There's balance in everything, you can enjoy the kinkage and sprinkle in some of the cute, it all depends on your context and the characters involved~

There IS a lot more to just the "liking her belly rubbed" theme, and the aspects you've spoken about enjoying when considering pregnancy are most definitely some of the many consequences of pregnancy.

The hormonal changes alone spur a plethora of affects ranging from nausea, to weird hungers, and spontaneous increases in sex drive. Exploration of the sex drive aspect in art I believe is so underutilized because so many people have just become so terribly afraid of anything slightly tangential the thought of sexualizing the miracle of making a new life.

It seems to me it's become extremely common to dissociate a woman as a person with carnal needs or desires once she becomes pregnant, and that now her sole purpose is to resign themselves as a beautiful and untouchable shrine until the baby(s) is born.

Personally I don't mind if folks prefer to stick to the "niceties", obviously not everyone needs to like something simply because it exists, but I would like to see more art like yours crop up. I know I try my best to get around to it myself. Sex and extra tender neediness during pregnancy is very real and deserve to be explored as much as the cute and sometimes over-romanticized bits.

I think you said it a little bit more explicitly than I did, but yeah, it does always feel like they only really want to acknowledge the nice, cute parts of it because they don't associate a pregnant woman with having any carnal needs of her own. Unless it's to make a quick joke about hormones or something. It's very strange to me and I don't really like how people view pregnant women as shrines to be worshipped and never defiled.
And like I said people are allowed to enjoy what they want, but I would love to see more people exploring the raw, erotic nature of it. Need more people letting themselves be horny over a rounded out belly.

More power and all the happiness to the people who revel in wholesomeness, but I personally don't want to read a story solely about belly rubs, hand-holding, and frolicking through a meadow of daisies. When I'm in the mood for erotica, I want it to be *erotic.*

Your point is also well-taken that it can certainly feel odd and dishonest for pregnancy to be de-sexualized, given that sex is how pregnancy usually happens in the first place! It can turn sex into the "elephant in the room."

But, I wholly understand and support people not wanting pregnant people to be objectified and wanting pregnancy itself to be treated with a modicum of respect and kindness, and I also understand and respect folks desiring more wholesome stories and art that are just based on gentle warmth, respect, and intimacy.

Well for some odd reason, I find that a lot of pregnancy kink people don't even acknowledge that much; that someone needed to get fucked in order for this to have happened. Either never mentioning a potential father of the baby or using "surrogacy" as a way to avoid that. Surrogacy is fine don't get me wrong but it does take out a major component of why I like this kink haha.

Sometimes the enjoyment of pregnancy is solely on the growth and labor/birth part of it, separate from IRL aspects like M/F procreation. For instance, I love fictional orgasmic pregnancy/labor, eggs, inflaiton involving liquids, sorta okay with tentacles and filling devices and such, but am stongly turned off by direct masculine features or pain and whatnot. Makes it hard to find the former without the inclusion of the latter, as you could guess.

Pretty much limits art that gets me going to extrapolating what I can find in "wholesome" pregnancy art, and very rare artists that occasionly indulge in intensely horny Solo & F/F pregnancy stuff (rapid/instant/magic preg, etc.), it's out there, just never gets as much time to shine as the usual IRL-saddled M/F pregnancy content. The horny, rough, heated aspects are still there, just revoling around feminine characters only. Also, it means avoiding reading any text involved in pregnancy art, since most of the time the text included impiles some masculine character interaction.
None of the IRL impossibilities de-sexualizes it AFAIC, in fact it makes it more sexy, it removes it from IRL into a more comforting and approachably atractive form for the few like me.

But, that's kind of an interesting thing about fetishes, a bunch of people can generally be into fantasy pregnancy, but none for exactly the same reasons, some being polar opposite reasons, most just Venn diagrams of combined interests; Possibly the only major overlap being the a love of the shape of pregnant tums.

Anyway, interesting discussions you're bringing up! It's a double-edged sword to dig into the why's of kinks publicly, but it's open and refreshing and positive so far.

Well I'm like, pretty much the opposite of all of that so you're probably not gonna get much of any of that kind of thing out me haha.
I just really don't care for the wholesomeness, I already see that plenty in pregnancy ads and romantic comedy movies. I'd much rather have the art revolving around what the folks in the big leagues won't want to explore -- the sheer fact that pregnancy is going to be an erotic thing for many people. It's inherently sexual, and can only be further sexualized with however many ways you want to. Sure M/F content is going to be much more prevalent than F/F content for obvious reasons, but it's still, for some weird reason, not nearly as common as solo F with *zero* mention of how exactly that belly got there. Which just completely ruins it for me. Belly alone or some sweet rubs from someone just does absolutely nothing for me. But it seems to be the only thing people ever want out of this kind of content.

F/F stuff can be fun, for sure, but as I'm not turned off by seeing or having mentioned a dude, or at least someone with a dick to make that belly happen at some point, I'd much rather it be included in some fashion. It at least allows me to fill in the gaps and maybe make up some headcanons for what's going on -- when all I have to go off of is "She's pregnant, no there is no father, she just wants belly rubs and ice cream", I'm just kinda like............I don't really find that very fun. I just wish more people weren't so afraid to make things horny and allow characters to be sexy instead of just cute.

I just find it a bit boring and unfulfilling to see something that just takes a little snapshot of what it looks like 7 months in. You can like what you like, absolutely, but I don't think I'll ever really enjoy that kind of thing that feels like it's just there for the sake of being there. Although I don't know much about you and your preferences so I won't make any assumptions there, just stating what I tend to like doing. I get a lot of people coming to me for wholesome preg stuff and I just, don't really like it.

That's fair, and as you say, I'm describing the opposite of what you're into. Though I feel I should emphasize, since you repeat the idea that some people are "afraid" to involve M/F stuff, which you and many others find intensely sexy. I'd say you're leaving out the idea that it's not entirely based in fear. The idea of masculinity or real pregnancy medical issues is a turn off in this view I'm describing, in the same way something that might disgust you turns you off, it's too "real."

Real-life pregnancies are full of pain and disease, and discomfort, and the responsibility of further lives, which often is handled terribly IRL, it's all too visible and nauseating in real life that it's not sexy to some, even brings back painful memories/experiences best left buried. But the fetish of pregnancy and related fantasy variations of it's aspects is still there, it can be explored in many ways, from wholesome fluff scenes to intensely/extremely horny stuff, venturing into the fantastical/completely impossible; We're not limited by IRL, Furry art itself is a testament to that.

And please don't get me wrong, everything from variations on sex and conception to outrageous styles of birth and variants of what can be birthed and how gestations or anatomy can work are involved in my view of the fetish. After a point, IRL-influenced M/F stuff is alien, could itself be dull, and becomes a reminder of the ugliness of the world at large. It's not a dislike or "fear of making it sexy" as you put it, but a whole different view of what is sexy.

We're at totally different ends of the pregnancy fetish interest, but I must say there's an incalcuable number of your pieces I consider exquisite pregnancy/labor art, since you do in fact make solo feminine shots/sequences, some waterbreak here and there, hyper tums, eggs, even surrogacy, the list goes on. It's not the main focus as your journals explaing your interest in preg define, but I hope you can see how those of us outside of the view you have can enjoy these aspects too, even if extropolating it from a totally different place.

A good belly rub is foreplay to trying to breed your already well and truely knocked up mate, and to help make up for ruining her wardrobe.
Just my $.02

Do what you like, duder!

A lot of "wholesome" stuff doesn't even feel wholesome either. It just feels like "omg so soft uwu" furry bullshit. Tons of stuff makes me put my hands on my cheeks and go D'AWWW and hardly any of it is anything self-tagged as "wholesome".

I know it's not exactly the same thing you've mentioned here, but there has been a HEAVY push in general to 'puritanize' the community. Demonizing of the most popular erotic artists, attempts to shame people for being into their kinks and fetishes and wanting to talk about them, and trying to desexualize things that are, by their nature, highly sexual things, like pregnancy.

There is a pretty clear divider in my mind on my personal feelings and appreciation of BOTH Sexy AND Wholesome angles on Pregnancy.

- - -

Impregnation and Pregnancy is Sexy as #*** ! No ... seriously. Procreation is ' THE ... REASON ' why SEX and SEXINESS even EXISTS!

There is literally nothing in the UINIVERSE that is more Justified and Appropriate to be 'Horny' about. NOTHING.

Getting Pregnant ... Being Pregnant ... it is the Ultimate manifestation of "Sex".

- - -

"Parenthood"

... Parenhood is Wholesome.

Being "Mommy" ... being "Daddy" ...

Loving the kids, or the promise of kids ... that is when Pregnancy becomes beautiful in a 'Wholesome' way.

- - -

I don't get the whole 'Bellyrubs' thing either. It serves neither. It's just silly.

How do I favorite a journal?

This dawg's preaching wisdom.

I think Pannekoeke kind of summed up a lot of my feeling on it, and I will say that I do enjoy your pregnancy art more than a lot of other artists on a more general level. While not all of it is for me, I do find a good deal of it attractive, if that is a good word for it. Part of it for me also comes to aesthetics but the other side of it is a bit harder to describe. I like the fertility aspect even though I have a strong disdain for the idea of having/raising kids and not really being interested in the "family life" sort of thing, so it could just be how it gives a bit of that sort of nurturing air to it, which is likely why I gravitate more towards egg laying species more than mammalian species with live birth.

So feel kind of caught between two aspects, but I do like some good raunchy fun, and I will link some examples if you are interested:

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41778702/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/38616145/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/33165867/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/30354123/

One of my favorites underrepresented is "I've got a bun in the oven, sure, but you'd better get over here and pound me anyways."

As someone who's generally into it, the whole tender belly rubs and kisses thing is much less about lovey dovey uguu cutesy stuff and much more about teasing the partner you've gotten pregnant by tenderly admiring your work, which is definitely horny. There are pieces that lean a bit heavy on the "build a family" and "missionary for the sole purpose of procreation" thing but I think they're generally pretty rare, and lumping tender belly kissing/rubbing stuff in with that and calling it not horny enough is creating a false dichotomy. Lots of people are satisfied by affectionate and gentle sex, but that doesn't mean the underlying, possessive desire to breed isn't there.

I think I can safely say that, having been a fan of pregnancy for years and fully invested in this kink for almost 2, there isn't nearly as much overtly horny stuff as there is "woman existing with belly/getting belly rubs". That's just how it is. I literally run a server for this and just about every day people kinda laser focus on the "round belly" part and just about nothing else. "Belly rubs for teasing" is not what I see. It may be that way for you but that's not what I see, I see people wanting to treat pregnant women like cute shrines to be worshipped. Which is fine, people can do what they want, but I'm telling you that in my experience, which I like to think is somewhat vast, pregnancy, especially in furry circles, is largely dissociated from eroticism. I'd like for it not to be.
I'm not talking "gentle sex isn't enough" -- I never said that. In fact I'd be satisfied with that too! There just....isn't a whole lot of eroticism and explicit content with the pregnancy tag.

Let's be honest, people can carry unconsciously prudish attitudes toward pregnancy without realizing it, likely because of a puritanical upbringing that conditions people to worship the process of creation by divorcing it from it's act. Being conditioned this way tends to result in hang-ups about pregnancy being inherently "wholesome" and focused toward the child, and a subconscious avoidance to "taint" it with overly dirty thoughts toward the mother or her belly. It's a deeply silly mentality to have, but it's easy to fall into social programming and refuse to question it or work to overcome it. It's a status quo that deserves to be challenged, and I support your efforts to destigmatize the eroticism around pregnancy.