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Male-centric
- Thread starter Jayxay
- Start date
Change is very easy. All you need to do is go create your own site with all the changes that you would like to make. Sure, this takes a lot a time and decent amount of money, but it can be done. This site is privately owned, and that owner from what I understand pays a lot money for it. Nobody is forced to come here, but also nobody has right to this site. If the owner wants to change this site, then that is up to him. If he decides not to change the site, then you can go somewhere else and find something that caters to your needs. There are billions of websites out there.
Well said. I'd also point out ad and patreon revenue tho.
Myriads
Tzar of the TMF
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2001
- Messages
- 14,298
- Points
- 38
Hello folks,
One of the first things that I was faced with upon becoming the Admin of the TMF back in 2001 was a user ratio that was 95% male and 5% female, and that is using the generous numbers. Ir may well have been 98/2. Most of you were not around then, so I'm not surprised that its a fact that is not well known.
I saw this as a real problem to the forum and its growth. And I made some calls that were designed to change it. No need to get into the nuts and bolts of it, but in the long run they were successful and we developed a growing female user base that more importantly interacted and was present on the forum visibly.
I don't know our ratio today exactly, but designated female members make up at least 20% of the user base, and it may well be 10-15% more taking into account the undesignated accounts.
It's always been our goal to be a place for anyone to feel welcome and accepted here. Female, Gay, Trans, whatever. We've consistently taken steps to reinforce that as we can.
The 'look' of the forum does play into this, but advertising is not a factor we have a lot of options surrounding. All of you enjoy the forum for free, and have never had to pay to use it, the chat room or so forth. That is how we've wanted it. But keeping this place up is not free. A good deal of cash has been spent on servers and bandwidth and chat room over the years. And what has not come out of Jeff's pocket, your very valued donations has been on the back of the ads.
Without them we couldn't keep this place up. As they are paid placements their sponsors get to decide on the graphics they use. And as many people above had said, these companies build their advertising at the people they have found buy their stuff, which is an overwhelming straight male demographic. So the ads reflect that. When we first started taking on advertising there was a lot of dislike of it and people spoke out. One segment of our community that many never think about was troubled by them especially. The Playful ticklers. About 10-15% of the tickling community doesn't see tickling as sexual, but instead as a playful bonding behavior they are drawn to. It's just one more silent way people can relate to things. These folks greatly disliked the sexualized nature of the ads and felt that their forum was not theirs anymore when we started to place the ads. I've always regretted that, but needs must.
Over the years a lot of female users have told me that they are no fans of what they call 'the porn ads' and I get it. It's not an environment that yells welcome to women. But again, needs must. To have a forum to welcome people to we need the things.
We do our best with what we have. But its a real world we operate in and we have to compromise to function in it. Money is always a factor in this real world. I wouldn't tolerate the broken shell of a chat room we have to use these days if we could just go out and buy a new one. But there just isn't such out there that fits the budget. The back up room that everyone has soundly told us they dislike is what IS in the budget. Not what I want, but what I can do.
Want to see more /m images in the Pic of the week? E-mail me some. I pull those from a big file of user submitted images. Even had a /m in there of the fitx2 folks a few weeks back someone sent. The story forum is a great example of how users can control what is here. There is no shortage of /m, m/m /furry, and all other sort of material in there. All supplied by you guys. You guys provide our content.
Want to see /m ads? Tell your favorite /m producer that you'll buy their stuff if you see an ad here AND DO IT. If producers see dollars, they will respond. But this requires a community to act as a whole. It's not simple. What one gets is normal market forces exerting themselves and you get what they dictate.
I could go on with how I've seen the outlook on /m material change in 20 years and why. But I've said enough.
This has been a good thread, and useful. I'm always glad to see people raising points like this. It helps our community.
Myriads
One of the first things that I was faced with upon becoming the Admin of the TMF back in 2001 was a user ratio that was 95% male and 5% female, and that is using the generous numbers. Ir may well have been 98/2. Most of you were not around then, so I'm not surprised that its a fact that is not well known.
I saw this as a real problem to the forum and its growth. And I made some calls that were designed to change it. No need to get into the nuts and bolts of it, but in the long run they were successful and we developed a growing female user base that more importantly interacted and was present on the forum visibly.
I don't know our ratio today exactly, but designated female members make up at least 20% of the user base, and it may well be 10-15% more taking into account the undesignated accounts.
It's always been our goal to be a place for anyone to feel welcome and accepted here. Female, Gay, Trans, whatever. We've consistently taken steps to reinforce that as we can.
The 'look' of the forum does play into this, but advertising is not a factor we have a lot of options surrounding. All of you enjoy the forum for free, and have never had to pay to use it, the chat room or so forth. That is how we've wanted it. But keeping this place up is not free. A good deal of cash has been spent on servers and bandwidth and chat room over the years. And what has not come out of Jeff's pocket, your very valued donations has been on the back of the ads.
Without them we couldn't keep this place up. As they are paid placements their sponsors get to decide on the graphics they use. And as many people above had said, these companies build their advertising at the people they have found buy their stuff, which is an overwhelming straight male demographic. So the ads reflect that. When we first started taking on advertising there was a lot of dislike of it and people spoke out. One segment of our community that many never think about was troubled by them especially. The Playful ticklers. About 10-15% of the tickling community doesn't see tickling as sexual, but instead as a playful bonding behavior they are drawn to. It's just one more silent way people can relate to things. These folks greatly disliked the sexualized nature of the ads and felt that their forum was not theirs anymore when we started to place the ads. I've always regretted that, but needs must.
Over the years a lot of female users have told me that they are no fans of what they call 'the porn ads' and I get it. It's not an environment that yells welcome to women. But again, needs must. To have a forum to welcome people to we need the things.
We do our best with what we have. But its a real world we operate in and we have to compromise to function in it. Money is always a factor in this real world. I wouldn't tolerate the broken shell of a chat room we have to use these days if we could just go out and buy a new one. But there just isn't such out there that fits the budget. The back up room that everyone has soundly told us they dislike is what IS in the budget. Not what I want, but what I can do.
Want to see more /m images in the Pic of the week? E-mail me some. I pull those from a big file of user submitted images. Even had a /m in there of the fitx2 folks a few weeks back someone sent. The story forum is a great example of how users can control what is here. There is no shortage of /m, m/m /furry, and all other sort of material in there. All supplied by you guys. You guys provide our content.
Want to see /m ads? Tell your favorite /m producer that you'll buy their stuff if you see an ad here AND DO IT. If producers see dollars, they will respond. But this requires a community to act as a whole. It's not simple. What one gets is normal market forces exerting themselves and you get what they dictate.
I could go on with how I've seen the outlook on /m material change in 20 years and why. But I've said enough.
This has been a good thread, and useful. I'm always glad to see people raising points like this. It helps our community.
Myriads
as someone who has been lurking since the 90s: a huge thing that says "this website is mostly for straight men" is something that didn't use to be there until very recently: the "celebrity feet/belly" forums, which look like curated collections for only female celebrities
why are they there, what are they for, what message do they send out?
why are they there, what are they for, what message do they send out?
Good questions
It does look that way. Then again, the majority of people who have a tickling fetish are men than women. I don't think TMF intentionally caters towards men, but because of how many more men are into tickling, it kind of panned out that way.
Your suggestions aren't being met with 'hard rejection'. For my own part, I questioned what it is that you think needs to be changed in order to help females contribute to the forum - you haven't actually suggested any changes that I can see.
It's worth questioning these things since people often seem to have a general, vague notion that there must be something bad or wrong whenever one group or another is more prominent in one place or another. There are lots of instances both on the internet and in real life where different demographics are more prominent. That doesn't automatically mean that something needs to be done to change it unless you can see that there is a clear barrier stopping people from participating in something who would do otherwise.
I think Myriads post covers the whole issue very well anyway but it's worth noting the small ratio of females to males on the forum. It may also be the case that female users feel less of a need to post their favourite pics and videos than male users...and not forgetting the relative lack of female producers either. If you feel that some change really needs to happen then maybe start there since the majority of tickling media comes from commercial productions?
Are there actually restrictions on posting pics of male celebrities, or is it just that no one has really been interested in posting them? That's a genuine question and not an attack btw - I just can't see anything to specify female celebrities only.
Here's something that'll complicate the issue even further. I recently had an interview regarding m/m tickling and my experiences. The vast majority of me lees were/are straight-identified. The very mention of m/m here gives apoplexy to some, but it's something to remind all that the tickling world is much more gray than B&W.
http://interestingsex.libsyn.com/lew-tickle-fetishfoot-fetish
http://interestingsex.libsyn.com/lew-tickle-fetishfoot-fetish
Very well spoken Myriad and I really thank you for taking the time to type all of that out, and I'm sorry for any disrespect or feelings of ungratefulness I may have illicited for all the hard work ya'll have done with this site. Also, my apologies to Turtleboy if what I was saying before was a little salty, definitely didn't want it to go there. The ads reflect the buyers. And Turtleboy, in terms of what changes we COULD make to the aesthetic, I guess my point was that I don't know either... my original intention was that we could've had some sort of community brainstorm if somebody had a good idea floating around, because maybe it just hasn't been talked about enough. All in all, thank you all for the interesting read and thanks for being here on this site, putting the site up and for giving us folks, ALL of us folks, a place where we can come and just get out what we can't get out in other places. I heard a quote from a movie I watched last night called Paprika. "Don't you think dreams and the internet are similar? They are both areas where the repressed conscious mind vents."
Thanks for letting me vent!
Thanks for letting me vent!
Myriads
Tzar of the TMF
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2001
- Messages
- 14,298
- Points
- 38
Nothing you said caused any offense or came across as disrespectful.
I've always welcomed discussion and debate of things when it's been presented as such. You did. And as I said I've found sit useful.
Myriads
As several commenters have noted already in this thread, economics is a heavy influencer of the content/theme of the forums. People should not be offended if a favoritism toward a certain gender or sexual preference is observed. It is not because the owner of this forum is pushing any agenda, it is because the survival of this thread depends on economics, not on any particular gender. If, for example, a trans community began to grow in this forum, and they demanded more trans content, and paid for said content, you would definitely notice a change in themes on this forum. But, because the $$$ seems to going towards 'male-centric' content, thats why the site is observed as having such a theme by some. Like others have said on here, it is not a force theme, it is driven by what people pay for. Underpresentation is not due to harassment or the majority of members of this site prohibiting a minority from participating, it is the interests of the forum's participants that drive the theme, and the $$$ they spend.
Exactly this. There are no restrictions for this. If folks want to post male celebs or trans, they have the right to. If other people dont like seeing that content, they can choose not to click on it and keep their opinions to themselves if they find male or trans pics unappealing.
Too bad indeed
This forum needs more female ticklers!
Here's hoping. Shit seems to have super slowed down since the chat went.
ugh!!
