Meanwhile, being a giant adult/teen heart also more strongly suggests "I'm here to cyber" than a subtler indicator like a small star does.
Eh, well, the entire point of the age indicator icons is to make age groups clear for anyone engaging in sexual roleplaying. If the new icon immediately makes you think about that sort of thing then I would say we nailed the intent. Nothing about it says everyone is here to write smut, but it's an entirely smut-related thing so I'm not too worried about it, lol.
It's 'cause anything that advertises as erotica very often use both hearts and the colour red, whereas eRP is part rather than central to Iwaku, I was lead to believe. The association is there because it's a common design choice, but not necessarily representative of the full scope of Iwaku. Regardless it's still one of the first thing people will see about their profile when they post as well as about others. Because red is in general associated with passion (and the heart then cements sex) and is one of the first colours to draw the human eye... When I was asked to incorporate hearts in a logo and design that according to the owner had to be red, but then you start testing for reactions and well... That.
Smut writing is not the core of Iwaku, no, but the reality of the matter is that it is a major part. The 1x1 Redstar Bedroom is by far the most active roleplaying subforum on the site. The "core" of Iwaku is roleplaying in general, and the various kinds of roleplaying are segments of that core. Iwaku isn't advertised as an eRP forum because that's not the sole focus of the site, but honestly if anyone sees red hearts and gets the idea that there's a lot of smut going on here then that would just be a very accurate view of Iwaku. That's why I'm not worried about the red hearts thing.
From what I see after scrolling up, it coincides with what's written under your name. At least from a mobile perspective.
