History of the Forum

[Guest]

So I've recently been very curious about how the beginnings of this site and all of its sister sites. From what I've read, this community seems to have a rich community that evolved over time. Does anyone have any ideas of how this all started up?

[gryffin]

For this one we're talking early 2000s. I see from his profile that our revered helmsman @Bondi has been a member since 25th October 2002, which I'm willing to take as the foundation date until someone digs up earlier evidence. I first stumbled on it ca. 2004 and joined after some time. Some other old-timers will know more @Raistlin, I see one of the very earliest posts on the forum is yours: any pointers?

The Red Forum began several years later - I was already fully active here - perhaps during one of the times when this one was down because of technical problems, if memory serves? Or maybe there were other reasons. I was never very active over there, so I'll leave others to speak to it.

The wonderful @tarotgal is no longer as active here as she used to be, but her still-standing Tarot of Sneezing portal has a dedicated history section where you can read all the facts: http://tos.tarotgal.net/history.html. It was created in 1997 and it was not the very first sneeze fetish website (so that page tells me), but I wager it's the oldest one that's still up.

My first contact with the sneezy community were ToS and a Yahoo! group - remember the days when Yahoo! groups existed...? Two, in fact: the two that were dedicated to male sneezes. A smaller one, in French, run by @atchoum, and a bigger one in English called, I believe, "SneezingMen4Men". I spent a great deal of time there... But soon enough it was replaced by this forum, people stopped posting, and it had long died out before Yahoo! pulled the plug on groups.

[Niceguy]

I stumbled into this wonderful community around 1997. The "Big Three" at the time were Tarot of Sneezing, Sneezing Girls and Sneezing Fetish Online. The last two only had a handful of pics, wavs and clips, and after their first month or so basically never updated after that and disappeared. Bondi's page was THE SOURCE for wav's in the days before YouTube. There were a lot of Yahoo Groups, but only a couple that were very active. THIS Forum, was at least the second, if not the third attempt at such a board. The earliest one that I can recall was COMET's page. (Anyone remember that page?) But I feel like there was another one that started and died even before that one. I can't exactly remember, I could be wrong. Then there there was the Red forum, which rivalled this one for many years, but it has been defunct now for... (?) over a decade? There were a handful of minor and personal sites that sprung up here and there, but once YouTube was a thing (and later Clips4Sale, OnlyFans, etc...) there really wasn't any point in going it alone anymore.

What I remember most about those early days was that it seems like such a SMALL group, compared to today, but everyone arrived all saying, "I thought I was the only one!" And it was such an awakening to realize that we were NOT alone, and that there was going to be MATERIAL created (fics, wav's, etc...) that we could share and take part in and enjoy. It was also weird, because we were all YOUNGER on average than now? Like... There were no 50 year old's at the time, or very few, but there were also very few YOUNG people. No teenagers, or, again, very few. SO you had a bunch of 20- and 30-somethings who had gone their entire life that far with NO IDEA this was A THING. And now, most "kids" (young teenagers, just coming into their sexuality) with have Google, and likely figure it out, of at least have the tools to, 10-20 years earlier in life than we did. 

Edited February 3 by Niceguy

[RB]

If memory serves, Sneeze Fetish Online was the first website and Sneezing Girls had the first forum. I can’t remember their names but I recall 2 other dedicated forums before this one. But before the websites, there was the Newsletter and before that, alt-fetish usenet postings. I wish I still had the Newsletter. I think I had it on a 4”  Mac floppy disk. Even if I had the disk I wouldn’t be able to read it. 

[Daphine]

I stumbled upon this community back in 1997. As others have already mentioned there were only three sneeze fetish websites available to us, the sneezing fetish online, sneezing girls and the tarot of sneezing. As @Niceguy pointed out there was an original forum called Comets message board. As best as I can remember this was the first forum. Sneezing girls was known because it had the communities first chat room. I spent many a night hanging out in that chat room and one of my favorite memories from there was the night that I got to talk to Tarotgirl for almost 2 hours. I was so young and so amazingly insecure about not just my sneezing fetish but also and far more importantly my Scooby-Doo sneezing fetish. She was so amazingly sweet, I could never thank her enough. As fate would have it in my sneeze fetish chest I actually still have a story that I printed off of Comets message board. I'm attaching it down below. Forgive the notes, I remember that I actually used some of the ideas from this story to write my very first Scooby-Doo sneeze fetish fanfic called For Love of Country.

Here are the pages from Comets message board!

https://imgur.com/a/g9UPIux

[Guest]

Wow! It's insane how this community has been around since 1997! I have explored some of the old sites, and I could definitely tell they have aged. As Niceguy said, it started out small, but once the internet became more widespread, it seems it really exploded onto other platforms at wasn't just contained on forums. Heck, just looking up "sneeze fetish" or "male/female sneezes" on YouTube will yield sometimes huge playlists of compiled sneeze content. Thanks for all the info guys, it was cool getting to read more about the history of this community.

[solitaire-au]

There was also a small forum devoted to posting male sneezing stories, primarily fanfic. I forget what it was called? Maybe the Sneezatorium?

Anyway, it later evolved into the SF Archive in 2001 (both fanfic and original fiction) run by snowshie and later managed by tarotgal. I forget what happened to the board, but the archive still exists on tarotgal’s domain and has over 500 stories:

http://sfarchive.tarotgal.net

The links page mentions the Tarot of Sneezing, sneezefetishforum.org, Bondi’s wav page, Tarotgal’s Realm, Candle & Sphinx (nermal/nermal90’s personal archive), and Featherdust (Magic Toes 11’s personal archive.)

There was also the Belle Tower, Liberty Belle’s personal archive, which I’m guessing she took down because her real name/identity got linked to it. 😢 I hope she’s ok.

Ditto for nermal because she purged her livejournal and her website too.

I wish I could let them know how much I appreciated their efforts.

[TheSneezeGirl]

I discovered the forum in around 2003 - used to browse it if I was home from school alone! Only got brave enough to join a few years ago

[haymaker]

Slightly later than some, i think it was June 1998 for me. It wasn't a forum I found first but 'Diary of Sneeze Fetishist' - a journal detailing the life and times of a female Sneeze fetishist. I read it over and over.

I remember a chat room thing back then, but I think the first true forum appeared a bit later and as someone has already said there have been several incarnations since. I believe it was Hypnos who was the original architect of this one and what a fine job he did, it has stood the test of time.

Edited February 6 by haymaker

[kiku]

1 hour ago, haymaker said:

It wasn't a forum I found first but 'Diary of Sneeze Fetishist' - a journal detailing the life and times of a female Sneeze fetishist. I read it over and over.

YESSS! 😍 That was my first big discovery as well - back in 2002. It was such a revelation to me... Then, I soon found Tarotgal's website, Bondi's website, and Serotica. I found this forum a little later, but I joined only last year.

[Daphine]

It was 1998 and 1999 when we saw a major explosion in sneeze fetish websites. I remember on the tarot of sneezing tarotgirl had enlist of all the different sites that were  available to all of us. I remember what a great time it was to have a sneeze fetish. We had sights like Bondies wav page, Serotica which are still around but are no longer updating. I still remember how excited I was when I had my first story published on Serotica. I had never written anything with human sneezing just Scooby Doo fanfic's at that point. There was also a bunch of smaller cites that are long gone. Does anyone hear remember the website called The Art of Sneezing? This was great for its time. Whoever was in charge of it was great at changing pictures of different celebrities so that they looked like they were either about to sneeze or sneezing. It's so funny that you brought up the Yahoo groups @gryffin, I haven't thought about them in years. I was actually a moderator for a Yahoo group dedicated to cartoon sneezing and then later on I pretty much took over that group when the person who started it no longer wanted the responsibility. This also takes me back to my short tenure when I was a moderator on this site. I had to step down after a little while because I got too busy with school

[Engmanny]

I was a lurker in the early days of Tarot of Sneezing that must have predated the forum im thinking 1997/98?

[kathleenh4656]

On YouTube, I found a talk show with two announcers and a lady caller, describing her fetish. That's how I discovered SFF. 

[Daphine]

 

1 hour ago, kathleenh4656 said:

On YouTube, I found a talk show with two announcers and a lady caller, describing her fetish. That's how I discovered SFF. 

Hi @kathleenh4656 I was wondering if the girl you mentioned from YouTube was Niki Davis Fainbloom?

[kathleenh4656]

I'm not sure. I would probably need to find it again to see if she stated her name.

[Professor_s]

Don't forget Yahoo! Groups made about the kink.   There were plenty of those back in the day as well late 90's/early 00s.   

[Daphine]

6 hours ago, kathleenh4656 said:

I'm not sure. I would probably need to find it again to see if she stated her name.

@kathleenh4656 it's no big deal. Niki is a counselor who's background is working with people who have certain kinks or fetishes. I have been seeing her for over a year to help me come to grips with my Scooby Doo sneezing fetish . All I can say is that she is wonderful!!

[Daphine]

5 hours ago, Professor_s said:

Don't forget Yahoo! Groups made about the kink.   There were plenty of those back in the day as well late 90's/early 00s.   

@Professor_s I had mentioned about all of the Yahoo Groups and how I was a moderator on the Yahoo cartoon sneeze group. Does anyone know what happened to all of the Yahoo groups? Did Yahoo just discontinue them or was it something else?

[gryffin]

I think Yahoo! discontinued the groups many years ago. But those I were in had long stopped being active already; probably all the discussion and sharing activity had migrated here.

[kathleenh4656]

4 hours ago, Daphine said:

@kathleenh4656 it's no big deal. Niki is a counselor who's background is working with people who have certain kinks or fetishes. I have been seeing her for over a year to help me come to grips with my Scooby Doo sneezing fetish . All I can say is that she is wonderful!!

The lady caller didn't give her name. It's called "I'm sexually attracted to sneezes", on a site called "Other People's Lives". Discord channel is mentioned that may be where "Other People's Lives is located. There's no actual sneezing, just talking about what we're all experiencing.

[Likesn]

It actually took my quite a while to really "discover" the forum, let alone become an active member. My first "go to" sites when I started exploring the fetish were "Tarot of the Sneezes" and "TG's Realm". Through links in those sites I discovered some other good sites, most of which, unfortunately, hasn't been active for many years now (like "Justmehere's Clips Archive", "Gallery of the Sneezes" and more). There was a link to the forum as well, but I thought it was like most forums back then, where people just... talked and I wasn't really into that. By the time I finally discovered this forum has so much more and what a great place it is, I felt slightly embarrassed for not checking it out sooner 😅 Oh well, I've been a long time member since then and even a contributing one I might say, so I guess it all turned out well in the end.

[atchoum]

One of the features of the Yahoo goups was the gallery.  There was one where members posted not only photos, but their own wavs.  Touching in a way.

[NoV]

I remember finding 'Sneezing Girls' way back in something like 1999 and it pretty much blew my mind that there were other people out there with an appreciation for sneezing. Until then I thought it was just me alone! Back then I was accessing the internet in a shared computer room and so used to have the screen minimised to a tiny window so no one could see what I was up to  

I was always aware of the Forum since it's inception, but never signed on until 2010 as when life finally became less chaotic for me.

[Daphine]

On 2/12/2024 at 9:39 AM, NoV said:

I remember finding 'Sneezing Girls' way back in something like 1999 and it pretty much blew my mind that there were other people out there with an appreciation for sneezing. Until then I thought it was just me alone! Back then I was accessing the internet in a shared computer room and so used to have the screen minimised to a tiny window so no one could see what I was up to  

I was always aware of the Forum since it's inception, but never signed on until 2010 as when life finally became less chaotic for me.

I think it was that way for most of us.  Still wasn't it an amazing feeling to finally realize that you weren't alone in this world☺️ . For me the scary part was when I first saw the professors website "The Sneezing Fetish Online" . I had just finished junior high and it was the Summer before I started high school. I knew what a fetish was or I thought I knew what one was. I thought people with a fetish were all crazy and weird so when I saw that my interest in Scooby Doo sneezing was considered a fetish it really freaked me out!

[emory]

love to see this history of the forum and the community

I’ve been part of the community on and off since the early 2000s so I remember a lot of this. thanks for the trip down memory lane