I apologize if this is not the right place, I just feel lost, and I can't just talk to friends about this without outing myself as a hypnokinkster.

I thought to post some hypnokink related art on some sites, and while receiving some positive praise, I ended up swamped with creepy messages in my DMs. The messages were incredibly off-putting, with one even sending an unsolicited picture. It's made me feel sick. I had to shut off my DMs and delete the posts.

It's honestly made me not want to post anymore of that kind of art, it's demotivating. I want to explore more of it and make art that appeals to me (and if it appeals to others, that's a bonus), but if it invites stuff like that, I don't know if I can.

Has anyone felt similar to this? I'd be incredibly grateful for any advice on how to deal with creeps.

Oh yeah, all the time!

Any open kink expression(or anything even remotely sex related that isn't part of the mainstream, really) is going to be met with that sort of thing.

It is done, in part, Exactly Because you cannot go anywhere. Creeps exist everywhere, but people know they can get away with treating you poorly when you are into something odd. Because who are you gonna turn to?

And that is one good solution to it: Have someone to turn to.

Us on the hub is a start. But people you can be open to on a personal level to ground yourself will hold the tide against assholes who treat you like a cumrag. It will help a great deal mentally.

It does not have to be someone who shares your kink, necessarily. Anyone kink positive who does not shame you for it will do in a pinch.

Having someone decent who cares about you, to compare the creeps to, will also help keep them separate in your mind. Reminds you it Can be done right, and some people just aren't Trying.

I agree. I might have a couple of friends (?) that could be potentially open, but the only people I got are yall at the Hub! lol. Like a moth to a flame, I know the internet isn't the real world, I just wish it wasn't so awful sometimes.

I'll see what I can do, and I genuinely am thankful for the advice here. It means a lot and it's helped my mood immensely. ^^

i have meet many wonderful people in the internet but some others are just so wrong....in the worst way possible, hard to grasp what's going on in their heads to make them think is ok to interact with others like that.

I think I was lucky the most I found in my DMs were spambots trying to steal accounts...

But If someone try to behave like a creep and sending me the kind of unsolicited picture I think you received... I would feel really unconfortable.

For now, the best you can do is, first, if someone try to say/do something you don't like, then set your limits and say you don't like that, if he insist, then don't talk with them ever again. If there's a silence button where you received the message, use it.

If that happen in this web, feel free to contact a mod/admin to help you.

And don't let that get to you; there are all kinds of people in the world. I've met some wonderful people thanks to my pictures.

If they thought it was Okay, they would be doing it out in the open, not anonymously preying on random people's accounts - w -

They may or may not think it Should be okay, but they are very much aware what society as it currently is thinks of the little gremlins that they are.

Speaking of, one more thing for OP:

It is never Your fault you have to defend yourself from harassers. You Should, it's the safe thing to do, but the blame lies with them for trying to get to you in the first place.

You shouldn't Have to protect yourself. They've made it so.

This is the answer- block them and report them. I wouldn't even give them the "Hey, you're crossing the line" courtesy message. Making and posting your art, even if it's fetish related, is not an invitation for harassment. Those creeps should have known better.

You're sadly always going to have people who can't separate the fantasy from the reality. So block those that are jerks and cross lines.

Hey, first of all sorry to hear you've got to deal with this kind of stuff :/
+1 to what's been said : the number 1 way is to block. Sadly that doesn't help when the problem is the first message.

For what it's worth, if your friends are cool with kinks but you don't want to reveal the specifics of what you're into, you can just talk about the broad strokes. Most of my friends are now aware I draw kinky stuff, but they have no idea what it is outside of "nsfw". And frankly it's enough to talk about most aspects of it !
It strikes a good balance between privacy and still being able to have a good talk.

Another thing is that some platforms might be more chill than others.
For example : Bluesky still to this day doesn't allow sending images through messages, probably specifically to avoid harassment.
If a smaller community is what you're after, this place, or the hypnohub equivalent on mastodon might be good places to post.

Sorry you had to deal with all that. As much as I hate to say it, all you can do is block and report them as sadly there are always going to be people like that. So long as they know that they aren't welcome though, hopefully that pushes them out of these spaces eventually.

I would like to counter that negativity just a Little.

No human bar some with deeply unfortunate brain damage is Unable to be convinced of something.
(At the very least they could be brainwashed to get better:P)

It's more important to realize it is neither your job nor realistic for you to "fix" a random person, basically a stranger, in response to them saying awful things to you on the internet.
Wish them the best! You can just do So much better with your time than to be the source of it.