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topic: tags: orientation vs. act

hey cool cats n kittens
so i have a lot of little pedantic niggles about tags, and was wondering if theres anything im overlooking on this one:
im against tags based on the inferred sexual orientation of characters, eg "gay," because that seems entirely too reductive, both in terms of the relationship or dynamic in question, and the nuanced or subjective meaning of the word itself
this is one of the many strengths of the "tag what you see" philosophy imo
the only counterargument i can think of is "demisexual, trans, drunk, nonbinary, bi, etc people dont exist, thats just liberal snowflake nonsense" but thats not really much of an argument in my opinion... less of a move on the chess board than just flipping it in frustration lol
i guess you could also say its simply idiomatic, like thats what people are probably gonna search for if they want that kinda content, but i dont really think pandering to the lowest common denominator should be the end of the decision making process...

it is a pedantic niggle, as noted above, but if theres a conversation here, maybe we can have it anyway. just for fun :)

Viewed:	94 times
Added:	6 months, 3 weeks ago 27 Aug 2024 02:01 CEST

16 Comments on this Journal

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Mousarchy

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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ya. I always say I dont belive in sexuality tags because I just feel it puts people into a role they may not 100% actuall fill out.

otherwise Im the gayest person in the room who's simultaniously the straightest. thats why most my stuff I tag as what the act in the pic is male/male or male/female. ((usually having the leading role taking the lead. or in case of 3 ways. in order of outside to outside XP))

but people like there labels so **shrug** theres nothing you can do to make everyone happy. Hell some people are upset over HAVING the option to choose things,lol.

Kellyn

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ Mousarchy

I made a more detailed post below but tl;dr when people tag "gay" it's because they want to find images where characters are having gay sex, not because they want to find characters who identify as gay.

toothandclaw

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ Mousarchy

based on the discourse so far it seems like the real divide is between pure objectification, which serves the porn side of things, and a more holistic view of the characters, which better serves the larger world of art
its true that a lot of people are only interested in anthro content (or even, sadly, art as a whole) for erotic purposes, so it makes sense to facilitate that side of things as much as possible
but there is more to the world than beeg greasy boanerz and fffat juicee cumt
(apparently)
and it does feel a little neglected!

Zagroseckt

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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Gay = Same Sex intercorse in the picture or story.
Straight (wich should be in more tags considering how often gay is) = male female intercorse.
Bi. should only be included if the seen has both gay and straight tags. OR is acompenied by ...
Threesome . Can be any combenation of sexes and those should be in the tag. Example: M/M/f f/m/f m/f/m arange how you like.

Trans should only be used if a charcter is to be known and is the main focus and is post transformation as it relates to sexuality.
Otherwise Gay or Bi should be used regardless of the main's mental state.

Drag Dickgirl and such should be used in appropriate places. And Dick Girl includes Half converted transgender as well as natural boobed top dick bottom no pussy. A female mindset is the norm for this. alltho timboy can be included. Will genrilly still be focused on plesuring there male parts.

CuntBoy / boi Same as above just going the other way. Male trates male mindset might be girly instead of tomboy.

Do not inclue tags if it is not in the main focus of the story or picture unless contraversal (putting gay in just to note a gay cupple that is breefly minchend then wanders off to do there own thing is not a reason to add Gay in a tag (This goes for all tags including species. ASPECIALY SPECIES!!!!!!

I am so sick ant tiered of seeing tons of species listed seeing two i like ust to find out there not the focus or a seen.

There is no need to include Watersports if one of your seens happens to include someone peeing in the corse of the story. Only if it's part of the main kinkset and used during a detailed seen.

i could go on and on let me know if you want a more thought out list. I'll do more than just blab in passing.

Kellyn

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ Zagroseckt

It would be extremely difficult to enforce tagging rules. Tags serve to help people find content and everyone processes information completely differently. You would never be able to get everyone coming up with the rules to agree and you would have an even harder time getting everyone else to even read in depth rules.

It's best to just take tags with a large grain of salt.

toothandclaw

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ Zagroseckt

these are very specific, it seems like yo have put some thought into the subject
which is certainly useful for figuring out your own relationship to these things, but maybe not as helpful where other people have slightly different definitions
i do generally agree that tags should be for primary content rather than an exhaustive catalogue—but that level of thoroughness is very handy indeed for people who blacklist aggressively :) there are definitely examples where i would much rather miss the odd piece because of a relatively superfluous tagging than to see even a passing manifestation of the offending tag

Zagroseckt

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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Edited 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Owner

@ toothandclaw

The true side of things is this.
There needs to be tagging catagory
Primary about the main story main charcters acts spifickly done in the artwork as the main focus.
Secondary. Major side charcters or image setting
Generial (basickly what we got now.) or all the manuta like orentation bla bla bla go nuts.

Then allow for searching with filtering the secondary or general so you can actuily zero in on what your looking for.

Example if i'm looking for something with a rabbit and a squirrel in the main focus i'll get That paring.

And i wont get the listing that has rabbit and squirrel in the tags but allso has ram elephant pig otter bobcat wolf fox.
Just to find out that the rabbit and squirrel tags are in there just becos there is minchen of a rabbit or squirrel at some point but the main focus is on the elephant and pig.

In order to Acomplish this without folks going nuts you make it so Primary tags are limited in number and must be filled in.
Secondary and general can be open or secondary can have a few more avalible or be as tight as primary
with general being the whole list.

Say a max of 6 primary 12 secondary.
This will push the person taging to focus on the main theme of the art work for primary and not over tag it. while still alowing you to add all the tags you want.

Kellyn

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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I personally find it important to keep in mind that tags exist to help people find content. This can result in some issues but ultimately what is more important is being able to find the picture. For example with "gay" is it more important to find characters who identify as gay, or is it more important to find images where characters are having gay sex? I would assume most people are looking for the latter even if they entirely respect that having gay sex does not mean the character only sleeps with guys.

Likewise another interesting example to look at are derogatory terms such as "cboy". While this is generally considered an offensive term outside of porn, it is very to the point that the character identifies as male and has female genitalia. It's also worth considering that porn is inherently "dirty". Words that would typically be offensive like "slut" get thrown around far more in the form of dirty talk.

I personally think it's important overall to separate the tags from the identity of the characters. They are great for getting clues about what is happening in a picture, but for more detailed information about characters it's usually best to dig deeper. Again, the primary purpose of a tag is to help people find the picture not to identify what's in it. Identifying what's in it is better served in the description.

toothandclaw

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ Kellyn

thats a valid point! but "gay" encompasses every form of same sex relationship, and i cant imagine that the population who would be happy with all the results from such a broad tag is very large
i know it connotes male presenting characters, but im suddenly wondering how much content with other types of characters is also tagged "gay"

since u mentioned "cboy" im also wondering if that tag and dickgirl / futa have any alternative names that are more generally accepted outside of a porn context—like, i get the logic, but shouldnt i have the option to, ynow, not objectify a character? plus i dont know that these terms have an intrinsic relationship with the characters internal identity, rather than just how they present
of course i am very much still learning about all this stuff. its kinda confusing

i still feel that pandering to the lowest common denominator isnt necessarily the road to take; and if a site took a firm stance on tagging for content rather than orientation, i have no doubt that people would easily adapt
perhaps thats just my eternal optimism :)

Kellyn

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ toothandclaw

Sure you get a lot of stuff you aren't looking for when everyone contributes their own definition of tags to the tag pool, but you also don't miss anything. Also inkbunny supports excluding tags. For instance you could do "gay -female" to only search for guys on guys (though this would exclude guys on guys that include a female). Also there are the handy male/male and female/female tags if you want to search more specifically.

I personally feel it's better to find too much in your search rather than too little. I would much rather spend too much time trying to find what I like than miss a really great artist that was missing a couple tags I thought would apply to the piece. You can always get creative with your searches and often there are more explicitly defined tags that can be used as well if you know what to look for (though they may not be used as much as the generic tags).

As for the second point there really isn't a great alternative especially with how IB's tagging works. Spaces don't exactly work the way you would expect in tagging and it makes it impossible to search for say "intersex_male" and stuff. I have spent a good deal of time thinking of ways to solve this but honestly the old tried and true way seems to work best. If it bothers you though I do believe IB offers a way to turn off tag suggestions on a piece. Again I would argue that being able to find a piece is more important than having the optimal tags but there are options.

As for getting everyone to follow tagging rules have you ever heard the phrase "it's like herding cats". People still don't understand what IB wants when they ask for human content to be censored and that's like one rule. People constantly bend the rule.

Again I think it's just important to not put too much stock into what the tags say about a piece. The tags are there to make sure people can find your work and nothing more. If you want people to know your characters a brief couple paragraph story in the descriptions of your pictures will do a way better job.

toothandclaw

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ Kellyn

welp, cant really argue with any of that
i suppose i wanted to have my tags and eat them too :^ )
least ive got some closure on the matter

weepingbo2lbrush

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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speaking for myself, when searching content I don't really think in terms of sexualities i.e. lesbian, bisexual, gay... I search for something like, female/female or specific dynamics, suchas brother/sister or what have you. If I were searching for 'gay sex' I would sooner reduce what I was seeking to 'male/male' 'oral' or 'twincest'. 'Gay' is almost way too broad, going to catch a lot of stuff in that net... I guess I would imagine orientation-based artwork would be more likely to mire my results with pride-themed stuff & not necessarily the humble pornography I want (I don't even have to dislike something for it to not be what I am looking for >>)... I would sooner think those tags would apply to something like a comic or story with the narrative meat or emphasis on sexuality, identity, exploration etc. Which I'm not really interested in <<;;

I have no idea how other people search content, though....! I have been irked in the past by insisted tags on my work though; it can feel intrusive.

For a more meaningless note, I tend to draw either ferals, or people so young or isolated from society that identity really isn't set in stone.... I honestly just plum don't think about it 99% of the time... not a part of my art conceptualization, I guess. So it hadn't occurred to me how things might be expected to be tagged.

toothandclaw

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ weepingbo2lbrush

big same. i just like what i like, show me the buffet and ill take a little bit of a dozen different things :)
i think the urge to label everything isnt necessarily healthy—id rather appreciate things based on what makes them unique than because they check a certain box. only box i care about is "does this make me feel something?"

baphomett

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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Edited 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Owner

If you think people searching those tags benefit from your including your piece among the results, I think that's fair game on IB. E6 seems much stricter about their tag policies and the tagging system is more robust to begin with. Since IB doesn't really have janitors, I'd say it comes down to just do your best and not fret about it.

That being said, even though e6 is "tag what you see," they introduced lore tags for those reasons. They describe the circumstance of the characters represented, and less about what's explicitly represented in the work. It's more of an e6 formality from what I gather though, and doesn't make much sense from an IB perspective. Like I mentioned, if it makes sense that if you're tagging "gay" or "trans" that you think people searching for it would want to find it under those tags, or people with a blacklist for something would want to avoid it, then that's most likely appropriate. Since the community can add tags, if something important is missing, maybe invite others to pitch in.

toothandclaw

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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@ baphomett

i dont really use e621 so i didnt now about the lore tags, i love it!
why do you think something like that wouldnt work well on ib?

baphomett

6 months, 3 weeks ago

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Edited 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Owner

@ toothandclaw

E621 has a feature called tag categories baked into the software, so it at least canonizes the tag and makes it so that the community can count on using them in searches. Since IB doesn't have that feature, even if you tagged something as "siblings_(lore)" for example, I don't think many people are going to think to search for that. I don't remember off hand if IB allows for special characters in tags, even.

In spite of that, I do like the concept of lore tags as well! I can't think of what the alternative would be besides just using the normal tags and letting the people doing the searching figure it out for themselves. I do wish IB's tagging system was more robust.

EDIT:
You know, there's also the description if something doesn't seem to fit well in the tags. Character pronouns and stuff would probably fit there the best.

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