What's with the freaky artwork for G4 ponies?

[LadyMoondancer]

It bothers me when people fawn over Lauren Faust, then turn around reduce her wonderful, nuanced female characters to "lolz pinup art!  OMG look rarity is wavin her butt in ur face!"    Very disrespectful to Faust's vision and to the spirit of the show, IMO.

[reanna-mator]

It bothers me when people fawn over Lauren Faust, then turn around reduce her wonderful, nuanced female characters to "lolz pinup art!  OMG look rarity is wavin her butt in ur face!"    Very disrespectful to Faust's vision and to the spirit of the show, IMO.

Her answer on that exact thing:
"It's not my thing, but I know that it comes with the territory of having your work on TV, so I'm used to it.  I admit I avoid looking at it, and would rather not have it pointed out to me----- so please don't!"

I think that's very mature of her. Unlike some people she's not out to stomp out something she doesn't like, she just chooses to avoid it.

[Violet CLM]

This has nothing to do with ponies in particular. It just happens when you do a search that involves images, and the search you did happened to be for ponies. For example, try doing a search for "Kim Possible," also a kids' show, on eBay or Google (with SafeSearch off). The results are much worse (by the standard of being sexualized) than for "My Little Pony."

[LadyMoondancer]

I think it would be more accurate to say that she's resigned to the fact that she can't stomp it out . . . Quite different from not minding it.

[cleverLC]

My guess is, most of the people who enjoy drawing ponies in naughty situations like that have a furry fetish.  I can sort of see the appeal, but I have trouble seeing the ponies as having any real romantic relationships, so I don't exactly seek out that sort of art.

[DazzleKitty]

It bothers me when people fawn over Lauren Faust, then turn around reduce her wonderful, nuanced female characters to "lolz pinup art!  OMG look rarity is wavin her butt in ur face!"    Very disrespectful to Faust's vision and to the spirit of the show, IMO.

Then it would be technically bad to have that kind of fanart for any kind of show.  But I can also see what you mean. But a lot of people like to do fanart, fanfiction, etc from shows and it could all be disrespectful to the original creator even if it is innocent because it deviates from the original purpose. I cannot tell you how much fanfiction I have read from Harry Potter that would probably make JK Rowling squirm. LOL.

It's not just the female characters that have this kind of fanart either. I know it was meant as more of a feminist show, but the male ponies get "demeaned" just as much.

Maybe I'm too open-minded for my own good, but I honestly don't have a problem with the majority of this part of the fandom. And Lauren Faust's response was honest but handled very professionally.

I know some don't like that their kids can't look up pony pictures because of this, but even more innocent searches turn up 'bad' things. You cannot trust the internet for fool-proof babysitting. You really gotta be careful.   I am amazed at what searches on google have provided me with porn. Some were truly innocent searches!

[LightingElectricDream]

But I don't think that everyone who draws the stuff is sick in the head.

Im So Sorry if i offended you, That was not my intent. I purely mean the people that post..well If I mentioned them Id get banned if I even tried to describe them, Im talking XXX R Rated. ect..

And I read sonic the hedgehog fan fictions that are for 18 + years
Nothing so bad or gross just adult content. But I personally don't judge people that look at furry, or sonic fandom, and things like that. I do however think if its going over board XXX R rated. than Id have to especially if its MLP.
people are going to post XXX R rated, I just don't think its appropriate in anyway.


Like I said If I offended anyone in anyway I am sorry, as It was not directed at anyone and I was just giving my own opinion.

*huggies* 

[Stormrave]

I think a lot of overly sexualized pony art is kind of gross, but on the other hand, I wrote some Halo yaoi (romances between some of the alien characters).  There are people who are going to think that is gross too because their whole idea of Halo is Master Chief shooting stuff.  Another thing is, I've seen ponies drawn as anime girls, and I thought they were cute.  Now my "Cute" might be your "scantily dressed" and there's a bit of a slope that varies depending on people's tastes. 

So, if adults want to draw or otherwise imagine pony characters in sexual situations, that's their business.  It's imaginary and mostly harmless (mostly because it's possible for children to stumble across it too easily in many cases; frankly I think that if you're going to write or draw something explicit, the creator should put warning labels on it, so those who don't want to see it can avoid it.  I like DeviantArt's mature content warning.) 

If people keep their fantasies private or limited to likeminded people, then if they aren't hurting anyone in real life I don't care what turns their cranks.

Edit:  As far as bestiality goes:  3/4 of the sexy/smutty pony art I've seen has the ponies drawn as humans or anthros (humanized animals).  I'm a bit bothered by the 1/4 that's ponies AS HORSES being all sexualized, but...

I think about it this way.  If there was a non-human creature that was as intelligent as a human being, and it wanted to have sex, would that be bestiality?  I don't think so, because the reason bestiality is illegal is that animals are incapable of giving consent.  So if a MLP really existed, it would be an equine like creature with the same intelligence as humans, and would be capable of giving consent (assuming it was an adult, in sound mental health etc) and so it could have sex  if it wanted to.

I sincerely hope the people who draw sexy art of MLPs as horses, are attracted to the characters/personalities, and not to the fact that they are horses.  Because the first is attraction to a sentient being that happens to be a pony, and the second is attraction to a non sentient animal (ie bestiality).

[Corona]

I've seen some very tasteful artistic mature pieces of ponies but they're not at all common.

I will admit, I have drawn some pinuppy things (not ponies) but I tag it NSFW, mark it mature so you need an account to see it, and keep it off my main account. It's actually really embarrassing when my more mature work shows up on Google. Not because I'm ashamed of drawing it (I don't care if it has my name on it) but I prefer to have my mature work be avoidable for people who don't like it.

I wish more mature artists worked to keep their artwork available if you want it, avoidable if you don't. Yeah, it's more effort but in the end it shows you do care about people's comfort zones.

[Binny]

I'm going to agree with what some have said that it's most likely a numbers thing. More people interested = more art and with the regular art comes a certain percentage of explicit material.

[Shiromisa]

It bothers me when people fawn over Lauren Faust, then turn around reduce her wonderful, nuanced female characters to "lolz pinup art!  OMG look rarity is wavin her butt in ur face!"    Very disrespectful to Faust's vision and to the spirit of the show, IMO.

Well said. This is basically the reason I haven't jumped into fandom til now. I literally can't go into most fandom spaces without seeing sexualized pony images, and it saddens me, especially with how wonderfully the characters are written, and how rare that is in shows today. I mean, I went into a stream of season 2, and within ten minutes they were saying awful things about Apple Bloom! DDDD: That's why I was so happy to find this forum and the Trading Post.

What bothers me most is the kids searching for their favorite pony and finding...that. It's happened to my friend's goddaughter, who's six, and I just...argh.

[Starly]

Why would you let young kids unsupervised online anyway? That's just bad parenting. D:

[Snapdragon]

I think it would be more accurate to say that she's resigned to the fact that she can't stomp it out . . . Quite different from not minding it.

This is how I feel, too. Faust ... really can't say anything negative about Bronies, let's face it. Heck, they already draw horribly demeaning Rule34 of her - and that's when they LIKE her! I'd hate to see what they'd do if they hated her.

Personally - for me, it comes down to respect. You have to respect others, especially children, in what should be a child-safe fandom. People should be allowed to have their porn, in safe, locked-down and properly-tagged/warned for spaces. (It's natural to want to project your own sexual interests onto characters you like - but not everyone likes that, so it should be done in private!) There are websites (FurAffinity springs to mind) where Google cannot web-crawl for images if it's behind a lock. If all artists used sites like this, we wouldn't have issues of children finding pony porn - which they do.

Honestly, I think there's very little respect in this fandom, and it makes me sad. Kids shouldn't have to be exposed to porn until they're old enough to handle it, and Faust's vision of a feminist, intelligent cartoon for kids shouldn't be reduced to "can I fap to this?"

[reanna-mator]

It bothers me when people fawn over Lauren Faust, then turn around reduce her wonderful, nuanced female characters to "lolz pinup art!  OMG look rarity is wavin her butt in ur face!"    Very disrespectful to Faust's vision and to the spirit of the show, IMO.

Well said. This is basically the reason I haven't jumped into fandom til now. I literally can't go into most fandom spaces without seeing sexualized pony images, and it saddens me, especially with how wonderfully the characters are written, and how rare that is in shows today. I mean, I went into a stream of season 2, and within ten minutes they were saying awful things about Apple Bloom! DDDD: That's why I was so happy to find this forum and the Trading Post.

What bothers me most is the kids searching for their favorite pony and finding...that. It's happened to my friend's goddaughter, who's six, and I just...argh.

I don't think it's disrespectful at all, and I'm certain that most of these people are not intentionally disparaging the creators. As I've said, I've looked up art of other fandoms, and it wasn't for sexual reasons; I found it fun because it added an interesting new layer to the characters not explored in the original content. Of course, for whatever reason anyone wants to enjoy it is fine, but I really don't think anyone puts pen to paper with the intention of destroying anyone's vision. I understand you're frustrated, but I think that's a rather extreme judgment to make of someone you don't know.

[Shiromisa]

It bothers me when people fawn over Lauren Faust, then turn around reduce her wonderful, nuanced female characters to "lolz pinup art!  OMG look rarity is wavin her butt in ur face!"    Very disrespectful to Faust's vision and to the spirit of the show, IMO.

Well said. This is basically the reason I haven't jumped into fandom til now. I literally can't go into most fandom spaces without seeing sexualized pony images, and it saddens me, especially with how wonderfully the characters are written, and how rare that is in shows today. I mean, I went into a stream of season 2, and within ten minutes they were saying awful things about Apple Bloom! DDDD: That's why I was so happy to find this forum and the Trading Post.

What bothers me most is the kids searching for their favorite pony and finding...that. It's happened to my friend's goddaughter, who's six, and I just...argh.

I don't think it's disrespectful at all, and I'm certain that most of these people are not intentionally disparaging the creators. As I've said, I've looked up art of other fandoms, and it wasn't for sexual reasons; I found it fun because it added an interesting new layer to the characters not explored in the original content. Of course, for whatever reason anyone wants to enjoy it is fine, but I really don't think anyone puts pen to paper with the intention of destroying anyone's vision. I understand you're frustrated, but I think that's a rather extreme judgment to make of someone you don't know.

In this case, it hits harder because this show was meant to have a feminist message, and tell girls they can be anything they want to be. For people to come in and hijack that message to sexualize the characters is just galling. I'm not talking about the non-sexual art; I love SFW fanfic type things and write them myself. It's the stuff that's ludicrously out of step with the show's message that gets to me.

Why would you let young kids unsupervised online anyway? That's just bad parenting. D:

I don't think supervising would help in this case. Unsavory art is gonna come up if you google image a pony unknowing what the fandom has done, whether a parent is there or not. All a parent can do is quickly close the tab and hope the kid didn't see too much.

And honestly? It shouldn't be like that. Every fandom is gonna have some NSFW fanart, but this is just...ridiculous.