Postfurries, Twitter, and "After Dark"
So, a bunch of my friends are postfurries [0], and I follow a number of them on Twitter, which I vacillate between finding enjoyable and finding really frustrating because I can't express nuance well in 140 characters. Often they talk about stuff like anyone else talks about on twitter --- what they had for dinner that evening, they missed the bus and it's the worst thing that ever happened to them in the history of ever, oh look here's an article from a blog about social justice issues. Sometimes they talk about furry things, surprise surprise, and sometimes those furry things are sexual. (To forestall the "oh my god furry is all about sex!" "no it's not it's pure and clean like snow!" argument, I will suggest that furry is as much about sex as any other fringe artistic/identity movement. There might be more porn?)
I can't speak for anyone else, and I'm not sure who would be comfortable being quoted here, so I won't quote anyone and will talk only about my opinions and experience. Personally, I don't mind when my friends post NSFW links. Sometimes, like when I'm at work, I don't click them. Sometimes, I do! And which are which is a private matter held in trust between me, my browser history, my ISP, anyone logging the transaction, the hosting server... Okay maybe it's not so private. But as long as these images are labeled as NSFW, I don't mind if someone tweets a hundred of them, because if I am going to put up with one group of friends tweeting live updates to sports games I don't much care about, I can deal with another group of friends tweeting links to pornography. [1] It's just how it goes with Twitter; a lot of the content is not interesting to me personally, because it's not directed at me personally. I'm fine with that.
What some folks do that really does bother me, personally, is scene on Twitter. I'm not talking like that senator who sent pictures of his junk to random Twitter accounts --- that's more like twitter sexting or something. (Also if you enjoy anti-gay lawmakers being taken down for soliciting gay sex, this article is beyond gold.) This is... well, if you've heard of "cybersex" or "tinysex" or "typefucking," more like that. In 140-character bursts. (Text-based roleplaying where the action is sexual, basically.) Because the folks who I see do this on Twitter are postfurries, what counts as sex or sexual is very... metaphorical, and technologized, and often not genital-focused at all, which is interesting in its own right but not what I'm focusing on here. It's still pretty clearly intimate play, and happening over a broadcast medium, with a variety of interested and disinterested parties watching. And it's being broadcast to me, and I really don't want to see it. Not because I'm not into those things (sometimes true, but not always), or because I think they're disgusting (they're not, even if they're non-normative), or even because I'm at work (although sometimes I am and that's a fair bit more jarring). It's because I did not consent to being part of those folks' sexual practice.
A number of postfurries are taking on "After Dark" twitter accounts as a way to deal with some of these issues, and other issues (some folks aren't comfortable with the NSFW links either); I know I'm not the only person who's complained, and I don't recall actually complaining publically, just mentioning to a couple of folks that it made me uncomfortable. I've seen other people, not just postfurries, take on "after dark" accounts --- pseudonymized and generally locked --- to talk about things like drug use, hating their jobs, and so on. I follow a couple, although not as many as have invited me to follow them. It's a clever workaround to the fact that Twitter doesn't have friends groups and filtering like Dreamwidth or LiveJournal (or even Facebook) do, although it requires multiple accounts and if you don't have the multiple accounts (my twitter identity is tightly coupled to my real name) it means your potential employers will see you being followed by/following folks like the hypothetical "WolfFuckerTMI" as opposed to just, I dunno, "WolfDude827." Which, eh. I don't worry much about that, but it would be very reasonable for other folks to do so.
I don't have a better solution unfortunately. I like the idea of tagging content based on what it's about and then letting both writer and reader filter it, but that's heavyweight and subjective. Multiple accounts, with a good interface, isn't a bad solution. But I don't actually like sex and sexuality being ghettoized into "after dark" land, or pseudonymity, even though I sometimes make that choice because of the society I'm enmeshed in. [2] While I feel pretty strongly about the consent issue --- I wouldn't want to walk into a party and see those folks doing those things they are roleplaying unless I knew ahead of time that was the kind of party I was going to and felt comfortable attending, why is it magically okay online --- I also feel pretty strongly that people should be able to do those things, and that they shouldn't have to hide that they are doing it. I'm not sure how to balance the need for boundaries with the social/political desire to make sexuality one of many things we talk about. And this is leaving aside the problem where discussion of sexuality is kept under wraps specifically by the discussion of sexuality --- language binds itself and more and more words lead to less and less change. Am I just part of that problem here? I hope not, but maybe.
How do y'all manage these boundaries, both as readers and as content producers? And how do I manage having opinions about the behavior of my group/community/whatever, and working to change that behavior, while also studying it academically? I know some academic-side answers that I need to research more (in particular, performance ethnography), but I'm curious about non-academic answers, too.
[0] Take your pick of links explaining what postfurry is. Or make up your own definition! I'm going to have to eventually.
[1] And not all NSFW links are porn! Some of them are about sexual health, some of them are activism, and so on. In this case, though, it's usually porn. :P
[2] And should have the right to make that choice! If you're not angry enough at Google over the G+ no-pseudonyms bullshit yet, you should also keep in mind that they'll ban you for anything sexually explicit, too! Fun times all around, without the fun.
This entry was originally posted at http://rax.dreamwidth.org/90092.html.
I can't speak for anyone else, and I'm not sure who would be comfortable being quoted here, so I won't quote anyone and will talk only about my opinions and experience. Personally, I don't mind when my friends post NSFW links. Sometimes, like when I'm at work, I don't click them. Sometimes, I do! And which are which is a private matter held in trust between me, my browser history, my ISP, anyone logging the transaction, the hosting server... Okay maybe it's not so private. But as long as these images are labeled as NSFW, I don't mind if someone tweets a hundred of them, because if I am going to put up with one group of friends tweeting live updates to sports games I don't much care about, I can deal with another group of friends tweeting links to pornography. [1] It's just how it goes with Twitter; a lot of the content is not interesting to me personally, because it's not directed at me personally. I'm fine with that.
What some folks do that really does bother me, personally, is scene on Twitter. I'm not talking like that senator who sent pictures of his junk to random Twitter accounts --- that's more like twitter sexting or something. (Also if you enjoy anti-gay lawmakers being taken down for soliciting gay sex, this article is beyond gold.) This is... well, if you've heard of "cybersex" or "tinysex" or "typefucking," more like that. In 140-character bursts. (Text-based roleplaying where the action is sexual, basically.) Because the folks who I see do this on Twitter are postfurries, what counts as sex or sexual is very... metaphorical, and technologized, and often not genital-focused at all, which is interesting in its own right but not what I'm focusing on here. It's still pretty clearly intimate play, and happening over a broadcast medium, with a variety of interested and disinterested parties watching. And it's being broadcast to me, and I really don't want to see it. Not because I'm not into those things (sometimes true, but not always), or because I think they're disgusting (they're not, even if they're non-normative), or even because I'm at work (although sometimes I am and that's a fair bit more jarring). It's because I did not consent to being part of those folks' sexual practice.
A number of postfurries are taking on "After Dark" twitter accounts as a way to deal with some of these issues, and other issues (some folks aren't comfortable with the NSFW links either); I know I'm not the only person who's complained, and I don't recall actually complaining publically, just mentioning to a couple of folks that it made me uncomfortable. I've seen other people, not just postfurries, take on "after dark" accounts --- pseudonymized and generally locked --- to talk about things like drug use, hating their jobs, and so on. I follow a couple, although not as many as have invited me to follow them. It's a clever workaround to the fact that Twitter doesn't have friends groups and filtering like Dreamwidth or LiveJournal (or even Facebook) do, although it requires multiple accounts and if you don't have the multiple accounts (my twitter identity is tightly coupled to my real name) it means your potential employers will see you being followed by/following folks like the hypothetical "WolfFuckerTMI" as opposed to just, I dunno, "WolfDude827." Which, eh. I don't worry much about that, but it would be very reasonable for other folks to do so.
I don't have a better solution unfortunately. I like the idea of tagging content based on what it's about and then letting both writer and reader filter it, but that's heavyweight and subjective. Multiple accounts, with a good interface, isn't a bad solution. But I don't actually like sex and sexuality being ghettoized into "after dark" land, or pseudonymity, even though I sometimes make that choice because of the society I'm enmeshed in. [2] While I feel pretty strongly about the consent issue --- I wouldn't want to walk into a party and see those folks doing those things they are roleplaying unless I knew ahead of time that was the kind of party I was going to and felt comfortable attending, why is it magically okay online --- I also feel pretty strongly that people should be able to do those things, and that they shouldn't have to hide that they are doing it. I'm not sure how to balance the need for boundaries with the social/political desire to make sexuality one of many things we talk about. And this is leaving aside the problem where discussion of sexuality is kept under wraps specifically by the discussion of sexuality --- language binds itself and more and more words lead to less and less change. Am I just part of that problem here? I hope not, but maybe.
How do y'all manage these boundaries, both as readers and as content producers? And how do I manage having opinions about the behavior of my group/community/whatever, and working to change that behavior, while also studying it academically? I know some academic-side answers that I need to research more (in particular, performance ethnography), but I'm curious about non-academic answers, too.
[0] Take your pick of links explaining what postfurry is. Or make up your own definition! I'm going to have to eventually.
[1] And not all NSFW links are porn! Some of them are about sexual health, some of them are activism, and so on. In this case, though, it's usually porn. :P
[2] And should have the right to make that choice! If you're not angry enough at Google over the G+ no-pseudonyms bullshit yet, you should also keep in mind that they'll ban you for anything sexually explicit, too! Fun times all around, without the fun.
This entry was originally posted at http://rax.dreamwidth.org/90092.html.