How to choose a good fetish avatar

I’ve just stumbled upon this discussion, and I think it would be interesting to many.

Lara ShinyLara (Google+) started a poll to decide what photo to choose for her avatar. The original list contained 11 photos, but currently only 8 are available (below). But look what Dv hour (Google+) said:

Greetings +Lara ShinyLara i can see that people are offering their wants and desires rather than just following the parameters of what you are asking for. I will do my best to try to give you my perspective.

Just a little background about me, I have worked in advertising for a number of years where I’m a branding/social media specialist. I’m undyingly passionate about shiny skin tight fabrics – particularly pantyhose and tights but ONLY when its women behind the masking. Not to say there is anything wrong with men posing in such delicious clothing its just not my preference and I’m saying that its best to be clear on your avatar imagery so that people do not have the wrong initial impression. There are people who will not even give a profile like yours a chance if they feel its a male behind the masking or if it feels misleading. This is by no means implying that you are not shapely or feminine, to the contrary, there are just not many female profiles like yours a huge percentage of the time if the face isn’t shown, its male. I totally understand the desire for privacy and concealing ones identity, but The funny thing about anonymity on the internet is that fair-minded and good people have their guard up and its possible that some of these people may be your greatest supporters and advocates but again its that tiny window of doubt and the feeling of being led astray enters their minds.

You might say well screw them I could care less about such people but the reality is that we are all here on Google+ to share, observe and connect. If our avatars and profile impacts the initial impression someone has about us, then we should aspire to be as clear as possible to best represent who we are and what we are trying to convey with our imagery, comments and posts. With all that said I will try my best to articulate my thoughts on the ones that would work best for your profile.

Pict #1 – The Adidas pict. Its so very sexy and it says “I love shiny tight outfits” or I love Adidas haha. Its very openly feminine and would be an EXCELLENT photo for your avatar. The one thing that gives me pause on the pict is the sheet. Its distracting and it could give someone pause as to why that area is hidden. Just something to think about.

Pict #6 – White tights, black boots and shiny leotard. Personally I do not like the fishnet gloves cause it throws off the packaged outfit, but i do really like what you are wearing and the hint of nipple is seductive and very feminine. The pose is kind of safe and not as dynamic as the others. My personal aesthetics do not matter in this case but I just thought I’d highlight my thoughts on the pict.

Pict #8 – Personally l love seeing hosiery without shoes and the position is sexy and will enchant any hosiery foot lover, but its one of those ambiguous androgynous photos that might cause one to pause. It is however a very good pict as far as letting people know what your theme is but deciding if its male or female is the question for them.

Pict #9 – The black body suit with spike belt and some kind of spirally thingy on your arm is my most favorite as far as overall concept and imagery goes. It looks like this is a uniform from the future or a pict out of Barbarella. Its ultra sexy as a pose and it gives a clear idea as to what your theme is about shiny, tight and feminine. I love the hint of nipple i like the way your head is turned. Its PERFECTO!

Pict #10 The white t-shirt with the pink stripe and thigh tight spandex with bare calves and feet. Definitely very feminine and somewhat sporty. There would be no confusion on the female question but if you are going for shiny and skin tight this is probably not the way to go. Its kind of feels like a raunchy blah porn ad, sorry no disrespect again these are my initial thoughts and I’m only trying to offer my help and honest assessment and giving you something to think about.

My Final Assessment.
I would be delighted with either Pict #1 or Pict #9 I’m definitely leaning more towards #9 cause its subtle and gives a nice over all message about what your theme is and its damn sexy. No i thought about it #9 is the best choice in my opinion. I hope this helps and I hope this gives you some thoughts about photo shoots in the future. Take care. 🙂

Lara’s response:

+Dv hour : thanks very much for your detailed review 🙂
It’s always great to see if someone invest some time to really think about the things I wrote and gives so much feedback. Would be great if more people would give it a try 🙂

Don’t understand why pictures without a face always give the impression of not beeing a woman.
I guess most of the people (men) asking for showing the face would never do the same on their images. It’s ridiculous to demand showing a face just to proof anything.
I don’t want to discuss that again, I already did years ago in a different forum. It doesn’t lead to anything.

Dv hour:

Hello +Lara ShinyLara I am glad you found my words detailed – hopefully you also found them useful. First I want to add to what you were saying about the pict thingy. There is absolutely no reason that you should ever feel compelled to show a pict of yourself. I know the type of guy you speak of the ones that demand – look any jerk that wants to argue you down about it is a foolish mortal who needs the mighty hand of Zeus to strike him down!! I couldn’t help myself i had to use that line it was a spontaneous blurt out and it felt right 🙂

In my experience with viewing online content the majority of headless picts of individuals who show off casual feminine leggy dress styles tend to be men. They are headless because there is no way in hell they want their family, friends, employers and colleagues to know about their cross dressing activities. Quite often its obvious (but not always obvious) that they are men because of the way they stand, sit, cross their legs, the way the clothing fits, the style of shoes they wear the awkwardness of them walking, the style of clothing they wear… Again I’m not trying to bash men who cross dress I’m merely pointing out that some deliberately mislead by acting as if they really are women or some actually believe that they are women. The reality is they are not women and it just needs to be clear… I’m a TGirl, or Sissy Boy or Cross Dresser or something like that. There are so many people who specifically look for such imagery so there should be no need for them to ever pretend by not identifying what they are (no picture required 🙂

In general women who show off casual feminine leggy dress styles have absolutely no reason to hide their faces UNLESS of course they do not wish to put their likeness out there. In your particular case you are dressing up in fetish type wear NOT casual dress wear so naturally you should want to conceal your identity because you do not need certain people in your world having access to this knowledge of you. We live in puritanical society full of sexually repressed adults displaying juvenile irrational behaviors. Its the same reason why there is NO WAY in hell that I would want the people in my world to know about my hosiery and ballbusting websites.

For the record I don’t think you are male and never thought it but I wanted to give you a perspective that is very male in nature. You may not have ever thought about this before in this way because why would you you don’t have the same hangups that some men have. What can i say I’m all about bridging the genders 🙂

Lara:

thx for the explanations Dv hour.
I don’t get this whole male/female thing.
Do men really think that way?

Definitely something to think about…

Many thanks to Dv hour (I love his blog) and Lara!

14 thoughts on “How to choose a good fetish avatar”

  1. Okay, ShinyLara was born male (or maybe transgender). Her pictures clearly display that (hand, waist etc.). And so what? She is maybe feeling femine now and lives that feeling online and in real live eventually. Her pictures are very beautifully and should be enjoyed. And I must admit I don’t get it what DV hour is writing about. I don’t care about the gender thing.

  2. J* ” wrote:

    ShinyLara was born male

    This is the impression I got too.

    J* ” wrote:

    I don’t care about the gender thing.

    Yes, me too. But he’s talking about “the majority” who begin the online conversation with “are you male or female?”. And his idea is to attract visitors based only on the avatar.

  3. I came across this old blog posting via google (yes, I must confess that I googled myself 🙂 ).
    I was pretty suprised to see my pictures and g+ postings appear on this website.

    @Like Ra: I’m a bit disappointed that you didn’t ask for permission to use my pictures on this side (or at least inform me about it). Could you please remove them? I’m fine if you want to link them.

    Also I’d like to add some words to your discussion:
    I’m not a guy and I never was. I’m a woman and this guy or woman discussion really starts to annoy me.
    I had this discussion on serveral websites/forums and I’m getting tired of it.
    It really makes me sad that it seems to be not possible to post some images (and keep the privacy) without starting such suspicions.
    But as I said, I’m tired of this discussions so I will ignore such comments in the future. And I also won’t prove that I’m a woman by showing my face or doing some nude shots (yes some people really asked me that).

    @J* & Like Ra: I’m not talking about you as it seems that you don’t care about any gender related discussions. Just wanted to clear things up.

  4. Lara ” wrote:

    I’m a bit disappointed that you didn’t ask for permission to use my pictures on this side (or at least inform me about it).

    As far as I remember I posted in that thread, but I can’t find it anymore on Google+. The links to the main contributors and the owner were always in the post.

    Lara ” wrote:

    Could you please remove them?

    The reason I keep them on this site is that materials tend to disappear from Internet, especially if published on free sites like G+, FB, photobucket, etc (I personally lost quite a few on FB – two times, on Yahoo and photobucket). They just delete accounts or photos for no reasons. I like your photos and I do not want to lose them. So, if you do not mind I would like to keep them here and insert all possible links to the originals. If you do mind I will remove them with a great regret.

    Lara ” wrote:

    I’m fine if you want to link them.

    Please let me know the URL’s, I replace with hotlinks.

    Lara ” wrote:

    I’m not a guy and I never was. I’m a woman and this guy or woman discussion really starts to annoy me.

    OK, I did not know that. Usually women do not hide their faces when they are dressed in female clothing. But men do. Hence my assumption.

    Lara ” wrote:

    I’m not talking about you as it seems that you don’t care about any gender related discussions.

    Oh, absolutely! I absolutely do not care about the gender, nationality, religion, political views and sexual orientation of anybody. As long as they do not try to threaten me with that 🙂

  5. Like Ra ” wrote:

    As far as I remember I posted in that thread, but I can’t find it anymore on Google+. The links to the main contributors and the owner were always in the post.

    Really? Oh well I don’t remember that, but ok.
    I get the why behind this action and I can fully understand it. On the other hand, that is exactly the reason why I don’t want to have my pictures on other sites without my permission. If I don’t want a pic to be available anymore I can delete it on my sites/profiles but not on sources I do not know.

    Like Ra ” wrote:

    Please let me know the URL’s, I replace with hotlinks.

    You can keep them on your site. But it would be great to just link them.
    Well you could just link to the g+ pictures, right?

    Like Ra ” wrote:

    K, I did not know that. Usually women do not hide their faces when they are dressed in female clothing. But men do. Hence my assumption.

    Well if I would run a fashion blog only I would agree that my face could be shown without any problems.
    But as I’m running a blog which is more fetish related I don’t want this. I don’t want to be recognized by people I know in real life.
    I think this is typical desire for privacy and has nothing to do with my gender. I also haven’t seen any portrait pics of yourself either. Are you maybe a woman? 😉

    Hope you didn’t get my comments the wrong way.
    I’m just on edge because of this recurring discussion and wanted to make that point clear 🙂

  6. Plus, it’s only *polite* to refer to anyone dressed female as female, if that person wants to be called “he”, “him” etc, then they will say. Most take it as a *serious* insult when presenting as female to be referred to as male. For instance, I’m transsexual, have lived full time since 1998 when I was the second TS to transition in the Canadian Forces. Anyone referring to me as male gets an earful 😛 😉

  7. And as well it *is* proper etiquette and more (i.e. LEGAL) when posting images, to ask first. There is little that is “public domain”. Unless it specifically says, then it is not, and permission must be obtained prior to posting. Reviews are different, but what is posted here (and in other places) do not fall under the review guidelines. You can get yourself in serious legal problems posting an image, uploaded specifically, without consent. Always best to ASK first 😉

    I have no prob with anyone posting mine, just so long as they ASK first, give credit, and post a link to me.

  8. Vanessa, you are right, one should address anyone with the gender he (or she) represents, no matter what gender is hidden in the real person. In this case, quite obviously, it should always have been “she”. In other cases, especially when someone claims that his (I keep it male here, because most of them are) REAL gender is female, while there are good reasons to doubt, I think, it is fine to express doubts. But of course there is a big difference between doubt and knowledge. To me, the post by J* is very rude, because it almost pretends knowledge. Fortunately, it is so off, that it passes as a silly comment by someone who had nothing better to do.

  9. I forgot to mention, that I love these pictures, especially the two in the second line.

  10. Regardless, should always be as what the person presents. There is far too much myth about those who present to trick. Take sites like Facecrap etc away, because they only give you two choices, and if a CD/TV wants to select F there, that is not deception or trickery, just choosing what they think is best. Why? Because often even if a “part timer” they still do identify as female at least some way, and some of the time, and that profile is for that “persona”. Even with doubt, the best thing is to be polite.

    Me, as I said, live full time, heck I have tits lol, real ones too, from hormones. So everywhere I mark female (well of course except sites like FetLife where I can mark Mtf). Even though I still have “Mr Winky” I am not doing so to deceive, as my gender identity is female, I live as female, and really there has never been any “real male” inside of me.

    I don’t see J as being very rude, but I can say that Ra has been rude about it in the past (sorry Ra, but seen it, constantly referring to anyone T as HE…)

  11. Pretty interesting discussion 🙂
    I agree to Vanessa. It’s always polite to use the address which fits to the person, this means if it is a man who wants to be seen as a woman then I would always use “she” cause that’s what she wants to be seen.

    But to be honsest I’ve never thought much about any gender issues. I had this “are you a male or female?” discussions a few times and it’s just annoying. I don’t think much about it because I do what I like and if someone thinks I’m a guy, well so be it. I don’t care anymore.

  12. hello lara just wondering were i can buy those catsuits you wearing looks comfortable to wear ??

  13. I too would love to find a catsuit like that too. Close to the skin and that moves with you without pinching or binding. Maybe if the suit was made longer in the arms, legs and torso. Turtle neck of course. No footies or gloves. They can be added later.
    And to the lady in the pictures, you look great.

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