DeviantArt or Deviant Porn?

It may just be a passing phase, but I've been growing a little bored of Twitter lately. I actually started working through my buildup of (literally) hundreds of notifications on DeviantArt, and it's fun spending some time back on that site again (although browsing all those pictures on a widescreen monitor can be a strain on the eyes). I follow some talented nude artists on Twitter, but it's a very different experience.

Courting "engagement" is so tedious. I've grown accustomed to the sort of response my work has received on sites like Flickr and DeviantArt. On Twitter, it's often like speaking to an empty auditorium. I miss the days of the old photo sharing sites, before it was all about "gaming the algorithm". Things were a lot more straightforward; your profile was understood to be the place where you showed off your work, and you had a separate section for other people's stuff that you liked. Nowadays, everything gets jumbled together on your feed, and the pace of updates is so rapid you can't possibly keep up, and the things you post lose relevance after 24 hours, if they were lucky enough to be seen by anyone in the first place.

Anyway, one thing that strikes me about DeviantArt is just how much fetishism there is. Some of it is legitimately weird, but honestly, I find that it inspires my erotic imagination in a way that I realize I haven't felt for a while. Fine art can just be so dry sometimes, you know? And so pretentious. Whatever you might say about the forward-thinking NFT community, it feels really cultish. Well, I thought it would be fun to list some of the most popular fetishes I've been encountering on DeviantArt, just because documenting people's sexual interests seems fascinating to me. Must be Kinsey's influence. So this is what I've been seeing a lot of as I browse through people's lists of favorites, with some light commentary:

*kidnapping - A little bondage is fine if you ask me, but a fixation on this sort of thing is a little bit concerning.

*feet - I can appreciate some of this material, but fetishists always seem to take it too far.

*vore - No thank you, lol.

*genderswap captions (sometimes involving age regression) - I think the sissification angle is problematic (feminization isn't humiliating to me), but there's a lot of creativity on display here, and some of it is legitimately stimulating.

*kids - No comment, since you can't say anything on this topic that isn't either compelled speech or suicide by words, and neither of those two options sounds very appealing to me.

*giants/minis - To each their own, but I think this is just weird...

*cartoons/rule 34 fanart - I'm all for people using their imaginations to sexualize pop culture icons. Also, with regards to the complaint of "ruining one's childhood", part of growing up is realizing how much sexuality permeates nearly everything we do in life. Get over it.

*dickgirls - You might be surprised to hear this coming from me, considering my gender-bending tendencies, but I find the juxtaposition of a penis on a fully female body off-putting. ::shrugs::

*forced nudity/exhibitionism (including clothed/nude mixed groups) - As a nudist, I obviously don't relate to the humiliation aspect, but otherwise this kind of content is right up my alley.

*sleeping bodies and simulated corpses - I'm trying very hard not to judge people for their sexual inclinations, but this is another one that concerns me a bit.

*femdom - You know I think girl power rocks, but some of these fantasies take it to a humorously unrealistic extreme. Like, men being kept as pets and subservient sex slaves to women. Or women treating men's balls - literally - as punching bags. Just as an example.

*spanking - I think I enjoy the threat more than the execution. The anticipation of submission and exposure (and sometimes the abuse of authority) thrills me more than the pain or the bruising.

*small dick energy - Like, guys who get off on being teased about their size. I'm concerned that this sort of thing could contribute to insecurity, but for those who enjoy it, I'm happy that they can turn what could be considered a deficiency into something that brings them pleasure.

I'm actually surprised I don't see more furry/bestial content (I know it's on there), but you can find just about anything if you dig deep enough (even, surprisingly, sexually explicit material that I thought was prohibited by the rules). All of this is, of course, in addition to lots of gay material (which is great - I might prefer girls, but I like to see equal representation) and the usual heaps of naked or scantily clad women that straight men like to ogle (which is also great).

The Photographic Process

Have you ever wondered about the steps that go into the process that turns a twinkle in my imagination into the image you view on your screen? I was thinking about the different passes I make on my photos before they're ready for sharing (because it's something I do on a pretty much daily basis), and I decided to write them out. Having written them out, I thought I'd share them with you. I've written about the creative process behind bringing a photographic idea to fruition before, but this is more of a focus on the technical aspect.

1. I grab my camera and shoot some pictures.

2. If I've shot any self-timer pictures on my phone (which is the majority of what I shoot these days), I have to go through and reduce each shot from 10 consecutive frames down to 1 (or more, if it's an action shot). That's just how the self-timer on an iPhone works - it takes a burst of 10 images for whatever reason, making my job harder.

3. When I get home (if I'm not already there), I transfer the files to my desktop computer.

4. I usually do this later in the process, after I've finished the still images (because it takes more time), but I'll view any videos I've recorded, and screencap interesting frames.

5. I review my photos (or captured video frames), pick out the ones that stand out, and edit them (lightly) in Lightroom.

6. I touch up the edited photos in Photoshop (again, lightly), to remove visual distractions such as moles and wrinkles on my body, or carpet lint, etc. This is something I've gotten into the habit of doing more and more over the years.

7. Sometimes I'll perform further functions in Photoshop (or Paint) - e.g., to create clone shots or polyptychs or animated gifs (I use GIMP for this). In the case of videos, I may need to edit, cut or combine files in MovieMaker.

8. I add watermarks to all images I intend to share online, and reduce them to web-ready sizes (because I'm not going to share high-resolution pics for no reason).

9. I wait for the right moment to post, sometimes writing down thoughts and observations to accompany the images.