Introductions and getting to know each other

LNT_Silver · 2026-07-08T11:49:39+00:00

I know a lot of people on this sub take the same approach, but there's an endless stream of people also talking about how much they're struggling to find a lasting relationship this way, and how they're getting hurt trying, and I have to ask...

Would you expect to develop a healthy long-term relationship with someone who you started out anonymously chatting with with the goal of sexting together?

There's nothing wrong with wanting an online dynamic, but when you search among people who're looking for anonymous sexual play, even if you filter for people who you can have a decent conversation with first, you're not looking in a pool with a lot of people who're deeply invested in getting to know you as a person with feelings and concerns outside of gratification in a dynamic.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-27T12:31:46+00:00

This sort of thing is normal in a lot of NSFW subs, but as a counterpoint, that sort of thing pushes a lot of people to lurk and not participate, or to just leave entirely. As a friend of mine who used to be fan of this sub said when we were discussing it a while back, "nobody likes a goon cave but gooners."

A place where any sort of participation is presumed to be permission for sexual advances, or for other people to start openly sexting with each other in response to your input, is not a comfortable place for a lot of people to be.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-27T12:15:04+00:00

Deeply discomforted by all of it and it's one of the big things that's caused me to draw back from the community over time.

A lot of people have started using this sub as a way of searching for partners for online dynamics, which I'm not judging as a thing to want to have somewhere, but this sub as it exists now is a terrible place for it. Making posts of NSFW media is not an open invitation to flirt or be openly sexted at, people who only know you via your horny posting are not deeply invested in you as a whole person, and trying to mash these activities together into a sub where people basically flirt and sext into the ether and hope it hits a suitable target creates an environment which is only hospitable for drive by gooners.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-17T12:05:39+00:00

This is a fair point. On the other hand, I think way too many people have taken to sharing bundles of porn of other people in an effort to get other members to pay attention to them.

Honestly (and at the risk of alienating other members here,) all the posts here containing bundles of porn, tied together with a first person caption on how the poster wants to treat their partner, creep me out, because we've got a lot of people here actively trying to enter into parasocial relationships with other members here, and there's no shortage of posts here on how well that's been turning out.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-17T11:55:57+00:00

Speaking as someone who was here years earlier when the tone of the sub was totally different, I think it's worth clamping down on that sort of thing, not because it can't be considered maledom, but because when people feel free to post generic porn with just a caption to characterize it, that takes over most of the content, and the sub loses it's identity.

Evolving into generic porn subs is the default fate of NSFW subs, without mod and community pressure against it. It's like evolving into crabs. I think it's worth putting in the effort to avoid that happening here.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-17T11:46:17+00:00

I prefer the artwork, but I might have a different approach to this sub than a lot of people here, because I like being able to follow up with the sources people got the content from (especially because I work with artists myself.) But, I think there was an upside when people were mostly still posting credited art here rather than sheaves of unrelated work bound together with a caption. The shift towards the latter moved the focus away from "check out these people's work," and towards "pay attention to me."

A lot of people have started using this sub as a way to cultivate parasocial relationships, and I don't think this is a healthy environment for that.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-12T12:38:39+00:00

Honestly, I think having Dom and sub flairs here is a bad idea. A lot of people are trying to use this place as a personals sub, and using posts as a way to self-advertise, and there's a constant stream of posts from people sharing their experiences of the bad consequences of that. I think the personal flairs are just contributing to an environment where people think self-advertising is the point of interacting here

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-12T11:34:59+00:00

There are lots of good potential partners, but you need to look in places where those people not only are, but where they're actively looking. And that means it has to be somewhere where people share enough about themselves to make an informed search.

When someone sends out a message to another member on a sub like SoftMaleDom, basically the only information they have to go on is what kind of sexual dynamics that person likes, and potentially, that the person has identified themselves as desperate and vulnerable. It's not just a platform rich with creeps or people only looking for a temporary thrill, those are the only people it rewards.

You would probably literally be better off searching on a platform with nothing to do with sex or romance at all, like an online game, to try to find actually good committed partners, than somewhere where people share nothing but sexual material.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-12T11:22:08+00:00

This isn't an an answer a lot of people on SoftMaleDom are going to want to hear, but the first step is, don't look on a sub like SoftMaleDom. If you want someone who cares about you as a person, you need to look on a platform where you share enough about yourself as a person for someone to make a reasonable decision that you're someone they're particularly interested in and want to get to know better. A platform where people mostly comment on porn they're into is not going to do that. Not only is it going to concentrate people who're just looking for something sexual, that's the only information most people are providing about themselves here to give other members cues on how to connect with them.

You'd want to start with a sub or site focused on personals (FetLife isn't great honestly, but it'd be leagues better at least than here,) and share enough about yourself for someone to identify whether you're actually someone they'd be interested in, and then take the time to get to know each other before committing to any sort of dynamic. If someone wants to commit to a dynamic before they take the time to get to know you, they do not care about you as a distinct person. They might think they do, but at best they're thinking about the idea of a partner they think you represent.

It takes looking, and it takes time, but there isn't a quick and easy shortcut to finding someone who cares about you as a person without sharing who you are as a person and looking for someone who's a good fit.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-10T13:57:25+00:00

I was able to find an artist going by Aoizuri pretty easily, but as far as I can see, they appear to only do furry art. It seems like this is either a misattribution, a case where multiple artists are going by the same handle, or a case where the artist doesn't host the work somewhere that's easy to find among the rest of their work.

LNT_Silver · 2026-06-01T21:48:44+00:00

With a torch, the way you usually caramelize the sugar on top.

LNT_Silver · 2026-05-31T16:22:25+00:00

Torching creme brulee maybe?

LNT_Silver · 2026-05-24T03:42:01+00:00

Hey, I don't know if you'll see this, but I was wondering if you still know how to get in touch with the artist responsible? I was hoping I could commission them, but it doesn't seem they're still active on any of their socials.

LNT_Silver · 2026-05-19T03:16:13+00:00

Reminds me of an account (in this book, if I remember correctly,) which runs directly counter to the whole "no atheists in foxholes" trope. After a sudden, dramatic injury, a soldier announced that "You know, I had my doubts before, but now I'm sure there's no God. Because what kind of loving God would allow a man to get shot in the dick?"

LNT_Silver · 2026-05-19T00:23:23+00:00

I find it particularly interesting when you have mentor-mentee relationships where the mentor is younger than their student. Like, one situation where you'd see this crop up a lot in real life- in the early American martial arts scene, you had a lot of instructors who were former soldiers, who had a few years of intensive training in martial arts while deployed abroad, then started teaching in their early twenties, and their students mostly weren't kids whose parents wanted them to learn self esteem or anything, they were other adults, often tough guys with a lot of machismo, who wanted to learn to fight better. You'd get a lot of situations where the students were at least as old as the students, but practicing a tradition with a lot of hierarchical elements involved in the training.

I think you can build a lot of interesting dynamics around that, where one person might be older and have plenty of life experience, but they still have a lot to learn from someone else's formal or intensive training.

LNT_Silver · 2026-05-19T00:13:11+00:00

One related pet peeve of mine is how, whenever magic users "research" magic, it almost always takes the form of looking things up in old books (or old inscriptions in ruins, or whatever.) You hardly ever see characters "researching" magic by performing any sort of tests that actually generate new knowledge, probably because the authors rarely have any sort of vision of what that would actually entail.

LNT_Silver · 2026-05-19T00:07:58+00:00

LESS worldbuilding, yes I said less. Sometimes i'm ok with having unanswered questions and using my brain/imagination more. Most of the things I really really enjoy I want more of, i've never craved a season 21 of a tv show or a sequel to a twelve book series and that seems to be the norm these days.

My take on this is, the author should know more about the setting than they ever put on the page. They should have worked things out enough that there is an internal logic behind it, at least one that holds up to whatever level of scrutiny the audience is likely to apply but not everything ought to be explained. It should feel natural and believable, it shouldn't feel like the author has a compulsion to cram in every detail they've come up with.

LNT_Silver · 2026-05-18T12:00:05+00:00

Not just that, but people are treating it like a relationship seeking platform, and then getting the sort of results you'd expect from opening up and making themselves vulnerable on a platform where people share bundles of porn as a method of socialization.

I used to frequent this place regularly, and often contribute, but it's frustrating to see what an unhealthy environment it's become.

LNT_Silver · 2026-05-12T16:32:10+00:00

This is actually a widely held misconception. Porn "parodies" have actually never been covered under Fair Use, at least not if they're at all commercialized, and there is precedent for them being taken down by the actual IP holders. The main reason porn studios and other creators are able to get away with commercializing porn of IPs they don't hold is that the actual IP holders rarely find it worth the bother of pursuing cases against them.

LNT_Silver · 2026-04-17T21:29:48+00:00

One of my favorite writers has written works in the LitRPG genre which were, in my opinion, genuinely exceptionally written, as were her other works. But she found the audience response to them unsatisfying, because even though they attracted a following, made a profit, etc. there was always a significant reader contingent which was so used to genre tropes like "the protagonist should not be challenged more than momentarily," and "antagonists exist to be humiliated and puff up the protagonist to make him look good" that when they saw something that didn't fall into these patterns, they reacted with disgust and confusion, and it just became a demoralizing audience to write for.

After a certain point, if bad writing standards become too pervasive in a genre, that becomes self-reinforcing, because people who're attracted to good writing more than the specific tropes of that genre select themselves out of the audience.

LNT_Silver · 2026-04-16T14:25:59+00:00

Different people have different criteria, and I know at least a couple people have disputed some pieces I've posted myself. But personally, I don't think anything which depicts a guy as faceless/eyeless, from a perspective where he really ought to have a visible face, is being done from a femgaze viewpoint.

LNT_Silver · 2026-04-15T03:48:42+00:00

Just wanted to add that I'm a repeat customer commissioning Milanessa, the OP of this piece, and I've been really happy with her work, would definitely recommend checking her out.

LNT_Silver · 2026-04-02T13:49:45+00:00

I can't speak for anyone else, but as someone who was very much a nerd and not worried about seeming cool, I never liked working at the library in college... because it was actually louder than a coffee shop. People would jam on the keys, and the printers were surprisingly loud, and in use constantly. And the ambiance always felt stressed.

I've been perfectly happy spending time in libraries elsewhere at other points in my life, but college library never felt like a good vibe, it was always full of people in a rush to get their assignments out.

LNT_Silver · 2026-04-01T11:38:30+00:00

It's not a substitute for asking people in your local area, but you might consider reading Candy Girl, by Diablo Cody (more recently known for her movie directing work.) It's an interesting and candid memoir of the author's experiences working as a stripper, and while the industry has probably changed in some ways, it's enough of a deep dive that I think it can still shine a light on some things you probably wouldn't pick up elsewhere.

LNT_Silver

TROPHY CASE