A cloaca is a single hole that contains the anus and genitals, not a penis. It's just a hole most of the time. There are times when this isn't the case, such as with alligators and ostriches, those weirdos.

A genital slit is where only the genitals hide, while the anus is separate and visible. Like a dolphin.

If a male character suddenly has a single hole visible, and is either a bird or reptile, (which have regular hole-type cloacas like 95% of the time), don't assume it's a female and improperly tag an image as rule 63 or whatever; just assume it's trying to be a bit more anatomically correct.

I always see these tags being used improperly and it's super annoying. D:

kthx

but cloaca could be a single hole that contains penis and anus. also read about the tag what you see rule. if character looks like its cuntboy, it gets cuntboy tag and if character looks like female, it gets female tag.

also heres link to the tag what you see rule

Mutisija said:
also heres link to the tag what you see rule

If the character in question also has breasts, go ahead and tag it female. If I see a known male bird/lizard character with a single hole, I'm seeing it's a cloaca because I educated myself on the matter. Simply put, you can't act like a character is female because the art is more anatomically correct than other art.

Flammie said:
A genital slit is where only the genitals hide, while the anus is separate and visible. Like a dolphin.

That's not entirely true. Male dolphins have a genital slit which houses the penis, and a separate slit where the anus is located, but a female dolphins genital slit is longer, and inside is found both the anus and the vagina (they are separate, but both located within the same slit).

I don't know about other species, but the point is, a genital slit is not necessarily a structure which only includes the genitalia, and the anus is not necessarily separate or visible.

The question about TWYS versus anatomical correctness is an interesting one, and I don't think we have a clean solution to it right now.

Mutisija said:
...but cloaca could be a single hole that contains penis and anus.

Close, and we are just talking semantics, here.

It is my understanding that a cloaca is an anus, as well as housing the urethra (so both urine and fecal matter may pass), that may also contain a penis for reproduction purposes (like 'gators, as mentioned).

As such, I think one of Flammie's concerns is that images should not be tagged with both cloaca and anus, as the cloaca is the anus for the animal in question.

Images double-tagged as such should really have cloaca + genital_slit tags, regardless of gender (may or may not have a penis showing). I see this done often with dragon images.

Flammie said:
If the character in question also has breasts, go ahead and tag it female. If I see a known male bird/lizard character with a single hole, I'm seeing it's a cloaca because I educated myself on the matter. Simply put, you can't act like a character is female because the art is more anatomically correct than other art.

It's interesting that you say that, considering birds do not have breasts.

A female bird without breasts is more anatomically correct than a female bird with breasts. So really you are arguing that you can act like a character is female if it is less anatomically accurate?

That's one of the reasons this is a somewhat sticky issue to resolve.

Edit: Also, a cloaca is not an anus. It serves some of same functions as an anus, but it is not one. An anus is a specific structure, distinct from a cloaca. By analogy, a rocking chair and a couch are both places to sit, and most may be more familiar with couches, but that doesn't make a rocking chair a couch.

Clawdragons said:
That's not entirely true. Male dolphins have a genital slit which houses the penis, and a separate slit where the anus is located, but a female dolphins genital slit is longer, and inside is found both the anus and the vagina (they are separate, but both located within the same slit).

I don't know about other species, but the point is, a genital slit is not necessarily a structure which only includes the genitalia, and the anus is not necessarily separate or visible.

The question about TWYS versus anatomical correctness is an interesting one, and I don't think we have a clean solution to it right now.

Sorry, I didn't specify I was only talking about males.

Clawdragons said:
It's interesting that you say that, considering birds do not have breasts.

A female bird without breasts is more anatomically correct than a female bird with breasts. So really you are arguing that you can act like a character is female if it is less anatomically accurate?

That's one of the reasons this is a somewhat sticky issue to resolve.

Edit: Also, a cloaca is not an anus. It serves some of same functions as an anus, but it is not one. An anus is a specific structure, distinct from a cloaca. By analogy, a rocking chair and a couch are both places to sit, and most may be more familiar with couches, but that doesn't make a rocking chair a couch.

Having breasts is a tell-tale sign the character is supposed to be female, where a cloaca is an ambiguous feature. If the male character suddenly has breasts and a hole, then yes, go ahead and call it female. EDIT: I know the cloaca functions as an anus. I typed it out like that so people who didn't know any better could look at an image and decide what they should tag it as easier. "Oh, two holes, not a cloaca"

Anatomically correct male avians and reptiles tend to get tagged as cuntboy or female, which I've always found a bit annoying myself. Cloaca is not a pussy, defaulting those to cuntboy doesn't make much sense to me.

Genjar said:
Anatomically correct male avians and reptiles tend to get tagged as cuntboy or female, which I've always found a bit annoying myself. Cloaca is not a pussy, defaulting those to cuntboy doesn't make much sense to me.

Haha, thank you.

Genjar said:
Anatomically correct male avians and reptiles tend to get tagged as cuntboy or female, which I've always found a bit annoying myself. Cloaca is not a pussy, defaulting those to cuntboy doesn't make much sense to me.

Well, with female alligators (and many avians), the cloaca is the pussy, essentially (insofar as it is the receptacle for semen during reproduction).

As such, could be tagged as male or female, but should never be tagged cuntboy (or pussy for that matter, unless highly anthrofied, and possessing both an anus + pussy or genital_slit).

(a male 'gator that has had penectomy surgery would still have a cloaca, and not a pussy).

aurel said:
post #596209

So tribadism can be looked at as mimicking avian copulation 8)

I love you, e621, for the myriad of things you teach me!

Sharp_Coyote said:
Well, with female alligators, the cloaca is the pussy, essentially (as it is the receptacle for semen during reproduction).

As such, could be tagged as male or female, but should never be tagged cuntboy (or pussy for that matter, unless highly anthrofied, and possessing both an anus + pussy or genital_slit).

(a male 'gator that has had penectomy surgery would still have a cloaca, and not a pussy).

So really, whether you tag it "male" or "female" in most cases depends on if you know the character itself, or if it's very anthrofied and clearly a genderbent version of that character, yes. I made this post because of a comment here:
https://e621.net/post/show/715581/

lol

Sharp_Coyote said:
So tribadism can be looked at as mimicking avian copulation 8)

I love you, e621, for the myriad of things you teach me!

I just learned what that meant upon clicking it.
The whole page was blacklisted. lolol
I agree, though.

Flammie said:
Having breasts is a tell-tale sign the character is supposed to be female, where a cloaca is an ambiguous feature. If the male character suddenly has breasts and a hole, then yes, go ahead and call it female. EDIT: I know the cloaca functions as an anus. I typed it out like that so people who didn't know any better could look at an image and decide what they should tag it as easier. "Oh, two holes, not a cloaca"

Sorry, the edit was actually directed at Sharp Coyote. I could have made that more clear. I apologize.

aurel said:
post #715588
tags? male... mkay

With no visible anus, or breasts, or any other sex-specific features, I'd probably tag it as cloaca + ambiguous_gender to be safe.

The fact that the artist has drawn what looks to be pussy_juice muddies the issue (Flammie has a novel, yet likely-to-be-removed solution of calling it cloaca_juice).

At face value, and knowing nothing of avian reproduction, TWYS would indicate that this is indeed a pussy. Knowing a bit (more, after today) about avian genitalia, I would say that anyone quoting TWYS as a reason to tag this image with pussy needs to do a quick bit of research, and then stop arguing.

Clawdragons said:
By analogy, a rocking chair and a couch are both places to sit ...

... and a cloaca and an anus are both places to shit.

(Sorry. Couldn't resist the dirty rhyme).

Sharp_Coyote said:
With no visible anus, or breasts, or any other sex-specific features, I'd probably tag it as cloaca + ambiguous_gender to be safe.

The fact that the artist has drawn what looks to be pussy_juice muddies the issue (Flammie has a novel, yet likely-to-be-removed solution of calling it cloaca_juice).

At face value, and knowing nothing of avian reproduction, TWYS would indicate that this is indeed a pussy. Knowing a bit (more, after today) about avian genitalia, I would say that anyone quoting TWYS as a reason to tag this image with pussy needs to do a quick bit of research, and then stop arguing.

My point exactly.

Sharp_Coyote said:
With no visible anus, or breasts, or any other sex-specific features, I'd probably tag it as cloaca + ambiguous_gender to be safe.

The fact that the artist has drawn what looks to be pussy_juice muddies the issue (Flammie has a novel, yet likely-to-be-removed solution of calling it cloaca_juice).

At face value, and knowing nothing of avian reproduction, TWYS would indicate that this is indeed a pussy. Knowing a bit (more, after today) about avian genitalia, I would say that anyone quoting TWYS as a reason to tag this image with pussy needs to do a quick bit of research, and then stop arguing.

Juices points to female when it comes to reptiles.

Sharp_Coyote said:
... The fact that the artist has drawn what looks to be pussy_juice muddies the issue.

Sorrowless said:
Juices points to female when it comes to reptiles.

Could be cum, cum is only as white as titanium dioxide and as thick as syrup in the fantasy world.

Chessax said:
Could be cum, cum is only as white as titanium dioxide and as thick as syrup in the fantasy world.

Maybe if a cock were present. This definitely a situation where we'd tag pussy_juice. Note the pants-on-head retarded "cloaca_juice" tag.

Someone knew they were full of shit and just plain didn't give a fuck.

Beanjam said:
Maybe if a cock were present. This definitely a situation where we'd tag pussy_juice. Note the pants-on-head retarded "cloaca_juice" tag.

Someone knew they were full of shit and just plain didn't give a fuck.

>needs a penis present for cum to be present
You are aware males transmit sperm through semen, and that males can have cloacas right

Are you braindead? Lol. You must not enjoy reading very much, since you apparently failed to read 90% of the posts here or do any research on the matter before posting.

Flammie said:
>needs a penis present for cum to be present
You are aware males transmit sperm through semen, and that males can have cloacas right

Are you braindead? Lol. You must not enjoy reading very much, since you apparently failed to read 90% of the posts here or do any research on the matter before posting.

I'm also aware that males have a phallus through which the semen travels, as are you. You're the one who made up the cloaca_juice tag. The only one who agrees with you is agreeing because it's a bird. But it's not a bird. It's a half-bird half-human and if you cut all the Falco bits out of the picture, anyone looking at it would say that that's a pussy.

Beanjam said:
I'm also aware that males have a phallus through which the semen travels, as are you. You're the one who made up the cloaca_juice tag. The only one who agrees with you is agreeing because it's a bird. But it's not a bird. It's a half-bird half-human and if you cut all the Falco bits out of the picture, anyone looking at it would say that that's a pussy.

"If you changed the character to some completely ambiguous object and left that slit there people would call it a vagina"

"Falco is an anthro bird so you can't give him bird genitalia"

Holy shit these are some genius arguments

Beanjam said:
I'm also aware that males have a phallus through which the semen travels, as are you. You're the one who made up the cloaca_juice tag. The only one who agrees with you is agreeing because it's a bird. But it's not a bird. It's a half-bird half-human and if you cut all the Falco bits out of the picture, anyone looking at it would say that that's a pussy.

First of all they are both human (unless they're some really advanced AI). Secondly I agree with them and I don't like cloacas at all. And thirdly, that argument is more or less null in the real animal vs anthropomorph setting we're discussing.

Chessax said:
First of all they are both human (unless they're some really advanced AI). Secondly I agree with them and I don't like cloacas at all. And thirdly, that argument is more or less null in the real animal vs anthropomorph setting we're discussing.

Sorry, but your post is really unspecific about 3 different points which makes ot confusing.
Who's both human? I thought we were discussing Falco, a fictional space bird.
You said you agree with "them" but I don't know who you're referring to, and I assume "that argument" refers to beanjam's last sentence.

Politely asking you to elaborate a little bit

I see no problem with tagging them ambiguous_gender as long as:

• The same character isn't tagged with pussy/penis
• The slit/cloaca doesn't actually look like a pussy
• There are no secondary characteristics to fall back on (physical build, beard, breasts, etc.)

Most of these would override real anatomical technicalities simply because it is so uncommon to find them in art (even with ferals).

Likewise I think the following should hold true:

For genital_slit

• Should not be tagged with pussy or cloaca (except possibly when it is separate, but those are usually tagged with anus for convenience)
• May be ambiguous_gender if there is no penis visible, but if given masculine characteristics it may be tagged with male.
• Anus may or may not be present (it isn't always going to be obvious anyways)

For cloaca

• Should not be tagged with pussy , anus, or genital_slit
• May have an intrormittent organ present, which for convenience we tag with penis
• May have urine/feces coming out of the same hole, because that's really what it does.

For cuntboy

• If it looks like a pussy, tag it as a pussy (and cuntboy/female as appropriate). Avians, scalies, dragons, etc. still have to follow this guideline regardless of real-life anatomical differences.
• If it's more ambiguous, for tagging purposes assume it's a pussy or notify an admin if you aren't sure.

As for cloaca_juice, I'm not against using the tag but I don't think it will get much use. I do believe that if we are going to start using a tag like that, it shouldn't be just "the bird version of pussy_juice". If it looks like a pussy it still gets pussy_juice (in other words, no cloaca_juice + pussy).

Also, if the pussy/cloaca is obscured in a way that you can't see which one it is, assume it's a pussy and tag with pussy_juice. This is only meant to keep tagging consistent with how it is treated elsewhere.

Flammie said:
"If you changed the character to some completely ambiguous object and left that slit there people would call it a vagina"

Holy shit these are some genius arguments

I'm not sure what your point is; this is more/less how pussy is tagged here. We're biased towards mammalian anatomy because we are human and that is what is going to be the most familiar to us (doubly so because it is actually what the majority of artists draw).

We tag based on these assumptions because it helps to keep tagging consistent, and reduces conflict/confusion. In ambiguous cases we will usually default to human anatomy, both for simplicity and because we would rather that then users believing that they need to hunt down and study obscure text/photos in order to contribute here.

Flammie said:
Are you braindead? Lol.

This comment is unnecessary. Please keep the discussion here civil and on-topic.

Flammie said:
Sorry, but your post is really unspecific about 3 different points which makes ot confusing.
Who's both human? I thought we were discussing Falco, a fictional space bird.
You said you agree with "them" but I don't know who you're referring to, and I assume "that argument" refers to beanjam's last sentence.

Politely asking you to elaborate a little bit

Of course I'll elaborate. Well now... Rereading Beanjam's post I have no idea how I interpreted it, probably should get off the computer, hehe. So, the human part we could probably skip completely, and I mostly disagreed with what Beanjam argued.

However, instead of agreeing with anyone I'll say what I think (again):
Characters do not need an (external) penis to be male if it is apparent that the real life counterpart would be male. And with sexual dimorphism it's sometimes blatantly obvious. This would be the fact of many birds and reptiles which are often tagged as female or cuntboy anyway. But someone tagging e.g. a canine as female when it possesses a cloaca is probably something that one has to forgive since.

However I'm not saying that everything that is male looking but has what could be a cloaca should be tagged as male, it must actually be a cloaca and not just a badly drawn pussy. After all, most birds and reptiles on here do not possess anatomically correct genitalia with respect to real life. One can't assume that just because a rooster hasn't got a penis that it's still male.

Edit: I like parasprite's arguing much more than my own *sobs in corner*

parasprite said:

Also, if the pussy/cloaca is obscured in a way that you can't see which one it is, assume it's a pussy and tag with pussy_juice. This is only meant to keep tagging consistent with how it is treated elsewhere.

If the character is a known male, we should assume it's a cloaca, though. Unless of course the character suddenly looks to be a female based off of other physical features. You are just talking about generic characters, right?

Because if it's known to be a male, tagging it with "pussy" would be silly and people looking up the logical/proper tags would miss out on good art.

I have "pussy" blacklisted because I just don't like rating:e females. If it's that Falco post from above, I don't mind it at all because I know it's a guy. But if we're just tagging it as a pussy because we're not paying any mind to the character's gender (which we know in this case), other people like me won't be able to see that post or others like it, which is bad.

tl;dr I just hate nice Falco drawings (or any avian or reptilian male character art) getting blacklisted because people assume a totally male-looking Falco who happens to have a cloaca instead of a penis is a female with a pussy

Flammie said:
If the character is a known male, we should assume it's a cloaca, though. Unless of course the character suddenly looks to be a female based off of other physical features. You are just talking about generic characters, right?

Because if it's known to be a male, tagging it with "pussy" would be silly and people looking up the logical/proper tags would miss out on good art.

I have "pussy" blacklisted because I just don't like rating:e females. If it's that Falco post from above, I don't mind it at all because I know it's a guy. But if we're just tagging it as a pussy because we're not paying any mind to the character's gender (which we know in this case), other people like me won't be able to see that post or others like it, which is bad.

We only tag based on what you can see in the post. The character being "a known male" has no bearing with it being tagged as male.

I'd recommend you have a look at Tag What You See as it goes into a lot more depth about the reasoning behind this. Also, howto:Tag Genders is more of a tagging resource than an explanation, but many find it helpful to have it laid out visually as well.

parasprite said:
We only tag based on what you can see in the post. The character being "a known male" has no bearing with it being tagged as male.

I'd recommend you have a look at Tag What You See as it goes into a lot more depth about the reasoning behind this. Also, howto:Tag Genders is more of a tagging resource than an explanation, but many find it helpful to have it laid out visually as well.

If I see Falco, I see a male. I also see a bird, which may have a cloaca instead of the typical penis. So I tag it male with a cloaca. Is this wrong? If the only part of Falco that's different from standard furry porn is his genitals, which look to be what a bird should have in the first place, there's literally no reason to claim it's a female in the drawing. Even if you wanna say the character's actual gender has nothing to do with the tagging of an image for some reason, it'd still make a hell of a lot more sense to tag it as ambiguous_gender since cloacas and pussies are hard to tell apart. Maybe invent a "I_can't_tell_what_these_genitals_even_are" tag or something to boot
Lolol

And yeah. I read those. Still doesn't properly address a case like this.

parasprite said:
We only tag based on what you can see in the post. The character being "a known male" has no bearing with it being tagged as male.

I'd recommend you have a look at Tag What You See as it goes into a lot more depth about the reasoning behind this. Also, howto:Tag Genders is more of a tagging resource than an explanation, but many find it helpful to have it laid out visually as well.

Although I am a proponent of the TWYS rule, it gets broken thousands of times for exceptions not listed, and I would generally consider them to be justified. For example,
https://e621.net/post/show/612338/chair-computer-frown-hi_res-kippykat-male-mammal-m
I tagged this with male. I know it seems frivolous, but those looking for pictures of male pikachu would never find this otherwise. And yes, you can tell, via sexual dimorphism. Male pikachu have a simple flat end to their tail, whereas female pikachu have a little heart-like bump near the end. With just TWYS, this would never be tagged with a gender, and so anyone who blacklisted male would still find this little guy.

This is an excerpt from TWYS:

The special exception below to TWYS is ONLY for tagging character NAMES. YOU CAN NOT USE EXTERNAL INFORMATION TO TAG GENDER, SPECIES, OR VIRTUALLY ANYTHING ELSE.

Notice how it does not list artist name or copyrights. This is poorly worded. If we go only by the TWYS rule as written, artist and copyright tags would never be used, as well as species. Character and general would be used exclusively.

The second part of the exception lists that it must be character information coming from the artist, commissioner, or character owner, and in their own words, plus there must be evidence behind this. Half the character tags would be invalid if that were to apply.

What I'm trying to say is that the TWYS rule is way too restrictive, and would invalidate at least half of all tags on e621.

tl;dr: The Tag What You See rule is pure cheesecake.

Flammie said:
If I see Falco, I see a male. I also see a bird, which may have a cloaca instead of the typical penis. So I tag it male with a cloaca. Is this wrong? If the only part of Falco that's different from standard furry porn is his genitals, which look to be what a bird should have in the first place, there's literally no reason to claim it's a female in the drawing. Even if you wanna say the character's actual gender has nothing to do with the tagging of an image for some reason, it'd still make a hell of a lot more sense to tag it as ambiguous_gender since cloacas and pussies are hard to tell apart. Maybe invent a "I_can't_tell_what_these_genitals_even_are" tag or something to boot
Lolol

And yeah. I read those. Still doesn't properly address a case like this.

If it looks like a cloaca, I see no reason why we can't take animal biology into consideration. However, if there isn't enough visual evidence to distinguish it from a pussy, we will treat it as a pussy and tag accordingly. We do this not to alienate cloaca lovers, but to keep pussies from showing up in male -pussy. For example:

post #114783 post #654649 post #517057 post #152528

These all take anatomical cues from human pussies and don't really belong under male for that reason.

Compare this with a cloaca that is more anatomically correct:

post #60345 post #446390 post #370313 post #348374

With these you can say "yes, this is definitely meant to be animal genitalia". Even though we still have to allot some artistic license on the technicalities (it's hard to get a bird cloaca right), they still lack the pubic mound, clitoris, anus, labia minora/majora, and urethra which are generally present regardless of species on art posted to here due to our own human influence.

Even considering this, many of the non-feral posts currently tagged with cloaca probably still fit better under cuntboy than male. I don't think they should get an automatic pass "just because they are avians" but I'm not against taking real animal anatomy into consideration as long as they are tagged within reason and play nicely with other tags. In other words, when correctly tagged searches like male clitoris -intersex -female should return very few posts (if any).

parasprite said:
If it looks like a cloaca, I see no reason why we can't take animal biology into consideration. However, if there isn't enough visual evidence to distinguish it from a pussy, we will treat it as a pussy and tag accordingly. We do this not to alienate cloaca lovers, but to keep pussies from showing up in male -pussy. For example:

post #114783 post #654649 post #517057 post #152528

These all take anatomical cues from human pussies and don't really belong under male for that reason.

Compare this with a cloaca that is more anatomically correct:

post #60345 post #446390 post #370313 post #348374

With these you can say "yes, this is definitely meant to be animal genitalia". Even though we still have to allot some artistic license on the technicalities (it's hard to get a bird cloaca right), they still lack the pubic mound, clitoris, anus, labia minora/majora, and urethra which are generally present regardless of species on art posted to here due to our own human influence.

Even considering this, many of the non-feral posts currently tagged with cloaca probably still fit better under cuntboy than male. I don't think they should get an automatic pass "just because they are avians" but I'm not against taking real animal anatomy into consideration as long as they are tagged within reason and play nicely with other tags. In other words, when correctly tagged searches like male clitoris -intersex -female should return very few posts (if any).

I don't even know why cuntboy is a tag considering it's pretty much an oxymoron lol

But whatever

Flammie said:
I don't even know why cuntboy is a tag considering it's pretty much an oxymoron lol

But whatever

You're an oxymoron!

Sorry, couldn't resist. XP