Today, I made a big change to my “Will Not Draw” list (which is here: https://marinaneira.com/willdrawwontdraw/)

It’s probably going to upset some of my commissioners who have supported me for such a long time, and I am sorry about that. I am really grateful for every commission I’ve received.

You will remember that some time ago, I made this blog post. It was fairly recent.

Even more recently, I merged my portfolio with my blog. This meant that I am also reposting my entire portfolio. Generally, I crosspost that with FurAffinity, but now, FA didn’t have most of my spanking art because I took it down (see: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9837296/) So it was a time to think carefully as to whether I still wanted to go through the conscious effort to re-upload all of that elsewhere.

I know I said I would always have it available. And in a way, it always is. My commissioners have posted it, and I’m obviously not asking them to take down work they paid for. I don’t want that. This is more about going forward.

Going forward, I will no longer draw commissions on which a minor character’s bare bottom is the focal point. In general, I prefer not to draw bare bottoms on minors anymore, unless it’s a ref sheet, or clearly for humorous purposes, such as:

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OR, if it’s related to spanking, barely a peek, like this:

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In the past, I’ve drawn domestic spanking scenes of this sort, often to illustrate a commissioner’s story. These scenes were always SFW, and not sexual in any way. In very few of these drawings, the focus was on the character’s bare bottom, since the art piece’s main theme was that of a spanking. This very much paralleled the sort of children’s media that I, myself, grew up with, in TV, comics, and books.

Over time, I have grown uncomfortable with depicting a child in this manner, which is no longer widely accepted in most mainstream media either. I will still draw spanking scenes, but the character’s bottom cannot be bare. I hope my past commissioners can understand that I am doing this for my own personal comfort as well as that of my followers.

Many years ago, a good friend of mine posted art of his little fursona laying on his tummy on a towel after a bath, with a bare bottom. I remember being completely baffled that he marked it mature, and he explained that on FA, such art would likely be automatically assumed to be cub simply because the character’s bare bottom was visible. I was sure, back then, that he was exaggerating. He wasn’t.

You do have to realize, I grew up in a vastly different time, though it seems not long ago. I grew up exposed to spanking and bare kids’ butts on all kinds of media. One of my earliest childhood memories (as far as cartoons go) is this cartoon where a bunny got spanked by his mom at the end of the cartoon, and the screen closed in on his bare spanked butt at the end. It took up the WHOLE damn screen. Bare bottoms were a regular thing, even in Disney shorts, so, you know, I never saw it as sexual. My grandma gave me a French picture book (a BIG book, Un Bon Petit Diable) that had huge cover art of a kid bending down to show his bare butt with two paper devils pasted on each buttcheek to his nanny or maid or whatever to spook her into not spanking him. This was the cover. For real! This was normal to me. My literal Grandma gave me this and it was a mainstream children’s book.

But, times change. Now, art like this makes most people pretty uncomfortable. There’s a reason kids today aren’t bombarded by that sort of media the way I was growing up. And I started to feel that maybe I need to stop fighting that, and adapt. Feeling the constant need to defend such art when I make it, so that it’s not misconstrued, is so exhausting. And when I wrote that sentence (“I will no longer draw art in which a minor character’s bare bottom is the focal point”) my brain did go, wow, what the fuck, that sounds messed up when I write it down. So maybe it is. I never did mean for such scenes to be perverse. I hope that, between my previous journal on the topic and what I describe here, that this much is evident. But I can also understand how, to a completely different generation, such art is also totally different feeling. And I want to respect that.

I don’t want to stop drawing spanking art. And I feel if I don’t make this change, I’ll have to. If most people see a cartoony naked furry kid’s bottom as sexual or perverse in any way, I either have to accept making most people uncomfortable, or, you know, stop altogether. 🤷‍♀️ Hence this change.

I’m probably also being affected by so many people being into pedo art, and most of all by the Milo thing. It’s still eating away at me. I’m trying to feel more comfortable within this community, because I love it deeply. I hope you can understand.