Asexuality in the furry fandom

[NovaSquirrel]

What I've found is that doing things the other way around is way more useful, and that means: highly specific trigger/content warnings. Robust trigger warnings allow people to prepare themselves if they want to, and to choose to disengage if needed. This solves basically every problem created by the vagaries of labels, at least in terms of allowing folks to engage at their discretion with things that might be challenging to them. And I find that people often want to challenge themselves! So giving them some context allows them to do just that, while avoiding extreme discomfort or triggering experiences.

I wish it were more common to allow people to choose to engage with something or not, and tell people what they're getting into. What I'm comfortable with can change from day to day. Though for some of my interests, I think the only communities out there that I can find are specifically focused on taking an erotic approach to the interest, so most of the people seem to just assume everyone is just there for porn, and I don't think people really care about establishing space to engage how you're comfy. Ends up making me feel like I'm either forced to put myself in a situation I may not be comfortable with or be unable to share something I care about with people.

[idadeerz]

i think transfem culture, heck, even just queer culture in general suuucks at handling sexual topics. furry being the queer demographic that it is therefore suffers from the same problems.

the freedom of sexual expression found within furry + the wider societal expectations that all queer people must be a bazillion times more sexual and perverted than their non-queer counterparts + lack of experience queers have compared to their non-queer peers as a result of queer time and/or abuse and/or neurodivergencies = a lot of people who behave extremely sexually without fully understanding the rules of the game.

i'm asexual. i'm sex repulsed, as a lot of aspects of sex make me feel nauseated when i imagine them, or just overstimulated in practice. the problem is that i have 20 million different kinks and i still enjoy sex. this has previously made me want to seek out sex. i thought that it was the norm to have to behave promiscuously as a transfem, because that's what all of the other transfems do. "tgirl sleepover" is practically just slang for "massive fuck party" at this point. there were times where girls were having sex right next to me, and i cried because i thought i felt left out, and so it made me want to behave more promiscuously. but since then, i've come to terms with the fact that i cried because they were doing it without even asking if i was okay with it.

i've had very middling sex because i wanted to try and be a sexual person for once. because i thought what i wanted was to not feel left out. but i think the people i had sex with could tell that i was inexperienced and just faking it. and so they subconsciously just used me to do sexual things for them, without giving me anything in return for it. i mean, i consented to all of that. it's not like i didn't have fun, but like... i didn't get what i truly wanted. it was very inequal.

now i'm sure there's going to be people on this board who have heard my music, and they might be surprised to learn that i'm asexual. i've made some very outspoken music about kinks and sexual topics before, right? but the key thing to understand here is that all of those lyrics (save for maybe '8080 east') were about kinks in an asexual way; something that is fully in service of myself and nobody else. about kinks that i only practice solo, in the comfort of my room with the curtains closed.

society tries very hard to screw value out of transfems. when people bring up how tens of thousands of years ago in old civilisations, we were treated as 'temple priestesses', they make it sound cool while omitting the fact that 99% of the time this was a purely sexual role. we get excluded from housing and job opportunities, even though we're arguably one of the most popular porn categories ever. it's one of the many ways in which we get systemically exploited.

thing is, you can't really get any value out of a transfem furry singing about a diaper kink. what cis guy would picture himself involved in such a scenario? it's not the kind of thing anyone in their right mind would put on a bus stop ad for perfume, you know? the xenophobia men like that have for any form of odd sexual expression that they can't insert themselves to, leads them to building strange ideas in their head: why would someone in such a (supposedly) inherently sexual role just choose to throw all of it away for some stupid kink? they must not be functioning right if they would choose that over the sexual roles which are the default in our society. they must be some kind of predator. (this isn't transfem-specific, this is how general aphobia tends to work and why ace people are often so looked down upon. we don't fit within the societal mold that takes advantage of us = we must be predatory)

(transfem) transitioning is, in a way, an extremely sexual practice. you grow breasts and hips. your body's sexual functioning changes. regardless of whether you do anything with those new features, it contributes to the confusion people have. because it makes a lot of them see transitioning as something that is partially a very sexual experience, and then they get extra confused if you don't even do anything with it. why do something (supposedly) sexual with your body, if you don't even want that? they don't understand why anyone would do something they think is contradictory like that, so they reach very far in their minds for an explanation, and then they land on thinking there must be something wrong with you.

so, i was previously doxxed for making openly furry kink music. i can hardly think of any other transfem artist in the same position (having self-serving kinks that don't fit a wider societal framework, putting themselves first rather than their assigned position within allo society, being extremely open about all of this) that didn't get hit with false accusations, doxxing, or general online (and offline) harassment at some point.

as much as it is folklore that every transfem hangout ends in an orgy, the same can be said for a lot of furry spaces. as an asexual transfem, i don't think i can say i've felt safer in the furry fandom. yes, there is a vibe that everyone supports freedom of sexual expression. but there's equally as much of a vibe that you have to be very slutty and promiscuous in order to deserve understanding for how you want to express your sexual niche.

i think the worst thing about this is that when anyone says they hate the focus on sexualization within the furry community, they get labeled as a "puritan". i couldn't be further away from that! my issue is not that furries express themselves sexually in the first place; it's that the focus on sex makes a lot of people feel like they have to be sexually open in order to fit in. even if they don't know how to do that, or if they're not ready for it, or if ultimately they just don't want to.

i've been harassed by a lot of people, even by peers in the fandom - be it ableism, general transmisogyny, et cetera - but at some point, it hit me that there was also a sexual component to this. when that clicked for me, i just laid down in bed and cried for several hours. all the times i felt pressured by the social narrative to be sexual around others (even though it didn't feel good), and how i blindly perpetuated the same expectations i would come to hate so much. all the times i was made fun of for what i ultimately realized was just other peoples difficulty in sexually exploiting me under the patriarchy.

the first and thus far only con i attended. just mere hours after i arrived, a day before the con even started, i was laying in a queen size bed with four other furries. no sex happened, but things got incredibly close. it felt like a good idea at the time, but one of them told me later on that she felt coerced at every turn during the con. months later, i learned that one of the others from that night, a known and open furry porn artist, had cut someone out of their circles for not reciprocating their advances. a lot of my conversations with them were very casually sexual, and i went along because i thought it was the norm and i still tried to fit in. but then i generally became more sexually reserved around the time of the con and i think we just stopped talking. the person they cut off for not reciprocating was also asexual and transfem. putting all the pieces together in my head made me want to fucking throw up.

i, quite frankly, think that furry spaces can be incredibly hostile to navigate for asexual people. i guess this goes for transfem/queer spaces in general, but as mentioned before, this mostly intersects with furry. i felt extremely pressured to try and fit in, and i have a lot of regrets over perpetuating such an allosexual standard towards all my peers and friends, even if i didn't understand it was bad at the time. i feel gross about how many fellow furries started treating me like i was disposable as soon as i started raising concerns about these dynamics and making it obvious that i wasn't sexually available to anyone but myself (and perhaps anyone i know very very very very very closely).

sadly, none of this is a problem any individual can fix, as it's a much wider systemic issue. i think there's a lot of work to be done to educate people in the fandom on how internalized allosexuality is and how there's a lot of societal norms and assumptions that i personally think we should really try to challenge more as a fandom. i'm not sure how anyone can protect themselves against aphobia; i think it's important to be open about asexuality in order to educate others, but that also means you open yourself up to a lot of scrutiny and mistreatment from folks who have internalized a lot of allosexual ideas, so it's kind of a catch-22.

i've been feeling very isolated because i don't want to hang out with other trans women in the communities i'm in under the assumption it will end in sex, but that seems to be the norm for a lot of people i run into. it's difficult navigating relationships and friendships when a lot of people have that expectation of me. i've definitely felt very broken for all of this at certain times. it sucks!

i wish i could end this on a more positive note. uhhhhhh, my kinks? those are very fun to have. love me some kinks.

it's okay to not want to have sex. it's okay to not want to hook up with people. it's okay to do a lot of kinky shit completely on your own. it's okay if you're unsure of how to share all of these things with others around you; society doesn't make it easy, it's not your fault that other people aren't ready to deal with it.

sorry this turned into such a rant i hope it's okay

[EdenCoven]

snip

Just wanna note I read this thing and appreciated it. Not qualified to actually comment is all.

[Mixi Blacksand]

Very interesting read, and one that unfortunately confirms my fears about trying to transition IRL and connect with other transfem and furries there. I recently went to a local meetup with some furs, many of whom were transfem, in my new home city, and was made VERY uncomfortable with the touchiness and sexual vibes despite it being a seemingly 'normal' hangout. Dreading that being the norm elsewhere if I try to reach out. I one day want to do a fur con, but I'm going to need to find a group who wants to agree the hotel room will be a sex-free safe space for us all.

[NovaSquirrel]

I really appreciate hearing other about peoples' feelings and experiences and I think idadeerz's perspective gave me the nudge I needed to really accept that yes, there is a systematic problem here, and yes it's worth trying to make it better. It's really easy to feel like it's your fault for not fitting in and not wanting the same thing as other people, even when you didn't choose to be that way, especially when allosexual people react the way they do to the way you are. It's also hard to really process the idea that most of the people out there within spaces that are supposed to be safe don't actually care for my comfort at all. I'm very open about being ace and I've tried to share my experiences in the hope that it helps.

I hope there is actually something that can be done longterm; we can increase awareness and understanding but I don't know how you would go about making people start to value ace people more and not consider them unappealing; to me it feels like that calls for a shift in values but I guess cultural changes aren't impossible. Feels really tricky to get the messaging right and make it clear it's about understanding and providing space for asexual people to comfortably exist and not just wanting to get rid of all the sex.

I have thought about trying to establish my own spaces for my interests that would be better about things and have a different focus, but I have learned through experience that you can only really do that after somehow meeting enough of the people who would want to be in the space. If you can't properly get the word out and market to the right people (where you don't even know where they are or where they're looking, or even if they haven't already given up on looking for a place like you're trying to make yet) they will not show up. Maybe I need to try again anyway.

[Jelly]

(snip)

(snip)

also don't feel like i have much of anything to add, on a few axes, but did want to +1 these posts

[scratchingway]

(snip)

(snip)

also don't feel like i have much of anything to add, on a few axes, but did want to +1 these posts

Same, though I did kinda wanna pitch in.

I feel the pain that others have experienced as a result of compulsory sexuality, as a result of feeling like I need to be sexually available to others because "that is how furries are" or "that is how trans people are", as a result of a lifetime of people just deciding they need access to my mind or my body or my heart or any of that shit; I have experienced those things. It has been devastating.

I don't know if I'm asexual or not... I don't think I am, but after some of the experiences I had being sexually active from ages 15-25... For the most part I haven't been sexual with others in the following ten years. And in some ways that's been good for me because I'm still trying to understand my boundaries and I've been exposed to a lot less harm now than I was... and in some ways it's been very painful because I do feel a deep absence in my heart, I do miss the nice things about sharing love for another in that way.

In part because most of the spaces I am in these days are online, and because I'm fine being pretty open about my experiences, and because many of the smaller spaces I am in are either SFW-only or are rigorous about setting and enforcing boundaries... I'm fortunate enough now to not be in a lot of situations where I feel excluded because I am not sharing my body or sexual feelings with others.

So I guess I do want to say that asexual-friendly (in my eyes -- but your eyes are what matter here) LGBTQ and furry spaces DO exist and they ARE worth seeking out and becoming part of. And they're not just online. There are offline spaces like that too, even in places like Texas.

And I don't know if our communities are necessarily inherently sexual. I don't think they are. But I do think experiences and feelings regarding sexuality are integral components of it for a lot of people. I think there is always going to exist some amount of furry/LGBTQ spaces where both asexual and sexual spaces/dynamics operate within them

As such I think it's important to hone the skills of identifying, establishing, asserting, maintaining, respecting boundaries. I say this maybe more for myself than for anyone else -- I don't know to what extent others need to do this -- because I never developed the skill of saying no growing up, and I'm still struggling with it to this day. For my safety, I have to be comfortable and practiced at saying no if others ask something of me I don't want to give, and I have to be comfortable and practiced at proactively identifying and respecting the boundaries of others, for their safety.

I guess what I'm saying is... this stuff is difficult and it's hard work and it's a process and it feels like there is so much education and communication to be done in order to make our spaces safe and constructive for everyone. But I don't think it's a lost cause and I think in some ways progress has been made since I was a kid hanging out in the only spaces I could find, which were not safe for me then but could have been, but can be now.

I don't know. It's a lot. I hope this is helpful and encouraging instead of minimizing or glossing over problems. I know others sharing their experiences and thoughts in this thread has been helpful for me to understand some things better.

[Mixi Blacksand]

I think what my own personal ruminations lately have come to is that labels of asexual, allosexual, pan, sapphic, whatever, just are doing mental harm to me personally right now and I need to abandon them. What I want is so context-sensitive trying to lay claim to any kind of community based on them is a path that has led me to increasing madness. I'm just me and I'm going to have to defend myself as best I can in whatever space I find myself.

[EdenCoven]

I think we've never felt that label-based community made any sense for us. We want people we can get along with, no matter who they are. On the other hand, we'd like to have more systems to talk about that stuff with because it gets lonely, so we're hypocrites. Definitely, reading things here, we feel less like being called "furry" or "trans" because those ideas just seem to carry baggage and ideas we can't relate to.

The thing is, all of these things are actually worth fighting for. You just can't live on only superficial connections. I think everyone here would naturally know that but we feel like we need to reaffirm ourselves sometimes. Sorry this is actually probably off the actual topic

[NovaSquirrel]

I have been able to find places to chat that are either all SFW or make a clean separation between SFW and NSFW, and are largely or entirely adults, though so far that's mostly just been like, generic furry spaces, rather than spaces for particular interests. I think one of the big factors that make it more difficult for me to find community is my passion for freeform roleplaying, where the problem is especially bad. I feel like there's some sort of stigma around it where it's automatically assumed to be erotic, and I've seen a ton of people write "RP" and actually mean "erotic RP" which contributes to erasure of the concept that it doesn't have to be erotic at all and makes it difficult to find anything. Most of the advice I can find for finding people to play with is erotic focused, and nearly all of the chats and sites I've been able to find are overwhelmingly sexual. The best I've been able to do myself is show up to a big enough site/chat, put up with constantly being surrounded by horniness, hope that there are people among everyone else that want something non erotic and have some overlap in interests, and be very patient while feeling very unappealing to everyone because of who I am.

[StarlightNecromancer]

-snip-

I read through this and I wanted to add my feelings as a trans masc ace furry.

Hidden text.

Given my region I've been more or less excluded from IRL furry spaces, and most queer spaces, because I can't afford to go out and be there in person. I've been to a gay bar exactly once (which closed in 2018, unfortunately, RIP Town DC's queer scene suffers for your loss), and my town has only just had its third ever Pride event last summer. The only convention I'll likely be able to go to will be Furality due to its virtual nature.

So a lot of my experience re: furry and furry spaces, have been online only.

Furry is excessively hostile towards aces, but in a way that isn't uncommon outside of furry spaces too. The idea of a "queer cafe so you can have a queer space that isn't a bar" has been mocked ever since some 15 year old asexual suggested it back when I was in high school. People can't help but see it as a threat to queer culture to have an absence of sex because of how the idea of just... Not Having Sex is so tied up with Puritanical Christianity. So when you have a group of people who sex is just as complex a topic is for anyone else, except "No, not now not ever" is quite literally the most likely option. People get riled up about it.

I remember vividly being told in non-furry nonbinary sapphic discords that an ace person dating someone who is allo is abusing them because "sex is a human need, and you're denying them their needs" and then being immediately followed up with "If you're ace and you have sex with someone who is allo then you're raping them." It was a fucking bad time to be ace online during this period of time.

Likewise, as a trans masc, people get really weird about our expressions of sexuality. To go along with trans men's invisibility, our sexuality isn't a thing for us to have but for others (usually cis people, especially cis women) to consume. Omegaverse, if we like it or not, is very much fetishizing trans and intersex bodies and is a Thing by and for cis people — all while making sure that we as trans people are Not A Part Of It (but don't worry, you totally are because of my mutuals who happen to be trans and like it says so /s).

Whenever people think about trans mascs and sexuality, we're not supposed to act on that. There's a lot of entirely unpacked misogyny that people have that they feel entirely comfortable expressing towards us that they otherwise know is wrong. We're too smol bean to be able to know what sex is because we're all just pre-transition 14 year olds and to have sex with any of us is obviously immoral, trans masc adults don't exist, and passing trans guys of any age don't exist.

There's this pervasive idea that asexuals are all just attention seeking women who don't want to put out, and that goes into the way that nonbinary people are seen as woman-lite, and even trans guys when in early transition are still just attention seeking women who are trying to trick cis gay men into sleeping with them.

So a lot of my experience with aphobia and transphobia in fandom has been so wrapped up in misogyny it isn't even funny. I'm a woman till I'm not, then I'm an invasive Creature that's Woman Enough to be treated like one. Regardless of if I'm sex-favorable, neutral, or repulsed the fact that I'm ace has been taken to mean that I'm a puritanical and I'm going to take away all the porn. That I'm somehow predatory because I'm "tricking" men into thinking I am one. Or that I'm somehow a child, because only children could possibly be asexual. But children are too young to know that they're asexual.

I think, honestly, a lot of the fandom is just hostile to anyone who isn't a cis guy. Its predominantly queer to its roots, and it shows, but any room made for anyone else is something that's Actively Been Done by people making that room.

I have been able to find places to chat that are either all SFW or make a clean separation between SFW and NSFW, and are largely or entirely adults, though so far that's mostly just been like, generic furry spaces, rather than spaces for particular interests. I think one of the big factors that make it more difficult for me to find community is my passion for freeform roleplaying, where the problem is especially bad. I feel like there's some sort of stigma around it where it's automatically assumed to be erotic, and I've seen a ton of people write "RP" and actually mean "erotic RP" which contributes to erasure of the concept that it doesn't have to be erotic at all and makes it difficult to find anything. Most of the advice I can find for finding people to play with is erotic focused, and nearly all of the chats and sites I've been able to find are overwhelmingly sexual. The best I've been able to do myself is show up to a big enough site/chat, put up with constantly being surrounded by horniness, hope that there are people among everyone else that want something non erotic and have some overlap in interests, and be very patient while feeling very unappealing to everyone because of who I am.

I roleplay more or less exclusively in MMOs so whenever "furry" stuff comes up its because they have a "furry bait" race in that game (see: the worgen, tauren, pandaren, and vulpera in World of Warcraft), but even when I was on a character and around characters that weren't on those races, the assumption that you were always down for ERP was pervasive. I can't tell you how upsetting it was to actually get walkup in Stormwind only for it to turn out that they only walked up to you because they wanted to shuffle off somewhere for ERP. Zero interest in your character, just wanted some fuck.

At least in MMOs people have to have a little subtlety lest they get banned, and on Moon Guard (my home server) a lot of the worse horniness is contained to Goldshire (and also made worse by server tourists). However on FFXIV (where the furry races are effectively limited to Hrothgar for "proper furry"), most of the RP venues that are listed, advertised, whatever offer ERP services. There's the assumption that if you're RPing in XIV, you're also definately ERPing. And I have the same problem there that I did in WoW. Every time I walked up on someone and they saw "No ERP" in my search info I would get ignored, if they walked up on me they'd immediately go for ERP. I go to a SFW venue, and people I try to talk to... are still angling for erp.

I want to tell stories. Sure sex can be a part of it, sex is a part of life. But I don't want to tell stories that are just "And then they fucked". Like even if I wasn't ace, even if I wasn't sex-neutral, its painfully fucking boring to me to exclusively do that and I don't understand why its so hard to have RP that doesn't just eventually lead to ERP for people.

[kittybot]

Wow, I have had a wildly different experience in the furry community than you guys. I identified as asexual/aegosexual for about 11 years before realizing I'm actually demisexual/reciprosexual/grey-ace at least some of the time (being plural can make this confusing). I come from a place of trauma but that definitely isn't all of it, and I think my identification has actually been a fluid orientation change over time, not a case of misidentification and finding my 'true' orientation later in life (though I think I was misidentifying myself as hypersexual/allosexual prior to 2013 or so). I've always been kinky and those kinks have ranged from sexual to asexual over time as well. However, I'm a NSFW fetish artist for a living. I've been sex-repulsed by IRL genitalia and sex acts, but I no longer am. I've never had an issue with my partners themselves though, and have been more or less sexually active my whole life depending on your definition of sex. In 2013 I ended up in a situation where both my partners were asexual, so as a combination of trauma and possibly unrealized reciprosexuality, I didn't feel sexually attracted to either of them or to anyone else for 11 years until my girlfriend, who came out as transfem a couple of years ago after identifying as nonbinary for 10+ years, moved into demisexuality and started expressing interest in sex and attraction to me, at which point I had to start examining my own relationship to sexuality.

I have only very rarely felt pressured in the furry community, and most of that was over a decade ago when I was still presenting myself as female. I'm not sure if the shift is from my gender shift or just change in the fandom over time. But even in my work with NSFW kink stuff, the majority of my customers have been some flavor of asexual. Some of them were kinky in a fantasy-sexual way, some of them were kinky in a completely nonsexual way. The majority of my friends are on the ace spectrum somewhere. It seems like at least in the fantasy kink community (everything from hyper to toys/latex/etc to TF/TGTF to hypnosis and more), asexuality is very common. Some people are still into fantasy sexuality and even ERP, most people are sex-positive even if they're repulsed and some of them are willing to have sex IRL if a partner desires it, but just a lot of people have zero interest in IRL/physical/vanilla sex and feel no sexual attraction to real live humans. Most of the 'attraction' they do feel is based on wanting to BE a character rather than wanting to have sex with them. There are a decent portion of aro folx, too. I feel like especially as time has gone on, the fandom has become more and more accepting of more niche queer identities.

The mainstream 'vanilla' fandom might still be an unwelcoming place for ace folx, I don't know because I don't interact with them. But ace and aro folx are more than welcome in the kinky corner of the community I spend time in, despite the overwhelmingly NSFW nature of a lot of it. The trans and transfem community I'm around especially are very ace-friendly and asexuality is very common.

Conversely, when I've tried to participate in SFW spaces, even when only sharing SFW art and tailoring my presence to SFW only, I've experienced a LOT of gatekeeping and hostility as being an adult who has a NSFW presence elsewhere. I was actually recently ejected from a community I'd spent 3 years in and had previously been told by staff that I was a highly valued member of and that made up half my social circles, because they decided to make it more 'professional' and general appeal so were removing all NSFW content and decided that because I had a NSFW presence elsewhere, I was now unwelcome in the community, and was accused of being 'inappropriate' for sharing art related to the community and advertising my involvement in it on my socials, and unceremoniously removed without a chance to change or resolve any of the apparent issues. In particular I've found that sex-repulsed folx tend to have a lot of anger and hostility towards folx who are not even if they are also ace-spec. I understand some of this is a reaction to feeling oppressed or pressured by society at large, but it seems like the anger can be very misdirected sometimes. Particularly as a trans person I've frequently felt like I'm creepy or predatory for being involved with NSFW stuff. As someone who draws a wide variety of kinks, both in sexual ways and in asexual ways, I've also experienced a lot of cold shoulders.

I'm really hoping that this community is welcoming as long as I keep things SFW within this space, but this thread is making me worry that my presence elsewhere is going to be treated as a problem again. I don't think folx here are openly hostile but the emphasis on always feeling pressured or attacked by folx who are not sex-repulsed or are not 100% pure asexual is concerning as someone who is not those things but still ace-friendly and of ace experience and willing and able to maintain a SFW presence when required, but has experienced prejudice for having a NSFW presence online.

Not sure what else to say here!

[NovaSquirrel]

I wouldn't expect people here to be judgmental or treat someone as a problem for drawing NSFW art. I'd hope we're all mature adults about it.

I dunno if this is a wider thing or if I'm just talking about myself, but I do feel like an ace person who wants to engage with NSFW stuff in a NSFW space in their own way is a very different sort of situation from being an ace person who does not want to engage with NSFW stuff, but feels forced to due to a lack of good SFW spaces for an interest (or where established spaces are supposed to be SFW but people are making them overwhelmingly NSFW anyway, as StarlightNecromancer described.)

I already talked about the current state of roleplaying, but I also want SFW spaces for rubber/plush/pooltoy/toy stuff that does not approach it as a fetish. I don't think places like that exist. Toy stuff is really important to me, but my only real option for trying to connect with other people is to put myself in very NSFW spaces I wouldn't choose to be in if I had options, and then deal with the mental health hazards from being there (though this forum helped a little bit with that)

[Lolo De Puzlo]

I'm really hoping that this community is welcoming as long as I keep things SFW within this space, but this thread is making me worry that my presence elsewhere is going to be treated as a problem again. I don't think folx here are openly hostile but the emphasis on always feeling pressured or attacked by folx who are not sex-repulsed or are not 100% pure asexual is concerning as someone who is not those things but still ace-friendly and of ace experience and willing and able to maintain a SFW presence when required, but has experienced prejudice for having a NSFW presence online.

I will say as an admin that while I respect the experiences that people have had in this thread with being mistreated by others in regards to being sex-repulsed or being pressured into things they don't want, the other admins and I will not stand for any sort of flak given to someone for being into the NSFW side of things (even though we want to keep this as a purely SFW space mostly for more open vibes). One of the three of us is an active NSFW artist and I'll openly admit to having a presence in the NSFW side of things as well. It's okay to be sex-repulsed and it's okay to not be as well. Everyone has different experiences especially if they come from different parts of the fandom.

(For the record, this isn't a disagreement or admonishment of your post. Just wanted to make a point as staff that you all should be welcome.)

[Enbyeon]

Just wanted to echo Lolo's statement. The forums are a SFW space due to practicality when it comes to moderating, not due to admonishment of NSFW.

I also wanted to say, I've appreciated this thread a lot. I'm not ace, but it's been very insightful learning about people's experiences.

[ReadeMe]

I've very recently come to terms with being ace. Im extremely kinky but i think anything related to IRL sex and a lot of the human body just... makes me mentally very upset.

Big mood, Ive considered myself grey ace since it seems to specifically apply to anyzhing IRL for me. Definitely has lead to a ton of "am I ace? what AM I?" in ze past.

[kittybot]

already talked about the current state of roleplaying, but I also want SFW spaces for rubber/plush/pooltoy/toy stuff that does not approach it as a fetish. I don't think places like that exist. Toy stuff is really important to me, but my only real option for trying to connect with other people is to put myself in very NSFW spaces I wouldn't choose to be in if I had options, and then deal with the mental health hazards from being there (though this forum helped a little bit with that)

I do not RP in public spaces very much, but I can definitely agree with the lack of public SFW roleplay spaces in general furry. I've found, in the past, that there's a lot of good SFW roleplay spaces that include furry characters in pet sim forums, but you also have to deal with minors in those cases, who make up a not-insignificant portion of the pet sim community. And also, often RP is centered around sapient feral characters rather than anthros - and kink content, SFW or otherwise, is not welcome. In general I find a lot more satisfaction roleplaying with friends and partners one-on-one rather than looking for public places to roleplay in groups or to find strangers to be roleplay partners.

I will say as an admin that while I respect the experiences that people have had in this thread with being mistreated by others in regards to being sex-repulsed or being pressured into things they don't want, the other admins and I will not stand for any sort of flak given to someone for being into the NSFW side of things (even though we want to keep this as a purely SFW space mostly for more open vibes). One of the three of us is an active NSFW artist and I'll openly admit to having a presence in the NSFW side of things as well. It's okay to be sex-repulsed and it's okay to not be as well. Everyone has different experiences especially if they come from different parts of the fandom.

I really appreciate this, thank you!

(also, how do you make a quote so that it links to person's name/post? I can only find how to use [ quote = name ] and it doesn't seem to make a link!)

[EdenCoven]

(also, how do you make a quote so that it links to person's name/post? I can only find how to use [ quote = name ] and it doesn't seem to make a link!)

It's the post_id tag. If you click the little quotation mark button on a post it'll set one up for you automatically which will probably be the easiest way most of the time!

[Lolo De Puzlo]

I will say as an admin that while I respect the experiences that people have had in this thread with being mistreated by others in regards to being sex-repulsed or being pressured into things they don't want, the other admins and I will not stand for any sort of flak given to someone for being into the NSFW side of things (even though we want to keep this as a purely SFW space mostly for more open vibes). One of the three of us is an active NSFW artist and I'll openly admit to having a presence in the NSFW side of things as well. It's okay to be sex-repulsed and it's okay to not be as well. Everyone has different experiences especially if they come from different parts of the fandom.

I really appreciate this, thank you!

(also, how do you make a quote so that it links to person's name/post? I can only find how to use [ quote = name ] and it doesn't seem to make a link!)

It's this button in the top right (admins have a whole lot of extra buttons, but you should have access to this button)

[NovaSquirrel]

In general I find a lot more satisfaction roleplaying with friends and partners one-on-one rather than looking for public places to roleplay in groups or to find strangers to be roleplay partners.

In my case, very few of the people I've made friends with have any interest in roleplaying, and in the social circles I've been in almost no one roleplays or has any advice on where to look, so public places are the only option I have available to me. Didn't know pet sim places were a potentially good place to look; I saw the official Neopets forum had a section for it, though giving it a peek right now I see posts complaining about how quiet it is. And yeah I noticed that when I looked at RP forum/site directories, the "furry" or "animal" tag would just be like, let's play as this pack of wild horses/wolves/whatever.

[kittybot]

In general I find a lot more satisfaction roleplaying with friends and partners one-on-one rather than looking for public places to roleplay in groups or to find strangers to be roleplay partners.

In my case, very few of the people I've made friends with have any interest in roleplaying, and in the social circles I've been in almost no one roleplays or has any advice on where to look, so public places are the only option I have available to me. Didn't know pet sim places were a potentially good place to look; I saw the official Neopets forum had a section for it, though giving it a peek right now I see posts complaining about how quiet it is. And yeah I noticed that when I looked at RP forum/site directories, the "furry" or "animal" tag would just be like, let's play as this pack of wild horses/wolves/whatever.

There are way more pet sims than just Neopets! I'd recommend checking out Lioden at least; you can probably find links to other active sims in the forums there. I don't like Lioden's gameplay, it's too complicated for me, but you could definitely just join for the forums and ignore the game entirely, haha.

[Mixi Blacksand]

I've very recently come to terms with being ace. Im extremely kinky but i think anything related to IRL sex and a lot of the human body just... makes me mentally very upset.

Big mood, Ive considered myself grey ace since it seems to specifically apply to anyzhing IRL for me. Definitely has lead to a ton of "am I ace? what AM I?" in ze past.

This is a big thing that's led to me dropping any label for my sexuality. The parameters for what I'm interested in vary so wildly from text, to VR, to real life, and based on other factors, that I don't feel comfortable making any claim to a consistent label.

[DarkOverord]

{...}I think idadeerz's perspective gave me the nudge I needed to really accept that yes, there is a systematic problem here, and yes it's worth trying to make it better.{...}

Yes absolutely, while I say it has improved over the 20 years I've been a typo, it absolutely still has ways to go. Of course pockets within the furry fandom are better or are worse but IMO also open discussions like this are a very important part of that to help make more "better" pockets.

Also I appreciate both from those of us who fall under the ace umbrella who aren't sex-repulsed (and may even do NSFW art) and those that are, are being open and that the discussion is genuinely interesting to read. I've not had much chance lately to really keep up but it was nice to see points shared.

[daebelly]

gray ace lesbian here. we only date other women (especially other trans women) and are sex-positive. we could really take or leave it. we just never find ourselves actively seeking sex out! to be fair though much of our identity is tied up in our kinks

[kittybot]

gray ace lesbian here. we only date other women (especially other trans women) and are sex-positive. we could really take or leave it. we just never find ourselves actively seeking sex out! to be fair though much of our identity is tied up in our kinks

T4T for the win! I see you and I feel you.