Okay, let me take another try at this.
I said:
Interesting post.
Two tickle dating sites have failed since '00, they failed to get critical mass, while this community is large, it's still not big enough to support such site types. Too few spread out to wide.. There was also a females only TK forum site that was designed to be a secure place for women to interact and discuss issues, and I've not heard word from there in a year or two. I sadly believe it is dead/sleeping.
In reply you said:
My, how cynical. Contrary to your belief Myriads, you didn't invent our sexuality. These are not your followers. I have first hand testimony that tells me that a lot of them are people with no place else to go.
I don’t know how you read cynicism into my words, all I did was speak to the issues that past dating sites have faced. I got some of the information from one of the failed sites owners, who had invested a lot of time and effort into creating the site. Simply put he couldn’t reach critical mass to make the site an effective match making place. The people were too few, and too spread out. It simply didn’t work.
For a dating site to function you need numbers, and concentration of those numbers in locations. Our community is too small and spread out to offer those things. So for now, dating sites would need to focus on a bigger gathering aspect then just tickling.
The last thing I desire in this life are followers. I prefer people to make up their own minds after listening to information and making solid personal judgments based upon it. So I’m speaking for no one here, but myself, and the point of my first answer to you was to provide you with some of the information that I have gained having run this community hug for a decade, and to point out how some of your statements might not have gone down with some folks who are here.
Are there folks who feel uncomfortable with the TMF’s ads and sexual atmosphere? Yes. No questions. The site, as it is is not going to be a good fir for everyone. But There are reasons why there are not ‘places’ for them out there also. In the current world, such places as you describe, and hope to build, have not been able to economically or demographically survive. The numbers don’t work out. This is a sad thing, but part of the reality of the world. Would I like to run a TMF with no ads? No question. Can I? No.
What I can do is try to make the forum, which does manage to survive in the world we have, the best one possible for as many people as possible. And over the years we’ve done very well in catching that goal.
There are dozens of things I’d love to be able to do here that would improve the site. But there are fiscal and social limits on what can be done. And one of the big lessons of my decade here, was learning to operate in them. The web is littered with the ghosts of sites that didn’t manage the long haul. I miss many of them.
You said:
I don't know how to web design, web host, or even run a forum or dating site, so as I said - don't hold your breath.
But I'm in my mid-twenties, my sexuality is not going away, and I plan on being around for a long time. I plan on the internet being around for a long time too.
And I hope that you are around for a good long time. You in you mid-20’s were born in the mid 80’s and becoming aware of the world in a real way around 1995. You have grown to adulthood in a world that has always had a web. And that single fact makes you, and the rest of your generation different from those that came before like my own.
One of the things that the web did for your generation is opened up sexuality for you in a way no generation before ever had. When you were 12 or 13 and started to figure out that tickling turned you on, you were able to find out rather simply that many others felt the same with a simple web search. In one stroke you ended the isolation that many who share your fetish from decades before you labored under for years, feeling as if they were the only one and feeling wrong and different.
Your generation got a leg up on their sexual confidence and identity unlike any before. You could start to explore and do at an age when those before you were still trying to figure out if they were not sick somehow. That’s an advantage.
So I ‘m glad that you plan to be about and speak up for, and to your own sexual views. That is valuable.
I said:
Statements like this Has pretty much destroyed any credibility you have with the active females in the community. The vast majority of female posters we have on the TMF are not professional sex workers, but average women who have a true enjoyment of the fetish, and have come to be part of the community. You, with your above statement, have just insulted them pretty significantly. That is gong to be a hole that is pretty hard to dig out of.
You replied:
Yeah, and good luck with Addie Juniper and them, after assigning so much shame and stigma to their chosen career. lol.
From my read of what you are saying here, am I correct to believe that you feel a sub group of women active on the site (which you term tickle-prostitutes etc) have somehow ruined it for all women on the forum by creating some form of ideal in the male users heads? Was this the point you wanted to make?
I want to point out that my statement was in reply to a quote from your first letter where you said:
the fact that most of the women who do post here are not ticklephiles but tickle-porn actresses, or tickle-prostitues
Most of the women here ARE not “tickle-porn actresses, or tickle-prostitues”. MOST of the women here are average every day people whom you might meet in the street, or at the grocery. Using such a broad brush as you have is a true disservice to the many many women of our community who post here often. It is these many women, the MAJORITY of the women here, that I felt you insulted with your statement.
I said:
We've worked hard to make females feel welcome, and secure here...It was a very different place in '01 when we started and we wanted to change it, and have.
You asked:
Not to belabor the point but...specific examples? Is it the page after page of men advertising their stable of chattel for sale? The page after page of stories which include rape scenes and violent language towards women? "the story of the stuck up bitch who got tickle raped (sexually explicit)" The fact that while trying to write about wanting to find a legitimate relationship with another ticklephile on the internet, I'm staring at four pairs of tits? The chat room scene where besides "hi" and "asl?" the conversation is limited to "derrrr what do your feet look like?" or is it the personals and gathering section which, as I said, are solely focused on extracurricular tickling, and not on tickling as a way of life or as a legitimate sexuality?
Examples? Sure. When we started, like almost every fetish site on the net the ratio of men to women was a ton to 1. Like most adult orient sites women simply did not feel secure speaking up or being active. So we took steps to make things different. We made a point of finding female moderators who took the role of community leaders in showing other women that they were welcome here. We sat down hard on the people who treated women poorly whenever we found them, and made sure that when issues came up they were dealt with quickly.
We supplied the platform for local gatherings to organize and start to meet. This put real people in face to face interaction, and let women comfortably enter the fetish in places and times of their own choosing where they felt safe.
We encouraged female writers and artists, and always have supported all mixes of tickling never segregating any one type into a ghetto where it was left apart. You can find f/f f/m m/f and m/m material in all our media forums together and treated as equally valid and having a right to be here. And we sat on people who tried to drive any one sort away.
All these things were done to make the TMF more inclusive and open to members. No mater their gender or sexual likes.
Your issues with the media sections, in my opinion, are based around an idea of what you feel they should be. I won’t try to assume what that is, but based on this quote from your OP:
I want to turn this fetish into a legitimate way of life.
The community, as it stands now, does not contribute to that. It treats tickling as a deviance, and something that cannot be a significant and legitimate part of the basis for one's whole life. It treats its members, not as multi-dimensional people, but as out of control sex drives, independent of any other facet of life.
Like the gay community before the days of stonewall, we approach our sexuality as something separate from legitimate relationships, from our public life. We are focused on hook-ups. Not dating, not relationships, not marriage. We are not fully addressing or appreciating that this is our sexuality in the way that herterosexuality and homosexuality is, and that if we do not start to build relationships on it, we are depriving ourselves. lying to ourselves.
I get an idea where you are coming from. It’s a take on the sex positive concept that was first introduced in the 70’s and later morphed into a few different branches of sexual identity conception in the 80’s and 90’s.
I don’t think that people here are ‘out of control sex drives’ I think that many who come here would like to find a partner where tickling was a regular part of their greater relationship. That is their ideal. However finding partners who share ones enthusiasm for things can be tricky, and its not limited to tickling.
Like anal sex? There are partners out there for you, but not every partner is going to be up for it. Like some over the knee spanking? Some partners will happily put you over their laps and redden your ass, but some will balk at causing you any pain and cannot do it. And so on.
So the TMF’s media sections become stand-ins for people who can’t find it in their real life. The read a story, watch a clip, look at some art, and close their eyes and use their minds to go to a place they wish they were and enjoy a moist moment.
Media can and always will serve people who lack a real outlet for whatever reason. And the TMF has become a natural place for people to gather tickling media at.
This is not a way people separate tickling from themselves, but strive to keep it a part of their life.
Remember everyone does not have the luxury of discarding a person whom they match well with in almost every way. Relationships are often compromises between what we desire and what we can find.
Will people use the site to ‘hook up?’ yes indeed. Just like they use face book, e-harmony and any other number of web hubs. With so many of our members being in their 20’s is it no surprise that many are not ready to commit to anything, and just want sexual fun? Later in life finding something more becomes a goal, and people start to look for ways to do that.
You closed with this:
Oh sorry, I guess I just imagined the tickle porn chicks and the tickle prostitutes? No, of course not. Although I completely agree that the women on here do not deserve the insult that's been dealt to them. Nor do I.
Ok, other then Addie whome you singled out, could you please make me a short list of the other women who post here that you consider to be porn chicks and prostitutes? Show me half a dozen. Just six.
Then as an exercise make me a list of women who post here who are not those things. Make it as long as you like, but make it at least six also.
I understand that you feel that the male focused media is degrading and insulting to women. That is a view and complaint that has been the center of anti-media arguments for a long time.
Perhaps the issue here is that your perspective is different then many members. Let me try one last thing.
There are two types of tickle fans out there
Group 1) The Sadists
Group 2) the Sensualists
Group one is much much bigger then group two.
Group two sees tickling as a form of sensual sex play, a form of pleasant stimulation. It’s done in a form that is not unlike oral sex. It’s an action taken to give pleasure to the partner through stimulation that feels good.
In this view we have no degradation. It’s a consensual sex positive activity of mutual pleasure.
Then we have group One
Tickling can be a form of sadism. It’s deriving enjoyment from the infliction of suffering upon another.
By the very definition of in this view, there will be a degree or aspect of degradation in any media involving the act. Can’t escape it, someone is being used. Done to. Made to suffer for another’s pleasure.
Part of the issue you may have here is that you are in group two looking at group one.
Group one is the big group that pays the freight. They are the ones the ads are made for, It’s really that simple. You might not like how they approach the fetish, but it is a real one, and also the majority view.
I welcome debate. It’s one reason the site is here. I hope that your evening has been a good one.
Myriads