Image ratings help users to better organize and search through the various levels of explicit content contained on this site. It's very important to rate your uploads properly. By doing so you help ensure that danbooru searches continue to return accurate results.

Danbooru has three basic ratings: Safe, Questionable, and Explicit.

Questionable is the default rating, and will be assigned to any image that is posted without being properly rated.

Ratings only apply to sexual content. Violence, gore, or cursing does not factor into an images' rating. Note also that ratings do not say how "family friendly" or "kid safe" a picture is, this is explicitly not a goal. Danbooru users are assumed to be responsible adults and the ratings are there only to help them choose the content they wish to see.

Note also that ratings have nothing to do with whether the image in question is "offensive". This is too vague a description to be of practical value, and if you're offended by sex, danbooru is probably not for you -- the rating system is not infallible, no matter how hard we might try, and also we make no provisions to keep the comments, links, forum etc. clean. It is therefore assumed that you understand and don't have a problem with the concept of people having sex, but might nevertheless want to filter out certain approaches to it.

Rating can be tricky, especially since Danbooru does things a bit differently than a typical website. Here's some guidelines regarding rating to help you make the right choice. Obviously these lists don't cover everything that belongs in each rating, but you should be able to grasp the general idea of what kind of images each should contain.

To understand the system properly, you should be aware of what the intent is. Ratings are designed to help people select the pictures they're interested in, based on the following broad categories of content:

1. Completely clean stuff with no sexual overtones whatsoever (for safebooru users)
2. Somewhat or even heavily erotic stuff for people who don't mind sex, but without porn polluting the list
3. The rest

What Belongs Where

Before we start, note that rating:safe is not designed to mean "safe for work". Browsing danbooru is never going to be an acceptable activity at most workplaces, and as such pretending our ratings have to do anything with that is just confusing matters and reducing the usefulness of the system.

• Safe
• All art clearly lacking sexual content.
• Innocent romance (kissing, hugging, eye contact, etc).
• Tasteful swimsuits.
• Tasteful lingerie.
• Tasteful panty shots.
• Clearly non-sexual nudity.

• Questionable
• Cameltoes and wedgies.
• Apparent erect nipples.
• Sexually suggestive acts (sucking suggestively on hotdogs, etc).
• Exposed areolae, nipples, or breasts.
• Erections under clothes, sex toys not being used, toys hinted at or hidden under clothes.
• Mild sexual content (ear biting, breast grabbing, saliva-swapping, etc).
• Pubic hair (while the rest of the genitals remain hidden), non-blatantly exposed genitals, full frontal nudity without additional "action" or bodily fluids.
• Implied and hinted at sexual acts.
• Actual intercourse, if portrayed in a restrained and tasteful manner (this can be tricky and is necessarily a judgement call, but if it concentrates on the act and omits anatomical details, it's likely okay)
• Implied or obscured bodily fluids (someone sitting on the toilet, somewhat wet panties, etc. Again, this is a judgement call)
• Bondage, spanking and more general BDSM activities without insertion or bodily fluids.
• Other assorted erotica, as long as it doesn't cross the porn line. While rather hard to define precisely, the basic test is that of intent -- does it show just to show sex, or is it rather as a part of some other, normal human activity?

• Explicit
• Blatantly exposed genitals (of either gender, censored or uncensored). "Blatantly" means in a way designed to draw the attention the the fact, by means of shot angle or perspective, as well as spread pussy / anus, erect penises etc.
• Openly and unambiguously portrayed sex (whether vaginal, anal, oral, or fingering). This includes censored images of sex, as the presence of censorship makes it unambiguously clear what is happening behind that censor.
• Sex acts (handjobs, footjobs, clearly visible masturbation, etc).
• Clearly visible sexual fluids (cum and pussy juice).

Note also that if an image is loli, it lowers the threshold for what is considered explicit significantly.

If you ever feel confused regarding what rating to use for an image, the best thing to do would be to ask in a comment or in forum #37461. The fewer misrated images, the better!

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