hi asdfmovie . i have 11 minecraft cats named asdfmovie1 through asdfmovie11

I don't think the decision in banning fetish content while otherwise continuing to allow art with suggestive or sexual themes makes sense at all. What makes fetish wear like a harness or pup hood, which would now be disallowed, different from lingerie which is used in similar sexual contexts other than the fact one is considered more ""Normal""? The filtration system had already worked for filtering fetish content by allowing users to mark it as suggestive which, would block it from view from minors on the site like all other suggestive content... It's giving very kink doesn't belong at pride

I'm deeply disappointed by the decision to introduce this new rule. Even not mentioning how impossible it would be to properly decipher what is and isn't fetish art, considering this is an art website and not only can anything be a fetish and things that read as fetishy could just be a completely sfw cartoon trope, and mods seem strained enough to keep up with reports as it is; the new rule feels like a deeply queerphobic double standard. Why is suggestive art fine on the site, but leather gear or focusing on the 'wrong' body part is banned? The new rule feels like it is telling users 'expressions of attraction are allowed on the site, as long as your attraction is "Normal."'. It's hits a lot of the same marks as the queerphobic remarks me and other queer artfight users have heard throughout our lives, that sure our sexuality can be considered 'valid' by society, as long as we fall in line with heterosexual standards and don't 'rub it in your face'. I'm especially hurt to see so many artfighters respond to this with 'think of the children'-esque remarks; artfight has filtering in place that minors cannot access, minors are already not able to see properly filtered fetish art and it saddens me to see so many people make out all fetish artists as creeps who want to overrun the site with nsfw artwork. I hate to see so many people, especially other queer people make statements that have been used against us time and time again against a community who has historically been interlinked to the lgbtq+ community in so, so many ways. With how queer friendly artfight has been in the past I just can't believe that they would roll out a rule that truthfully feels like theyre trying to clean up their brand image by getting rid of all the 'gross' queers who like such 'disgusting' things like leather gear or fat men. It feels like fetish artists are being banned for optics, especially considering just how impossible this rule is to moderate. 

Speaking of which, I'm very uncomfortable with the fact this was rolled out with no clarification or specifics at all. Under the guidelines put out currently, characters someone deems 'too fat', trans characters, gender nonconforming characters, disabled characters, are all at risk of being reported and taken down. I see people complain about seeing 'fat fetish' characters on this site which turn out to be just any character who is drawn fat in a way the person viewing it finds too uncomfortable despite in no way being fetish art. And, with sites like Tumblr using their anti-nsfw rules to take down the accounts of trans women for 'appealing to fetish' consistently, I seriously fear the repercussions this rule change will have. Even if the mods won't remove these types of characters, there is nothing stopping people from flooding the reports system with characters who they find 'too weird'. 

Please, artfight staff, just roll back this new rule. It not existing before hurt no one, and I feel the best thing to do if you want moderation on fetish art is to just add a 'write in' filter feature on site, the way Toyhouse does with their sensitive content filter (This would also improve artfight's filtering in general, as I've always been quite confused by the sensitive content filter up currently ranging anything from realistic bugs to heavy drug use with no indicator before you click on what the sensitive content is). It would probably make the artfight experience better for everyone in the long run. Listen to your community and work to regain the trust you had before this ruling, or unfortunately I think I and many others will not be participating in 2025 and beyond.
And as a last note, I hope artfight users understand that this is a matter to take seriously, even if you think fetish content is 'gross' or 'unwanted' consider your community and who this rule harms, consider where attitudes like this have gotten us before.

hi guys

metamorfae i second this. we could call it 'artistic combat' and throw paint too :D

can you add a category where we can physically fight each other for points

Ack! I’m very excited! What team do you guys think will win?? I think that villains vs hero’s will win but I rlly like and hope that seafoam vs stardust wins!

Hang on i just had another thought; if the maturity rule changes were made in an attempt to REDUCE mod strain, I see why theyd try to make things as black and white as possible, but like I mentioned earlier there's too much grey in this area for that to work. You'd have to ban everything sex oriented to make it simple, but even THAT leaves grey areas with some of the stranger fetishes out there people will simply lie about

If the concern is for mod wellbeing, maybe there shouldn't be volunteers at all, HIRE people to slog through these reports! I get that having employees will completely flip things on its head and change how finances have to be handled, but that might be something to plan a transition to in the future if things are getting so big you cant get enough volunteers? I want the mods to be able to have fun with the rest of us, not be nonstop working for the entire event :( 

Something's gotta change and ideally it won't be the gays for daring to wear *GASP* leather

fiddled literally…and the ppl dogpiling others for agreeing with the rules is kinda dumb imo. i’m sure the rules will be specified more so and honestly i think it’s just “common sense” fetish stuff and not everything to ever exist. like i totally get that it is super confusing but it doesn’t rly warrant a mass freakout…i think everyone can live if they are forbidden from drawing suggestive stuff and i think the line is more blurry over text than it is in person/in drawings 

Even attempting to enforce a vague ban on sfw fetishes will only make the average user experience on the site worse as it adds hundreds or thousands of mistaken or malicious reports to your already endless backlog. There are still reports from last year that have not been resolved. The new rules either change nothing (except making sure even fewer actual issues are responded to in a timely manner) or they are a fun and easy new way to harass people- just mass report any character or attack they post because anything can be a fetish, don't you know. People WILL abuse it. Not to mention that a rule like this is in many ways an official declaration of what kind of person it is morally acceptable to be attracted to. Lingerie and suggestive poses are still allowed. Why is it OK to draw a girl flaunting her butt in lingerie, but the if the girl is fat, or an amputee, or "unacceptably proportioned"(?!), the same drawing is now banned for being fetishistic and freakish?

Even if the rule is only intended to ban "deviantart-tier" fetishes, how can you enforce that? And who do you actually benefit by doing so? A fetish, by its definition, is something that only holds (sexual) significance to a certain person/people. Like, you can't just decide that bread is inherently pornographic because the wonder bread guy exists. There's only one wonder bread guy and 8 billion other people who like bread for normal reasons! How are your overburdened mods going to sort them out, and how can you possibly guarantee that innocent randoms aren't going to be punished for posting totally SFW art?

why is everyone here so extreme 

lonely_space_egg dude quit commenting and just look up leshawna vs leshawna ball

RedBalance
I agree, I always thought that Seafoam Vs Stardust didn’t make much sense either. A lot of people love that theme though I noticed. I’d rather it be Arctic Vs Tropic too honestly or Fossils Vs Crystals. I have a strong feeling it is going to be one of those three. Oh well, if it does end up being Seafoam Vs Stardust I won’t complain, it’s just not my first choice.