Cygnus

I feel I should clarify that I'm not bothered by someone's love life or what type of porn, short of child, is on their hard drive. What left a sour taste in my mouth was the way furries I met treated me and those I know. It's a gathering place for unsavory types and lights up my caution radar whenever I hear it because I don't know what's going to come of meeting someone involved. While active in the furry fandom, I was contacted by about a dozen men online who thought that a no was just a yes that needed convincing. One of them laughed it off and said he was just being a playful wolf when I asked him to stop trying to start sexual roleplay and camming with me for the second time at the risk of me removing him from my contacts. My friends have recieved similar pushy treatment from furries they've encountered, often out of the blue. I went to the local meets for awhile and met a few dozen awesome people in addition to some who had no concept of personal space or inside voices in restaurants or coffee shops. Eventually, however, there were new members who were caught looking at furry porn in public, who disappeared into single-occupancy same-sex bathrooms together for long periods in public, and who just generally made a noisy mess with food that wasn't even from the coffee shop the meet took place in. The owners threatened to ban the whole group, and one of the long-term members they were familiar with and trusted had to plead with them for a chance to correct the situation. I could go on... but... To date they're the only people to have treated me and mine with such disrespect short of party guests who were never again invited, with the only comparison being a friend of mine who was cornered by a rabid fan of her art/fanfiction at an anime convention and had to have others intervene. I recieved kinder treatment on dating websites, and there's millions of people there who could potentially send a stream of aggressive sexual comments versus the thousands or tens of thousands on any given furry website besides FurAffinity. It's a high-risk community because of how concentrated the negatives are in such a relatively small space. I'm wary of finding out whether furries I meet are going to be friendly and kind or try to pressure me into something I don't want to do and think that it's cute and funny instead of a horrifying way to treat someone's refusal. Both of those things are likely, so my guard goes up and my either my eyes go to the door in case they're a grabber or my mouse hovers over the block button in case they're awful rape-y.

Typically for me it has to do with how interactive a forum is as far as back-and-forth discussions that aren't drama, arguments, or just silly, and those things take a few days to a few weeks to start to get a feel for. What I really want is new ideas and stimulation on a particular topic or to find a sense of like minds. I've only ever made friends through interaction, anyway, never through random messages or reading profiles. That would be like if I walked around a party browsing everyone's Facebook updates and interests on my phone as I tried to judge whether or not I wanted to join their conversation or talk to them in private, as opposed to just following whatever cue interested me. The online friends who've stuck or turned into offline friends are ones who found that we liked talking in the first place and had a lot of topics we wanted to talk to each other about. We had no idea what each other's interests were at first besides League of Legends or gin and tonic or what each other's personality was besides loud or a keen observer, and we'd have never found out if most of our involvement with the forum was short, standalone posts (which I see a lot of here). I'm just saying... a five-minute drive to the local cafe and I can have people looking me in the eye while they talk directly to me. It's hard for forums to compete when it comes to fulfilling social needs because so many key elements of socializing are absent to begin with.

I'm drawn to modest girls as friends, though I have some friends who are very fashion-oriented and love to show off. However, we both agree that some of the messages about dress code and body image advertised to little girls and teens are strange and contradictory. As she put it, they're supposed to be sexually available so that they can claim they get attention from boys, but not actually be having much sex - that would be slutty. I'm not sure how true that holds for schools today, since I've been away for some time. She has a teenage sister, though, and probably hears quite a bit secondhand.

I don't think much of anything about them. I contribute to a few clean story archives but consider myself more invested in the sci-fi/fantasy elements with the "furry" characters as the medium. My online experiences talking to furries have been mostly negative (never ever ever ever ever ever leaving my contact information public on those sites again!), but I've had a few friends who were heavily into art, fursuiting, and fiction.

Sorry that it has to come out in response to your post, but stereotypes and misconceptions about disorders and mental illness are a pet peeve of mine. And boy, are they everywhere. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is actually a pretty painful thing to live with, but it's become a stereotype that has little to nothing to do with the actual disorder. I speak as someone who had an uncle with OCD, has frequently been involved in anxiety support groups, and is dating someone with OCPD (which has similarities). I don't disagree that the US has some issues with the way it goes about diagnosing and treating people (the country where people who hate kids become teachers because at least it's work... sigh), but the problem doesn't lie in the fact that there are disorders that are not visible and physical. Fake OCD is a cute, funny, pretend thing where people are very clean and organized. Ha ha, how silly! She's so OCD that she organizes her entire desk and gets angry when you move things. Ha ha! What a joke of a disorder! America is so dumb for diagnosing this fake problem and Americans are even dumber for believing they have a problem. Nah. Real OCD involves obsessive thoughts that people can't or struggle to stop. They may have thoughts of hurting others or hurting themselves even if they don't have a violent personality. They may have thoughts of their loved ones dying, things spiraling out of control, or of bad things happening. They alleviate these anxieties through compulsions, which are specific actions or rituals designed to "prevent" them even if it's irrational and they know it. It can become a nasty, restrictive way of living that can cause people to question who they are and whether or not they're a good person. I try to call this out whenever I see it because there are real people out there who are suffering with real problems. If other people believe their conditions are trivial or fake because they just keep passing around wrong information and pretending that something that doesn't interfere with their functioning is a disorder, then the ones suffering will hesitate to reach out, think that the way they're living is just the way life is supposed to be, and not recieve the support they need from non-professional family, friends, and community.

I think it's really sad what he's become and that the people around him don't seem to think much of it or won't say anything because he's a star. He was probably a pretty normal kid at one point.

Synergy. Being in tune with the world and who you are, and creating from those things something greater than the sum of the parts.

If no adults liked cartoons, how could they possibly know what makes a good cartoon and put them on the air in the first place? My thoughts exactly. I think it's healthy to remain in touch with your inner child and not concern yourself so much with how much of a big boy or girl you are. Cartoons and fiction have a way of communicating with the human spirit that Tosh.0 doesn't, and even if they don't remember what first started those feelings that's what people are going to be glad for on their deathbed. Not fancy cars, not suits and ties, not what a prestigious position they held, and not that they watched Tosh.0.