Soft VS Hard (how big is the disconnect?)

[157and493]

I was wondering how big the disconnect is between people who like hard vore and people who like soft vore.

I am asking this question because the current climate is unsettling to me. I do not know how many people on here were aware of this, but a while back a popular vore artist named “Karbo” got into some trouble with Patreon because his vore art “sexualized depictions of suffering” or something along those lines. And recently I have seen some NSFW artists decide to stop drawing sexual things altogether due to fear of being associated with sexual deviants.

A large amount of even soft vore involves unwilling prey or fatal elements, so it could easily be classified as “dangerous” by people who, in my opinion, are overly concerned with regulating and censoring fictional material.

Essentially what I am curious about is this: “If the vore community ever comes under fire, would most of us stand by vore that does incorporate harder elements, or would the solution be to ‘cut the line’ and disassociate ourselves with them to try and seem more reasonable?”

Or maybe I am just being a paranoid lunatic, that is very possible.

[Cuddlekins]

We've had this conversation a million times regarding loli content, and I think the general consensus is that no part of this community, even the more questionable parts of it, are considered expendable in the face of outside pressure.

[Daichi777]

Patreon views unwilling vore as rape because it's sexual and not consensual from what I understand. Apparently fantasy that can never be true can't be distinguished from actual rape to them.

Hard vore is often associated with cannibalism, especially to those who don't understand the concept of vore. You mention cannibalism to those of us who love soft vore and we'd tell you not once did we ever think of the word cannibal and it makes us feel incredibly sick. People are always going to be giving reasons (or making stupid excuses when it's illegal or immoral) for whatever turns them on.

[TheMysteriousSadSack]

The way I see it, these people have as much right to be here as anyone else. Even if it isnt our cup of tea its not hurting or inciting violence so it checks out as 'you do you'. At any rate, it seems like it could be a slippery slope of 'well if hard isnt ok then why have fatal' and then the whole thing could be in jeopardy of removal . So yes, personally I would stand for the community. Also keep in mind that Patreon is increasingly puritarian what with their essentially anti-anime pollicies and strict nsfw guidlines.

[VoidInVoid]

I feel like people often forget that fantasy and fiction are, in fact, fantasy and fiction.

[AlimentaryArtist]

I like both hard and soft at times, but there is no art that should be censored, art is a mirror of society and the only reason people are uncomfortable is because they see something true, and maybe something they like a little that they didn't think they would.

[Apex]

a while back a popular vore artist named “Karbo” got into some trouble with Patreon because his vore art “sexualized depictions of suffering” or something along those lines.

I voiced my opinion on this possibility back when Patreon first started trying to sanitize itself and at least one person gave me the old "but it's clearly not sexual violence so we're fine." I'm likely just bitter that I got brushed off so easily, but look who was right. Logic rarely holds any water in the face of a powerful entity's emotional and moral compasses.

Now, onto the actual question... And my answer is, first of all, I feel like the community as a whole would push back against any trolling or attempts at censorship simply because it would be too close to home. I'm sure there would be the hardcore haters who would step back and say, "I'm not with them" but I think as a whole we'd stand together.

The rest of my answer is, even if we did take up a single flag against the rising tide of censorship, I don't think it would really matter. Trolls and the like are one thing. They can spam the forums, or DDOS Eka's, or whatever else, and we can ultimately ignore them. If, however, a huge entity like Patreon or God forbid the freaking actual government gets involved and decides to ban sexually explicit material, well... I don't think there's anything we can do. We can stand together against the puritan Zerg rush all we want but we're a tiny microcosm in a massive species that is would probably rather sit back and watch as "deviant fetishes" are scoured from the internet one by one... Until the censorship machine comes for their kink, too, and by then it's too freakin' late.

Cheery, I know, and ultimately just my opinion, but that's the way I see it.

[Borealis]

I feel like people often forget that fantasy and fiction are, in fact, fantasy and fiction.

Definitely the sort of mindset I have in relation to this kind of discussion as well.

The only schism in vore should be between fantasy and reality, and anyone who is in the latter camp should consider some sort of therapy. And I'm not saying this in an obtuse or silly way. Like, seriously.

It's a rather cliché thing to say at this point, but we have so much antipathy from outsiders as it is, and our kink is viewed in such a poor light in general, that within the community it's sad that some of us are still creating or enabling these divisions between different types of vore that- frankly- don't really need to be there. I'm genuinely cool with anyone and their prefs when it comes to the fantasy aspect of vore and content creation. All good stuff if it floats your boat and doesn't hurt anyone.

[Humbug]

Yeah, that's why I made the proactive decision to swap from Patreon to Gumroad, even though I risked losing a fair chunk of income in the process. Fuck Puritans. I'm so sick of them, and I thought we were destroying them, but for some reason, many of the same groups that used to be against religious Puritan censorship have started to do the same shit themselves. It's infuriating.

That aside, I'm not sure the schism is so much antipathy as it is self-imposed. Those who are into the rip-and-tear hard vore stuff have found more of a home in guro communities. There wasn't a big fight or anything; it just kind of happened. There's still overlap here and there, sure, and some of that overlap gets yelled at by the ones who don't like it and can't control themselves, but for the most part, things have historically been reasonably chill, especially compared to the fatal/nonfatal, male pred, and underage fights that've been happening for a long time now.

[Aickavon12]

First they came for the Hard Vorers, I didn't speak up because I wasn't into hard vore.
Then they came for the furries. I didn't speak up because I wasn't into furries.
Then they went after the M/Ms. I didn't speak up because I wasn't into M/M.
And finally they came after me. And there was no one left to speak.

Jokes aside. While I don't care for hard vore. There isn't a 'disconnect'. Yeah it's gorey, it's gross and makes many people unsettled, but this entire fetish is unsettling. I do not think a single normal person would say 'oh yeah that's less depraved.'

Just keep it real, be yourself, and don't worry about a thing.

[NotTadpole]

As stated above, while there's a divide, it's largely a non-violent one since Soft and Hard fans tend to peacefully segregate themselves to avoid conflict. It was likely peaceful because Hard Vore tends to go hand-in-hand with Guro while often being more likely to make Soft Vore fans uncomfortable than aroused, so it kind of turned out to be a more than fitting match for the two. At the very least, I've never *personally* seen any strife happening between Soft and Hard fans.

If anything, the bigger and more concerning/pressing divide in the vore community is between stuff like Fatal vs. Nonfatal, Unwilling vs. Willing, and Female Preds vs. Male Preds, particularly because fans of one group tend to actively kinkshame and try to segregate the other by No-True-Scotsmanning the other group. Many of which often happen in these very forums, and it kind of irritates me that nothing is being done about it.

[Vermono]

Hard vore is often associated with cannibalism, especially to those who don't understand the concept of vore. You mention cannibalism to those of us who love soft vore and we'd tell you not once did we ever think of the word cannibal and it makes us feel incredibly sick.

Okay now, don't kid yourself. You know as well as I that this is a cannibalistic Fetish. If a human eats another human and digests them (which happens A LOT on this website, be it in drawings or stories) then they are committing cannibalism. Be it hard vore or soft vore, it happens in both. Yes it's not real but it's still cannibalistic imagery and add on the the fact that people are masturbating over this stuff, this is now cannibalistic pornography of the death of another person. This is the reality we live in and why people don't like this fetish... which is completely understandable... I don't blame them in the least.

Now of course there are sub genres of vore which don't include the killing of another person, (this is the kind of content I like) but soft vore and hard vore still both have cannibalistic tendencies. Thinking they don't is rather silly if you ask me. It's like covering up a dog with a blanket and saying it's not a dog even though everyone can clearly see it it's a dog. Now if you are not into all of the "cannibalistic tendencies" of vore and prefer the more safer versions, then in my example your dog is actually just a toy. It still looked like the real one but it wasn't. But for most people on this website, from what I know from all my years of being here, is that in their case (which is the majority) that their dog is going to be a dog.

[Borealis]

Hard vore is often associated with cannibalism, especially to those who don't understand the concept of vore. You mention cannibalism to those of us who love soft vore and we'd tell you not once did we ever think of the word cannibal and it makes us feel incredibly sick.

Okay now, don't kid yourself. You know as well as I that this is a cannibalistic Fetish. If a human eats another human and digests them (which happens A LOT on this website, be it in drawings or stories) then they are committing cannibalism. Be it hard vore or soft vore, it happens in both. Yes it's not real but it's still cannibalistic imagery and add on the the fact that people are masturbating over this stuff, this is now cannibalistic pornography of the death of another person. This is the reality we live in and why people don't like this fetish... which is completely understandable... I don't blame them in the least.

This is a valid discussion.

Let's be honest here. I'm pretty old-school in this community and have been around for years, and it's very obvious that all down the line we as a community have tried to rip the word "cannibalism" away from vore and thrown it into the abyss. It undoubtedly has unfortunate "real life cases" overtones and is a loaded word for mainstream articles to use, so it's understandable that this is a sore point to people.

You're absolutely right though. It's probably easy for me to say this as I don't like any same species pred-prey pairings (including human on human), I'm a "soft vore with feral animals on humans" brand of weirdo, so I'm kind of outside the ring of combat when it comes to this one. But as this chap I've quoted says, I'm afraid that labelling any human on human (or same species) content where the prey is digested as "cannibalism" is correct on a purely technical level and it always has been.

It's a scary label for sure and we don't have to embrace it, in fact it is well within our right as a community to bin it from our own lexicon and terms, which, yeah, we sort of have. But yes, when the chips are down we can't deny "fantasy cannibalism" or the like is a valid descriptor for the most popular vore type on this site...

[TheMysteriousSadSack]

Hard vore is often associated with cannibalism, especially to those who don't understand the concept of vore. You mention cannibalism to those of us who love soft vore and we'd tell you not once did we ever think of the word cannibal and it makes us feel incredibly sick.

Okay now, don't kid yourself. You know as well as I that this is a cannibalistic Fetish. If a human eats another human and digests them (which happens A LOT on this website, be it in drawings or stories) then they are committing cannibalism. Be it hard vore or soft vore, it happens in both. Yes it's not real but it's still cannibalistic imagery and add on the the fact that people are masturbating over this stuff, this is now cannibalistic pornography of the death of another person. This is the reality we live in and why people don't like this fetish... which is completely understandable... I don't blame them in the least.

Now of course there are sub genres of vore which don't include the killing of another person, (this is the kind of content I like) but soft vore and hard vore still both have cannibalistic tendencies. Thinking they don't is rather silly if you ask me. It's like covering up a dog with a blanket and saying it's not a dog even though everyone can clearly see it it's a dog. Now if you are not into all of the "cannibalistic tendencies" of vore and prefer the more safer versions, then in my example your dog is actually just a toy. It still looked like the real one but it wasn't. But for most people on this website, from what I know from all my years of being here, is that in their case (which is the majority) that their dog is going to be a dog.

If you use the basic definition of the word cannibal then yes I agree, soft vore is cannibalisim. However I believe that it isnt considered cannibalisim because there are no hard vore elements (gore, dismemberment, chewing, yada yada yada). When I think of cannibal I think of Hannibal Lecter, Sweeney Todd, the Sawyer family, Albert Fish and a handfull of others that butcher and prep human meat. Soft vore however has none of that which is why I think it wouldnt be considered cannibalisim. Id say that is uncharitable to classify it as such given it doesnt share a majority of elements present in hard vore. I would argue that tacking on cannibalisim to soft vore is the same thing, as calling sex with your spouse incest. It just doesnt work. Yes your technically banging family and yes by definition its incest, but you wouldnt classify it as such.

[Vermono]

If you use the basic definition of the word cannibal then yes I agree, soft vore is cannibalisim. However I believe that it isnt considered cannibalisim because there are no hard vore elements (gore, dismemberment, chewing, yada yada yada). When I think of cannibal I think of Hannibal Lecter, Sweeney Todd, the Sawyer family, Albert Fish and a handfull of others that butcher and prep human meat. Soft vore however has none of that which is why I think it wouldnt be considered cannibalisim. Id say that is uncharitable to classify it as such given it doesnt share a majority of elements present in hard vore. I would argue that tacking on cannibalisim to soft vore is the same thing, as calling sex with your spouse incest. It just doesnt work. Yes your technically banging family and yes by definition its incest, but you wouldnt classify it as such.

This is a very weak argument. Own up to it or risk being made fool. Cannibalism is cannibalism, there is no if, and or buts about it. It doesn't matter what YOU think it is. If I swallow a strawberry whole or decide to chew it instead, either way that strawberry is going to be digested by me. So like I said before, no matter if it is soft vore or hard vore, if one member of the same species eats another member of the same species with the intention of digesting them and following through with it then that is cannibalism. It doesn't matter HOW they were eaten, but IF they are digested by the individual. It matters not if they are being CHEWED or swallowed whole. They are still being digested.

Now of course if in the fantasy, the "prey" was not to be harmed in any way and is just hanging out inside of the preds body, then that is not cannibalism. It has qualities of cannibalism (being as how the person was eaten and such) but they are not going to die. Which in turn makes it not cannibalism, just a very unorthodox was of showing your affection or disciplining others.

Stop trying to take the cannibal out of cannibalism, that's how people get desensitized by the brutal stuff that they masturbate to. If a person eats another person and digests them, they are a cannibal. And if that turns you on, then you have a cannibalistic fetish. Simple as that.

Also, are you really comparing soft vore digestion (which is when someone swallows another person whole instead of chewing them, be it same size or micros, and then digesting them slowly or quickly, depends on the author, inside their stomach) to having sex with your wife and or husband. Do I really have to say how ridiculous this statement is? One is making love with the person you hope to spend the rest of your life with who is also not related to you in anyway. (If they were then it would be incest because you are having sex with a blood relative. But because you are two separate families with no relation with each other, then the union between you two doesn't qualify as incest.) to literally digesting one of your own species inside your stomach... what kind of logic is this? Just because you are now a "family" and you are having sex with your wife doesn't make it "incest". Your'e not blood relatives.

[Daichi777]

Hard vore is often associated with cannibalism, especially to those who don't understand the concept of vore. You mention cannibalism to those of us who love soft vore and we'd tell you not once did we ever think of the word cannibal and it makes us feel incredibly sick.

Okay now, don't kid yourself. You know as well as I that this is a cannibalistic Fetish. If a human eats another human and digests them (which happens A LOT on this website, be it in drawings or stories) then they are committing cannibalism. Be it hard vore or soft vore, it happens in both. Yes it's not real but it's still cannibalistic imagery and add on the the fact that people are masturbating over this stuff, this is now cannibalistic pornography of the death of another person. This is the reality we live in and why people don't like this fetish... which is completely understandable... I don't blame them in the least.

Now of course there are sub genres of vore which don't include the killing of another person, (this is the kind of content I like) but soft vore and hard vore still both have cannibalistic tendencies. Thinking they don't is rather silly if you ask me. It's like covering up a dog with a blanket and saying it's not a dog even though everyone can clearly see it it's a dog. Now if you are not into all of the "cannibalistic tendencies" of vore and prefer the more safer versions, then in my example your dog is actually just a toy. It still looked like the real one but it wasn't. But for most people on this website, from what I know from all my years of being here, is that in their case (which is the majority) that their dog is going to be a dog.

You're overthinking it and trying to be too technical (like a lot of people on here) serves no purpose unless your goal is to simply piss off a lot of people by telling them how they should feel and they're wrong about their interests while you try to be right. I'm one of those people who literally doesn't care if I'm wrong and if I am then I own up to it. I don't care for winning arguments if they serve no purpose, but because of your tone I'm going to explain it back in the same lame tone you've taken to those who you disagree with.

So essentially to you, you're saying soul, nipple, anal, cock, cleavage vore types etc are all cannibalism too and chucked in the same boat. Yet Cannibalism is defined by eating dead flesh and vore is swallowing/eating prey alive to have them inside you not necessarily to survive on. This is why so many people who aren't into Hard Vore view it as cannibalism or don't like gore. It's not the same as someone into soft vore doesn't tend to differentiate that it's also endo at the same time because you're swallowing prey whole.

No, we don't 'kid ourselves'. There has been a lot of discussion online for the past 30 years or so about this and with far better points. Not everything involves digestion and death or actual consumption. If a furry eats a human then it's not cannibalism as they're not even the same species lol. Cannibalism is more something that happens in real life while vore cannot and is purely fantasy unless you count animals or so. A lot of people look at vore sexually, while at cannibalism in fear and/or disgust. Someone cannibalistic is more likely to view cooking/eating their victim than sexual gratification of teasing them before doing so. They 'consume' flesh to survive.

If you don't agree with someone, or maybe you're into hard vore and I offended you with my comment (then my apologies, really). Then write it in a nicer way if you weren't aiming for an essay back. There's enough people on here who just go on and on and on to try be right while the whole point of something (or result) goes over their head.

Stop trying to take the cannibal out of cannibalism, that's how people get desensitized by the brutal stuff that they masturbate to. If a person eats another person and digests them, they are a cannibal. And if that turns you on, then you have a cannibalistic fetish. Simple as that.

You may as well just go on a LGBT forum and say Bi-sexuality is the same thing as Pan-sexuality when it's not. Stop trying to take the vore out of voraphillia, that's how people get disgusted by the brutal stuff that they don't masturbate to. Simple as that.

If you want to argue more then read back on something like this: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=17071

[VoidInVoid]

If a street sweeper vacuum vores a Roomba, is that cannibalism?

[Vorepun]

Stop trying to take the cannibal out of cannibalism, that's how people get desensitized by the brutal stuff that they masturbate to. If a person eats another person and digests them, they are a cannibal. And if that turns you on, then you have a cannibalistic fetish. Simple as that.

Is that how people get desensitized though? Is that really the reason? It seems to me that not using the term, for a lot of people, is a way to distance their fantasizes from reality. For something like vore...that's just a healthy response. As a different example, I'm a sexual sadist. But I might not want to go around saying that I have literally have a serial killer fetish or something. These are psychological lines we draw in the sand that help keep our fantasies firmly in the realm of fantasy. Not everyone deals with having a freaky kink the same way. You don't need to get upset about it.

I don't see how someone could possibly desensitize themselves in that way unless they were masturbating to real accounts of cannibalism.

[Humbug]

Out of curiosity: Why does it matter what we label cannibalism in this fetish? We're going to be labeled that by outsiders no matter what we do, even if the species are completely different. It's an understood, easy, and loaded term, so of course it's going to be used to describe the lot of us weirdos, especially by the Internet, which looooves its hyperbole. Also...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cannibalism

Like, if we want to get REAL pedantic, the definition says nothing about digesting, just eating, so safe vore could count too if it's the same species. But, like, who cares? We don't eat people IRL, so it's kind of a moot point what it's called. And even if some of us DID have a strict cannibalism fetish, so long as there's no desire to take it to reality, it's basically on the same level as every other sexual fantasy.

[Vermono]

Okay I think I know what happened here. After rereading what was said and thinking to myself a bit, I realized that at some of my point my argument got lost in the translation from my brain to the keyboard.

I should correct myself.

Vore is not a cannibalistic fetish but a fetish that has cannibalistic tendencies. Not every voraphile on here likes to see little billy get digested… but a LARGE portion of the community does.
That is part of my point.

Now of course if you are in the endo group and don’t like to see and or read stories about digestion then these posts don’t concern you. Same with those that are preds of a different species of subgroup of the prey they are eating. These posts don’t concern you either because at that point it’s just nature being nature. People who get turned on about that stuff just have a murder or snuff fetish but not a cannibalistic fetish.
But the reason why I commented on your message in the first place is because of the WAY you said it. Which I still believe is hypocritical.

You did say this didn’t you?

Hard vore is often associated with cannibalism, especially to those who don't understand the concept of vore. You mention cannibalism to those of us who love soft vore and we'd tell you not once did we ever think of the word cannibal and it makes us feel incredibly sick.

Well in both instances, hard vore and soft vore can have cannibalism in it. Trying to ignore that and calling it something else is ridiculous.

But I should admit I did assume a bit and presume that you are in the digestion crowd and the human on human crowd. I thought this because not only do you have a bunch of pictures of giant girls on your messages but also the majority of the people here are into digestion. So I am sorry for assuming. That is my bad. You could very well be into the safe endo works and my points could reign meaningless because they are not directed towards you. My apologies if so.
But if you are into digestion and human on human or species on species vore then my points still stand. So I will continue just in case.

In your original point you said that hard vore and soft vore are different cannibalism wise because in hard vore there is gore and in soft vore the person is swallowed whole. The point I am trying to get across is that in both hard and soft vore cannibalism can occur. Although there is endo vore that falls under soft vore, it just being soft vore doesn’t excuse it from cannibalistic imagery and LOTS of people draw, write, or commission human on human digestion vore. I don’t know if you are but if you are one of these people (and this goes for anyone that thinks this) that think it being soft vore instantly makes it not cannibalism because it is soft vore and not hard vore, even though in the soft vore imagery a person is eating and digesting another person of the same species, then that is called cannibalism. If it’s some furry doing the eating to a guy/gal or robot doing it, then this doesn’t apply but from what you said it sounds like you are trying cover up the fact that just because the person is not getting chewed up doesn’t make it cannibalism. If you say that the word or idea of cannibalism grosses you out but still willingly consume or create content that has soft vore based human on human digestion and refuse to acknowledge that it is cannibalism, then that is foolish. That is my point.
It’s hypocritical and trying to call it something that it’s not.

Like I said before, don’t take the cannibal out of cannibalism. Say it as it is, don’t try to call it something else. If a person eats another person and digests them, they are a cannibal. And if that turns you on, then you have a cannibalistic fetish. Simple as that.

Not everyone on here will have that fetish (even though a large majority does) but if you do, that is what it is.

Also, lame tone I’ve taken to those I disagree with?
In my response to you I was just trying to correct your statement (but I made an error and this response is my correction.) There was no “lame tone” in my message.
If you’re talking about TheMysteriousSadSack over there, well that’s because they gave such a poor argument. If it was a better one like yours for example (with the whole soul, nipple, anal, cock and cleavage vore that made me double check and realize I made an mistake in my argument) then I would have had a better tone with it.