fchan

The problem is not the fandom's preference of adult vs Genreal art. It's where you show off your art.  Check out any large convention and you will find the number of G rated art show pieces outnumber the R rates pieces 4 to 1.  The highest prices sold at those cons are also usually G rated items.

Many furs that want G rated art don't frequent places like fchan due to the high volume of adult posts. It would be like advertising mens sox in a store for women's underwear.  It doesn't mean people don't want or appreciate men's sox.  It's just that it's being advertised in the wrong place.

"This would be true if Fchan was the only place I'd considered"

fchan is just one example.  Deviant and Sheezy are primarely G rated

"The con angle has a certain flaw to it as well"

No, Con space is allocated based on the percentage of art pannels booked and the wait list of the previous year.  If the demand for more adult space outnumbered the G rated space, there would be a larger adult show allocated.

The sites you listed (ie: fchan, FA, VCL) were pretty much designed to cater to the 'adult' side of the furry community--it's unfair to use them to gauge the popularity of adult vs non-adult because it's obvious which is more popular at those sites. For the non-adult there are sites like Side 7, Yerf, DA, SA, and so on. Yerf itself was probably -the- most popular furry site for a long while and yet NONE of the content was adult--it's popularity has only waned because of the management problems and not the content itself. The others are general art galleries and don't cater to furries specifically, but a good number of 'non adult' furry artists are there and the sites' popularity is far higher than fchan, VCL, and FA.

Also, it's important to remember whom is drawing most of the adult art. Generally people who draw furry adult art and view it are in the age range where hormones (and thus sex) is still an important part of daily life. It's not that way because they're furries---but because they're guys and girls with a normal sex drive. There's a reason people say 'sex sells' and that's because we are, by nature, sexual individuals. Sex appeals to us and our recreational use of it implies there's more to it than 'getting off'. Only the more socially complex species use sex outside of reproduction, so it is a very important part of our daily lives, whether we admit it or not.

Frankly, I've never jerked off to any furry porn. But generally it's the only art I look at. Why? Because I find the naked body (whether intentionally sexual or not) to be more beautiful (and appealing) than some furry plopped on a landscape with windswept hair or some other BS that I've seen (or could see) in an anime or a movie.

I still fail to see how the fandom has changed any. I've been around the fandom for over 10 years now and the more popular art has always been adult-themed. Even starting out in the Lion King fandom, sex was more appealing because it had to be original and unique...the desire to see non-adult stuff could be quenched by simply watching the LK movie, or recoloring a screengrab so that it resembled a different character. That's not to say the non-adult art didn't have its followers---but the adult art was certainly more taboo and appealing and will continue to be so long as the majority of the fandom consists of guys (whose sex drive is stronger and more constant, in general).

>>20
  Da, Sa, Yerf and Side 7 all disallow porn...  Kinda hard to gauge whether users of those sites would be more likely to view furry porn, if there's no furry porn there.  As for overall site popularity, any non-furry specific site will be more popular than a furry-biased site simply because, well...  There's 6 billion folks on the planet, and most of them arten't furries or interested in the furry fandom. 

And without actual traffic stats from individual furry sites, it's hard to say whether a non-porn furry site (like ArtVark, which isn't dead, just *apparently* not very popular) is more popular than an actually 'mostly porn' site like Fchan, or one of the more 'balanced' sites like FA and VCL (both of which are popular enough that keeping up with the recents is a 4 times a day job).

But while browsing FA, and seeing how much feedback or even hiyts the average porn piece gets compared to even really excellent clean stuff, my point seems pretty well founded - The fandom can't seem to give two shits about clean art, but come out in droves to see the porn. 

As for the 'fandom's changed' part, I agree that the interest in adult art hasn't really changed much (nor has the debates about it, apparently), even if alot of other stuff has. But claiming it hasn't changed *at all* in 10 years is pushing it, though, seriously... Anything that's grown this much, in that much time, is bound to change a lot.

>>21

In general the male sex drive is stronger. Females who display a very high sex drive usually have a higher than normal free range testosterone level that explain their unusually high sex drive (as compared to other females). Testosterone coincides with a high sex drive...estrogen coincides with a lower sex drive.

Hormones are interesting things...

>>25

Did somebody say Monet? o.o

>>25 Actually... All the anime fans I know would rather look at "clean" stuff ("clean" as in non-sexual, here... I know a couple people who think Berserk is the best thing EVAR and from what I understand, it's not exactly PG. Dito for, say, Akira). I own hentai, as does my boyfriend, but on the rare occassion we watch it it's either to laugh at it (let's face it, most hentai is laughable at best) or get someone else riled up. Doesn't do a thing for either of us.

It may seem that furries are not interested in clean art, but I think it is the art that is not interesting to most furries.

Most clean furry art consists of someone's fursona on a plain background. Unless it's your character, do you really care? Sure, you might stop and admire the artist's skill or style, but otherwise the content of most furry art is not very compelling.

Most furry short stories are not much better. They are usually self-serving ego-trips revolving around someone's fursona.

The problem is that the majority of furry art and writing is custom created for one person, or a very small group of people. It's either a personal commission, or intended for the artist's close friends. The exception is furry comics and web-comics. These are the only forms of furry art that are primarily created for an audience of strangers! And as such, they are the only forms of furry art that are actually entertaining to people unfamiliar with the characters.

>>30  Good points.  I would also add that there isn't really a great deal of novelty in most clean art works.  The artist may have a good technique, but it doesn't matter if it fails to grab the eye.  We need a reason to care about the character or situation being depicted.

"Oh look, another fantasy world....::yawn::...and here's a wolf in some wierd robot armor....ah screw it; I wonder if there's anything new in /f/...."

Of course, there is nothing less novel than porn, but it doesn't need to be unique to be entertaining.

>>28

I'm talking about drawn images, not actual animation (movies) of some sort. If there were furry 'movies', then certainly the clean would have a larger fan-base.

When it comes to fan-art, however...compare the two again. Do people go out of their way to look at clean fan-art of their favorite character, or do they go look at 'hentai' fan-art featuring their character in a toe-curling moment of climax?

>>35
I agree.  I prefer pin-ups and more sensual scenes to "LOOK I HAVE GENITALS LOL."  Also, large ammounts of spooge just really looks nasty to me.  Sorry, but I prefer my girls a little more clean than cum-stained.

>>37 Note that I said clean OR sensual. You're the one who took that to mean I prefer art to be sexually suggestive. Sensual art can also be fully clothed or be nudes which don't show any naughty bits, which makes them clean as opposed to adult in my book.

Isn't y!G kind of focused on m/m pairings, though? That's the impression I had, and if that is so it kind of makes it a questionable example.

Certain groups of furries are primarily attracted to adult art, just as certain groups of other fandoms are primarily attracted to adult art. I'm not contesting that. I'm just saying that in my experience, the anime fans who want anything beyond kissing/hugging/very soft making out are not in the majority. They're not in the local anime club, nor were they in the anime club in my US high school.

A good way to make something clean/non-sexual become popular might be to make it politically motivated in some way.  Or, use the characters and storylines some other way to really rile people up/piss them off.

Parodies could work well into this.  For example, an anti-war comic with a furry character who is obviously a parody of President Bush. 

>>40 How would that make them popular? Other then setting up as a poltical smybol to be used by clueless retards?

YOUR TURTLE FAILS.

Parody takes a good deal of wit to pull off effectively.  I would like to see more of it, but there aren't that many people capable of doing it well.

>>45 Then we have a problem with definitions. If 'sensual' is going to fall into the same category as 'porn' because it is 'sexually suggestive', 'sensual' is also going to be subjective, depending on what gets the viewer's blood pumping. Of course there are blatantly sexual "clean" images (pantyshots and huge nipple bumps in shirts, anyone?), but there is also a large grey area. Which is why I wouldn't sort them in with the porn, or really call them sexual as such.

The anime club at the High School I went to and the local anime club where I live (as well as the local anime club where my boyfriend lives, which is the base of the national organization, and where from what I heard, hentai isn't that big, either) are completely separate, the members don't know one another. My point is not that there aren't people who like the occassional bit of porn, because there are, my point is that they don't PREFER the porn. I'm also a member of a large online general anime community and I would approximate that less than 1% of the posts there are about hentai.

As >>39 said, the clean material is already available. If using the groupings of people I know of to base my conclusions on is wrong, isn't treating the Internet as a separate complete pool of source material wrong as well? You also have no way of reliably gauging the audience of each individual site and comparing it to the audience of the on- and offline clean mainstream and fan-works.

That's one reason I would say comparing the two fandoms isn't completely fair to either -- anime mainstream is more like the fanart and general fan-creations than "furry" mainstream has much of ANY association, even style-wise, with furry fan-creations. Mainstream isn't part of the furry fandom in the same way it is part of the anime fandom.

>>47
So, you're saying furry fans really want to see orthodox jewish goats and tigress businesswomen?

That's what one or two furry fans want to see. That's the problem - most clean furry art is custom created for one or two people. What furry fans want to see is pictures of themselves! As a result, viewing clean furry art is like viewing vacation photos - it's interesting to the people in the photos but it's not entertaining to anyone else.

The rest of the world's population is quite happy watching movies about other people. If furry fans could get over their egos, they might enjoy commercial animation a lot more.

>>49

I think that may be true some of the time, but definitely not all the time. I know people who collect clean art just because they like it. And I have had clean commissions done that people go crazy over. Just the fact that people post random images in /c is enough to prove it, otherwise /c would be nothing but commissions by the people posting them.

Does this arguement ever die? Most likely not. I have been watching it since 1984 when everyone claimed that all anime was is porn in a different wrapper.

The sad part of this whole arguement is that both sides are right, and both sides are wrong - at the exact same time. Well, that and you are not able to speak for anyone other than yourself when you get involved in such a disagreement because your opinions are influenced by your own tastes and preferences.

As an art collector, a former artist, and the wife of a highly skilled traditional artist, I have developed a set of tastes. In my collection you will find two pieces which could be considered adult. On by Kacey Miyagami of the characters Ace & Misty kissing, which is framed and in the bedroom, and on of Dark Natasha's of her Kirin, who is topless, but the breasts are obscured by a sword - on the facing wall. Both are originals.

Otherwise, everything I own in furry art is clean. Everything I prefer is clean.

This is not dictated by my own characters. This is dictated by the skill of the artist. The poorer artists tend to focus on characters, trying to gain interest through use of what is considered taboo. The greater skill amongst artists falls into the realm of those who can do anything and make it not only interesting, but something one would wish to place on their wall.
Eventually blending character(s) and environment to such a point that they are both one in the same creates a whole new world of art.

When I look at the years, I see those two constants remain the same. Obviously they would not be constants if they changed.
The greater the skill of the artist, the greater their sales of clean work. The lower  the skill of the artist, the greater the sales of adult work, but the lower the sales of clean work.

Of course, many might claim that sales are not everything.
 Anyone can claim something is good, great, awesome, hawt, or any of those words used these days (I find it complicated to keep up anymore). But, the ones who place their money on the table to back their words are the ones I will trust.

And, from what I can see, from conventions, online, and direct, the sales of clean work by far surpassed the sale of adult work for everything other than commissions (which are by their very nature persoanl and unique) long ago - taking the aforementioned skill factor into consideration.

I think her use of the word *tend* would illustrate that you two agree as it would not always be true. If she left out the words *tend to* you would be disagreeing.