is this how I’ve made people feel?

Most likely yes. This isn’t about the site being anti-horny, i post details about my sex life and about kink all the time and nobody minds that, it’s that masculine sexuality is so overreaching, intense, aggressive and gross that it’s just threatening to people. Men are trash, hexbear shouldn’t be a safe space for dudes, no woman should leave home without a knife suitable for castration.

Ah Hexbear, the one remotely-queer online place where I don’t have to read people (men particularly) loudly & constantly asserting their lust in very uncomfortable ways all the time. Seen a lot of really excellent discussion of various sexual topics here actually, which I’d bet is a specific result of the “weird puritanical environ”.

Even as a sex-favourable asexual it’s so much nicer here than anywhere else, like putting a blanket ban on Expressions of Horny sounds weird but thank fuck.

I’m going to quote a few passages here from a book that everyone should read. CW Sexual Harrassment, Rape.

Exerting “male privilege” is acting on the assumption that one has the right to occupy any space or person by whatever means, with or without permission. It’s a sense of entitlement that’s unique to those who have been raised male in most cultures—it’s notably absent in most girls and women. Male privilege is not something that’s given to men in this culture; it’s something that men take. It’s not that women don’t have the ability to have and wield this privilege; some do. It’s that in most cases, this privilege is withheld from them culturally and emotionally. Male privilege is woven into all levels of the culture, from unearned higher wages to more opportunities in the workplace, from higher quality, less-expensive clothing to better bathroom facilities. Male privilege extends into

war. Combine male privilege with capitalism (which rewards greed and acquisition) and the mass media (which, owned by capitalists, highlights only the rewards of acquisition and makes invisible its penalties), and you have a juggernaut that needs stopping by any means. Male privilege is not the exclusive province of men; there are some few women who have a degree of this horrifying personality trait. The wielding of male privilege is, in a word, violence.

Whatever the idea might be that hopes to end the suffering of women on this planet, it’s going to require men giving up privilege. It took my becoming a woman to discover my “male behavior”—that is, exhibiting male privilege. When I was first coming out as trans, I used to hang out mostly with women. Any act of mine that was learned male behavior stuck out like a sore thumb. Things like leaping up and taking charge, even when it wasn’t called for; things like wielding language like a sledgehammer; or assuming that everyone owed me special consideration for my journey through a gender change—I still shudder at my arrogance.

I’m nowhere near as territorial and possessive as I used to be. I’m not as frantic to get or hold on to something as I once was. I still want things. I still go after things. But I use force infrequently now. For me, that’s a perk of having gotten rid of male privilege. The shortcomings are obvious: lower pay, less security, more fear on the streets, less opportunity in the job market. All those drawbacks made me look at the value of what I’d lost. Do I really want to take part in a culture that places a higher value on greed and acquisition than on peace and shared growth?

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us - Kate Bornstein 1994

I think Hexbear swings too far towards the puritan side for sure. Sex exists. Queers sex exists. It can be a totally healthy and liberating activity. Erasing it is harmful to people trying to figure their sexuality or related identities out. It can feel very othering and of course nobody should be made to feel that way because of who they are.

But it also certainly carries trauma for some folks and I can understand and empathize with the desire to provide them with a safe and welcoming space. That’s absolutely a goal I stand behind as well, because not everyone wants to see horny shit all the time and can be actively harmed by it. So yeah mostly horny stuff should stay off the site because you never know what may be triggering or harmful to a comrade in that space. Posting horny stuff can ALSO be very othering!

I still think we should have a space set aside for hornier posting specifically to balance these two competing parts of the community. Keep it in a mode where you can only see it if you’re subscribed to the comm so nobody can accidentally see it and be harmed by it, but allow a space for folks figuring themselves out to do so in a safe and accepting manner.

I understand Hexbear doesn’t really want to be all spaces for all people though, that’s also fine. So it’s not a space for folks to figure out the sexier parts of their sexuality. That’s okay. Gotta go find another community to explore that, and hope it’s a safe one. I’m lucky in that I live in an area packed to the brim with very safe left queer / trans spaces, so I just go to those and that’s where I get my horny community. Not everyone has that option unfortunately!

I said something about this the other day, and pretty much everything I’m about to say is off the top of my head and not well thought out, but the fact is there are a million places on the internet to be horny. If I want to go put my filthy mind on display, and ogle the delightfully filthy minds of others, it’s a click away. But a place like this, one that’s extremely left-wing and aggressively protective of trans/queer members (at least that’s what it looks like to me from my years of casual browsing) is not as easy to come by. I admit, I find myself wishing this place were a little bit hornier too sometimes. But then I think about how many people have very good reasons to be uncomfortable with that (not that anyone needs whatever I deem a “good” reason), and I think about how easy it can be for my perceived charming, flirty comments to be someone else’s perceived triggering aggression, and I just think… why fuck up a good thing? Especially when, as someone else pointed out, people can and do talk about sex here. From what I’ve seen, there seem to be a few unwritten, unofficial ground-rules that most people are following:

• Minimal or no discussion of the “types” of people we’re horny for.

• Minimal or no directing of horniness towards other users of the site.

• Keeping discussion of sex focused more on oneself. What I like, what I do, not getting into other people’s business.

• Not getting too graphic or explicit with the sex talk, avoiding gory details.

Again, that’s just the way I’ve experienced the site as a casual user, I’m sure other people would have different opinions. It’s hard enough to keep a place like this running smoothly without introducing overt horniness into the mix, and I’m glad that people here manage to keep things mostly respectful without the need for a blanket ban on sexual stuff.