Hot Takes

[Myzozoa]

Being outraged is addictive.

is it really addictive in some special sense that doesn't apply more broadly to several common modes of social engagement if not almost all of it? or is it that individuals are essentially powerless to address the sources of their actual anger/irritation/outrage and so it gets channeled into overreaction online (or just into frequent overreaction to petty/minor matters such which you may often see online for example)?

edit: you can see from my signature that i have a deep personal stake wrt this matter

 

[billymills]

is it really addictive in some special sense that doesn't apply more broadly to almost all forms of social engagement? or is it that individuals are essentially powerless to address the sources of their actual anger/irritation/outrage and so it gets channeled into overreaction online (or just into frequent overreaction to petty/minor matters such which you may often see online for example)?

edit: you can see from my signature that i have a deep personal stake wrt this matter

Not sure I follow. You're wondering why outrage is any more significant than random talking?
I think it might be because I didn't fully describe outrage. I meant it as some sort of derision towards a large group of people based on minutia from a subgroup.

I think outrage is essentially a vent, almost a coping mechanism, that you can get addicted to.
I don't see it caused by powerlessness, outside of like, totality of control. I think you can be outraged by those with more power and by those with less power. I'm not focusing on online interaction; I think it's just as prevalent elsewhere. Looking down on people for x, possibly to downplay personal insecurities. (I'm not trying to throw shade here, this is more introspection than anything lol.)

I see fury as different. Frankly if its actionable it's different (maybe powerlessness is accurate, but it's not a power dynamic).

 

[Clambats]

Outrage is also not a social thing, by definition. A social interaction is, if not friendly, it is at least politely indifferent. I’m not nitpicking the meaning of the word just to do so, I think it’s a meaningful distinction between general socialization and expressing rage at things outside your control. Unless of course you’re in a room full of only people who agree with you and it’s just a big rage filled circle jerk.

I could also add, just as someone who is prone to raging as a form of ventilation, yet actively avoids everyday socialization... the two things strike very different chords for me. They satisfy different needs. So yes, broadly, both can be addictive... but for very different reasons.

 

[VKCA]

There is a post going around on reddit.com talking about "Covid Karen" who spreads the disease "with her sense of entitlement." Now the pandemic is another thing blamed on women.

If the places you're going on Reddit regularly refer to Karen, and it took a global pandemic for the sexism of the trope to become apparent to you, you're a fucking retard

 

[yeezyknows]

If the places you're going on Reddit regularly refer to Karen, and it took a global pandemic for the sexism of the trope to become apparent to you, you're a fucking retard

I wanted to bring a salient point to this community’s attention, and you’re mocking me for it?

Third-wave feminism extolls solidarity and intersectionality - and the fact that you feel the need to denigrate me for my statement reveals a profound sense of misogyny within yourself.

Be better.

 

[billymills]

I wanted to bring a salient point to this community’s attention, and you’re mocking me for it?

Third-wave feminism preaches solidarity and intersectionality - and the fact that you feel the need to denigrate me for my statement reveals a profound sense of misogyny within yourself.

Be better.

Your point was as salient as me saying i went on twitter.com and found someone who said something rude.

 

[Clambats]

Just as an aside about “Karen”... I don’t know how many of you have watched Tiger King on Netflix, but I strongly encourage everyone to replace Karen with Carole. It’s not because she’s a woman. It’s because fuck Carole Baskin.

 

[BLINGAS]

North Korea is less of a dictatorship than Israel. It is also not an oligarchy.

Any remarks towards poor treatment in the KPop industry should also be replicated towards any other music industry globally. Any critiques of the system should be seen more broadly as a critique of the global capitalist entertainment industry.

Sorry for the cold takes, not that many in this thread are hot anyways.

 

[HottieLamatie]

Being offended for someone else does more harm than good.
I'm not arguing against compassion or empathy here, but I think it's far easier to overstep when you feel like you're doing it for someone else.

I agree with this. It's dangerous, anyway - can create problems. But that's also why I think it's important to understand how it can end up being a problem. I think one of the biggest issues which can arise is that the person doing the being offended often will miss nuances in an issue; whether it's offensive to the identity being assailed or not, the lack of understanding will lead to a misrepresentation of the views of the group (or individual) being basically defended. In the worst case, a gross perversion of their position gets put on blast because the person who's offended has more privilege and is therefore more widely listened to.

 

[xzern]

Just as an aside about “Karen”... I don’t know how many of you have watched Tiger King on Netflix, but I strongly encourage everyone to replace Karen with Carole. It’s not because she’s a woman. It’s because fuck Carole Baskin.

I'm only on the first episode so far and i was on carole's side for a certain point right up until (spoilers) they revealed that she ALSO runs some money printer tiger zoo except worse, what the fuck. The scene of her and her husband talking about how much money they were making made me sick.

There is a post going around on reddit.com talking about "Covid Karen" who spreads the disease "with her sense of entitlement." Now the pandemic is another thing blamed on women.

Last I checked, it's mostly women who are staying home with their children, working as nurses and doctors on the frontlines, and surviving abusive relationships because now there's no escape. Many women work at grocery stores, putting their lives on the line. They work in the service and retail industries that are currently being decimated by this virus.

What about Covid Caleb who doesn't wash his hands and ignores shelter-in-place orders? Or Covid Colton who doesn't cover his mouth when he coughs? Or Covid Chris who went to the beaches during spring break? It's always easier to blame women than to hold men accountable for their actions.

I disagree with you here. it's a stretch to say that people talking about karen hogging toilet paper is a feminist issue. I think that you saw a random fringe reddit thread and just took it too literally. karen is a common internet stereotype term, like kyle, stacy, or chad, and has very little (if any) bearing on the mindset of the average person.

 

[ManOfMany]

Karen is indeed a common internet stereotype, however the reason it is so commonly used and that Karen appears everywhere as a scapegoat for problems is because of misogyny. Sure there exist a lot of entitled women, but god knows that men tend to cause way more problems with hostility towards customers, hogging toilet papers, etc. It started out as a mostly harmless meme but became an easy way for younger men to hate on middle-aged women while still appearing woke.

 

[Clambats]

Karen is indeed a common internet stereotype, however the reason it is so commonly used and that Karen appears everywhere as a scapegoat for problems is because of misogyny. Sure there exist a lot of entitled women, but god knows that men tend to cause way more problems with hostility towards customers, hogging toilet papers, etc. It started out as a mostly harmless meme but became an easy way for younger men to hate on middle-aged women while still appearing woke.

This is false.

EVERYONE treats customer service like shit. We all know the real problem isn’t men or women, ‘cause calling them out on their behavior would be sexist, right? The real problem is service industry employees! Those assholes!

 

[Oglemi]

I can say from over 5 years of experience that your day to day problem people are your "karens", but your overall worst experiences don't discriminate by gender, women are just generally the ones that do the most shopping

 

[termi]

women be shopping...

 

[Clambats]

I can say from over 5 years of experience that your day to day problem people are your "karens", but your overall worst experiences don't discriminate by gender, women are just generally the ones that do the most shopping

Pretty much everyone is terribad. That said, in almost ten years the only people that have gone out of their way to spite me have been female. Men more or less are just rude to my face.

 

[blank]

the bigs should have won spl xi

 

[sunspider]

sorry in advance if this critique isn't totally coherent, i'll be happy to clarify as much as i can if needed

In order to be non-binary, you must experience dysphoria.

By dysphoria, here, I mean a need or desire to transition. Recently, there have been a large group of people who identify as non-binary claiming some combination of the following: 1) you do not need to have dysphoria to be non-binary 2) even if you did, it would not demand transition 3) some kind of “gender euphoria” is sufficient and 4) people should identify how they want.

In the case of 1), then the concept of non-binary identity is incoherent. Being merely dissatisfied with your gender role is a pretty common experience among most cis people (especially women), and you would not be able to distinguish between these two feelings. Given diversity in gender expression and identity within the broad categories “man” and “woman”, without dysphoria your identity is meaningless as it reduces to just a series of deviations from a norm, which is not sufficient for a new categorization.

2) is also incoherent. It is not clear to me how you could define dysphoria without a desire to transition. That is not to say that it requires a medical transition, there are many ways that this identity could come to be expressed by resolving dysphoria, but a desire to transition is both a necessary and sufficient condition for dysphoria, by definition.

3) is the attempt to resolve 1) without dysphoria. It is also incoherent as it implies some initial state by which to judge an improvement (i.e. it reduces to dysphoria conceptually). Simply being happy with a change in your gender expression remains distinct from being non-binary.

maybe i'm missing something here but it seems like the disagreement stems from conflicting understandings of what gender dysphoria is. to my way of thinking (based on my own experience with gender dysphoria and those of other trans and gender-variant people i've spoken to about it), dysphoria boils down to discomfort stemming from a disconnect between someone's internal relationship to gender and how they're perceived as a gendered being. it follows that gender euphoria is a state in which that perception is in better alignment with the internal relationship to gender, relative to the previous state. desire to transition (whatever that may mean) and make that gender-euphoric state the norm is something we can take for granted, but does that imply any state other than gender euphoria is discomfort relative to that desired norm? if so, requiring discomfort as a precondition for recategorizing yourself is always going to be a matter of degree, so where do you draw the line between dysphoria and just wanting to express yourself more authentically? that's one of my big issues with your premise here: it seems to require defining dysphoria so broadly that anyone who isn't perceived exactly as they want to be is always and already dysphoric to some extent or another, including GNC cis people. at that point the whole concept kinda has no meaning, in which case i don't get why you're arguing someone's gotta be dysphoric to be nonbinary.

wrt desire to transition: you say this doesn't have to mean biomedical transition (which i agree with 110%, fuck that gatekeeping), which leaves me a little confused as to how you're defining transition then. do you mean a desire to be perceived differently as a gendered (or non-gendered) being by other people? if so, yeah, i'm inclined to agree, but that's kind of a default thing. i don't think anyone's ideal state of being involves being perceived as one thing when they feel they're another. those who choose not to transition publicly make that choice for a bunch of different reasons. fear of violence is the obvious one. having so much else on their plate already that they don't wanna deal with the additional complications involved in being an openly trans person is one i've heard about from friends who are open with me about being nonbinary but present publicly as their assigned gender. feeling that they don't have the ability to articulate their identity in terms that people are going to understand is another big one - the thought process there is "if no one's gonna get it anyway, what's the point, i'm still perceived wrong so that doesn't fix anything and at that point it's not worth the effort". none of these factors imply a lack of a desire to transition and be perceived differently, just a cost-benefit calculation that doesn't place being gendered right as the person's top priority. so saying that dysphoria, or a nonbinary gender identity more broadly, has to "demand transition" to be valid doesn't really make sense to me. on a structural level gender-variant people in euro-american societies are broadly classed and treated as "man/woman/failed man/failed woman" anyway (and subjected to violence accordingly) whether or not we fit a given definition of being "dysphoric enough" or "trans enough"


i think you're totally right on the BDSM thing though and i wish more people saw it that way

 

[gvmgvm40]

suburbs and urban sprawl are disgusting and if I could I would raze all of them to the ground and replace it with mixed-use apartments and highrises in cities

 

[Magan Jerry]

Smoking weed is not cool.
It's not healthy.
It's not just "a lifestyle choice".
It's for losers.

You can always tell when someone smokes weed. They all have that dumb, distracted look on their faces, even if they're not high. Their eyes are totally empty. They don't pay attention when you're speaking to them. They keep glancing at your pockets or stare at the ground instead of maintaining eye contact; basics of social interaction are unknown to them.

Instead of actually engaging you in conversation, they just nod and keep saying "yeah, yeah" to cover up their lack of engagement. It might seem that they're lost in thought, but they're probably just entertaining one of thier half-baked "theories", which they will always change the topic of conversation to tell you about. They smile so coyly when they're about to this, you can tell that they think each and every one of their "thoughts" (if they even deserve to be called by that name) is so profound, that it's a gift from God that they are even bothering to explain it to a normal non drug addicted person like you. They will often pause mid sentence while searching for a word, a common word, to express a common idea, that any normal person would have no trouble recalling, which only deepens their illusion that they are some kind of Boehemian philosopher who is struggling to articulate a very subtle idea. By the way all these "theories" are derived from ideological trash like Marx, to give you an idea of the intellectual capabilities of the average weed addict.

We have all met these people.

Normally I am not in favor of the state intervening to curtail civil liberties but in the case of drugs, it just causes young people to go on the wrong path. We all know that weed can cause brain abnormalities and shrinkage in some areas relating to memory formation which prevents its addicts from learning from their mistakes and catches them in a "loop" of addiction.

By weaking people's locus of decision making it causes them to make more and more poor choices, some of them permanent like getting a tattoo or piercings which can negatively effect their job prospects.

Many many studies have shown the link between weed smoking and mental illness such as depression, anxiety, OCD and psychosis, proof is in the pudding as none of these people are mentally stable and you will know it if you have ever talked to one of them.

My own best friend since elementary school went down this path when we were both 15, today I am in college studying engineering while he is still living with his parents and "thinking of finding a job", even though his IQ was tasted to be nearly 140. It must have reduced now and his personality has totally changed, he thinks he is much superior but I just feel sorry for him.

We need to re illegalize this drug. I don't know why people think that just because it can't kill you like heroine or cocane it's safer. It can leave you as good as dead, trust me because I've seen it.

 

[HottieLamatie]

Pretty much everyone is terribad. That said, in almost ten years the only people that have gone out of their way to spite me have been female. Men more or less are just rude to my face.

I haven't done customer service nearly as long as you have, and while I agree that people from pretty much any background can be terrible......I also feel like one's own mindset and optimism, as well as how they come across, will have an overall positive impact on customer interactions. I am saying this from personal experience, I mean. Some customers will be awful no matter what, but I think some feel...I don't know, somehow less encouraged to be little shits when the worker is effervescent. To be fair though, perhaps I just don't notice when people are being terrible unless they're THE WORST or I just haven't hit a breaking point as far as taking the (unnecessary) time to win over hostile customers...probably a bit of both. I guess what's really at play here is that I believe that my interactions are more positive because my outlook is more positive; might make no difference in how I'm treated, but I've got to say, I enjoy my time interacting with others a lot more when I've got my rose-tinted glasses on, and I think that in itself is worthwhile! So even if it doesn't change people being terrible, it might make work a little more tolerable, you know? Besides, as a far-leftist, I feel like my policy dreams are built upon the belief that people are at least not inherently bad and that many can be positively influenced; this, in turn, (often, not always) affects how I interact with others.

Smoking weed is not cool.
It's not healthy.
It's not just "a lifestyle choice".
It's for losers.

-snip-

I believe there are people out there like this, absolutely. Perhaps they only do weed as their drug of choice and perhaps it's directly a cause of weed consumption. But it's decriminalised in The Netherlands and only ~33% of the population (at least among those living there on a more permanent basis, so I'm specifically excluding residents like, say, international students), and I don't personally know anyone like that there. I and a lot (though definitely less than half) of the people I interact with smoke weed semi-regularly and I partake myself when I'm in the country. It's legal from 18; not sure if that's too early, but I think that most people start around 18, not earlier.

So...what I'm trying to say is that it's not that simple. There are a lot of factors regarding individuals at play here...but there's also general culture and even more complicated factors involving localised culture, socioeconomic status, family history, etc. It seems healthy to me to analyse where it seems to work and where it doesn't to see what the underlying causes of the differences in outcomes are. And there should absolutely be resources that are well-known and GENUINELY readily accessible for people who are suffering from addiction...like how casinos promo the gambling addiction hotline. (You can't slap an enormous pricetag on something and bury it under bureaucratic hoops and still call it accessible, which is basically what much of healthcare "access" is in the US.)

Many many studies have shown the link between weed smoking and mental illness such as depression, anxiety, OCD and psychosis, proof is in the pudding as none of these people are mentally stable and you will know it if you have ever talked to one of them.

This is probably because people with these disorders aren't getting treatment, frankly. So the proof in the pudding is that people are looking for either escapism or self-care and coming to weed, which in healthy doses can help with at least some of these. It's possible that weed exacerbates these problems eventually, but I'm sure the addiction process starts because it either helps or offers some relief. I don't want to minimise the experience of your friend, so please bear in mind that I'm offering another aspect of weed, not saying it's all good or that weed is in no way the cause of peoples' problems.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Masturbation is not cool.
It's not healthy.
It's not just "a lifestyle choice".
It's for losers.

You can always tell when someone watches porn. They all have that dumb, distracted look on their faces, even if they haven't just jerked off. Their eyes are totally empty. They don't pay attention when you're speaking to them. They keep glancing at your pockets or stare at the ground instead of maintaining eye contact; basics of social interaction are unknown to them.

Instead of actually engaging you in conversation, they just nod and keep saying "yeah, yeah" to cover up their lack of engagement. It might seem that they're lost in thought, but they're probably just entertaining one of thier half-baked "theories", which they will always change the topic of conversation to tell you about. They smile so coyly when they're about to this, you can tell that they think each and every one of their "thoughts" (if they even deserve to be called by that name) is so profound, that it's a gift from God that they are even bothering to explain it to a normal non porn addicted person like you. They will often pause mid sentence while searching for a word, a common word, to express a common idea, that any normal person would have no trouble recalling, which only deepens their illusion that they are some kind of Boehemian philosopher who is struggling to articulate a very subtle idea. By the way all these "theories" are derived from ideological trash like Marx, to give you an idea of the intellectual capabilities of the average porn addict.

We have all met these people.

Normally I am not in favor of the state intervening to curtail sexual liberties but in the case of porn, it just causes young people to go on the wrong path. We all know that porn can cause brain abnormalities and shrinkage in some areas relating to memory formation which prevents its addicts from learning from their mistakes and catches them in a "loop" of addiction.

By weaking people's locus of decision making it causes them to make more and more poor choices, some of them permanent like getting a tattoo or piercings which can negatively effect their job prospects.

Many many studies have shown the link between pornography consumption and mental illness such as depression, anxiety, OCD and psychosis, proof is in the pudding as none of these people are mentally stable and you will know it if you have ever talked to one of them.

My own best friend since elementary school went down this path when we were both 15, today I am in college studying engineering while he is still living with his parents and "thinking of finding a job", even though his IQ was tasted to be nearly 140. It must have reduced now and his personality has totally changed, he thinks he is much superior but I just feel sorry for him.

We need to re illegalize this sexual activity. I don't know why people think that just because it can't kill you like heroine or cocane it's safer. It can leave you as good as dead, trust me because I've seen it.

 

[Clambats]

I haven't done customer service nearly as long as you have, and while I agree that people from pretty much any background can be terrible......I also feel like one's own mindset and optimism, as well as how they come across, will have an overall positive impact on customer interactions. I am saying this from personal experience, I mean. Some customers will be awful no matter what, but I think some feel...I don't know, somehow less encouraged to be little shits when the worker is effervescent. To be fair though, perhaps I just don't notice when people are being terrible unless they're THE WORST or I just haven't hit a breaking point as far as taking the (unnecessary) time to win over hostile customers...probably a bit of both. I guess what's really at play here is that I believe that my interactions are more positive because my outlook is more positive; might make no difference in how I'm treated, but I've got to say, I enjoy my time interacting with others a lot more when I've got my rose-tinted glasses on, and I think that in itself is worthwhile! So even if it doesn't change people being terrible, it might make work a little more tolerable, you know? Besides, as a far-leftist, I feel like my

I... I'm cured!

No, in all seriousness, you are correct. To say that EVERYONE IS TERRIBLE is hyperbole on my part, 9 out of 10 customer interactions are just fine. I tend to be very observant of customers as part of my job is coaching everyone else on exactly what you're describing and how to best avoid unpleasant interactions with customers. So I'm frequently watching the customer's face and body language when they're working with my trainees to better help teach new people how to be fake as shit and do things that make no sense to them, but go a long way with the customer's MASSIVE lack of understanding for how things actually work in reality.
This has made me very aware of just how miserable people will act at even the slightest inconvenience. People see a long line, go stand at the back of it, then proceed to give us dirty looks, cross their arms, pace around, and huff and puff the entire time. I don't know what they expected to happen when they walked up to the back of a long line, but *shrug*. That is a very mild example, obviously, but as I am also the guy who is most frequently grabbed to "deal" with a customer that is already upset or with a complicated request that someone else might not know how to handle (thus the customer already thinks we're unintelligent), I am also often enough left dealing with the type of person who calls my boss, starts crying (this is after she cussed out me, our customer service manager, and her instacart shopper), and tells my boss that I called her a racist. This is moments after she tells me "I'm sorry to tell you this, but you won't have your job very much longer"... Which is after I offered to call other locations and find the product she was looking for FOR her...... And all of this is because we ran out of spinach dip and she didn't believe me.
In the end, of course it is helpful to keep your head up and begin every interaction with every customer positively. That's the goal, and what we're paid to do. They really do take that and run with it though, don't they?

Ooh, bonus points for terrible customers though: I once had a trainee cut himself on a meat slicer and have to leave. As I got someone else to come deep cleanse the slicer, directed the guy who cut himself to the first aid kit, and then continued working on the customer's order myself, the man catches my attention, looks at me very sternly and angrily says "This is taking too long!"

To which I really didn't know how to respond. Should I have let the boy continue serving you while he bled all over your meat? Should we leave the blood on the slicer just to marinate for a while so we can complete your order before someone cleans up? Should I just go fuck myself? Probably the last one.

OOOH another one! I myself sliced my thumb all the way down to the knuckle because customer's demanded a catering order on the spot (a couple hour's worth of work, but I had about one hour to do it) so I was rushing and consequently lost the use of my thumb for a couple months. But anyway, as my boss' boss is escorting me to her car so we can go to the hospital (I am covered in blood and all bandaged up and shaking, etc...) we are stopped by an angry old man who starts yelling at us about soup. The man, myself, and my boss all kinda look at each other uncomfortably and then we walked away lol.


Hot take related to the post above mine; I think masturbation is better than sex.

 

[HottieLamatie]

teach new people how to be fake as shit

I heard "fake it 'til you make it" a lot when I worked phones. Actually, though...I never followed that advice. (I do think it has value in situations like your own self-confidence, though!) I almost never (especially after I was out of training) apologised unless I actually felt like it, and my concern for cusomers' problems, as well as my social interactions with them while waiting on something to load or whatever, were actually sincere. I was unnecessarily on a call for like an extra 10 minutes because the dude was calling from South Africa; I had questions, dammit! XD And I got in (minor) trouble for that...and yes, I did get in trouble on every call I went over with my coach which involved there being a problem, because I didn't apologise.

And for the record...while I advocate for trying to keep a positive outlook and enjoy your interactions with other people and take an interest in helping them, I don't give a shit about the corporation (I actively sought ways that I could get away with to give customers well above and beyond what I was allowed to give them, and in many cases succeeded) and I DO NOT believe that you should simply "find other work" if you don't like people or something like that. Do whatCHA gotta do! But it'll be more enjoyable for yourself and others if you try to have a good time.

Ditto for the customers. Like, you're not entitled to shit, first of all. Some people in some situations will give you something you don't deserve because you were a grade A sack of shit, but it (hopefully) isn't fun for you, it (probably) isn't fun for the people you're unleashing your fury on, and you might actually get less service as a result. I had exceedingly few calls where someone was an asshole at the end of the interaction; sure, there were people who were bad at first, but I won them over. Those few and far between who were the literal worst? I didn't go out of my way to help them. They were practically telling me not to. I suppose they didn't necessarily deserve less than those who were nice to me, so I guess that was an ethical error on my part...BUUUT I dunno, I also feel like I'm not really encouraging this behaviour to continue, and it's arguably more morally upright to give them only basic service so that they will be less inclined to be this awful to other people in the future.

The experiences you've had are absolute shit and totally just ??? to me. The one that really gets me is the guy yelling about soup - either it wasn't apparent to him that your colleagues were assisting you, who was conspicuously injured (would that not be obvious?), or he thought that his issue was more important. I just.....................wow. To go back to my point about there being only a few bad apples for the duration of a call: some people will just be bad, no matter what. :( I'd like to think you can reduce that number and enjoy your work more, but some people in a given moment are, for whatever reason, driven by an apparent motive to interfere with that as much as possible.

 

[Martin]

You can always tell when someone watches porn. They all have that dumb, distracted look on their faces, even if they haven't just jerked off. Their eyes are totally empty. They don't pay attention when you're speaking to them. They keep glancing at your pockets or stare at the ground instead of maintaining eye contact; basics of social interaction are unknown to them.

U sure it's your pockets they're staring at bud?

 

[tcr]

Furries absolutely deserve the stigma surrounding their subculture.

The common complaints about stigma surrounding furry culture as I see it are as follows: 1) Furries are depicted as overtly sexual being their primary motivation; 2) furries are seen as attracted to animals; 3) furries get a bad rap from a minority subculture

All of these stigmas are deserved. In multiple studies there is a near universal sexual component to maintaining a fursona. Hsu and Bailey (2019) reports that "a large majority of our sample reported non-heterosexual identities (84%) and some degree of sexual motivation for being furries (99%). Male furries also tended to report a pattern of sexual interests consistent with an ETII ("erotic target identity inversion") involving anthropomorphic animals. Both sexual attraction to anthropomorphic animals and sexual arousal by fantasizing about being anthropomorphic animals were nearly universal." (source). In Evans (2008), when asked "Is your interest in furry of a sexual or non-sexual nature?", 79% of respondents replied with some form of sexual component (source). In Plante, Reyson, Roberts, Gerbasi (2011) they found that 75% reported some sexual component to their attraction to the furry fandom, with one third of the overall sample claiming that it was extremely important to them on a Likert scale (source). (Supplementary Material: 1)

"But tcr, why does it matter what two consenting adults do in the bedroom, if they want to knock boots with a tail plug then why shouldn't they be allowed to?"

They should be allowed to but the problems with the movement are no different than that of the movements surrounding Lolis, MAPs (child attracted people), rape fantasies, or other kinks that involve some form of stigma attached, such as BDSM. There is a clear element of nonconsent attached to the sexual motivations when the object of attraction is meant to replicate an animal, which cannot consent. That they are anthropomorphic instead of being copies of animals is of no concern in the argument as it is no different than other "victimless crimes" such as being attracted to lolis, which glamorize and normalize problematic fetishes.

The claims that the furry community is just a group of people sharing a hobby is a poorly concealed facade paraded by people who are in the closet about their sexual attractions due to social stigma surrounding it, at a young enough age to where they are unsure what sexual attraction even is and have not developed enough to give a cogent thought, or an incredibly vocal minority community within the already small subculture. As sexualization of a fictional being (that is, it does not exist in nature - sexualization of Peter Griffin, while fictional, still constitutes sexualization of a 'real' creature, a human) can be seen as problematic due to normalizing deviant behavior, as seen in depiction of Lolis or MAPs, normalization of furries runs counter-intuitive to finding a moral center in society. The stigma thus attached to their movement is rightfully deserved, seen as an attempt for society to push back against aberrant fetishes.