So, toying_self and toying_partner have obvious use cases - one for when a character is masturbating using a sex toy, and one for when a character is using a sex toy on another.

But what about cases like (to pick a fairly random sample) post #835544, post #886226, post #566677, or post #1167830 ? These don't seem like they should really be toying_self; it seems fairly likely that they didn't get into these situations or insert those toys themselves, and in many cases they're not obviously manually stimulating themselves either. But toying_partner also seems wrong, because there's no such character visible either. Should I just tag these with toying_self and a bondage tag, or is there another tag I should be using for these situations?

Since the restriction of the characters's movements leaves unclear if they are masturbating or not, I would suggest to use neither of them, just tagging those posts with 'restrained' and 'bdsm', plus more specific tags like 'dildo_sitting', 'strapped_in_toy'or 'fixed_toy'.

O16 said:
Since the restriction of the characters's movements leaves unclear if they are masturbating or not, I would suggest to use neither of them, just tagging those posts with 'restrained' and 'bdsm', plus more specific tags like 'dildo_sitting', 'strapped_in_toy'or 'fixed_toy'.

Alright, thank you! In that case, is there a tag for if a sex toy is not in use and just lying around? It would be nice to be able to search for images involving sex toys without also picking up tons of images that just have a sex toy somewhere in frame.

Victoria_Oblong said:
Alright, thank you! In that case, is there a tag for if a sex toy is not in use and just lying around? It would be nice to be able to search for images involving sex toys without also picking up tons of images that just have a sex toy somewhere in frame.

You are welcome.

Try 'discarded_sex_toy'.

Victoria_Oblong said:
is there a tag for if a sex toy is not in use and just lying around?

Not as far as I know.
I've been thinking that we might need a generic toy_use umbrella tag. Since, as you mentioned, toying_* doesn't cover everything. There's also posts such as these:

post #1033677

And toying_self doesn't feel like a good fit for those either.

Genjar said:
Not as far as I know.
I've been thinking that we might need a generic toy_use umbrella tag. Since, as you mentioned, toying_* doesn't cover everything. There's also posts such as these:

post #1033677

And toying_self doesn't feel like a good fit for those either.

I'd quite like a toy_use umbrella tag myself. However, in that particular case, I think toying_self fits just fine - after all, it's defined as "using a sex toy to masturbate", and that's definitely penile_masturbation by way of a penetrable_sex_toy.

I do get your point, though, in that toying_* is generally used to refer to penetration by way of a sex toy, and masturbation using penetrable toys is generally not what I'm trying to find when I search that tag.

(Also, do fucking machines count as toying_self, or are they their own thing? And how are we to classify situations involving vibrators, since those can and often are used for pleasure with no manual stimulation required [which the wiki definition of masturbation requires]? Or buttplugs, which are typically not used for manual stimulation at all? These questions seem like the same problem as the "how do you count sex toys that are in use, but just kind of there?" question in the OP.)

(I guess the relevant dimension here is whether the toy is being worked by another character, or whether it's on its own. Most situations involving buttplugs, beads, vibrators, fucking machines, and toys-in-bondage-situations fall into the latter category, where there's not really enough action on the part of the receiving character, or any other character, to really justify either toying_self or toying_partner)

These seem like the kind of situations the old *_insertion tags would have been useful for, although I understand that they were removed for a very good reason. (Literally never used correctly, constantly confused with *_penetration, etc)