Ive been meaning to step up....

It makes me sad. This place has always been very welcoming, and it has been a haven for me. Hopefully, it's just a phase, or maybe it's not really all that bad and people will calm down again.

Any examples of 'negative'?
Well, absence of any feedback, even critical is worse. (I think so)
Also, criticizing others' tastes is counter-constructive, while criticizing quality of art/writing/grammar et.c. is perfectly normal and even good.

Or you could just not care what people say/think?

The whole Newbie thread was depressing and very negative. There was someone who regularly contributes getting hounded out of the forum by people who wanted to nitpick over whether she was real or not.

The whole "Newbie" thread is, if you don't mind the pun, being blown out of proportion. Blowupboy came in and said that he didn't think her stories were true in a rather calm, understandable manner and she reacts by going "WELL I'M NOT POSTING ANYTHING ANYMORE". If you want to talk about immaturity, look no further than that.

She wasn't "hounded out of the site" by people. No-one "kicked her in the mud". Nobody said "GET OUT OF HERE YOU FILTHY LIAR" or anything to that effect. All the chattering about whether she was really female or not (Blowupboy's initial comments notwithstanding) happened AFTER she said she'd stop posting, which only strengthened the argument that she wasn't the real deal and was leaving because she was afraid she'd been found out.

i have

The Newbie thread?

Ah. Well, my observations for what they are worth, echo others:

1. BI org, is not a free speech zone. It is private property, and hence, the first amendment does not apply.
2. The internet, particularly those of us with this goofy fetish, need thick skin. Man up for heaven's sake.
3. We are indeed, not all friends here. We merely have the same perversion, that's all.
4. The Newbie thread WAS stupid. Almost dying for the fetish is fucking asinine. If that isn't clear to you then I'm vaguely sorry you are stupid.
5. Who cares? Do what you are going to do, have fun and don't get all emo about it.

Then again, I'm not an overly friendly or tolerant person. Ask around ;).

Toodles.

well, I agree with you Zepylin, Youtube is infamous overly critical comments.

This logic only applies if you assume that Newbie is attached to the forum and gains something by providing the pictures.

If her sharing her experiences only gets negative feedback then the sensible option is to just walk away. She loses nothing.

All this talk of "be a knob-end" and such once again gives me the impression that people here are reacting overly hostile to what Blowupboy actually said. He wasn't "being a knob-end"; he was voicing his opinion that he didn't believe everything he read, and he has every right to say that, just as everyone else in the thread had every right to believe Newbie was the real deal.

I can understand his problem with the situation, if Newbie really wasn't a woman; on the one hand Newbie was maybe just doing it to please members of the community, but on the other she may have been doing it simply to whore attention or to insult our intelligence... He didn't tell her to stop or go away, he just said he didn't believe it but didn't care about other people believing it and enjoying the stories. It was all about HIS point of view and the reasons he thought that way, not him trying to convince anyone otherwise. The only person in that thread who ruined anyone's fun was Newbie herself when she up and left at the first sign of criticism.

Please stop acting like this site is becoming a cesspool of villains and that the evil of inflatechan is tainting it or any shit like that. Frankly, this place needs a bit of negativity... Not BAD negativity with people trolling one another for no reason but to be jerks, but people who are willing to be critical and tell someone that their work isn't perfect. I find it extremely pathetic when someone, within the slew of "OH GOD SO SEXY PLZ DO MORE" comments, says that they have some problems with the piece and the reaction they get is someone telling them to shut up and stop ruining their fun.

Only one person voiced their opinion that was less than favorable about the Newbie ordeal and she pretty much stated that, "As I offended some "people" I will no longer be posting here!"

No one was offended, so I don't understand her logic behind that.

That's all that happen and people are worried about the negativity on this site?

People, again I say this, it is the INTERNET!

We don't have some secret underground convention for our fetish where we'll all meet each other.

Well sometimes I do get ronery... :wink:

I do feel it's happening, partly because my recent post was unpopular and partly because i feel affection for Newbie, however unreal that may be. However, rathar than finding it annoying, it makes me wonder if it means we're gradually drifting towards the mainstream, because it might mean the number of people involved in this is now enough for there to be clear shades of involvement and extremity, such as the popping/non-popping debate. If that's true, it could mean that the less extreme end is becoming popular enough for it to be as "normal" as bondage or latex fetishism. In that case, who knows, we might end up with the likes of print magazines catering for us and relatively big budget films. I'm sure there's a downside to that too, probably among the more sexually conservative members of society.

I didn't even know i wasn't unique until i was about thirty in 1997 when i chanced to see someone's inflation fantasy written on a public toilet wall. That was how arcane this was back then. Sure, there was Willy Wonka but as far as i knew that was just my secret shame. Now it's more in the open, we probably have to deal with a bit of friction between people.

Yet seeing someone leave forever is never beautiful.

You know, this discussion of the old days is, I think, not just nostalgia; because of the uncommon nature of the fetish I don't know that it was really all that widely-known ten-fifteen years ago, and so the community, when it developed, was much closer. I mean, hey, there's someone else who's as into spherical women as I am? I MUST BE FRIENDS WITH THEM, there's no telling how few of us there are and we should stick together.

But more recently the inflation fetish- and many other fetishes- have resources that are so widely available and easily accessible that the "community" is not a group of people brought together by this one unique thing as it is a multitude with this one thing in common. In that it's not much different from people of a particular political opinion, or people who like Star Trek (see the "Trekkers" vs. "Trekkies" conflict. I've lost many a good friend to it.).

Basically, when it's this smaller group, there's a serious sense of community despite the differences; but as that group grows, there's no reason for the group to become anything other than a microcosm of any other population with a single common interest.

And even within this community interests aren't necessarily shared! I've seen fierce responses to more uncommon variations of inflation (like foot, or head), and there's always a debate regarding popping. So it's almost like we don't all share the fetish upon a closer inspection, only in the broader terms of "some or all of a person's body gets bigger in some manner".

Ultimately I think that this is an inevitable effect of the ease of access and the wider spread of resources regarding this fetish and others. Although at times unpleasant, I think that in a larger sense it's healthier as a group to acknowledge that there are these differences between us; that no, I don't like that person and shouldn't have to; and that developing a thicker skin is not only better for internet relations, but will likely provide extra space within your body for expanding.

As a side note, just for the record and completely off-topic from the rest of the thread, if anyone does happen to know of a 21-year-old chick (brunette or not) in Connecticut with an inflation fetish, I'd appreciate knowing about it. :P

Since it's Christmas Day and I don't have a lot of time before the family wakes up, I'll just say this briefly:

Nobody should ever have to feel they have to prove anything on the Internet to a community of what is ultimately a bunch of Anonymous Internet Assholes. If you ever want any kind of photographic proof from me about anything, it ain't ever gonna happen (and I'm not a woman). Go ask Rex and Michelle Ryan about how associating their face with a fetish has worked for them in terms of PR and public opinion.

Getting all pissy about a woman not wanting to post photos of herself online is selfish, childish, and stupid. Get over it.

"As usual"? Do I "usually" miss the point? I would honestly like to know so I can straighten myself out.

I believe you missed my point as well. I never once called the doubters assholes (I have used the term "Anonymous Internet Asshole" as a generic term that describes EVERYBODY on the Internet, myself included, for a while now - just not on this forum), nor did I say that people shouldn't doubt stuff that they read. Quite the contrary - it's a good thing to have a healthy cynicism toward stuff you see on the Internet; otherwise those "dudes in Nigeria" would be even richer than they already are. I have been a doubter before myself, and have called bullshit on people on a number of occasions. Similarly, I have also had other people call bullshit on me more than once.

However, I have NEVER expected, NOR demanded, those upon whom I have called bullshit to provide any real proof of their actions, whether it be posting their real names, photos of themselves, etc. They post what they want, I believe it or don't, and we leave it at that. However, I would never expect or demand someone to do something that I myself wouldn't do, which is doing any of the stuff I mentioned above.

Again, I will reference the Rex/Michelle Ryan story. If they didn't capture video of Michelle Ryan's face in any of those foot fetish videos, I can almost guarantee you that no one would've ever known. Instead they showed her face and are now having to answer a bunch of questions. Why expect another woman within our community to possibly subject herself to uncomfortable questions by family members, friends, her employer, etc.?

Finally, I will admit that the whole newbie saga is probably bullshit, but I would argue that it has less to do with not posting pictures of "her"self and more to do with the outlandish stuff "she" did post.

I wish people would just stop worrying about it so much. Since when did a fantasy fetish require detective work? "Well, that story COULD be true, but we require incontrovertible proof!" is just as bad as "It's absolutely true and you're a jerk for doubting it!"

I mean honestly, what the hell? Some of us are pornographers and all of us are patrons of pornography, and pornography isn't supposed to be collections of verifiable anecdotes, it's supposed to be absurd and fictional. Since when did material designed to get a person aroused require belief or disbelief? It just IS, so just take it at face value and get what you came here for. If you believe it's true, well then, there you go - if you believe it's false, treat it like a piece of fiction.

My point is, don't kid yourselves here, you're here because expansion is a sexually exciting concept, and that should be the end of it. Whether people are what they claim to be on the internet is irrelevant, because there's ultimately no way to prove or disprove it beyond meeting them in real life.