The bulk update request #9145 is pending approval.

remove implication anthro_on_feral (31913) -> bestiality (85364)
remove implication human_on_feral (41660) -> bestiality (85364)
remove implication feral_on_taur (290) -> bestiality (85364)
remove implication humanoid_on_feral (4928) -> bestiality (85364)

Reason: Currently, the use of tags such as human_on_feral is complicated due to the implication of bestiality. There are users who think that it shouldn't be used in merely romantic contexts, and this is largely supported by the current wikis;
they all say "interacting sexually", in contrast to tags such as anthro_on_anthro that say "romantic and/or sexual activity".
However, in topic #35443, furrypickle has stated that human_on_feral and anthro_on_feral do include romantic activity, for parity with the other tags in the family.

My solution is to explicitly make human_on_feral and similar include romantic activity, for parity with the other tags in the family, while keeping bestiality as its current definition of sexual behavior. This mostly just means moving around some implications.

This would mean posts like post #1220205 would be able to be tagged as human_on_feral without also being tagged bestiality.

Alternatives:
1: Update the wikis of the form_on_feral tags, and bestiality, to include romance for parity.
2: Keep the parity discrepancy. This also should involve updating the wikis, this time to make it clear that romance is not included.
3: 1, but aliasing bestiality to a tag that works for rating:s posts. topic #46102

pairing tags should only be used on romantic or sexual situations. hugging (and other platonic interactions) should not be tagged with any of these any more than male/male should be tagged on characters high-fiving.

dba_afish said:
pairing tags should only be used on romantic or sexual situations. hugging (and other platonic interactions) should not be tagged with any of these any more than male/male should be tagged on characters high-fiving.

Regardless of what you are disagreeing with, your statement seems actually agrees with them?

bestiality is sexual activity only. Whereas most pairing tags are not limited to sexual activity, and instead also include romantic activity. These pairing tags are the only one that break that trend.

So, to me, what it seems like you want is for bestiality to expand to include romantic activity that isn't only sexual, or for the implication to be removed. What you seem to actually be disagreeing with is the intended use they are exemplifying.

tarrgon said:
Regardless of what you are disagreeing with, your statement seems actually agrees with them?

bestiality is sexual activity only. Whereas most pairing tags are not limited to sexual activity, and instead also include romantic activity. These pairing tags are the only one that break that trend.

So, to me, what it seems like you want is for bestiality to expand to include romantic activity that isn't only sexual, or for the implication to be removed. What you seem to actually be disagreeing with is the intended use they are exemplifying.

hm... right.

I'm not sure that bestiality should be strictly sexual. while they don't imply it, we already use the word in tagnames like beastiality_marriage and bestiality_kiss, I don't see any reason that that the tag itself shouldn't be applied like all the other tags of its type. for example, we already define incest_(lore) in the same way (applying it as we do any other pairing tag) when the real-world definition strictly applies to sex between family members.

dba_afish said:
hm... right.

I'm not sure that bestiality should be strictly sexual. while they don't imply it, we already use the word in tagnames like beastiality_marriage and bestiality_kiss, I don't see any reason that that the tag itself shouldn't be applied like all the other tags of its type. for example, we already define incest_(lore) in the same way (applying it as we do any other pairing tag) when the real-world definition strictly applies to sex between family members.

In regards to bestiality_kiss, it seems to be almost exclusively used for full on making out; something that people would generally consider sexual, and as such bestiality. It also has no wiki, so I'd consider that a reasonable interpretation of the tag. post #4575769 is an anthro kissing a feral, but I don't think that would be reasonably tagged bestiality. It is, however, TWYS romantic behavior, at least in my opinion.
I could see disagreeing with my original hugging example on account of not being romantic, but I'd certainly consider kissing and hugging someone to be generally romantic behavior.

For incest_(lore), it's somewhat helped by being a lore tag; parental platonic love can generally be avoided tagged with it, even if TWYS would otherwise require it.

scth said:
In regards to bestiality_kiss, it seems to be almost exclusively used for full on making out; something that people would generally consider sexual, and as such bestiality. It also has no wiki, so I'd consider that a reasonable interpretation of the tag. post #4575769 is an anthro kissing a feral, but I don't think that would be reasonably tagged bestiality. It is, however, TWYS romantic behavior, at least in my opinion.
I could see disagreeing with my original hugging example on account of not being romantic, but I'd certainly consider kissing and hugging someone to be generally romantic behavior.

For incest_(lore), it's somewhat helped by being a lore tag; parental platonic love can generally be avoided tagged with it, even if TWYS would otherwise require it.

I don't think that looks inherently sexual/romantic. That's just normal cat-owner behavior.

regsmutt said:
I don't think that looks inherently sexual/romantic. That's just normal cat-owner behavior.

I agree that it is normal cat-owner behavior, but I also think if the raccoon wasn't a feral it would be very obviously romantic, and form shouldn't influence that.
To back this up, post #2108714

scth said:
post #4575769 is an anthro kissing a feral, but I don't think that would be reasonably tagged bestiality. It is, however, TWYS romantic behavior, at least in my opinion.
I could see disagreeing with my original hugging example on account of not being romantic, but I'd certainly consider kissing and hugging someone to be generally romantic behavior.

that kiss dosn't seem romantic at all, honestly. holding a small feral and kissing it on the forehead? that looks almost identical to something someone would do with a pet cat or something.

scth said:
For incest_(lore), it's somewhat helped by being a lore tag; parental platonic love can generally be avoided tagged with it, even if TWYS would otherwise require it.

the lore part of the tag is for knowing if the two characters are related. as far as I'm aware it still requires all the things any other pairing tag would do.

scth said:
To back this up, post #2108714

honestly, if this post was just the kiss image it'd be almost kinda borderline. but the, like, vibes of it still seem pretty distinctly boyfriend/girlfriend.

dba_afish said:
that kiss dosn't seem romantic at all, honestly. holding a small feral and kissing it on the forehead? that looks almost identical to something someone would do with a pet cat or something.

the lore part of the tag is for knowing if the two characters are related. as far as I'm aware it still requires all the things any other pairing tag would do.

Perhaps your definition of romantic is closer to what I'd consider sexual. male/female does explicitly call out handholding as romantic, though also calls out that it shouldn't be used for platonic love. male/female rating:s is extremely mistagged if it's really meant to exclude platonic behavior.
If romantic behavior is only for explicitly romantic behavior, to the point people would actually consider it bestiality (or at least see it as weird), perhaps making bestiality include such would be fine; would just require updating the wikis.
That said, that is not at all how these tags are used.
I would personally prefer bestiality to be more for explicitly sexual images, due to the connotations, but limiting it (and as a consequence human_on_feral) to be only for more explicitly romantic posts would be largely fine.

Let's go with something more explicitly romantic as a test; say, post #2372078. Would you consider this bestiality?
Or post #1220205 for that matter, though if you consider romance bestiality then that one would definitely apply.
(I'm not sticking to dragons on purpose here, so if that's an issue imagine them as dogs)

I did brush on this issue on topic #45089 a while back, but it got instantly shot down before much discussion and thread locked.
Apparently, the differences is "negligible and unimportant for our purposes."

Thus, currently bestiality is strictly a sexual tag and separate of romantic interactions.

thegreatwolfgang said:
I did brush on this issue on topic #45089 a while back, but it got instantly shot down before much discussion and thread locked.
Apparently, the differences is "negligible and unimportant for our purposes."

Thus, currently bestiality is strictly a sexual tag and separate of romantic interactions.

That's what this BUR is about; keeping bestiality just for sexual stuff, but allowing human_on_feral and the others to be used for romantic interactions for parity with the form form_on_form tags.

My concern would be with people tagging human_on_feral (and anthro_on_feral, humanoid_on_feral), and not explicitly tagging bestiality with it because of the reasonable expectation that's what it is. There's also the human_penetrating_feral and feral_penetrating_human tags (alongside the anthro and humanoid variants) that imply human_on_feral (or others) for bestiality.

_{The <gender>_penetrating_<form> and <form>_penetrating_<gender> tags are also waiting in limbo to be aliased away to the <gender>_on_<form> tags, which should also imply bestiality for <gender>_on_feral.}

watsit said:
My concern would be with people tagging human_on_feral (and anthro_on_feral, humanoid_on_feral), and not explicitly tagging bestiality with it because of the reasonable expectation that's what it is. There's also the human_penetrating_feral and feral_penetrating_human tags (alongside the anthro and humanoid variants) that imply human_on_feral (or others) for bestiality.

The second part of the BUR deals with re-adding those transient implications.
If you think bestiality should include romance, then you're in favor of alternative 1. The wiki for bestiality does not currently support that use.

scth said:
That's what this BUR is about; keeping bestiality just for sexual stuff, but allowing human_on_feral and the others to be used for romantic interactions for parity with the form form_on_form tags.

Firstly, I have abstained from voting for now since the basis of this current BUR is to have *_penetrating_* (and other *_verbing_* tags) replace the *_on_* implications.
We are going to phase those out eventually, so the original BUR is a no-go.

Secondly, I believe simply including romantic interactions into bestiality is a straight up bad idea. It just doesn't feel right to have a mostly SFW post be tagged with the rather explicit tag of bestiality.
Thus, alternative idea #1 is also a no-go.

Thirdly, leaving everything as it is does not fix the underlying problem. It will just leave all the *_on_feral tags in state of inconsistency/brokenness since the bestiality implication blocks any potential changes.
Thus, alternative idea #2 is also a no-go.

Lastly, in my opinion, I believe bestiality itself is a problematic tag to have, considering that you hear people complaining about it from time to time. Common themes including questions about sapience or drawing connotations with real life.
I am considering the idea of having a completely new umbrella tag, such as non-feral_on_feral to replace bestiality and have everything imply to it.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Firstly, I have abstained from voting for now since the basis of this current BUR is to have *_penetrating_* (and other *_verbing_* tags) replace the *_on_* implications.
We are going to phase those out eventually, so the original BUR is a no-go.

Secondly, I believe simply including romantic interactions into bestiality is a straight up bad idea. It just doesn't feel right to have a mostly SFW post be tagged with the rather explicit tag of bestiality.
Thus, alternative idea #1 is also a no-go.

Thirdly, leaving everything as it is does not fix the underlying problem. It will just leave all the *_on_feral tags in state of inconsistency/brokenness since the bestiality implication blocks any potential changes.
Thus, alternative idea #2 is also a no-go.

Lastly, in my opinion, I believe bestiality itself is a problematic tag to have, considering that you hear people complaining about it from time to time. Common themes including questions about sapience or drawing connotations with real life.
I am considering the idea of having a completely new umbrella tag, such as non-feral_on_feral to replace bestiality and have everything imply to it.

I'd fully agree with this; a large part of the reasoning for this BUR is because it's weird to have bestiality on SFW posts, but parity requires it (maybe not if you actually read the form_on_feral wikis, but it's reasonable to assume they would work like anthro_on_anthro, and it should). Aliasing bestiality to non-feral_on_feral would solve that, and it could be done with a single alias request.
That said, I felt that renaming such a major tag would have more pushback. Perhaps not, though, considering the response to this.

Also, replacing the implications is just done as a way to keep the overall tag structure as unchanged as possible. As long as *_penetrating_* is valid (and I am quite against removing them, largely due to the fact that I'd rather not have to tag five things when one would do and imply the rest), the transitive implications are valid as well.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Lastly, in my opinion, I believe bestiality itself is a problematic tag to have, considering that you hear people complaining about it from time to time. Common themes including questions about sapience or drawing connotations with real life.

Plenty of tags get complained about from time to time. I don't think that, alone, is a good reason to get rid of it. The definition used by the site, a feral and non-feral in sexual behavior, is the only fair way to define it since questions of sapience may or may not actually matter (since they don't exist in real-life, who can say whether a sapient feral and a human wouldn't still be considered bestiality? there's no laws against the pokemon, batman) to say nothing about how sapience would even work with TWYS to begin with.

thegreatwolfgang said:
I am considering the idea of having a completely new umbrella tag, such as non-feral_on_feral to replace bestiality and have everything imply to it.

Wouldn't that run unto the same issue of other x_on_y tags, being used for non-sexual romantic displays? Regardless of how human_on_feral should or shouldn't be used for non-sexual romance, the bestiality tag itself is still useful to find heavy romance or sexual activity between a feral and human/humanoid/anthro and shouldn't be removed without something equal to replace it, IMO. As weird as bestiality -rating:e may be, there are cases of non-sexual romance that could be rated Questionable or even Safe, yet still be clear there's more than a passing fancy between the two involved, which can be a feral and non-feral character.

watsit said:
Wouldn't that run unto the same issue of other x_on_y tags, being used for non-sexual romantic displays?

That's the point; that tag name would make it much more clear that using it with romance is fine. Simply aliasing bestiality to it, and changing the wikis to allow romance, would fix these issues.
As of currently, a lot of romance posts don't get tagged with human_on_feral and bestiality, because bestiality just doesn't make sense for romance. The wiki also only says sexual. So,

wastit said:
the bestiality tag itself is still useful to find heavy romance or sexual activity between a feral and human/humanoid/anthro

aliasing to non-feral_on_feral would significantly help with this.

thegreatwolfgang said:
I am considering the idea of having a completely new umbrella tag, such as non-feral_on_feral to replace bestiality and have everything imply to it.

this would potentially shift the definition, though. since, despite what the wiki says, it's a bit up in the air as for whether it actually applies to _all_ non-feral characters with a feral. specifically the subset of characters whose form is as of yet uncategorized, ex. a ditto with a glacion, or a dragon fucking a dire_car.

scth said:
That's the point; that tag name would make it much more clear that using it with romance is fine. Simply aliasing bestiality to it, and changing the wikis to allow romance, would fix these issues.
As of currently, a lot of romance posts don't get tagged with human_on_feral and bestiality, because bestiality just doesn't make sense for romance. The wiki also only says sexual. So,
aliasing to non-feral_on_feral would significantly help with this.

Aliasing bestiality to non-feral_on_feral (which is a really clunky name, fwiw) would broaden it to include all sorts of non-sexual stuff as with the other x_on_y tags, like
post #4575769
That's precisely what I want to avoid. That alias wouldn't be useful for helping keep a tag like bestiality, for sexual (or other non-platonic romantic) activity between a feral and non-feral.

watsit said:
Aliasing bestiality to non-feral_on_feral (which is a really clunky name, fwiw) would broaden it to include all sorts of non-sexual stuff as with the other x_on_y tags, like
post #4575769
That's precisely what I want to avoid. That alias wouldn't be useful for helping keep a tag like bestiality, for sexual (or other non-platonic romantic) activity between a feral and non-feral.

If you'd prefer to keep bestiality for sexual activity, that's what this BUR is. The status quo isn't acceptable, where people are both certain bestiality does include romance (due to implications) and certain it doesn't.
We can't have bestiality be strictly for sexual activity and have the implications from form_on_feral, because in general, form_on_form includes romance.

scth said:
Aliasing bestiality to non-feral_on_feral would solve that, and it could be done with a single alias request.
That said, I felt that renaming such a major tag would have more pushback. Perhaps not, though, considering the response to this.

I'm taking into account of the singular comment left on my BUR about the negative connotations both zoophilia and bestiality carries and have thought of a more moderate solution to it.

watsit said:
Plenty of tags get complained about from time to time. I don't think that, alone, is a good reason to get rid of it.

I am not getting rid of it because of arguments about sapience and what not.
It will be aliased to the new tag, so functionally it will be identical. This time though, it could include romantic interactions just like any other *_on_* tag.

Wouldn't that run unto the same issue of other x_on_y tags, being used for non-sexual romantic displays? Regardless of how human_on_feral should or shouldn't be used for non-sexual romance, the bestiality tag itself is still useful to find heavy romance or sexual activity between a feral and human/humanoid/anthro and shouldn't be removed without something equal to replace it, IMO. As weird as bestiality -rating:e may be, there are cases of non-sexual romance that could be rated Questionable or even Safe, yet still be clear there's more than a passing fancy between the two involved, which can be a feral and non-feral character.

Aren't all form_on_form tags being used for both casual and heavy romantic interactions, in addition to the explicitly sexual ones?
Unless you are referring to the unique gender_on_feral tags, which are themselves sticking out from the norm.

I don't think I can ever get over how weird safe/questionable bestiality sounds if we maintained the tag. It just feels wrong when taking into account of TWYS.
Even if an anthro character is being frenchkissed by a feral, I wouldn't classify it as bestiality.

Alternatively, we could maintain the tag as an implication to non-feral_on_feral.
However, I fear that it would run into the same problem with sex in that it is not regularly tagged, though a tagging project going through non-feral_on_feral rating:e could be easily implemented.

dba_afish said:
this would potentially shift the definition, though. since, despite what the wiki says, it's a bit up in the air as for whether it actually applies to _all_ non-feral characters with a feral. specifically the subset of characters whose form is as of yet uncategorized, ex. a ditto with a glacion, or a dragon fucking a dire_car.

I don't think I would even tag ditto with a form tag, similarly to any amorphous tentacle_monster.
Regardless, I get the point you are trying to make, so I guess a disclaimer could be used on the wiki for the new tag if this does indeed becomes an issue?

thegreatwolfgang said:
I don't think I would even tag ditto with a form tag, similarly to any amorphous tentacle_monster.
Regardless, I get the point you are trying to make[...]

I mean "amorphous" is kind of just the form equivalent to ambiguous_gender. either way it's still a non-feral character even if we don't tag it with a form.

and I'm honestly still unsure where I stand on how we tag tentacles, it still feels a bit weird to me that we don't consider them characters at all unless they're visibly attached to a body.

thegreatwolfgang said:
[...]I guess a disclaimer could be used on the wiki for the new tag if this does indeed becomes an issue?

that feel like kind of a weird way of dealing with it, a tag souls be able to be understood by its name and relation to other, similar tags alone. and, preferably a tag's definition wouldn't contradict its name at all...

thegreatwolfgang said:
Aren't all form_on_form tags being used for both casual and heavy romantic interactions, in addition to the explicitly sexual ones?

News to me. I thought they worked the same as gender_on_gender, pretty much, and I would expect that a number of others think this too.

I like the idea of a tag that is defined in a way that is inclusive of uncategorized forms, because I think this is less of a problem than leaving it up in the air.

SCTH said:
The status quo isn't acceptable, where people are both certain bestiality does include romance (due to implications) and certain it doesn't.

Ok, but how does that cash out?

• People objecting that posts are not tagged 'bestiality' (because they want to have a search that includes both romantic and sexual scenarios)?
• .. objecting that posts are not tagged bestiality (because they want to blacklist both romantic and sexual scenarios)
• .. objecting that posts are tagged bestiality and they shouldn't be (because they want to search only sexual scenarios, not romantic)
• .. objecting that posts are tagged bestiality (because they want to blacklist sexual scenarios but don't mind romantic ones)

What combination of the above?

Personally, it seems that no aliasing will satisfy all of the above, and bestiality_kiss etc go some way to discriminating romantic vs sexual, but not far enough to reliably satisfy all four scenarios above. But I get that 'romantic' can be a bit subjective; maybe this problem isn't solvable.

savageorange said:
I like the idea of a tag that is defined in a way that is inclusive of uncategorized forms, because I think this is less of a problem than leaving it up in the air.

I'd prefer if we just made an attempt to categorize/canonize the remaining forms and then we could draw some lines better. but... that's a problem I've been trying to solve in my head for several years and I don't even know where to start. the only one that's a kind of an easily definable new category would be dire_form. beyond that... ehh...

savageorange said:
News to me. I thought they worked the same as gender_on_gender, pretty much, and I would expect that a number of others think this too.

I like the idea of a tag that is defined in a way that is inclusive of uncategorized forms, because I think this is less of a problem than leaving it up in the air.

Ok, but how does that cash out?

• People objecting that posts are not tagged 'bestiality' (because they want to have a search that includes both romantic and sexual scenarios)?
• .. objecting that posts are not tagged bestiality (because they want to blacklist both romantic and sexual scenarios)
• .. objecting that posts are tagged bestiality and they shouldn't be (because they want to search only sexual scenarios, not romantic)
• .. objecting that posts are tagged bestiality (because they want to blacklist sexual scenarios but don't mind romantic ones)

What combination of the above?

Personally, it seems that no aliasing will satisfy all of the above, and bestiality_kiss etc go some way to discriminating romantic vs sexual, but not far enough to reliably satisfy all four scenarios above. But I get that 'romantic' can be a bit subjective; maybe this problem isn't solvable.

The gender/gender tags also include romance, which just reinforces the form_on_form argument.
Removing the direct implications to bestiality from form_on_feral would solve most of the use cases you brought up, but even explicitly allowing bestiality to include romance is fine for that too, in combination with other tags.
The issue is inconsistency and that how we use bestiality here doesn't really match with the general meaning, worsening that inconsistency. I don't think that inconsistency is solvable without removing implications or aliasing.
The primary issue with making bestiality include romance is that that means it would be valid on rating:s posts, which is just completely against any even somewhat normal interpretation.
The primary issue with making bestiality explicitly not include romance, while leaving the implications, is breaking that parity, which causes it to be used for romance anyway.

scth said:
The gender/gender tags also include romance, which just reinforces the form_on_form argument.

So I'm mistaken. I see the wiki does call this out somewhat clearly (eg. 'heterosexuality, heteroerotic, or heteroromantic activities' for m/f wiki)

Removing the direct implications to bestiality from form_on_feral would solve most of the use cases you brought up, but even explicitly allowing bestiality to include romance is fine for that too, in combination with other tags.

Ok, then removal of implications seems like the least contested 'next step' that could occur to move things forward.

The primary issue with making bestiality include romance is that that means it would be valid on rating:s posts, which is just completely against any even somewhat normal interpretation.

I think probably most people can agree with that observation.

dba_afish said:
I mean "amorphous" is kind of just the form equivalent to ambiguous_gender. either way it's still a non-feral character even if we don't tag it with a form.

and I'm honestly still unsure where I stand on how we tag tentacles, it still feels a bit weird to me that we don't consider them characters at all unless they're visibly attached to a body.

that feel like kind of a weird way of dealing with it, a tag souls be able to be understood by its name and relation to other, similar tags alone. and, preferably a tag's definition wouldn't contradict its name at all...

I don't understand how it would be that complicated or that it could be contradicting.
We only tag the main body types on form_on_form to begin with, with the exception of semi-anthro.
In addition, I don't think I have seen an "ambiguous_form_on_tentacle_monster" tag (and any other non-standard form combination) anywhere.

I like the idea of a tag that is defined in a way that is inclusive of uncategorized forms, because I think this is less of a problem than leaving it up in the air.

dba_afish said:
I'd prefer if we just made an attempt to categorize/canonize the remaining forms and then we could draw some lines better. but... that's a problem I've been trying to solve in my head for several years and I don't even know where to start. the only one that's a kind of an easily definable new category would be dire_form. beyond that... ehh...

I will leave it up for you two if you want to tackle from this direction.

As far as I know, we only tag the "main" body types for form_on_form.
If you think that the tag name is confusing, then you should see how the gender_on_feral tags (e.g., male_on_feral) are defined.

Regardless, suggestions are always welcomed for potential tag names.

I propose a couple of suggestions for the non-feral_on_feral replacement tag since various people are raising issues about it on the other threads, let me know what you think of it.

• 1) Simply renaming it to feral_on_non-feral.
• 2) Renaming it to non-feral/feral_relations (similar to mount/rider relations).

thegreatwolfgang said:
I propose a couple of suggestions for the non-feral_on_feral replacement tag since various people are raising issues about it on the other threads, let me know what you think of it.

• 1) Simply renaming it to feral_on_non-feral.
• 2) Renaming it to non-feral/feral_relations (similar to mount/rider relations).

could be doable; that at least removes the interpretation of not feral_on_feral, though I felt that was a bit of a stretch to begin with.
I don't think _relations adds any benifit.

thegreatwolfgang said:

• 2) Renaming it to non-feral/feral_relations (similar to mount/rider relations).

I'm not sure bestiality is really analogous to mount/rider_relations, so I don't think it makes sense to name it similar. mount/rider_relations is more like lay_the_dragon and other relationship dynamic tags, where it's more heavily based on context, where as bestiality (or whatever) is closer to a basic pairing tag with much simpler tagging standards.

scth said:
I don't think _relations adds any benifit.

dba_afish said:
I'm not sure bestiality is really analogous to mount/rider_relations, so I don't think it makes sense to name it similar. mount/rider_relations is more like lay_the_dragon and other relationship dynamic tags, where it's more heavily based on context, where as bestiality (or whatever) is closer to a basic pairing tag with much simpler tagging standards.

Forgot to mention, but this is from the perspective that bestiality is kept as a subtag and not aliased to the new tag.

My logic behind the *_relations addition is that it makes it clear that it is a (romantic/sexual) relationship between a feral and non-feral, and not the typical platonic or "loving pet" kind of relationship that people have raised issues with.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Forgot to mention, but this is from the perspective that bestiality is kept as a subtag and not aliased to the new tag.

My logic behind the *_relations addition is that it makes it clear that it is a (romantic/sexual) relationship between a feral and non-feral, and not the typical platonic or "loving pet" kind of relationship that people have raised issues with.

using the x/y or x_on_y format would already do that since that's the format of nearly all existing pairing tags.

dba_afish said:
using the x/y or x_on_y format would already do that since that's the format of nearly all existing pairing tags.

Hasn't it also already been raised that people use x/y (at least in the case where x and y are genders) for interactions that are neither obviously romantic nor obviously sexual, in addition to those that are?
If that is true and it's also hard to sensibly rule this tagging behaviour as wrong, then *_relations succeeds in making a distinction that x/y fails at making.

savageorange said:
Hasn't it also already been raised that people use x/y (at least in the case where x and y are genders) for interactions that are neither obviously romantic nor obviously sexual, in addition to those that are?
If that is true and it's also hard to sensibly rule this tagging behaviour as wrong, then *_relations succeeds in making a distinction that x/y fails at making.

occasionally? maybe? a lot of these are tagged on upload, which means that they're probably being tagged via the upload form toggle buttons, and a lot of that could likely be mitigated by just actually saying what the each selection of tags are for on the page.

there are more problems with that form that are causing other, similarly annoying problems.

savageorange said:
Hasn't it also already been raised that people use x/y (at least in the case where x and y are genders) for interactions that are neither obviously romantic nor obviously sexual, in addition to those that are?
If that is true and it's also hard to sensibly rule this tagging behaviour as wrong, then *_relations succeeds in making a distinction that x/y fails at making.

Part of the issue with this is that this new tag would presumably get implied by form_on_feral. There might be a bit less mistagging there, but the general idea is nearly every gender/gender should be accompanied by a form_on_form, since they apply in the same circumstances. They aren't on the uploader, though, so definitely less misuse.

Bumping this, since I still think something needs to be done. Tags such as imminent_bestiality show that for many the assumption is that it just means sex.

scth said:
Bumping this, since I still think something needs to be done. Tags such as imminent_bestiality show that for many the assumption is that it just means sex.

Or imminent sexual activity, where they're not yet doing anything with each other but are clearly going to.

While I understand wanting to remove the implication and could agree to a point, I think too many people would end up neglecting the bestiality tag either because they don't think it should apply when it does by the site definition (e.g. because it's a "sapient" feral, or anthro-on-feral doesn't count as bestiality), or because they think it will imply it and not realize it doesn't, making searches and blacklists less useful. It may be better to leave it as-is.

watsit said:
Or imminent sexual activity, where they're not yet doing anything with each other but are clearly going to.

While I understand wanting to remove the implication and could agree to a point, I think too many people would end up neglecting the bestiality tag either because they don't think it should apply when it does by the site definition (e.g. because it's a "sapient" feral, or anthro-on-feral doesn't count as bestiality), or because they think it will imply it and not realize it doesn't, making searches and blacklists less useful. It may be better to leave it as-is.

Leaving it as-is is going to have otherwise innocuous posts forcibly mistagged, which is arguably worse.

If this isn't accepted, and since the alias was rejected, the wikis will have to be updated to make bestiality and the *_on_feral tags that imply it explicitly include romantic activity, due to their use as a pairing tag. Not having such a pairing tag isn't acceptable (nor really possible while keeping it *_on_feral, that's going to be tagged regardless, and it's hard to argue that that's not correct when it would be for things like anthro_on_anthro).
Notably, this is already effectively the status quo, despite what the wikis say.

I suppose another potential solution is to remove the romantic text from all form_on_form, but that's arguably worse, and I think having such pairing tags is important.
That is, that would make all form_on_form for sexual interaction only. I don't like that solution either, but IMO it would be better than making bestiality of all things include romance.

I still like renaming bestiality to something that would better encapsulate the use with romance, but the alias to non-feral_on_feral got rejected, and no names have come up as widely accepted.

I think the main problem is how charged the word "bestiality" is, and that causing all the problems. But there's not much of an alternative and everyone is used to referring to it as such

snpthecat said:
I think the main problem is how charged the word "bestiality" is, and that causing all the problems. But there's not much of an alternative and everyone is used to referring to it as such

It is, yes. If we're keeping it, though, we definitely need to update some wikis.

I wish there was a way to call a vote for more nebulous tag actions like changing the definition of a tag. I guess we just have to just ask for +1s/-1s like we're in prehistoric times.

are there any objections to changing the wording of the wikipages for the bestiality tag and its child tags to include romantic interactions? this way the tags will match with all other paring tags (like human_on_anthro and male/female).

dba_afish said:
I wish there was a way to call a vote for more nebulous tag actions like changing the definition of a tag. I guess we just have to just ask for +1s/-1s like we're in prehistoric times.

We could abuse the BUR system for it (just do category invalid_tag -> invalid and clarify the idea you want voted on below)

Or have a request vote option alongside the request alias/implication/bur

snpthecat said:
We could abuse the BUR system for it (just do category invalid_tag -> invalid and clarify the idea you want voted on below)

that feels like abuse of site tools and we probably shouldn't do that.

snpthecat said:
Or have a request vote option alongside the request alias/implication/bur

yeah, could request a -> bestiality implication for the few not-strictly-sexual bestiality_* tags that would make sense under the changed definition.

probably wait for all these accepted/rejected AIBUR thread bumps slow down.

snpthecat said:
I think the main problem is how charged the word "bestiality" is, and that causing all the problems. But there's not much of an alternative and everyone is used to referring to it as such

I agree with the first part of this.

I do think there's probably something that can be done, though. I don't know exactly how to implement this as a BUR, but it seems like bestiality could simply be replaced with *_on_feral. I really don't know if the bestiality tag is even necessary if the *_on_feral tags are applied consistently.

The main roadblock I see there is that there's no real aliasing that can be done, because anthro_on_feral, humanoid_on_feral, human_on_feral, etc are all separate tags, so it's not clear what bestiality would be aliased to. The bestiality tag is unusually broad.

If there is a need for such an umbrella tag, would something like non_feral_on_feral work? It could then be broadened to include romantic interactions in addition to sexual ones, making it consistent with other *_on_* tags.

subtlereminder said:

The main roadblock I see there is that there's no real aliasing that can be done, because anthro_on_feral, humanoid_on_feral, human_on_feral, etc are all separate tags, so it's not clear what bestiality would be aliased to. The bestiality tag is unusually broad. If there is a need for such an umbrella tag, would something like non_feral_on_feral work?

It has been tried, and it seems to have failed by a bit

snpthecat said:
It has been tried, and it seems to have failed by a bit

Ah. Well then.

snpthecat said:
It has been tried, and it seems to have failed by a bit

part of the problem (that I didn't voice in that thread, apparently) is that "non-feral" ≢ "human, anthro, humanoid, taur" since there are a few bodytypes that are currently uncategorized under forms, dire_machine and non-humanoid flora_fauna for example, and I'm not 100% sure if we should consider relations between these and ferals to be bestiality.

subtlereminder said:
I do think there's probably something that can be done, though. I don't know exactly how to implement this as a BUR, but it seems like bestiality could simply be replaced with *_on_feral. I really don't know if the bestiality tag is even necessary if the *_on_feral tags are applied consistently.

Part of the problem is that x_on_y and x/y tags can be used when there's nothing sexual going on. Platonic hugging for example. The bestiality tag can't be replaced with *_on_feral tags if it includes that stuff, as that would mean
post #5120865
would count. If the x_on_y tags are restricted to exclude non-sexual platonic interactions, then there isn't really a problem with the implications as they're set up already, aside from some contention with the word "bestiality" applying to non-sex acts (but still interactions of a sexual nature); it combines human, humanoid, and/or anthros being naughty with ferals, which is what people want to find with the tag, with other tags being more specific (like human_on_feral for humans specifically doing stuff with ferals, or male_on_feral for non-feral males specifically doing stuff with ferals).

Bleh, I keep not fully reading things before I reply. I need to stop doing that.

Okay, let's just take stock of how tags are currently defined and used.

Use this when multiple anthro characters are depicted engaged in romantic and/or sexual activity with each other.

describes homosexual, homoerotic, or homoromantic activities or behaviour between male characters.

Animations or images that show an anthro character engaging in sexual activities with a feral character. This is always considered bestiality

In practice, it seems like the x/y and x_on_y tags get applied sometimes in instances where there is an ambiguous interaction between X and Y that could be romantic, which is debatable.

And in practice, it also seems like the x_on_feral tags get applied to romantic or possibly-romantic interactions between X and feral, but that application is inconsistent, and is not in line with how the x_on_feral tags are defined according to the wiki.

Options I see:

1) Remove the x_on_feral -> bestiality implications and expand the x_on_feral tags to include romantic interactions.
2) Leave the implications, expand the x_on_feral tags to include romantic interactions, and alter the bestiality tag definition to specify that it includes romantic, non-sexual interactions between... human-ish beings(?) and ferals.
3) Do nothing.

The problem with option 3 is that people are applying the x_on_feral tags to non-sexual romantic posts; they want to, and it's intuitive to do so.

EDIT: uh, would it make sense to replace bestiality with zoophilia? It intuitively makes sense to me that zoophilia could include non-sexual romantic interactions.

Making the x_on_feral tag definitions in line with the rest of the tags in that format (and unimplicating bestiality) makes the most sense.

subtlereminder said:
EDIT: uh, would it make sense to replace bestiality with zoophilia? It intuitively makes sense to me that zoophilia could include non-sexual romantic interactions.

Somehow I feel like that is even more loaded than 'bestiality'. In part this is because 'zoophilia' can be considered an identity label. And worse, a label that gets applied to people specifically to attack them.

dba_afish said:
are there any objections to changing the wording of the wikipages for the bestiality tag and its child tags to include romantic interactions? this way the tags will match with all other paring tags (like human_on_anthro and male/female).

Strictly speaking, bestiality should be a explicit-only tag and expanding to include romantic scenarios would get otherwise SFW posts tagged with this "charged" word.
I wouldn't mind if there is a potential feral_on_non-feral tag to include both romantic and sexual scenarios (with bestiality being an implication).

Just as a side note, I did not support topic #46102 because it would remove bestiality as a tag and would in turn make blacklisting NSFW scenarios a little harder.

dba_afish said:
part of the problem (that I didn't voice in that thread, apparently) is that "non-feral" ≢ "human, anthro, humanoid, taur" since there are a few bodytypes that are currently uncategorized under forms, dire_machine and non-humanoid flora_fauna for example, and I'm not 100% sure if we should consider relations between these and ferals to be bestiality.

To be fair, I don't think those are even regularly tagged with any form_on_form tags. Similarly to any amorphous characters, like tentacle_monster or eldritch_abomination.
Those that do (e.g., living_machine anthro_on_feral) would technically be eligible for feral_on_non-feral, but it would be up for debate for bestiality.

EDIT: Just realised we are going around in circles, think this has already been discussed?

regsmutt said:
Making the x_on_feral tag definitions in line with the rest of the tags in that format (and unimplicating bestiality) makes the most sense.

I agree, but people seem to be rejecting this BUR.

regsmutt said:
Somehow I feel like that is even more loaded than 'bestiality'. In part this is because 'zoophilia' can be considered an identity label. And worse, a label that gets applied to people specifically to attack them.

I mean, is that a problem that the tag system needs to solve? The word "zoophilia" IS the right word, and it isn't crude, it's technical; as far as I'm concerned whether people load the term in one way or another is a separate matter.

subtlereminder said:
I agree, but people seem to be rejecting this BUR.

I mean, is that a problem that the tag system needs to solve? The word "zoophilia" IS the right word, and it isn't crude, it's technical; as far as I'm concerned whether people load the term in one way or another is a separate matter.

The problem is we want to move away from bestiality primarily because of its loaded nature. We don't always choose the "technical" term because of unsavoury connotations or the term being too esoteric

subtlereminder said:

Options I see:

1) Remove the x_on_feral -> bestiality implications and expand the x_on_feral tags to include romantic interactions.
2) Leave the implications, expand the x_on_feral tags to include romantic interactions, and alter the bestiality tag definition to specify that it includes romantic, non-sexual interactions between... human-ish beings(?) and ferals.
3) Do nothing.

The problem with option 3 is that people are applying the x_on_feral tags to non-sexual romantic posts; they want to, and it's intuitive to do so.

1) Unless something is done after removing the implications, this would just leave a big mess of non-connected tags. People would want a single bestiality tag (or an alternative) to be able to blacklist all forms of x_on_feral.
2) Definition wouldn't be strictly accurate, but it would make SFW posts eligible for bestiality.
3) The current status quo, but the problem still remains for people mistagging x_on_feral for both romantic and sexual scenarios.

EDIT: uh, would it make sense to replace bestiality with zoophilia? It intuitively makes sense to me that zoophilia could include non-sexual romantic interactions.

Been there, done that.

I don't think people want to associate zoophilia with their artwork, although the equally-charged bestiality is already being used.

Hmm. I think I'm starting to see why the the admins seem to opt to leave things as-is. It's not that there isn't technically a problem which can technically be solved in several different ways, it's that people are super touchy about every potential solution, lol.

EDIT: guys, we just need a word for "zoophilia" that isn't "zoophilia" and that doesn't make anyone uncomfortable. Easy!

subtlereminder said:
Hmm. I think I'm starting to see why the the admins seem to opt to leave things as-is. It's not that there isn't technically a problem which can technically be solved in several different ways, it's that people are super touchy about every potential solution, lol.

EDIT: guys, we just need a word for "zoophilia" that isn't "zoophilia" and that doesn't make anyone uncomfortable. Easy!

I vote for ailihpooz

snpthecat said:
I vote for ailihpooz

This is literally all down to the fact that people are acclimated to the bestiality tag and it can't be reasonably defined to include non-sexual romantic interactions.

EDIT: I just want this inconsistency to be fixed because it's bugging me now that I'm aware of it, and I personally would be fine with basically any of the solutions that have been suggested, but people seem to have objections to every one.

At this point, since people have been opposed to just about every option, I think the most reasonable remaining course of action is to just edit the bestiality and form_on_feral wikis. That would reflect current use, and allow form_on_feral to have parity with other form_on_form tags. It also leaves open the option of renaming bestiality. It would close the possibilities of using bestiality just for sex, but that's not really possible anyway without heavy cleanup and removing implications.

Actually doing said edits should be left to staff, since it would subtly change the meaning (even if it already kind of is due to implications) of a very important tag.

The bulk update request #9568 is pending approval.

create implication bestiality_kiss (510) -> bestiality (85364)
create implication bestiality_marriage (216) -> bestiality (85364)

Reason: since we're already having the discussion here, let's do this here.

should these two not-strictly-sexual tags imply bestiality? they already contain the word "bestiality" and in most cases posts are already tagged with both, including rating:s posts. there have been no instances of bestiality being removed from posts that already had either tag, so from the general userbase there does not seem to be an objection to these tags being conflated.

this vote will also effectively decide if bestiality and related feral_on_<form> tags should be applicable to romantic situations in addition to sexual ones, bringing them in line with every other paring tag on the site. so, along with the changes stated in the BUR script, changing the wiki pages for each of these tags is also on the table here.

as just a personal anecdotal point; within the last decade I'm not sure I've ever come across any feral artist or user with a feral OC who has seriously complained about the name of the bestiality tag or the tag being applied to their art or posts containing their character. and in any case, this decision will not preclude the possibility of renaming the tag in the future, if necessary.