I woke up still pondering @girlonthenet's lamentation (I think; https://mastodon.social/@girlonthenet/116353766078817354), that while lots of people enjoy her sex blog, few people boost her toots about it.
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Hmm... I wonder (I told you that I was pondering!) if there is an added factor here, of the fedi demographic: of older people, perhaps especially men (don't laugh), being self-aware of engaging with younger adults posting sex-related stuff, and coming across as creepy. Perhaps?
@neil speaking as a woman who used to be on Twitter, I learned pretty early on not to mention anything that could be even remotely construed as sexual on the internet because it immediately attracted a lot of the kind of attention I didn't want. Mastodon seems a lot better but I don't know if that genuinely is a platform thing or just that I'm in my forties now so have aged out of the bracket creeps like to hit on. It's shit, women are full human beings too who like sex as much as anyone else and in an ideal world we'd talk about it as much as we talk about our jobs or hobbies or pets, but my early experiences on the internet taught me that if you express any interest in anything remotely sexual a dozen sleazy men will suddenly assume you want to be sexual with them.
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Hmm... I wonder (I told you that I was pondering!) if there is an added factor here, of the fedi demographic: of older people, perhaps especially men (don't laugh), being self-aware of engaging with younger adults posting sex-related stuff, and coming across as creepy. Perhaps?
@neil To add to you thoughts, which I think are very valid: At least in my bubble on early twitter we were conditioned to never RT someones nsfw/hot content. People had many reasons for not wanting their content spread outside of their following and it reguarly caused a shitstorm if someone did.
I will have to unlearn that habit of never hitting the boost button for kinky things.
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@neil speaking as a woman who used to be on Twitter, I learned pretty early on not to mention anything that could be even remotely construed as sexual on the internet because it immediately attracted a lot of the kind of attention I didn't want. Mastodon seems a lot better but I don't know if that genuinely is a platform thing or just that I'm in my forties now so have aged out of the bracket creeps like to hit on. It's shit, women are full human beings too who like sex as much as anyone else and in an ideal world we'd talk about it as much as we talk about our jobs or hobbies or pets, but my early experiences on the internet taught me that if you express any interest in anything remotely sexual a dozen sleazy men will suddenly assume you want to be sexual with them.
> if you express any interest in anything remotely sexual a dozen sleazy men will suddenly assume you want to be sexual with them.
Right there. Yes.
*sigh*
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@neil To add to you thoughts, which I think are very valid: At least in my bubble on early twitter we were conditioned to never RT someones nsfw/hot content. People had many reasons for not wanting their content spread outside of their following and it reguarly caused a shitstorm if someone did.
I will have to unlearn that habit of never hitting the boost button for kinky things.
@kinkypond Ooh, interesting.
I had not considered that angle.
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Hmm... I wonder (I told you that I was pondering!) if there is an added factor here, of the fedi demographic: of older people, perhaps especially men (don't laugh), being self-aware of engaging with younger adults posting sex-related stuff, and coming across as creepy. Perhaps?
@neil speaking only for myself, someone who used to write a sex blog, is a community organiser in the kink community, and not awkward about sex, the reason I don't boost is actually more not sure of where the line is for certain servers and not wanting to be blocked by whole servers or booted off one for boosting something they see as not ok.
So I guess my issue is Autistic lack of understanding of why other people are weird about sex stuff.
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I suspect that it comes down to a mix of:
* stigma about sex as pleasure / being embarrassed about what others here might think
* concerns relating to professional expectations and obligations
* sex as being in the sphere of one's private life
I can understand each of these, and why they might lead to a "like" rather than a "boost".
None of them inhibit paying or tipping someone, as a thank you for their work though, which is another way of being supportive.
> concerns relating to professional expectations and obligations
That is absolutely something I have in mind when boosting anything, especially as the FCA look at social media (though I don't know if they monitor Mastodon specifically). I don't boost anything involving over 18 content, which includes swearing, sex work etc.
It is annoying because the content is legal, but I do not have a sufficiently large platform to take a stand on this.
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@neil speaking only for myself, someone who used to write a sex blog, is a community organiser in the kink community, and not awkward about sex, the reason I don't boost is actually more not sure of where the line is for certain servers and not wanting to be blocked by whole servers or booted off one for boosting something they see as not ok.
So I guess my issue is Autistic lack of understanding of why other people are weird about sex stuff.
> not wanting to be blocked by whole servers or booted off one for boosting something they see as not ok.
Yes, I can see the challenge there.
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> concerns relating to professional expectations and obligations
That is absolutely something I have in mind when boosting anything, especially as the FCA look at social media (though I don't know if they monitor Mastodon specifically). I don't boost anything involving over 18 content, which includes swearing, sex work etc.
It is annoying because the content is legal, but I do not have a sufficiently large platform to take a stand on this.
I too am mindful about profanity in toots that I boost, which can sometimes be a challenge here!
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> not wanting to be blocked by whole servers or booted off one for boosting something they see as not ok.
Yes, I can see the challenge there.
@neil personally I would like to see the Fediverse figure out how to support sex workers and adult content so it's not an issue, but that is something I am not qualified to help figure out!
Maybe someone will discuss it at @fediforum .
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> not wanting to be blocked by whole servers or booted off one for boosting something they see as not ok.
Yes, I can see the challenge there.
idk if being blocked by a server is such a big deal tbh. I would personally prefer to freely engage with the people I'm interested in, rather than hold off for fear that some unknown corner of the internet admined by puritans might not get to see my posts.
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Hmm... I wonder (I told you that I was pondering!) if there is an added factor here, of the fedi demographic: of older people, perhaps especially men (don't laugh), being self-aware of engaging with younger adults posting sex-related stuff, and coming across as creepy. Perhaps?
@neil This is my reason for not engaging, including compliments. (Likes as a "formalized" interaction should be safe.)
re boosting – I'm trying to keep my followers' TLs "SFW or CW". That is, I try not to boost anything sexual that doesn't come with a CW (and an image description of course).
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@neil This is my reason for not engaging, including compliments. (Likes as a "formalized" interaction should be safe.)
re boosting – I'm trying to keep my followers' TLs "SFW or CW". That is, I try not to boost anything sexual that doesn't come with a CW (and an image description of course).
> I try not to boost anything sexual that doesn't come with a CW
Most of the people who I follow who post sexual stuff are fastidious about CWs, as consent is important to them!
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If you have got this far, perhaps you would welcome some suggestions for fedizens who I follow, who post sex-related stuff.
@girlonthenet: the queen of text and audio smut, with multiple books under her belt too.
@mindpersephone: short form text, often sci-fi and genderqueer.
@JenJen: beautiful hand drawn smut, interspersed with rants about Linux.
@alice: more lockpicking than smut, but smut is there, and especially #AltAfterDark.
Newer to me:
@Jaimieserotica: a relatively new blogger, with a mix of fiction and non-fiction (I think!)
@GoingDownWithSundial: another relatively new smut blogger, also touching on neurodiversity
(And, look, I apologise in advance for the people who I will inevitably omit by accident; it is not personal, I am simply fallible. I have not included people who post nudes because that doesn't necessarily mean "sexual".
By all means add your own suggestions / your own blog / self-promotion.)
@neil
@girlonthenet @mindpersephone @JenJen @alice @Jaimieserotica@innocentlb long-time blogger, gentle, introspective smut
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idk if being blocked by a server is such a big deal tbh. I would personally prefer to freely engage with the people I'm interested in, rather than hold off for fear that some unknown corner of the internet admined by puritans might not get to see my posts.
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@alexisbushnell
Hosting social media while British, a prosecutable offense...That's truly sad and I can see why someone who hosts a server would think about those considerations, but as a user I don't think posting adult content is prosecutable in the UK yet, is it? Provided the adult content is consensual, not stolen, etc.
Maybe having an alt account in a non-British server for the adult stuff could be an option, while keeping the local community posts in the British servers? -
If you have got this far, perhaps you would welcome some suggestions for fedizens who I follow, who post sex-related stuff.
@girlonthenet: the queen of text and audio smut, with multiple books under her belt too.
@mindpersephone: short form text, often sci-fi and genderqueer.
@JenJen: beautiful hand drawn smut, interspersed with rants about Linux.
@alice: more lockpicking than smut, but smut is there, and especially #AltAfterDark.
Newer to me:
@Jaimieserotica: a relatively new blogger, with a mix of fiction and non-fiction (I think!)
@GoingDownWithSundial: another relatively new smut blogger, also touching on neurodiversity
(And, look, I apologise in advance for the people who I will inevitably omit by accident; it is not personal, I am simply fallible. I have not included people who post nudes because that doesn't necessarily mean "sexual".
By all means add your own suggestions / your own blog / self-promotion.)
@neil @girlonthenet @mindpersephone @JenJen @alice @Jaimieserotica @GoingDownWithSundial I'd say if all these creators use the right hashtags in their toots, they will reach a wider audience even without many retoots. That is the beauty of the fediverse.
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@neil @girlonthenet @mindpersephone @JenJen @alice @Jaimieserotica @GoingDownWithSundial I'd say if all these creators use the right hashtags in their toots, they will reach a wider audience even without many retoots. That is the beauty of the fediverse.
@Nehalenia @girlonthenet @mindpersephone @JenJen @alice @Jaimieserotica @GoingDownWithSundial
Hashtags can help, a bit (not much, in my experience, but more than zero), but I think that the concern here is about *human participation* and boosting, rather than simply about "reach" / readability.
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@Nehalenia @girlonthenet @mindpersephone @JenJen @alice @Jaimieserotica @GoingDownWithSundial
Hashtags can help, a bit (not much, in my experience, but more than zero), but I think that the concern here is about *human participation* and boosting, rather than simply about "reach" / readability.
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I suspect that it comes down to a mix of:
* stigma about sex as pleasure / being embarrassed about what others here might think
* concerns relating to professional expectations and obligations
* sex as being in the sphere of one's private life
I can understand each of these, and why they might lead to a "like" rather than a "boost".
None of them inhibit paying or tipping someone, as a thank you for their work though, which is another way of being supportive.
@neil There's also just a general culture where people feel oddly 'nervous' about interacting with content producers and don't seem to understand, no matter how many times you explicitly say it, that we really want positive feedback. That posting into a void that never responds is really depressing, even if you know some people are reading.
Yet they don't feel self-conscious at all about making criticisms
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@neil There's also just a general culture where people feel oddly 'nervous' about interacting with content producers and don't seem to understand, no matter how many times you explicitly say it, that we really want positive feedback. That posting into a void that never responds is really depressing, even if you know some people are reading.
Yet they don't feel self-conscious at all about making criticisms
️@rubyjones Oh, goodness, yes, excellent point.
