefully go out into the wilderness to find wolves because I would know I'd get mauled to death or die from exposure first.
• Likewise, if I were to fantasise about going nude in public (exhibitionism) or having passionate sex in the open (public_sex), I would know that people watching do not actually find the act extremely arousing and compliment me on my behaviour, but rather I would get immediately arrested and/or sent for mental health evaluation.
• To extend into video games, I fantasise about being able to jump off buildings and do trickshots at my enemies and immediately heal afterwards by taking cover for a few seconds, or steal a car to go on a citywide crime spree and escape incarceration after they don't find me for a few minutes. I know these actions have severe repercussions in real life and would not even attempt it at all.

The problem, like I said before, is when people cannot tell between fantasy and reality. This is something that one learns since the day they were born. If I have had a dream about murdering people who had crossed me, I would know that I should not do it in real life due to the severe consequences. However, if one's mind is too fractured to consider about the consequences or do not care entirely, then they should be seeking help from mental health professionals.

pheagleadler said:
Sites like FA don't ban this type of content for no reason.

Sites like FA ban "this type of content" because hosting terabytes of TF art costs money, and payment processors don't like to be associated with things people get this heated about.

magnuseffect said:
Sites like FA ban "this type of content" because hosting terabytes of TF art costs money, and payment processors don't like to be associated with things people get this heated about.

It's also a reason that outsiders view furries as "degenerates" and I'd rather not be associated with that.

pheagleadler said:
It's also a reason that outsiders view furries as "degenerates" and I'd rather not be associated with that.

As if they don't already. "Normal" people aren't going to have a favorable view of things like post #3233983 or post #3230802. Or post #3226362. Or post #3165511. Some of us are degenerates. But we're not harming anyone. We enjoy what we do in the company of like-minded individuals. Live and let live, yeah?

pheagleadler said:
It's also a reason that outsiders view furries as "degenerates" and I'd rather not be associated with that.

Pheagle, if you talk about furries to non-furries the average first-response will be calling them gross weirdos for "wanting to be an animal." And that's mostly an otherkin thing, not inherently a furry trait.
People who aren't on niche-interest websites barely register how much porn there is, let alone what deeper subjects any of it covers.

pheagleadler said:
It's also a reason that outsiders view furries as "degenerates" and I'd rather not be associated with that.

Literally any kink can be seen as degenerate, and I hate to break it to you but some diaperfurs also get the same flak since they can't behave themselves in public.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Literally any kink can be seen as degenerate, and I hate to break it to you but some diaperfurs also get the same flak since they can't behave themselves in public.

Hey if you're calling me a diaper fur because I liked a few posts you are sorely mistaken lol
Granted I do have a few friends that are.

I will agree the ones that misbehave in public are problematic and I don't want to click that link I'm pretty sure I know what it's referring to.

pheagleadler said:
It's also a reason that outsiders view furries as "degenerates" and I'd rather not be associated with that.

Dude, that ship had sailed long before people became aware of cub and feral porn.

orangeleaf said:
Dude, that ship had sailed long before people became aware of cub and feral porn.

It's not even a losing battle. The whole war is in the dustbin of internet history.

pheagleadler said:
It's also a reason that outsiders view furries as "degenerates" and I'd rather not be associated with that.

Being "degenerates" is how the furry fandom became such a queer-friendly and neurodivergant-friendly space; we're a haven for the weird people that the mainstream bullies and persecutes for being "different." Now that you've had a taste of mainstream acceptance, you want to throw that all away for the affection of people who never liked you to begin with and will throw you away after they drained you of your money.

If you can't abide that, then leave.

pheagleadler said:
It's also a reason that outsiders view furries as "degenerates" and I'd rather not be associated with that.

This... is one of the most degenerate statement I have ever read, and I'm an outsider.

lonelylupine said:
Now that you've had a taste of mainstream acceptance

I'm not sure whether having his commissions joked about on Cracked counts as "mainstream acceptance."

lonelylupine said:
Being "degenerates" is how the furry fandom became such a queer-friendly and neurodivergant-friendly space; we're a haven for the weird people that the mainstream bullies and persecutes for being "different." Now that you've had a taste of mainstream acceptance, you want to throw that all away for the affection of people who never liked you to begin with and will throw you away after they drained you of your money.

If you can't abide that, then leave.

I don't want to say I'm a furry and people assuming I fuck animals alright?

magnuseffect said:
I'm not sure whether having his commissions joked about on Cracked counts as "mainstream acceptance."

Cracked is a site that makes fun of stuff. It doesn't really count. It is better than Encyclopedia Dramatica and KiwiFarms by a long shot though.

pheagleadler said:
I don't want to say I'm a furry and people assuming I fuck animals alright?

If you're concerned about what other people think I strongly suggest avoiding the topic. It's really not that hard.

orangeleaf said:
If you're concerned about what other people think I strongly suggest avoiding the topic. It's really not that hard.

It'd be nice if people didn't have those preconceived notions in the first place. I'm not gonna hide my interests either. It's not as easy to hide when you go to conventions every year either. That's how my mom found out but she's more level headed than some people.

pheagleadler said:
It'd be nice if people didn't have those preconceived notions in the first place. I'm not gonna hide my interests either. It's not as easy to hide when you go to conventions every year either. That's how my mom found out but she's more level headed than some people.

Well I don't know what to tell you mate. The goal is impossible and it's honestly for the wrong reasons anyway. People would keep on thinking what they think if you banned every single fetish right up to the animal dicks.

pheagleadler said:
Cracked is a site that makes fun of stuff. It doesn't really count. It is better than Encyclopedia Dramatica and KiwiFarms by a long shot though.

Sure they're not directly mean to people but you're still featured in an article that ends with We want the human race to crawl into a gypsum mine and go extinct.

pheagleadler said:
I don't want to say I'm a furry and people assuming I fuck animals alright?

And I don't want to say I'm into feral art and have furries assuming I fuck animals. I imagine people also don't want to say they're into cub art and have furries assume they (want to) fuck kids, either. It'd be nice if I could say I support sites allowing cub art, even though it's not a thing I actively look for, and not have people saying I'm a pedo.

pheagleadler said:
It'd be nice if people didn't have those preconceived notions in the first place.

Indeed. It would be nice if people could enjoy the art they enjoy and not have people assume they're a hair trigger away from doing it IRL, when some unknown force pushes them over the edge. As if drawing or liking art of it means you possibly have some subconscious desire to do it IRL. It would be nice if we could break these false assumptions.

magnuseffect said:
We want the human race to crawl into a gypsum mine and go extinct.

I assume there's satire dripping from that statement.

pheagleadler said:
I assume there's satire dripping from that statement.

Exaggerated reaction doesn't mean they're not genuinely disgusted.

magnuseffect said:
I'm not sure whether having his commissions joked about on Cracked counts as "mainstream acceptance."

I meant "you" in general, and this is news to me.

Funny if true. I can say that I certainly don't know of any work of mine, even the morally questionable stuff, that got used in a furry hit-piece.

lonelylupine said:
a furry hit-piece.

It's more of an NFL-themed let's laugh at DeviantArt piece, which admittedly ties neatly back around to what outsiders think about some things on these art platforms.

lonelylupine said:
I meant "you" in general, and this is news to me.

Funny if true. I can say that I certainly don't know of any work of mine, even the morally questionable stuff, that got used in a furry hit-piece.

Let's just say I'm fairly well known in the transformation community. I also post everything in 3 separate locations and sometimes on Twitter or a few other sites as well. My commissions get around so it's no surprise to me that some weirdo from Cracked wanted to write a piece on them, and other related art pieces. But they're not hit pieces, they're satire.

magnuseffect said:
It's more of an NFL-themed let's laugh at DeviantArt piece, which admittedly ties neatly back around to what outsiders think about some things on these art platforms.

There's also one on artist Arania if I remember correctly.
Also look at the footer:

Cyriaque Lamar is a senior editor at Cracked. Last week he wrote about dinosaur erotica. He hates everything.

pheagleadler said:
But they're not hit pieces, they're satire.

Laughing at oddities is closer to a circus freakshow than it is to satire tbh

magnuseffect said:
Laughing at oddities is closer to a circus freakshow than it is to satire tbh

I consider the source in these situations. My commissions made it to Cracked, twice. And I found that rather hilarious.

This has derailed greatly into general morality spitting and not about furry sites being stupid as shit with over-censoring. Can we quit this and get back onto the damn topic?

jayfiregrowlithe said:
This has derailed greatly into general morality spitting and not about furry sites being stupid as shit with over-censoring. Can we quit this and get back onto the damn topic?

TIL censoring is not a moral issue.

To be fair, the goal was to find alternatives. Right now I'm guessing there aren't a ton of good ones though...

orangeleaf said:
To be fair, the goal was to find alternatives. Right now I'm guessing there aren't a ton of good ones though...

Honestly, I don't know what the problem with FA is. Sure, you're not allowed some content there, but most content is allowed and it is a generally nice place now that the more dramaneering elements have shed themselves off to start their own (failed) galleries. It is still the largest and most stable userbase, and it does sensible things like have notifications in chronological order. Yeah, it's old, and it shows its age, but it still works as an art gallery.

For the more questionable content, there is Inkbunny, which, while not as big of a userbase, is still a sensible art gallery, and allows for thinks like keyword blocking to filter out the stuff you don't like.

I don't see why you need alternatives, but that doesn't stop every Moe, Dick, and Larry from trying to make their own and saturating the market, or from running off to Twitter which is literally worse in every way except in terms of userbase, which you'll never reach anyway because the algorithm is designed to punish you for existing.

lonelylupine said:
Honestly, I don't know what the problem with FA is. Sure, you're not allowed some content there, but most content is allowed and it is a generally nice place now that the more dramaneering elements have shed themselves off to start their own (failed) galleries. It is still the largest and most stable userbase, and it does sensible things like have notifications in chronological order. Yeah, it's old, and it shows its age, but it still works as an art gallery.

It's biggest problem is forcing all new uploads to a max width or height of 1280p, which makes it a horrible place to get full-size art. People have to do the reupload trick to get higher resolution images up, which not everyone bothers doing. There's also no video support.

But yeah, other than that FA is one of the better places for furry art. Weasyl's decent functionally, but hardly anyone goes there anymore.

watsit said:
It's biggest problem is forcing all new uploads to a max width or height of 1280p, which makes it a horrible place to get full-size art. People have to do the reupload trick to get higher resolution images up, which not everyone bothers doing. There's also no video support.

But yeah, other than that FA is one of the better places for furry art. Weasyl's decent functionally, but hardly anyone goes there anymore.

I don't usually have a saintlike patience level, but when it comes to FA, I seem to be the one waiting for those features to arrive for less hassle, yet at the same time doing to double upload trick to get by and expecting little.

I gotta say, some sites like FLO and Buzzly seem to fly too high to the sun whenever word of Tweet comes around and herd mentality kicks in. And DeviantArt, aside from the porn on Paywall, kept steeping itself too low by alienating its users with features no one asked and one liked.

lonelylupine said:
Honestly, I don't know what the problem with FA is. Sure, you're not allowed some content there, but most content is allowed and it is a generally nice place now that the more dramaneering elements have shed themselves off to start their own (failed) galleries. It is still the largest and most stable userbase, and it does sensible things like have notifications in chronological order. Yeah, it's old, and it shows its age, but it still works as an art gallery.

For the more questionable content, there is Inkbunny, which, while not as big of a userbase, is still a sensible art gallery, and allows for thinks like keyword blocking to filter out the stuff you don't like.

I don't see why you need alternatives, but that doesn't stop every Moe, Dick, and Larry from trying to make their own and saturating the market, or from running off to Twitter which is literally worse in every way except in terms of userbase, which you'll never reach anyway because the algorithm is designed to punish you for existing.

Twitter is terrible to use as an art gallery for sure, which is why it's a little frustrating when some artists use it as their primary.

lonelylupine said:
Honestly, I don't know what the problem with FA is. Sure, you're not allowed some content there, but most content is allowed and it is a generally nice place now that the more dramaneering elements have shed themselves off to start their own (failed) galleries. It is still the largest and most stable userbase, and it does sensible things like have notifications in chronological order. Yeah, it's old, and it shows its age, but it still works as an art gallery.

For the more questionable content, there is Inkbunny, which, while not as big of a userbase, is still a sensible art gallery, and allows for thinks like keyword blocking to filter out the stuff you don't like.

I don't see why you need alternatives, but that doesn't stop every Moe, Dick, and Larry from trying to make their own and saturating the market, or from running off to Twitter which is literally worse in every way except in terms of userbase, which you'll never reach anyway because the algorithm is designed to punish you for existing.

FA is so much better than DeviantART which is overdeveloped and runs slower because of its bloated UI. That's not to mention some of the types of people I had the misfortune of interacting with there. But still I get most of my interaction with FA and DA. I do still post to Inkbunny as well but I'm considering dropping it because it's pretty much a ghost town.

lonelylupine said:
Honestly, I don't know what the problem with FA is. Sure, you're not allowed some content there, but most content is allowed and it is a generally nice place now that the more dramaneering elements have shed themselves off to start their own (failed) galleries. It is still the largest and most stable userbase, and it does sensible things like have notifications in chronological order. Yeah, it's old, and it shows its age, but it still works as an art gallery.

For the more questionable content, there is Inkbunny, which, while not as big of a userbase, is still a sensible art gallery, and allows for thinks like keyword blocking to filter out the stuff you don't like.

I don't see why you need alternatives, but that doesn't stop every Moe, Dick, and Larry from trying to make their own and saturating the market, or from running off to Twitter which is literally worse in every way except in terms of userbase, which you'll never reach anyway because the algorithm is designed to punish you for existing.

IB has a no humans rule. It's pretty severe too.

https://wiki.inkbunny.net/wiki/ACP#Human_Characters

orangeleaf said:
IB has a no humans rule. It's pretty severe too.

https://wiki.inkbunny.net/wiki/ACP#Human_Characters

Weird. I see some Mature and Adult posts here that includes humans that are cropped and/or heavily censored with mosaics or black bars, though sometimes it includes links to other websites (like Baraag) to see the uncensored version.

lonelylupine said:
Honestly, I don't know what the problem with FA is.

I follow a closed-species adoptables artist who left FA and stopped publicly drawing porn at all, I assume because they're unhappy with FA-based buyers ignoring their terms of sale by altering the character designs and throwing 'em right into vore porn.
I'm still waiting for anyone to tell me why Weasyl is so snubbed though.
Some
body
once
told me it's because it's SFW-only and I had to point out every one of these sites locks NSFW behind account creation.

magnuseffect said:
I follow a closed-species adoptables artist who left FA and stopped publicly drawing porn at all, I assume because they're unhappy with FA-based buyers ignoring their terms of sale by altering the character designs and throwing 'em right into vore porn.
I'm still waiting for anyone to tell me why Weasyl is so snubbed though.
Some
body
once
told me it's because it's SFW-only and I had to point out every one of these sites locks NSFW behind account creation.

I don't know why either, except that it's a knock-off of FA while offering nothing special for itself.

lonelylupine said:
I don't know why either, except that it's a knock-off of FA while offering nothing special for itself.

At the very least it has username changes, purports to care about tagging, and you don't have to jump through post-replacement to upload full-res images.
I remember it popping up around the time of a big FA drama, but as we all know unless there's a lasting policy effect (i.e. banning cub) the majority don't follow through on leaving FA.

magnuseffect said:
At the very least it has username changes, purports to care about tagging, and you don't have to jump through post-replacement to upload full-res images.
I remember it popping up around the time of a big FA drama, but as we all know unless there's a lasting policy effect (i.e. banning cub) the majority don't follow through on leaving FA.

I don't do it because I worked very hard for the fanbase that I do have and I rather not spend another decade on another service just to get anywhere. FA has a lot of inertia, and baring some great disaster, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

magnuseffect said:
I'm still waiting for anyone to tell me why Weasyl is so snubbed though.

Because there's no money to be made there.

magnuseffect said:
I follow a closed-species adoptables artist who left FA and stopped publicly drawing porn at all, I assume because they're unhappy with FA-based buyers ignoring their terms of sale by altering the character designs and throwing 'em right into vore porn.

I don't think that's an issue you can attribute to a website but in any case FA does have one of the largest furry art galleries on the web so it's no surprise that the most ignorant buyers are also there.

magnuseffect said:
I'm still waiting for anyone to tell me why Weasyl is so snubbed though.

They came online too late to gain any traction. Be happy they're still alive.

magnuseffect said:
I follow a closed-species adoptables artist who left FA and stopped publicly drawing porn at all, I assume because they're unhappy with FA-based buyers ignoring their terms of sale by altering the character designs and throwing 'em right into vore porn.

Close species and adoptable rules are weird to start with. If you make a character, you own it. If you own a character, you have the rights to do whatever you want with it.

furrin_gok said:
If you own a character, you have the rights to do whatever you want with it.

Not necessarily saying it shouldn't be this way but the original design is still the designer's IP and as such it pays to get permission for alterations. (And absolutely don't edit the original design sheet which would typically be further covered by direct copyright)
But this is going off-topic again.

pheagleadler said:
They came online too late to gain any traction.

ratte said:
there's no money to be made there.

lonelylupine said:
I rather not spend another decade on another service just to get anywhere.

I mean this is all continuing to highlight that justice-drama is going to remain an inherent trend of these newer alt-sites as the only people interested in them are those who have fundamental issues with the content allowed by existing sites.

magnuseffect said:
I mean this is all continuing to highlight that justice-drama is going to remain an inherent trend of these newer alt-sites as the only people interested in them are those who have fundamental issues with the content allowed by existing sites.

I mean, Weasyl was taken over and run by ex-FA(F) staff and the reason people flocked to it in the first place was over some Zaush drama while it was the Shiny New Toy, just like how Inkbunny was flooded with cub porn artists and consumers when FA banned it because Inkbunny was also the Shiny New Toy at the time of the ban. Weasyl's activity would come and go like the tide based on FA minidrama but they'd almost always come back because 14 year olds still living with their parents aren't going to spend money on art. Those trying to pay their bills will ultimately stay where the money is even if they hate the place, and with FA being as big as it is you're simply not likely going to make a real, actual competitor worth shit at this point. Those who tried even many years ago either got overshadowed or outright absorbed like Furocity.

They could have just banned NSFW content and solved the vast majority of their grievances instead of cherrypicking what's "less bad" like the dumbfuckery Patreon pushes (you know, that people are also incredibly tired of). But I guess that's too simple and we only want to step on the toes of those we dislike or whatever.