To those who are reading this, I'm here to inform you that in a few days (sometime before the 6th or 7th of January) I will be deactivating or deleting all of my accounts related to Sarah Borrows. From the publishing of this blog post to the end date, I will not be replying back or looking through any messages related to those accounts. Despite all of this happening, I'm not actually leaving. In fact, I wish nothing was changing. The art I do today is essentially my job and business and I can't sustain myself without it. With that being said, I have a confession to make to everyone:
Sarah Borrows was never real. Sarah was an identity I crafted September 29, 2012, around five years ago on DeviantART under the name SniperStalker. The purpose was to post art under a different name to prevent said artwork from tracing back to my real life. Before really going into why I started the persona, there's a lot I want to address beforehand to better illustrate my reasons, and starting this, I'll address the elephant in the room that is Muk100.
Many of you by now probably know where this is going after just mentioning that name. It's true that Muk was the previous alias I had before switching over to Sarah. Despite removing myself from that name, I still needed an outlet to post the art I do today and I took that new alias a step further by giving it a name and identity. Back then, my choice career was animation, but even then I knew I couldn't let the artwork I post come back to me if I was planning on being an animator. On top of that, I couldn't let a sliver of the artwork be recognized by my family or friends.
I'm born and raised in Texas and both of my parents are Conservative Christian folks, extreme in ideology but, lucky for me, not so much in practice. I love them both dearly and I believe it when they've said they have no hatred towards anyone gay. What really holds me back is not knowing the reaction. I'm the youngest of six and all of my siblings are either dating, married, or childbearing. My parents have always had a future in mind for every single one of us and so far, I'm the only one who can't meet that expectation. To this day, I'm still closeted. Even among family, I've only been able to tell my brother (second youngest), my only sister and my niece. I know them enough that they won't tell and even though I'm sure all of my other brothers and sister-in-laws are perfectly content with my sexuality, I can't trust them not to tell my parents.
I've been caught once by them when I was younger. I browsed images of shirtless men, saving them to my computer, not really knowing why I was drawn to them. Even earlier before I had an interest in action figures without clothes. Sure enough my brother and his friend saw what I was looking at and told my parents. By then I was already out of the house, contemplating running away. When it was inevitable, I came back to them asking if I was gay, to which I said no. It wasn't entirely a lie as I've always thought I was just bisexual.
The moment I accepted my homosexuality was during my Muk100 phase. I had already begun posting on DeviantART before Muk and it didn't take long for me to realize I could draw the "sexual" content on the site as a different user, side by side. Back then, my sexual preferences hadn't really been defined yet. My motivation was purely driven more from fetish over character. I think DeviantART was to blame for giving me the weird kinks I still have today. It wasn't until I started my FurAffinity account where things went from 10 to 100.
I didn't exercise restraint on what I drew as Muk and because of that, my motivation took a toll. I saw my artwork posted elsewhere to mockery and disgust, helpless knowing what the reception was outside of my bubble. I started to hate what I was making and further down the line, my artwork was less original. I started tracing other people's work and by then, I knew I couldn't publish any of the newer drawings. Eventually I just quit.
I'm not sure how long it took me before I started posting artwork again as Sarah but starting the new profile, my attempts were to change everything: my gender, my identity, even my art style. In my head, I imagined my artwork would be better received or the retaliation would be minimal if the art came from someone straight. Sniper was the go-to character I picked to draw lewds of. I tried to deviate my style, going for smaller lines and tracing photos and the most important part: not being overly kinky. I did what I could for my art to stand on its own and not be comparable to Muk.
Of course being Sarah, I had to fabricate my motivations and background in order to keep her from being me. Early on, I was completely in the role, but nowadays, I just can't stand it anymore. Bara Queen was a given title I championed for a while but today, I can't bear to hear it. I suppose it took five years for me to realize that I can't keep pretending to be someone I'm not. I've often daydreamed what it would be like to have a personality of my own online, tied to the artwork that, very recently, I've grown to love. Amazingly, people to this day still love the Muk100 art and quote how much they miss it. To me, I can't even look at what I made. I've deleted everything from my hard drive and even shredded every sketch I did back from DeviantART out of fear of my parents discovering them. Muk was one of my biggest regrets in my lifetime.
I can see now how much things have changed since then. As Muk, I couldn't bare to own up to my work. I couldn't stand opposition, or decent or mean comments.
Today, that's been turned around.
I want to be myself. I'm not afraid of any hostility that comes my way. I've managed to make a living, doing what I love, so much so that friends of friends in real life would kill to be in my position. I'm genuinely happy! I've made so many friends and have amazing artists follow me everywhere. The only thing that holds me back from completing this dream is Sarah and saying all of this means I can finally let go of this charade.
I want to say I'm sorry to everyone who may feel lied to or betrayed by me. I know coming out with all of this might mean losing friends or respect or even my livelihood. A lot of you keep me afloat and I hope that even after all of this, nothing will change.
I don't know if I'm ready to show face or give a name but I'm willing to start knowing some of you on a personal level. I'm even hoping to start doing art similar to my Muk days. As much as I've tried to repress my fetishes, they are inevitable, and I have to admit, I still love drawing them.
With all of this out of the way, I will provide links below where you can find me from now on. Some of you might even recognize the new name as it was a planned account to introduce myself back into the kinky realm. It will be my handle from now on. I promise, no more alternative accounts.
Tumblr
FurAffinity
Patreon
And as I've promised on Twitter, I have posted all of my most recent work, including Patreon work to this dropbox link here. Do with it how you please. After seeing so many reuploads, I've grown numb to seeing my work posted by others.
Anyways, I just want to say thank you to everyone who's not only supported me, but made my experience being Sarah feel welcomed. Perhaps my perspective has changed a lot but I don't recall ever having been bullied, attacked or harassed for what I've posted. Compared to the past, things have really changed for the better and I hope they remain that way.