RE: How you can get mundanes to hate furries less

[Ralathar44]

@TheGentlemanWolf

Which is totally fair :).

[Ralathar44]

@TheGentlemanWolf

It's odd yes, and perhaps a little self gratifying. Nonetheless not changing the title of it even if I agree no more than I am taking down any "embarrassing" vids I have done. Things get left as is, mistakes etched in stone as examples of what to avoid in the future if I disliked the end result or the methodology of it.

[JakobPatrik]

Definitions of fetish:

1. magical object: something, especially an inanimate object, that is revered or worshiped because it is believed to have magical powers or be animated by a spirit.

2. object of obsession: an object, idea, or activity that somebody is irrationally obsessed with or attached to.

3. object arousing sexual desire: something that arouses sexual excitement in somebody, e.g. an inanimate object or nonsexual part of the body.

The fandom is a fetish.

[Ralathar44]

Using those definitions then so is star wars, star trek, anime, and sports :).  I'd be cool with that lol. One could also consider trolling a fetish with #2.

Using the literary definitions is broad enough to hit most interests.

[JakobPatrik]

1. Sci-Fi fans who enjoy books and movies for the entertainment value, don't have a fetish. But if they dress up like Wookies, or talk to each other in Klingon, then yes, it's become a fetish.

2. Same with sports. If you watch the NBA playoffs each year, that's fine. But if you paint your face, or clutch a football in your arms while jumping up and down on your couch at home, it's a fetish.

3. Who said anything about trolling?

4. The fandom is a fetish. Throw out your furry suit, and get help.

[Ralathar44]

I think your looking for the term obsession then. Because honestly I understand that is the literary definition of fetish HOWEVER the common usage of fetish is sexuality based. Thus all your gonna do is confuse people. Which might be your aim of course.

Also in making that point you made 2 others ones.

1. We are on the same relative level as a large amount of society. IE we are nothing special.

2. It varies person by person whether something is a fetish to them. It's not the group.

[mygodisrocknroll]

The furryfandom can be the gateway to parapheilias including fetishism. Some of the traits furries exploit are sexual. Look it up in the most vile of sources (wickipedia, geez) and you´ll find some stats on that. You know that its inherently wrong to feel sexual arousal with anything other than another human adult. By association, by experience, by misplaced stimuli, a basic error in learning, a person with other risk factors could get into something deviant.

[mygodisrocknroll]

Ralathar, you were the one who asked me the "which came first chicken or egg" kind of question, don´t accuse me of being redundant.

[Ralathar44]

You've posted several paragraphs about fetishism, but nothing about what furry has to do with it, again avoiding the issue.

[mygodisrocknroll]

It would be like asking me "why would you consider diabetes a disease?".

If you´re still not happy with the answer I´ll elaborate even more.

Having one thing in common with fetishism doesn´t make anybody mentally ill. There needs to be a set of medical criteria present.

What I think is that furrys with normal behaviour must distance themselves from fetishism. How you accomplish that is like homework. That´s my opinion.

[mygodisrocknroll]

Fetishism doesn´t fit in the norms of society, its occurance in statistics is low enough to call it abnormal. . Research is made, studies are conducted, and the nosological entity is described as such. The origin of disease is usually described in biological, social or psychological (your favorite) terms. There is a disruption of normal functioning, in this case sexual.

[mygodisrocknroll]

No, Ralathar, you´re the one who has the wrong idea. If you quit now and make a vid as you say, you will not have allowed either of us to state a POV as you say.

Fetishism is a paraphelia, and these are described as mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Stats Manual for mental disease. Its medical criteria for clinical and research purposes. To call anything a disease you need to first realize experts didn´t just wake up one day and call it like that.

[mygodisrocknroll]

I can´t believe you´re using that argument at this stage of the game. I honestly thought furries were smarter. Had some kind of design for arguments. *sigh

[Ralathar44]

And this is what we call avoidance. If it was such an easy win you'd just tackle it directly as the pitiful argument it would be. Instead you dismiss and redirect because you do not wish to face it head on.

Truth is that you realize the furthest that you could every get in that stance is holding a POV, and opinion. Even if you were up against a complete idiot.

You badly misjudge me sir. I will make a video in your honor, and to my purposes of course, on the subject. Comment there....

[mygodisrocknroll]

sorry for the typos, I was in a hurry.

*symptoms

*reknown

I´m not royalty troll, I do make typos.

[mygodisrocknroll]

Are you saying fetishes are not mental illnesses? Pls gimme a minute to lol......

o.k. I´m back.

1. Its a mental illness because it deviates from the norm. It has signs and symtoms, just like the flu, only instead of a runny nose it has....other behaviour. Its listed in the DSMIV. A consensus of world renown psychiatrists reviewed it as they do all other mental disorders and placed it there.

2. All diseases warrant a treatment. We don´t have to get AIDS to understand it. What else?

[Ralathar44]

I'm actually interested in how fetish ever came into the picture in the first place really. That's one of the large unsupported assumptions I'm speaking of.

[mygodisrocknroll]

Fetishes are nothing more than a mental illness that can get a diagnosis and a treament. They are not lifestyles.

[mygodisrocknroll]

Ralathar, you´re just treading on the wrong territory. Neurology, neuroanatomy, the neurosciences, biostatistics, public health (4 yrs), general psychiatry, indeed psychology (not my favorite subject,not scientific enough), internships and residency. Is this hollow for you?

[Ralathar44]

The fields of study without any use of that field means nothing. IE give me why you say what you say rather than just saying it.

Because if we want to just say things without supporting them in any way we will never get anywhere.  I'm not fond of someone deliberately saying nothing. Which is what you are doing when you make claims without supporting reasoning or info.

Be productive or leave. No offense intended. Mindless claims are not tolerated even spoken well.

[Ralathar44]

What qualifications do you have to make these rather large assumptions then? At least psycology would be a tool, albeit an oft misused one. A professional in mental health would pretty much need psycology in good amounts unless your working off of guesswork alone.

You use good polite and intelligent words and eloquent enough speech but though appearences are there it's hollow underneath. In the end you are just making baseless and unsupported claims :/.

[mygodisrocknroll]

Fetishes are pathological conditions. Advertising, pandering and getting all decked out in animal halloween costumes to rub elbows with fetishes is like passing out HIV laced syringes. And then saying those syringes had nothing to do with the spread of HIV.

[mygodisrocknroll]

You´re in control of the conversation, its your video, you can delete this or your entire vid at a whim. I only need you to understand I don´t want to make this about you personally. If you wanna open up for the world its your thing but as far as Im concerned I´m not dissecting anybody´s mind on youtube.

[mygodisrocknroll]

Ralathar, what are you talking about? You´re the only one mentioning the field of psychology. I for one don´t touch it unless its with a ten foot pole covered in saran wrap.

[mygodisrocknroll]

I´ll be the one answering your questions about my opinioin on the subject, if you have any. This isn´t about you personally, Ralathar. Your willingness to be honest is appreciated. I will tell you two things about myself, though, I am not a troll and I am a professional in mental health. Expect me to respect you and be ethical.

[Ralathar44]

Psychology does not equal knowledge, experience, understanding, or insight however. In fact it seems to throw people off course as much as it helps them.

Basically I view psychology as a good supplement, but it is not reliable in and of itself. It needs to be backed by copious experience and understanding. As well as typically a natural empathy. Empathy is hard to do with the net as a medium.

You can be rather learned and still easily lead yourself down the wrong path in that game :).

[Ralathar44]

While I appreciate your thrust to take control of the conversation, perhaps a bit of a compromise and some tit for tat would be in order?  After all both sides attempting to assert dominance would be a useless situation to all would it not?

[mygodisrocknroll]

You make mention of your maturity, normal behaviour and accceptance of yourself. Part of being a responsible adult is recognizing one´s responsiblity to society. You may reiterate it over and over among yourselves how you do not represent an advertisement for a fetish, but in the end of the day we as a global society will demand accountability. Perhaps channeling your efforts making use of your intact moral resources can both define and stop exploitation of society´s scruples, as Fox says.

[Ralathar44]

Furries are just nothing out of the ordinary as far as sexuality goes. It has nothing to do with accountability but instead relativity. Nobody is denying that furries possess sexuality.

End of the day furries with all said and done furries are no more sexuality based than "normal" people.

Tell me reasons not reasoning without reasons. Ask me questions, I will answer honestly. I have been, I have seen, I have lived it. For the most part. I will freely admit what I do not know.

[mygodisrocknroll]

Interesting. When speaking of normal or pathological attitudes and behaviour there is no middle ground. However, in psychiatry a conglomerate of signs and symptoms must exist to establish a sexual fetish as such. What we are talking about is the social attitude towards the furry fandom and the implications it has on the propagation of sexual fetishes, which are clinical diagnoses.

[InTheAsylumPlayrooms]

Why is good for the fandom being better known? Aren't you afraid of the mass media to make more fun of furries?

[Ralathar44]

Ironically much of the stuff against furries is that people don't know any better and so they believe what they hear from the news and tv and people that have seen such. Or perhaps a troll or reaction video that makes judgments off the cuff so to speak.

A better known fandom means they know the good and the bad more. Not just the bad hitting more people because it's more sensational.

BDSM is looked upon much better now it's more widespread for similar reasons.

[SylvesterFox]

"if.. if.. if..."

If "if's" and "and's" were pots and pans there'd be no work for tinkers. Ever hear that phrase?

[Ralathar44]

Without ifs nobody would invent the steel that made those pots and pans. To be progress, to be success, to move forwards, you must have hope.

Nobody gets anywhere by giving up. Specifically not when your making progress.

[SylvesterFox]

I have no evidence at all to suggest that in the last X years your fandom has become anything other than bigger. Way I see it, the reason the mass media doesn't rip on you as much is because you're not a sensation anymore. Most people aren't into atrocity tourism, after they have their initial *OMFGWUT" reaction they stop caring. Nowadays you can go into a bowling alley and see fursuiters, I'd say the fandom, not unlike fetishism, is becoming more mainstream. This is what you should be going for

[SylvesterFox]

as it means that eventually mundanes will stop ripping on you guys as they did with BDSM. Face it, you'll never get society to accept and respect you for whatever it is you want respect for, your best bet is to get them to tolerate you, and the fastest way to do that is to go the fetish route.

[Ralathar44]

A good bit of this IS because we are becoming more well know. Hard to trash a fandom if more and more people know about them beforehand or they are having regular conventions in your city :).

We don't want respect just for being furry. We don't want acceptance. We just want people to know who we are, which is not a fetish. Like us or dislike us either way. The majority of us anyhows. There will always be whiners.

Fastest way is not always the best way and it also backfires :).

[Ralathar44]

You also spend less of your time in the fandom and more time trolling it. I'm a bit more familiar with the fandom than you and seeing it from another perspective and living in it allows me to see countless ways we are progressing.

The stigma from old shows and articles is faded and still fading. New reports more often take a fair or positive tact, cities have begun to embrace conventions for economic reasons if nothing else, which breeds understanding and empathy in the end.

[SylvesterFox]

Right, BDSM is much more mundane, and it's much more mundane because fetishes as a whole have become much more mundane during the aforementioned sex revolution and whatnot, which is what you should be taking advantage of.

[SylvesterFox]

"Furries and fetishists are separate"

I know this, you know this, but does Robert F. Green who works in a cubicle one the 56th floor of some skyscraper know this, more importantly, does he care?

[InTheAsylumPlayrooms]

What about Yiff? That's a Furry Fetish! Is yiff like, you know, having fetishes for anthro-animals and furry stuff?

[Ralathar44]

He doesn't know or care, but if we keep going as we are he will know and still not care. Which is all we really need.

The difference asylum is that yiff is a fetish, the fandom is not. Though yiff normally runs in tandem with the fandom. But the fandom can be quite independent of the fetish and there are many furs who go as far as to utterly dislike and wish the yiff art would go away.

[tamiasthechipmunk]

Well Said.

[BalooDumptruck]

i agree, thats why alot of people are going to me to become friends, they know that nto everyone is rude

my family, friends, work place, and my partner knows what it is and they like it

5/5