I saw something the other day which I found quite hurtful. A number of clean artists were heaping vitriol on porn artists, and doing so in rather offensive ways. The only reason I could see for their behavior was frustration over (in their perception) being passed over for inferior pornography, and taking that frustration out on the people who they perceive to be responsible, ie the providers of said smut. To believe these people, someone who chooses to draw adult art has sold out, being no better than an actress who sleeps with a director to get a role over more talented, more moral candidates.

Not only are these people perpetuating the idea that women should be ashamed of their sexuality (no mention of the fans of these artists being no better than the director who picks the actress who slept with him), which is an issue I'm not really interested in discussing any further than noting that it's touched on by the choice of similie. They are making a very offensive moral judgement on any artist who ever showed off an adult piece online. Sex does sell, but that does not mean that the only reason ever to draw sex is to sell, or even to get attention.

If you're one of the people inclined to make that kind of judgement about people you don't know, please remember that you don't know the motivation behind this stranger's work. I started drawing adult art because I enjoyed the artistic challenge of making two (or more) bodies interact that way. I just went over the adult and mature submissions in my gallery here. Most of it fell under "because I thought it was funny" and/or "gift art". The only pieces that were actually done in any kind of attempt to draw attention is the I.C.Q. promotional stuff. And I readily admit the I.C.Q. promotion is, well... promotion.

Now, I have no problem with clean artists. I don't feel morally superior to them because I sometimes enjoy drawing smut and they don't. But neither do I feel morally superior to MoodyFerret because she draws fetish stuff (ie "worse" porn) and I don't. I certainly wouldn't call her names over it or lord this supposed moral superiority over her. That'd be silly. I'm friends with clean artists and I'm friends with people who have kinks that are REALLY not my thing. I'm a big girl and I can handle that. The clean artists I'm friends with are big boys and girls and can handle that even if they'd rather not draw (or see, as the case may be) sex, other people can and will and that doesn't make them horrible people, whores, or sell-outs. That's not even getting into the issue of how unfair it is to black-and-white label any artist who does porn as part of their regular fare a "porn artist". That's a sliding scale, not an on-off button.

I also get the impression that people who don't do porn have a vastly inflated notion of how much of a response it draws. I'm not getting hundreds of new watchers (or necessarily any) every time a picture of mine has a red border on the main page. It doesn't work like that. The problem is that the people they're comparing their own success to are the people they see. People who are prolific posters or who network a lot (shouts and comments on others' stuff). Does my porn get more views than the clean stuff? Yes, it does. But interestingly, the gulf between comments and favorites between porn and clean art (and even photography) is a lot more narrow.

Based on my own browsing habits, a few things that all artists can do:
* Make sure your art thumbnails well. Resize it to a max dimension of 120 pixels, and if it doesn't look captivating that way, consider cropping and resizing your own custom thumbnail.
* Corollary to the above: people like thumbnails which give an idea of what's going on in the image. If you have any useful, short keywords that you think will help, put them on the thumbnail. By useful, I mean something which gives a better idea of the content than a blank thumbnail with "Clean art" or "Mature 18+" written on it.
* As ironic as it may seem, considering the perceived low status of stories in the fandom, viewers are attracted to art that tells a story. Comic pages and Ruby Quest-esque visual interactive stories are a good way to attract attention, even in thumbnail form.

I've seen stunning art that thumbnailed so badly I would've passed over it if I hadn't been linked to it, and I've seen abysmal art that thumbnailed well, so I clicked it thinking I'd found a gem. To me, it doesn't matter if an image has a black, blue, red or rainbow border; I just want to see interesting art.

I don't think everyone should draw porn. In fact, I think a lot of the people who do draw porn should stop, study some anatomy, and get back to it when they have a better understanding of the human body. But this is not a moral judgement. This is a "I don't like badly-drawn porn" judgement. I just... hope I won't have to see someone say (paraphrased from memory) "I bet if I draw a dog cock I'll get 100+ faves in an hour" ever again.