I somewhat hate to open this line when I find myself linking people to this thread often, but is the frank approach really that bad?
There's the furry survey, which - while it may suffer from self-selection bias - shows us that sex isn't a big deal to furries over all.
There's the ratings point, where it's like "so a bunch of people sit down and watch All Dogs Go To Heaven and have a good time doesn't sell as much as OH MY GOD PEOPLE ARE DRESSING UP AS MASCOTS AND SWINGING" ... and therefore perhaps television shouldn't be trusted quite so much.
There's the cost/benefit point where it's like, suits are a grand at a minimum for a decent one or else a whole lot of labor and still a chunk of cash - would you waste a grand just to bump uglies? Sure people do, but how many people do you know that can effectively throw away that much money?
There's the over-accepting point where it runs such as "we don't have a high barrier to entry here, and a lot of people who need a social life end up where it's least resisted", ergo all the insane amounts of fetishism and so forth.
And I'm sure there are others and I do personally point out to people that these things are ridiculous and well studied. Think it was VF or something sent a woman into a convention only for that woman to find... Nothing but a clearly marked adult vendor and actually have a good time while she was at it? And even she was like "something is clearly amiss but they seemed genuine so..."
I realize this is simultaneously the most sane place to put this and one of the worst conversations to open up - and maybe I should open it on debate/discussion so it's away from people who are linked here. (And I whole-hearted understand if it is moved or modded out, don't get me wrong.)
I've just been thinking about this as I talk to people and realize that treating people like they can be trusted with perfect frankness and leveraging my reputation as a brutally honest and uncensored person has combined to let me talk openly and actually get a lot of people to look around and think about their lives and the things that make them smile. And certainly I just don't get made fun of anymore as every single person who would have in this town seems to have talked to me by now, or else is an underage punk who can shove it until they can gain an ounce of maturity.
And I find that the "draw away from this" approach invariably finds me distracting from the point or being defensive if I try it, though I do blend a lot of Kage's advice and introduce it as a matter of principle and the honest truth (we really are here because we like "funny animals" and everything that became of them, as a whole). For those who would read these points, don't think that it's necessarily a good idea to apply them or that Kage is wrong - he has a LOT more experience than I can ever hope to have and I'm only pondering something and trying to open a conversation about it.
