r/TooAfraidToAsk: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

The whole point of the subreddit is that no question is too basic or too embarrassing. The sidebar says it does not remove questions you could look up, and the rules forbid shaming someone for asking. Questions are short, around 70 words, and answered in plain language. Nothing is pitched too low, though a question already on the FAQ list gets removed and pointed to the wiki.

• Teenagers and people in their twenties asking about sex, bodies and first relationships.
• People outside a country or culture asking how something works there, such as how workers in the US cope with being easy to fire.
• People with an awkward question about race, gender or sexuality who want an answer without being judged.
• Throwaway accounts asking something personal. The sidebar says throwaways are allowed.
• Older commenters answering from life experience, often at length.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/TooAfraidToAsk.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 100.

• Stayed up60%
• Removed by Reddit's filters4%
• Held by AutoModerator1%
• Removed by moderators34%
• Deleted by the author1%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   Be Kind.

   - No asking methods of suicide or self-harm, even hypothetically - No providing methods of suicide or self-harm, even hypothetically - No advocating harm against others - No hateful, degrading, malicious, or bigoted speech against any person or group. - No personal insults

2. 2

   Be Helpful.

   - Top comments should try their best to be legitimate attempts to engage the OP - Cite your sources - De-escalate arguments if you can - No medical diagnoses, please encourage OP to see a physician if you are concerned

3. 3

   Be Genuine.

   - No soapboxing, trolling, moralising, sealioning, or spamming - Try to give OP the benefit of the doubt - Don't question-shame the OP

4. 4

   Posts must meet certain criteria

   - Submissions must be in some form of a question - Submissions must have a flair - Try to search the sub before asking or check the FAQ

5. 5

   Obey reddit's sitewide rules

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/TooAfraidToAsk is a question board with two million members and a deliberately loose brief. The sidebar says the rules are kept more relaxed than sister subreddits, that throwaways are fine, and that a question is welcome even if it has been answered elsewhere. Posts are short text questions, and the median thread gets 18 comments.

The content is franker than the name suggests. Sex is tied for the most used flair, and with Sexuality & Gender and Love & Dating it covers about 40% of posts. Many of the highest scoring threads are explicit questions asked plainly. The other big group is Culture & Society: why a country does something differently, where a stereotype comes from, how some part of adult life actually works.

For a relaxed subreddit, a lot gets removed. Moderators took down about a third of posts in our sample. The published reasons are mostly mechanical: a banned title pattern, a question on the FAQ list, a politics question that belongs in the megathread. Questions about race and ethnicity sit on the line. Some stay up and score well, others on the same theme are removed.

What lands

• A blunt question about sex or the body that many people wonder about and nobody asks, stated without embarrassment.
• An outsider's question about another country's norms, with a line on how it works where you live.
• A did-you-know style question with a hook, like why a vitamin still has that name if it is really a hormone.
• A personal situation with enough context for strangers to weigh in. The top post in the sample was a teenager asking why a parent kept making a disturbing comparison.
• A question about a contradiction in dating or social attitudes, which reliably pulls hundreds of comments.

What gets removed or ignored

• Titles that start from "is it normal", "does anyone else" or "is it just me". AutoModerator's message for this was the most common in the sample.
• Questions already on the wiki FAQ, which get a pointer to the answer there.
• US politics and Israel-Palestine questions, which are redirected to the megathread.
• Reposts of your own removed question with the wording changed. The sample shows the same question removed two and three times.
• Anything asking for methods of suicide or self-harm, even hypothetically. Posts with related keywords trigger a message with crisis resources.

The unwritten rules

• Am I a bad person and am I wrong questions are risky. Several were removed, and they sit close to the banned title patterns.
• Keep the body short or leave it out. Many posts that stayed up are just a title.
• Do not use the question as a platform. The rules ban soapboxing and moralising, and a question with an obvious agenda reads that way.
• Comments carry no links. None of the comments in our sample had one, so a link in a reply looks out of place.
• If your account is new and the post vanishes, message the mods. The sidebar invites it and says reports are reviewed within 24 hours.

Self-promotion

There is no rule that mentions self-promotion by name. The nearest is the ban on spamming under the Be Genuine rule, together with the requirement that every post be a question. In practice there is no room for it. Posts are text only, comments in our sample contained no links at all, and new accounts are limited specifically because of spam. Nothing in the sample is a product or business post that stayed up. The only way to take part is to ask or answer real questions.

How people write here

Typical post length

72 words

Typical title length

13 words

Titles phrased as a question

100%

Typical comment length

20 words

Comments that include a link

0%

Posts that carry a flair

100%

The regulars

The accounts that showed up most in our sample. Worth reading before you post: they set the tone, and they are usually the first to reply.

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/TooAfraidToAsk.

• women 16 posts
• sex 13 posts
• men 14 posts
• woman 10 posts
• sexual 7 posts
• desensitized 3 posts
• gay 5 posts
• sexually 5 posts
• dating 7 posts
• life 16 posts
• uncomfortable 7 posts
• friends 11 posts
• guy 9 posts
• talk 11 posts
• relationship 8 posts
• penis 3 posts
• porn 4 posts
• girls 5 posts
• girl 6 posts
• bad 13 posts
• argument 5 posts
• jerk 3 posts
• relationships 5 posts
• afraid 5 posts
• normal 10 posts
• attracted 3 posts
• mean 8 posts
• judgement 3 posts
• kids 6 posts
• ask 12 posts
• sometimes 9 posts
• gore 3 posts
• healthy 5 posts
• curiosity 3 posts
• asian 3 posts
• talking 7 posts
• generally 5 posts
• person 10 posts
• hate 6 posts
• partner 6 posts

Posts that did well

• My Mom Keeps Comparing Me To a Rapist. Can Someone Tell Me Why? (Context Needed)2.1k upvotes · 214 comments · Family
• Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin, but a hormone capable of significantly affecting the human body. It was determined that this is a hormone, not a vitamin. So why hasn't its name been changed yet?1.8k upvotes · 120 comments · Health/Medical
• If getting fired is that easy in the US, how do people work with any peace of mind?1.5k upvotes · 370 comments · Culture & Society
• In Asian countries, why are there visibly less disabled people?1.3k upvotes · 131 comments · Culture & Society
• The girl I’m dating said she wouldn’t date men who make less than her?1.2k upvotes · 687 comments · Love & Dating
• Why is Sydney Sweeney so criticized but Sabrina Carpenter so loved?1.1k upvotes · 673 comments · Current Events
• What happens to the old people in nursing homes that can no longer pay, & have no family/friends to live with?930 upvotes · 158 comments · Ethics & Morality
• Women say “the bar is on the floor”, but men say dating has never been harder. What's going on?900 upvotes · 432 comments · Love & Dating

Common questions