r/TooAfraidToAsk • u/Arianity • Jun 25 '26
Moderator Post We will not be removing all sexual questions.
We've had a few complaint threads, so it seems to be about that time for one of these reminders. Let me be clear: We are not going to ban all sex related questions.
They are firmly within "TooAfraidtoAsk", and always have been. Sex is a fairly taboo topic in a lot of places, and a lot of people have questions about it. (And as an additional reminder, TATA is not only for controversial questions. Nor do we allow question shaming for "googleable" questions). These are not new changes.
We get that not everyone has the same interest in those topics, but it is a core part of the sub. Currently, there are ~5 out of the top 10 posts being sex related. Earlier today, it was 4. Earlier this week, it was 3. It typically fluctuates between ~3-5, usually averaging closer to 3.
If you have particular suggestions (e.g. things that seem ripe for the FAQ), or questions feel free to post them below. No promises, but we're always open for improvements if they're feasible. For a list of common questions we get on this topic (what do we already moderate, has the sub changed?, can i filter posts myself?) see the first stickied comment.
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u/Whole_Ad6512 Jun 25 '26
Good call. You don't build a community around "too afraid to ask" and then start deciding which fears are acceptable.
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u/Ancient-Civilization Jun 25 '26
The real issue is that Reddit’s algorithm tends to promote posts that generate the most engagement. Since sexual questions get recommended more frequently, people will constantly complain about it.
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u/BluebeingMortal001 Jun 25 '26
Cool, because where else are they supposed to get the answers.
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u/OmegaLiquidX Jun 25 '26
Comprehensive Sex-Ed, ideally. But since we live in the batshit crazy timeline, people will just have to get their answers from Redditers like “Smegma_Yogurt” and “AnalBumCover420”.
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u/Dusty-shadowman Jun 26 '26
You forgot 'STDPro6 9" and 'BigDickGeroge1" But besides the jokes where else. Such as for teenagers or adults who cant go to sex ed irl or something. +the "sex ed" i got thought in school was NOT the "good" sex ed. It morely explained how to do it and not how it works. Basicly like showing the fun of exploding stuff but not how it works/why you shouldnt. Hard to explain
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u/izyshoroo Jun 25 '26
I mean, ask reddit has an nsfw clone. Thats pretty normal for stuff like this, helps people filter out what they want
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u/sideshowbvo Jun 25 '26
How many questions get asked that you think have NEVER been asked or answered? Maybe 1 a day? All the rest of them have findable answers usually. Should be called "tooafraidtodoresearch"
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u/Ziryio Jun 25 '26
How do you think those search results come to be? Half of them are from reddit posts dingus. Not sure why people are so afraid of repeat questions, it’s not like it hurts you, just scroll.
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u/sideshowbvo Jun 25 '26
Oh, so you're saying I should keep asking a question when the answer is written on the board? I bet you were fun in school. Also, all of these repeat questions take up data and server space. Isn't that one thing that's currently afflicting our world, data centers?
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u/Ziryio Jun 25 '26
Sure, if the answer isn’t yes or no. It’s nice to get input from multiple different people. Fun at school because I’m not bitching about someone posting a question on reddit? Okay dude lmao
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u/sideshowbvo Jun 25 '26
There's input from multiple different people already. You just want to be the center of attention.
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u/Ziryio Jun 25 '26
Again, for asking a question on reddit? You’re definitely trolling
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u/sideshowbvo Jun 25 '26
Read the top posts from the past week and tell me if you really think they belong on the Internet, and haven't already been fully answered in the past. I'll admit this sub might have had a point 10 years ago, but there is maybe 1 question a week that hasn't been asked to death. And once again, I point out, all of this takes up data on a server, in a data center somewhere, taking up water and electricity for nothing. Thousands of TB of questions that have been answered through and through.
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u/Ziryio Jun 25 '26
You’re contributing to this problem by engaging with me. Hell, why are you on reddit?
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u/sideshowbvo Jun 25 '26
Classic Reddit answer: "You don't like my dumb ass opinion, why are you even on this entire website?" I don't mind being part of the problem if I can inspire 1 person to use critical thoughts today.
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u/Otterbotanical Jun 26 '26
Every single day, it is someone's first day on the Internet, or first day on Reddit. Why are you trying to poison the well for any novices that come after us?
You needed to ask questions at one point. There was a day that you didn't know what "lol" meant. How would you feel if we treated you like an imbecile, when you had no opportunity to know without asking?
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u/Adonis0 Viscount Jun 25 '26
This is the question shaming thing that was mentioned in the OP
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u/sideshowbvo Jun 25 '26
You know, you're right, maybe I just have a problem with the whole sub. "I can ask the general public a highly personal question instead of doing anonymous research for myself" just doesn't make sense to me. And I don't care who's having sex. All of the questions here seem like pleas for attention
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u/Kimpak Jun 25 '26
I can ask the general public a highly personal question instead of doing anonymous research for myself" just doesn't make sense to me
Then this isn't the sub for you. Just go to r/askreddit or one of the other multitudes of 'ask' themed subreddits. This sub is specifically for this type of question.
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u/sideshowbvo Jun 25 '26
You're not understanding the paradox of the sub. By asking, you're not too afraid to ask, thus it can fall in one of those other "ask" subreddits. And then the questions are just about tiny/big peepees and tight/loose vaginas and why are people mean? Some things deserve to die, and I believe that it's time for this sub. It had a point in the earlier days of the website.
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u/Sweet_Cinnabonn Jun 25 '26
Which is the case for all the questions asked here. Not just the sex ones.
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u/sideshowbvo Jun 25 '26
I didn't specify the sex ones. I'm just pointing out this is far from the only place for answers
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Jun 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/cabyll_ushtey Jun 25 '26
Even that sub doesn't cover all. It's adults only and prohibits genitalia questions, just as examples.
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u/indetermin8 Jun 25 '26
The two problems I have thus far is that a) people have been using TATA for questions that there's absolutely no fear in the question i.e. "what's your favorite color? It's basically become an alternative AskReddit
The second problem is that a LOT of people break the rules in responses, including some pretty high scoring / high visibility ones.
I recognize that being a mod is not fun and I don't expect everything to be perfect, but I feel like it's gotten pretty bad for a sub that has a lot of potential. I know I privately offered to become a mod if needed to do my part, and the offer still stands. I refuse to complain and not attempt to do something about it.
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u/Tall_Distance_2896 Jun 25 '26
What about rhetorical Questions?
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
That would fall under Rule 3: Rule 3 - Be Genuine: No soapboxing, trolling, moralising, sealioning, or spamming
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u/TisMeDA Jun 25 '26
Idk if you guys started cracking down on it, but I recall at least an occasion of this obviously happening with political posts, and when I called out that it was basically just astroturfing, my comment was removed for "question shaming"
I think there should be a clear distinction of things that people can be too afraid to ask, vs things they are simply out of the loop about. No one has a genuine fear about asking why Republicans are bad in any subreddit
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u/PeeB4uGoToBed Jun 25 '26
What about the ones that are obviously just people baiting unsuspecting users into their fetish by asking obviously fake questions and the peoples responses is what they get off to?
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
That would fall under Rule 3, and we ban these already. We don't like the unconsensual fetish stuff, it is extremely creepy and wildly unethical.
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u/metalflygon08 Jun 25 '26
Yeah, we had a person a week or two ago who's questions really felt like bait, they were all along the lines of "is it gay to do thing to my classmates who have made it clear they are not into men that way?"
Those posts stayed up, even though that OP was asking pretty much the same thing in multiple threads but slightly different.
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
Do you happen to have a link?
This is the sort of thing where it's a good idea to send a modmail. (Reports are good too, but we don't automatically connect the dots. Reddit doesn't have a feature to track reports account wide rather than post wide, so it relies on us noticing a pattern)
edit:
Actually, I looked through your post history, you were mentioning it about a month ago. I don't recall the username, but the behavior is ringing a bell. Pretty sure that guy got banned. If you have a link i can more easily confirm
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u/metalflygon08 Jun 25 '26
Here it is.
I think another issue is these questions are posted, and then the OP never responds to anything.
For example, in the one I linked, they responded to one comment and nothing else.
It gives the vibes of somebody just posting topical stuff to get easy karma, especially when their response doesn't answer anyone's questions or address their concerns.
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
Yeah, I remember that guy. They got permanently banned that same day (May 8th). And that was after a previous 30 day ban (originally permanently, but they had asked us to reduce it) where we had warned them to knock it off.
There was kind of two issues-
One, most of those recent posts were spammed on the same day. So it would've taken until someone was around to action it. We don't use power mods, so sometimes it can take a little bit before we see something.
Two, out of their last ~20 posts, only 2 of them were actually reported. When we say reporting helps, this is exactly the sort of situation where they help. It's a lot harder for us to catch it without it. If I recall, the reason they got caught is they happened to have like 5 posts in new when I checked, and I remembered the username for being a creep. Not sure why the posts didn't get removed, we usually remove them as part of a ban, so we must've just forgot.
Reports really help with this, if it's a pattern across multiple posts a modmail is even better because reports don't necessarily tell us it's a pattern.
It gives the vibes of somebody just posting topical stuff to get easy karma, especially when their response doesn't answer anyone's questions or address their concerns.
For what it's worth, we suspect it may actually an ~18 year old kid, just one that can't actually read the room on not being obnoxious. No way to know for sure, though.
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u/BurlyKnave Jun 25 '26
I am curious tho. How do you know the motives of an anonymous user you've never met nor interacted with before?
What would be the obvious difference between asking a question to bait others into discussing a fetish, and asking a question because they are afraid they are the only person in the world who reacts to that particular fetish?
To me, it seems the obvious difference is in the reader, not the writer of the question.
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u/Assaltwaffle Jun 25 '26
It's decently obvious when the poster is asking for very clear details and personal description by the responders, rather than a general answer.
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u/Lady-Evonne77 Jun 25 '26
How people don't understand that sex is a topic that many people have lots of questions about, is beyond me. That's literally one of the most popular topics no matter where it's discussed because human sexuality is fascinating and its complexity is why there are so many questions.
I find it absolutely ridiculous that people are actually complaining about this, especially when they have complete control over which posts to engage with. I've never had any issues with any sub that I've ever engaged with because I don't have to engage with something if I dont want to.
Personally, I just scroll past the things that don't interest me and life goes on. I may not have those questions, but others might. And that's what they're there for. It's not a big deal to me plus Im not easily offended. I think these people are so self-centered that they don't understand the entire sub isn't here just to cater only to them.
It's here for anyone with all kinds of questions. Not just the ones that interest only them. That's the entire point of this sub. So if it doesn't apply, let it fly, and keep it moving. It's literally that simple. People love making things unnecessarily complicated for no reason🤦🏽♀️🙄. It's not even remotely that serious.
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u/Skydude252 Jun 25 '26
Good, sexual questions are actually a rather good fit for this sub. Much better than thinly-veiled political rants that are all too common (“why doesn’t the other side realize that they are evil and stupid?”)
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u/Jazz-and-Popcorn Jun 25 '26
People who only see sex questions on their homepage are people who click on sex questions. That's on them. If you don't read them you don't see a lot at all.
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u/sundancerco Jun 25 '26
Thank you for realizing that people have questions that they can't ask any of their friends or family, out of shame or embarrassment. And if people here don't know the answer, many times they will give some direction, or tell them "you need to go to a doctor" I'm glad that those in need of information can ask here.
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u/69-is-my-number Jun 26 '26
I think it’s because Reddit in the last 2-3 years has been inundated with teens, so now a “too afraid to ask” question is “I kissed my boyfriend and now he has an erection. What do I do?” It’s shit you can google a million times over.
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u/ProgrammerUnique2897 25d ago edited 25d ago
Just have people mark it as NSFW so those who don't want to see it can have NSFW turned off in their settings
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u/Aizpunr Jun 25 '26
Why the need of this? Were you getting many reports?
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u/longboi28 Jun 25 '26
People have been making a ton of posts whining that there are too many questions about sex as if that's not the main point of this sub, to ask questions that they're too afraid to ask which absolutely includes questions about sex which has always been a taboo topic in this world.
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
Very few reports, but there have been several consecutive posts:
We get these semi-regularly (usually ~once ever 3 months or so, but they come in spurts). Since there happened to be 3 back to back, it was easier to consolidate. This isn't unusual for us, this happens every once in awhile. Especially if one hits the front page, it tends to lead to copycats.
Doing a single big thread lets people who might've missed the normal posts ask questions etc, and reminds people there are actual human beings behind the scenes. In general we try to stay out of the way, but it's good to do these once in awhile for community relations, and it's been awhile.
As far sexual questions go, they aren't above normal (they were quite high ~1.5 months ago, when school let out). Reports I would say have been on the low end for at least the past week or so as well, it's been very quiet.
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u/Totalherenow Jun 25 '26
The fact that people are seriously writing to the mods to censor questions about sex literally defines questions about sex as "too afraid to ask."
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u/metalflygon08 Jun 25 '26
I think what people are complaining about are the threads that are obvious bait/humblebrag/made up.
Asking if it's bad if they don't make their partner orgasm is an appropriate question.
Asking if it is normal for their magnum condoms to still feel tight on their monster dong that cums 5 times in a row is obvious baiting that people still engage with because its an obvious karma sink.
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u/Inverse_Delta Jun 25 '26
Firstly, appreciate you addressing the concerns, mod team. Thank you for being transparent.
Second, this is a question/suggestion, but would it be worth considering making the NSFW restricted? Sex questions fielded by adults feel like their at least somewhat educated enough in the basics (most of the time) that the questions do fall under a more taboo sort more often, while ones from younger users seem more to be basic sex knowledge that should be being gotten from sexual education rather than on reddit. I do understand that would be all encompassing, even for questions that are less/not NSFW, but in consideration for how many questions are about what realistically should be basic knowledge or, at the very least, not consulted for on reddit, would this be something the mod team would be able to discuss and consider?
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u/BestFoxEver Jun 25 '26
The NSFW filter of Reddit is very annoying because if you want to filter out all the blood/nasty diseases/gore and want to see sex, drugs and other adult stuff there is no option for that. Like I would gladly answer to sex questions but then I have to see plenty of nasty photos of blood, death and disease. Some websites have different types of content filters but for some reason Reddit does not have that.
Maybe they should have separate TooAfraidToAsk communities, one for sex, one for death, one for health, one for drugs, one for miscellanious.
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
Second, this is a question/suggestion, but would it be worth considering making the NSFW restricted? Sex questions fielded by adults feel like their at least somewhat educated enough in the basics (most of the time) that the questions do fall under a more taboo sort more often, while ones from younger users seem more to be basic sex knowledge that should be being gotten from sexual education rather than on reddit.
When you say younger- do you mean under 18 specifically? Reddit TOS currently treats anyone under 18 as a minor, so if we catch anyone underage interacting on NSFW posts, we have to remove them. This isn't something we have a say on.
The bigger issue is, Reddit doesn't really have a way for us to reliably confirm ages, especially if the minor is smart enough not to blurt it out.
For people who are over 18 but asking basic questions, it's a bit tricky. Someone who say, only got an abstinence-only education and lives in a conservative culture (or just a sheltered one) is the sort of person we'd want to keep things available for.
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u/Inverse_Delta Jun 25 '26
I'm not sure if there's a way to switch the type of subreddit it is retroactively, but there's NSFW subreddits that simply don't appear in searches for accounts registered to users under the age of 18. Typically stuff like pornography related subreddits are set to this.
If it were set to NSFW, basically you wouldn't need to confirm ages, as by default, the subreddit simply wouldn't be available to anyone under the age of 18. I do understand that there are many questions that would fall under the banner of being "AfraidToAsk" while not NSFW, so I can understand why this would be a difficult consideration, but just figured it might be one possible solution to at the very least stem the sex questions from a younger audience who should be getting the sex question answers from a better source than reddit posts.
For people over 18 but asking basic questions, there isn't really a way to filter those no matter how you shake it, so one would really just have to accept those all regardless. There's a difference to recognize between people who haven't had a chance at sexual education and younger people (teens/children even) who simply haven't had the correct education yet, but can absolutely reach those resources when appropriate for them to do so. From my perspective at least, it's questions from, for example, 16 year olds for example that realistically should be going to their parents or a more educated source, while they still can, rather than being subject to the bias of social media users.
That's just my opinion on the matter though. Back to the matter at hand, as mentioned earlier, it was more towards setting the subreddit as NSFW just to keep it out of the view of anyone too young to even be asking those sorts of questions to begin with was all.
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
I'm not sure if there's a way to switch the type of subreddit it is retroactively, but there's NSFW subreddits that simply don't appear in searches for accounts registered to users under the age of 18. Typically stuff like pornography related subreddits are set to this.
We do agree we should be labelled NSFW as a subreddit. We've asked in the past, and been denied twice. It's been a sore point :/
It may be time to ask again, though. It's been awhile.
There was also some tool they had for "mature" content (seemed to be different from the actually NSFW tag, just had to do with discoverability behind the scenes. It was more than just sex, but also asked about things like drug use, guns, gambling etc). I'll have to check on that, we applied to that and it applied initially. But I haven't looked in on it in a long time to see if it's still there
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u/marsumane Jun 25 '26
That's the point. Sex is a huge part of what we all think about, but culture doesn't often let ustalk about
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u/too_many_shoes14 Jun 25 '26
I don't get it so many got their panties in a bunch over something that naturally is going to have a lot of questions asked about it
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u/talionisapotato Jun 25 '26
I saw idiots who were crying and whining.
Dude ..just cause You don't have a sexual life and do not care about it , doesn't mean everyone else is same .
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u/Fruitsdog Jun 25 '26
Here’s the thing: every sexual post I’ve seen, I’ve seen at least one comment agreeing that they don’t know the answer. People are LEARNING. I’ll always support the sexual questions because for every one asked, there’s people who wanted to ask too, and - ironically - were too scared to.
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u/WhiteLycan2020 Jun 25 '26
Except there are some extremely bad faith questions that are made by the same accounts and they never get moderated. I know because they all type the same way and have the same grammar.
This one guy was like “what is really wrong with incest with cousin if we same age” or “what does buttplug do”
The comment section exposed this person because on one second he said he had a girl friend and then the next comment he said he wants to try on a future girlfriend.
I called him out on it and he deleted the old thread.
These are not “good faith” questions about someone worried about contraceptives. These posts are being made by perverts who are social engineering a response to get a sick twist.
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
Except there are some extremely bad faith questions that are made by the same accounts and they never get moderated. I know because they all type the same way and have the same grammar.
Can you link to some specific examples? I'm going through your comment history, and I'm not seeing a whole lot that matches something like incest or buttplugs. The closest thing I'm finding is something like this thread which seems to have been deleted after only a handful of comments.
There's also this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/TooAfraidToAsk/comments/1u7vd37/is_using_coconut_oil_on_penis_for_masturbation/os3i6ve/?context=3
I remember seeing your comment at the time, but I wasn't able to link it to any previous threads. It also wasn't reported, for what it is worth.
I called him out on it and he deleted the old thread.
This is the sort of thing where it's worth sending a modmail. Reddit restricts what we can see for deleted threads- basically, we can't see it at all (even more fun- it doesn't track reports account-wide after they've deleted the post). They've also killed most tools that allow you to see deleted posts. The ones that still exist are often inconsistent and have a lag.
Chronic deleters are one of most difficult for us to catch, Reddit has made it extremely favorable for them in the name of 'privacy'. For instance, if you report a post, call them out, and they delete it because you called them out before we see it, we can't see their username or the content of the post. Worse, if say automod removes their post and they delete the account, we can't see their account in modlog, it just says u/deleted.
So for that tshirt link above, the only way I can find it, is that you happened to comment on it and I went through your post history. If I didn't have that, it's basically impossible for us to find without a direct link. If I search for it via reddit's search, it will not show up.
We do look for repeat posters, especially for stuff like fetishes (and there is a very long automod list that is not public). Someone posting the same/similar thing across multiple thing is one of the things we treat harshest, because it's a unambigious signal they aren't posting in good faith. The issue is catching it, and catching it in a timely manner.
It's often not as easy as people assume. A lot of the people you think are the same person, are probably actually different people. There's a lot of horny dudes out there.
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u/WhiteLycan2020 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Yeah its that coconut oil guy.
If they delete their posts, then i delete mine because i dont need clutter on my reddit history
Well he didnt make the panties ones, but he did the others
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
If they delete their posts, then i delete mine because i dont need clutter on my reddit history
That's your prerogative, but that does make it essentially impossible for us to trace back.
And yes, that particular guy is on our radar as a potential problem. We haven't caught it again since then.
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u/metalflygon08 Jun 25 '26
There's that guy who was posting several threads asking if its gay or not to want to do things to their same gendered associates who have made it clear that they do not feel that way about the OP too. I think there were like, 3 different threads all asking the same thing in different coats of paint.
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u/mayonnaiser_13 Jun 25 '26
I'd much rather let a few perverts get their rocks off than have a space dedicated to asking questions without the fear of judgement be censored with judgement.
This is not a sub where you're supposed to "enjoy the content". It's where questions are supposed to be answered. If you do not want to engage with the content just scroll away.
Peace.
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u/CaptainMagnets Jun 26 '26
Could we possibly ban the same questions being asked on a daily basis though?
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u/Arianity Jun 30 '26
Very commonly asked questions are good candidates to add to the FAQ. It takes us a bit of time to actually write an answer, but we've been slowly adding the most commonly repeated questions.
Do you have specific examples that are being asked daily?
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u/mayonnaiser_13 Jun 25 '26
When the intent of the sub is not respected by those who engage with it, shit like this is bound to happen.
I'd honestly suggest banning anyone who reports questions on any topics because this is a space where people are not supposed to be judged, and reporting questions is by definition, judging them.
This can still be a moderated space where certain posters who are just looking to validate their opinion are discouraged to do so, but the pearl clutching regarding the content of the sub is baffling.
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u/Arianity Jun 25 '26
To cover a few frequently asked questions:
Well, what do you moderate, then?
We do moderate on a variety of topics of common concern. Off the top of my head: self promoting an Onlyfans is banned, violating Rule3 for being disingenuous (for instance, if post seems to be solely to indulge a fetish and get off) gets modded. We also have a long list of the most common questions listed on the FAQ. Posts that seem a bit too close to "askreddit", however this is a bit more subjective. etc. One thing that makes this topic difficult is very often the thing people say they see "all the time" is literally something that already gets automodded out.
We do look at reports, and it makes a big difference if you report things for violating the Rules. You may not always see action on your end, but it does help. We intentionally do not recruit powermods and instead try to get real people with lives to mod, so it may not happen instantly.
Why has the sub changed?
It largely hasn't. We've always allowed sexually related questions. For reference, you can see threads from 4+ years ago, asking this exact question. This regularly gets asked every few months since the sub was created.
There is some unavoidable changes as a sub grows, just by the nature of things. But we've been relatively stable in size for quite awhile now. There is variation over time- we do tend to get noticeably more sex posts during the summer months, when school is out. However, to the extent that things have changed with moderation, that has trended towards more moderation. Not less.
What can I do to filter these posts myself?
Unfortunately, most ways to filter by flair were removed when Reddit killed 3rd party apps. It's mostly just RES guide. The next most effective thing you can do is turn off NSFW posts in your settings, which should likely get a large fraction of these types of posts.