gender balance of this fetish

[colormepink]

I agree that there appears to be more men with the fetish, especially here on the forum, where there's a lot more stories not only focused on women, but also stories of the type where you can tell it was written by a straight man, but I also think that that's not really enough data to truly determine that there are more men than women with the fetish, not everyone is in the forum, and , like mentioned before, a lot of women and queer folks have migrated to tumblr (for a good reason tbh), and that is without considering other platforms and people who do not interact directly in them, or considering the different social aspects of sexuality and its expression for the different genders.

My point being, I dont think we have enough data (or at least access to that data) to truly know what the gender balance truly is right now.

[Heathcliff]

On 2/16/2024 at 1:41 AM, colormepink said:

, not everyone is in the forum, and , like mentioned before, a lot of women and queer folks have migrated to tumblr (for a good reason tbh),

Several people have compared the forum to Tumblr, and Sitruuna put it very succinctly here:

On 1/14/2024 at 6:14 AM, Sitruuna said:

Tumblr lets you moderate your own circle better than a forum like this does and that's crucial to a lot of people there.

Tumblr is not just a newer thing, it's really going for a different aim from the forum. The forum is a place which is more open to anyone joining, and (if they do not violate the rules, as the moderators judge) they can post what they want and chat with others.

Tumblr is really for one person to curate their own space for people they want to hang out with. It's not as open as the forum is, and for that reason feels safer for a lot of people.

Although, I think I saw someone posting on the forum not too long ago about having a video stolen from Tumblr and reposted. You can tell yourself that Tumblr generally has a nicer type of person on it than the forum, but please be aware that stuff posted publicly on the internet is still public - even if it's less public than the forum or YouTube.

On 2/11/2024 at 12:04 AM, MrMrMrManManMan said:

However, I will agree I've always found it odd how many times I see "breast" pop as part of a sneezefic. This is probably saved for a deeper conversation on how sexualization effects the sneeze community, but I think you have some very good points here.

I am a bit puzzled here - do you guys find this surprising? Or do you think it is wrong to have stuff like this in the main stories section?

This is a fetish forum, the majority of us find sneezing sexually arousing. The stories are not explicit (i.e. 18+) in the main section, but a lot of them are meant to be a turn on, or pleasurable to read. Straight men (and I assume gay women) find some of the features of a woman, like breasts, arousing - adults are sexual creatures and we are wired that way.

I agree it can seem ridiculous or crude if the stories are badly written, something like "AAAAAAAH CHOOOO! The sneeze was so big it made Karen's bra fall apart and her breasts flew out."

But when you talk about how "sexualization" is affecting the sneeze community - it sounds like you didn't expect to find horny posts in a fetish forum. I find that surprising.

[Sitruuna]

6 hours ago, Heathcliff said:

I am a bit puzzled here - do you guys find this surprising? Or do you think it is wrong to have stuff like this in the main stories section?

Since the message this was a response tois, in turn, a response to what I wrote, I feel like I should clarify what I meant... I saw the recent responses to my earlier response and I feel like maybe my point wasn't clear. The "Sally breasted boobily" is a reference to a thing called "men writing women", or a collection of snippets from published books and other things where the author (a man) fails to write women well in one way or another. It's often either about obvious sexism (writing their women talking about how women are not built for a bachelor life because women desire someone to serve and to obey? yikes) or bad understanding of anatomy. It's not necessarily about men writing about breasts but sure, (and this isn't about stories posted here, this is about the "men writing women" type writing in general) the breasts often get a lot of focus. Also weird descriptions (breasts shrinking with emotions? pointing upwards like land to air missiles?) or just weird focus (ranging from just constantly mentioning them when it's not relevant to, uhhhhh, specifying that the nipples of an underage character are hard??? double yikes). There's a subreddit for these and Twitter account at least so if you are curious about actual examples of this, you can look them up.

The important part of what I said wasn’t the boobs! I don't want to give direct examples of what I mean because I don't want to target any specific people posting stories here nor do I want to make this any level of personal. Besides, like I said earlier, it's fetish fiction so it's fine. Write out your fantasies and share them with likeminded people even if that involves the character(s) being written simply as representing the concept of woman or her physical form rather than a fully fledged (fictional) person.

[Heathcliff]

@Sitruuna Thanks for replying - I Googled "men writing women" and I understand what "Sally breasted boobily" meant now.

I didn't know that Subreddit or the X/Twitter account before, but I have some idea of what you mean. This annoys me more as I get older, but more from the point of view of the character - if a male author puts female characters in a book and they are very two-dimensional, or act in completely unrealistic ways.

The whole "her breasts pointed upwards like surface-to-air missiles" just seems ridiculous to me, and I am inclined to say a lot of this is just bad writing. I also tend to describe some of this as "male gaze" writing, which I think can have its place - but only if someone is writing from the point of view of a man who would think like that.

This is why I think it's allowable in fetish fiction. That is written from a horny point of view, it's main goal is to turn people on (at least, a significant proportion of the fiction here is meant for that) so it is ok for it to be written with this sexualised gaze. And, let's be honest - it's fiction posted on an internet fetish forum, it's not like we're trying to win the Booker Prize with this.

(And the whole thing about sexually describing characteristics of an underage character - this is pretty gross, and I hope something like this would just not get published now. I think the world has rightly become far more sensitive about things like this.)

----------

By the way... to answer the original question of this thread...

I've thought for a while that the gender balance of this fetish is roughly equal.

This is just a guess, based on the fact that over the years, the gender balance of engagement with the forum is roughly equal. I don't mean equal in every area (e.g. sharing media clips might have more men, and posting stories might have more women) but overall it seems close to equal.

One sign that the forum is not overrun with men is that we are having discussions like this - I've browsed more male-based kink spaces in the past, and people seem less likely to have a discussion about depicitions of gender in fiction. They're more focused on the fetish material itself.

[Lavender Haze]

Here’s an article saying, “Although men tend to have a higher frequency of fetishes in general, it appears a sexual sneezing fetish is highly prevalent among women compared to other fetishes.” I’m not sure how trust worthy this source is. She doesn’t have any citations, but she is a sex coach that works closely with other sneeze fetishists. Hope that helps settle it a little more! 

[kathleenh4656]

On 2/18/2024 at 10:14 AM, Heathcliff said:

@Sitruuna Thanks for replying - I Googled "men writing women" and I understand what "Sally breasted boobily" meant now.

I didn't know that Subreddit or the X/Twitter account before, but I have some idea of what you mean. This annoys me more as I get older, but more from the point of view of the character - if a male author puts female characters in a book and they are very two-dimensional, or act in completely unrealistic ways.

The whole "her breasts pointed upwards like surface-to-air missiles" just seems ridiculous to me, and I am inclined to say a lot of this is just bad writing. I also tend to describe some of this as "male gaze" writing, which I think can have its place - but only if someone is writing from the point of view of a man who would think like that.

This is why I think it's allowable in fetish fiction. That is written from a horny point of view, it's main goal is to turn people on (at least, a significant proportion of the fiction here is meant for that) so it is ok for it to be written with this sexualised gaze. And, let's be honest - it's fiction posted on an internet fetish forum, it's not like we're trying to win the Booker Prize with this.

(And the whole thing about sexually describing characteristics of an underage character - this is pretty gross, and I hope something like this would just not get published now. I think the world has rightly become far more sensitive about things like this.)

----------

By the way... to answer the original question of this thread...

I've thought for a while that the gender balance of this fetish is roughly equal.

This is just a guess, based on the fact that over the years, the gender balance of engagement with the forum is roughly equal. I don't mean equal in every area (e.g. sharing media clips might have more men, and posting stories might have more women) but overall it seems close to equal.

One sign that the forum is not overrun with men is that we are having discussions like this - I've browsed more male-based kink spaces in the past, and people seem less likely to have a discussion about depicitions of gender in fiction. They're more focused on the fetish material itself.

I'm a female who has had a baby, who is now 40. I can tell you right now a females breasts do not, ever point upward. Not ever!! They only appear to do that with the correct undergarment, and great posture.

[Sitruuna]

4 hours ago, kathleenh4656 said:

I'm a female who has had a baby, who is now 40. I can tell you right now a females breasts do not, ever point upward. Not ever!! They only appear to do that with the correct undergarment, and great posture.

Believe it or not, someone actually got such a description through to a published book.

[kathleenh4656]

Oh well, to each her own. As we get older they can get larger and sag, causing back pain and putting pressure on other organs. I once thought about enhancement surgery, but now very glad I never did.

[NiceName]

To understand the gender balance of this forum the easiest thing probably would be to do a poll.

[Kidder]

I’m sure the good people at Google or Bing could figure this out easily - I’ve always wanted to see one of the search engines publish a paper on who is into what fetish but age, gender, geography etc. 

I have never had a past girlfriend admit to any fetish of any kind but I’ve noticed a few that seemed intrigued by sneezing - much more so than any other common fetish. 

[emory]

I wonder how many of us are trans/queer (I am)

[Sitruuna]

7 hours ago, emory said:

I wonder how many of us are trans/queer (I am)

There are plenty of queer people with the fetish. Most of us are more active on Tumblr than here though

[Mygyn]

9 hours ago, emory said:

 

I wonder how many of us are trans/queer (I am)

 

Non binary here! 

[JackHarknessTW]

I think it’s just that men are more open about their sexual exploits.