[Poll] Tell me your view on NSFW

[chestnutriceeee]

I personally think there is a 'done well' method to NSFW content. Many stories tend to add a lot of gore and sexual content in an attempt to make it seem more mature.

Violence and intercourse can both be very useful in a story to set your mood, develop the characters, and even worldbuilding.

A good example that comes to mind when talking about doing NSFW well is Dungeon Defense, it is heavily NSFW and that just makes the experience better.

[Legendofgenii]

If it’s part of the story, then that’s great. Threat, violence and romance can be a page turner if I care about the characters.

If that’s all the story is then I’ll probably get bored.

[LettieK]

I 100% agree with you about the abuse stories and such as a coping mechanism. Without getting too personal, the character in my story is going to go through some painful things, and it's not my intention to romanticize it, but to show the full scope of his experiences. I'm in control as the author, and it's a powerful outlet for me. I'm so glad someone understands this, and not just judge the content.

[MeltingCORE]

I personally am an adult and don't have an issue with it. It's fairly common for visual novels (which I'm a huge fan of) to have sexual content at least once per route (even the story-driven classics like Kanon) and it's never bothered me. I liken it to those fantasy romance novels that are so popular which have similar scenes. It's a part of the story and most of these series tend to have heavy romantic elements anyways. I do think if the content is super graphic, it needs to be sectioned off as 18+. I don't like the visual novels that are just nothing but adult content but eh. Just tag and sell it to the correct audience lol. Violence doesn't bother me either. Higurashi is one of my faves and as a teen I was obsessed with edgy movies like Saw. But once again, if it's extremely graphic it needs to be rated properly. Other than that, it's fiction - go wild lol!

And yes, sometimes a story is dark because the creator is using it as a way to work through their personal pain. I can say that about my series. That it's got my life refracted through a sci-fi lens in bits and pieces. It features subjects like abuse, mental health issues, biological corruption, collapsing government, etc not because I'm an edgelord but because it means something to me. (On the kinder side, I do have an adult scene coming up in my series later and am trying to figure out how much to censor for the Tapas edition. Need to do more research.)

[Freemints30]

I would be a hypocrite to be like. "nah don't show this"

Trashy violence has its place, good well done violence has its place.

Trashy sexual content has its place, well done sexual content has its place.

Its not a tool showcasing immaturity, that's ironically an immature way of seeing art. Its just a tool to attract the audience you want or show case an idea you want.

Do everything you want brothers, sisters and everyone

[SleepingPoppy]

I'm generally open minded to NSFW content, but generally prefer an interesting story with well integrated sex and violence. I'm also sensitive to some specific things with gore, because it can trip my gag reflex (more of a tv/movie problem thus far) which is obviously unpleasant. I'm also just picky about what I personally like and want to read.

I air on the side of being open minded about mature content, but also think it's good to have on going discussions about how we represent things. As long as we keep talking about it, creators are fed good food for thought. They make their own decision about whats appropriate, but they might consider things they previously hadn't. =)

I sometimes wish there was a higher demand for adult fiction in the webcomic sphere, I feel like one of a tiny handful of people in this community who want to read and create stories for my age group. Doesn't help that more and more community sites like this, social media and other art related sites/apps are now pushing for censorship, discouraging creators from even considering mature content.

Echoing this 100%. It baffles me that Apple/companies are so unwilling to create a space for adult/mature content. Or how unevenly the lines for content is drawn, when obviously HBO and Netflix have oodles of live physical actors simulating things that Apple would not even allow censored in a drawing. I am aggressively baffled.

[Kura]

Clicked the wrong one and now I look like a prude that not only hates sex but thinks it's only for horney teens???? (what the fuk kind of option is that?????)

I wanted to pick 'I can enjoy bot but only if it's well done' which is well... obvious for most anything when it comes to writing?? Not many people enjoy read bad writing unless it's ironically, and you don't want to be an author that people think is trash but will read the work of ironically.

[Llyrel]

I'm fine with both. I mean, I'm not a fan of certain types of heavy gore -looking at you, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning- and I have little to no interest in straight up porn, buuuuut... I'm certainly not gonna hate on people who create it: if I don't like it, there's always the X button on top of the window (or the report button, in the case of illegal stuff).

[GumshoeComix]

Well in terms of my comic, it has to be well done and the writing has to be handled with care or else its not just crossing the lines of over-the-top edgy, but I might get in trouble so I can't show too much.
As for personal art (that I never finish), violence is wayyy funner for me to draw than porn, not that I have an issue with NSFW but I just feel insecure every time I draw it cause the anatomy is off and someone's leg or arm looks weird. I have so much respect for people who can draw that shit without getting frustrated at the poses.
but gore? now that's where its at!

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I'm a no on the sexy stuff. I'm all for action violence and cool fight scenes though. Even some gore is okay as long as it doesn't go into torture or body horror.

For the no sexy stuff reasons there's a few things that are behind that. One being my Christian beliefs and the other being that my wife of 11 years wouldn't be okay with me either writing or drawing it, or reading it all the time.
(And also it's not essential to tell a good story. ) Now if a story has some romance in there and the romantic actions aren't hardcore porn levels it's not enough to make me drop it, but I will skip over it real quick. If it becomes a regular part of the story I'll drop it though.

[Scarlet_Cryptid]

I can handle very sexually explicit scenes better than I handle a lot of enthusiastically rendered gore, but I don't object to a mild-to-moderate amount of either in my stories. I'm unlikely to draw either into the comic I post here in any meaningful amount, but... I mean... I've got a medieval fantasy setting where people get into fights with other people. With swords. That gets messy. I can't promise there won't be blood.

And while my story isn't a romance or a straight up erotic story, there will be characters in romantic relationships. I'm not going to be drawing any sexually explicit scenes (...thought that might be fun for like a Patreon reward or something someday...), but Fade-to-Black style implications are totally on the table.

[UrMom]

@LettieKat I can empathize. My comic is basically me popping open the lid of internalized bs that has built up over the course of my life, focusing a lot on abuse and mental health issues. A majority of people would consider it to be "tragedy porn", but working on this project has put a lot of my issues into perspective, and has given me something enjoyable to focus on.

There's some interesting psychology behind the choices people make when creating art and fiction, as well as why some people have certain fetishes. (There's actually an interesting study on that last bit done by someone at Walden University titled 'The Impact of Childhood Trauma and Personality on Kinkiness in Adulthood'.) I'm not super educated on it, but I'm a casual nerd for it since I feel like the subject of art and trauma isn't given the thoughtful discussion it deserves. People tend to have a really negative B&W viewpoint on it. So yes! I totally get you, and I'm glad you're about to work through some stuff via your story!

Echoing this 100%. It baffles me that Apple/companies are so unwilling to create a space for adult/mature content. Or how unevenly the lines for content is drawn, when obviously HBO and Netflix have oodles of live physical actors simulating things that Apple would not even allow censored in a drawing. I am aggressively baffled.

Yeah, I don't understand that? Sure, you want to make a safe space for children, and I get that to an extent. But unless you get rid of the very existence of adult content they will find it, and there are ways to allow mature stuff in a way that covers your ass so parents can sue. The Duck Webcomics is a good example in spite of it being a tiny site, you need to be signed in as an adult to gain access to adult content, and mature stuff is put behind a warning. Sure, children can fake their age, but if they're caught I believe they would be forced to show proof of age. Having this system at least covers their asses if a parent has any issue, and I don't see how something similar can't be done for other sites.

[joannekwan]

I picked SHOW IT ALL.
I want to encourage creators to make the content they want. Be free!
I'd rather see something that the creator likes and is passionate about than some watered-down cut-for-the-kiddies edit that they feel pressured by society into having (website censorship aside).

[LettieK]

I'm definitely going to take a look at that study! Thank you for sharing- and for showing me I'm not the only one!

[skicoak]

Tangentially related to the poll...

I think what I have grown weary of is creators clumsily and constantly pushing and testing borders...just to test borders.

And the follow up "outrage" that the censored/banned stuff is "integral" to the story.

And this isn't a condemnation of mature/NSFW material...I love me some of that stuff.

[Shanny8]

I don't have an issue with nudity or sex or violence in comics- as long as the story is good. As for me doing it myself, I don't have an issue doing it but at the same time I want to get a lot of eyes on my comic/work so I do find myself pulling back on the degree of the content...also it's difficult to go full throttle now days when so many sites & platforms are cutting off access for NSFW creators/content- more so for the nudity and/or sex as opposed to the violence.

[Colours_dont_match]

I am not prude at all, but I don't like detailed sex scenes, or especially foreplay scenes in most comics I read so far. For some reasons, I can't really well explain why, I find lots of scenes where the author wanna show that it's important to have consent a bit...strange?

It's super important to have consent, if not the most important part of sex, but it's kinda hard to show this topic in comics I guess. Normally in real life you might show consent, with your movements, gaze, reactions, also speech of course, but in comics I often enough saw scenes, where person A asks person B: "Can I touch you down there? Can I do this?" Then after they done whatever, the asking starts again, but this time the other way around. It feels like in comics you can just show consent via speech bubbles, at least in most stuff I saw so far and it's hard to transport it via body language and behavior, as it's of course no moving picture.

Also I wanna say again: It is good and most important to ask for consent in whatever form everybody who participates understands it, but it kinda makes nswf scenes feel like a checklist of body parts the OC is allowed to touch or not and it slows the whole thing down and makes it kinda unnatural and boring for me to read.

That's why I often not like seeing nswf stuff, but like scenes more that are kinda like: They started kissing/touching and next panel is them sleeping in each others arms, without the whole progress in between (maybe naked, I don't care).

For gore: I don't care that much. If people fight for example and someone gets hurt, it's ok for me if the injuries are shown. If it's more like detailed and prolonged scenes of injuries and inflicting pain to others, I don't need that.

[rajillustration]

For me it's an issue of I just don't trust webcomic and webnovel authors as much as I trust standard published authors and filmmakers. And, especially with writers who are still learning, I've walked into so much online fiction that has romanticized abuse and framed it as OK, I've walked into so much fiction that drew gore and sex so clumsily it would have been better not to include it at all (and I mean, that, although I know it sounds harsh--that stuff is hard to draw, if you don't know what you're doing, you've ruined the impact you were hoping to have.) That I tend to avoid online romance and online horror in general.

It's just so distracting that I end up analyzing the author more than I analyze the work. It just really pulls me out of the world they've made, despite the fact I would never want someone to use my work to analyze me. But, especially in situations where abuse is glamorized, and when they use tags and wording to describe glamorizing abuse as something fun and exciting, it feels like walking on eggshells to read and to even talk about.

and like...
...every other genre out there has to be mindful and has to hold themselves accountable when they write content that can be seen as harmful and problematic. While I think that the aggressive censoring from Apple has hurt our content quite a lot, I also don't think saying "everything is always fine" is OK, either. It's not about what you write on your own time to work through your own thoughts privately, it's about what you write and decide to put out into the world. It's online, it's not going to be free from criticism, but some people get real mad if you criticize it. So, I just actively avoid it.

[LettieK]

I do think that it's a shame that if we want to have NSFW content in our stories that they likely won't be featured. I'm not exactly writing my story for exposure, it's more personal, but I'm now limited in the audience I can reach.

[ricardoaltuna]

As long as it serves the story and is not done in a way that is glorifying or commodifying violent or abusive behaviour and is not just done to be edgy or for the shock value is fine by me.