Bad journalism on 'furries' has let down children and animals

[BitMuch]

4w.pub/bad-journalism-on-furries/

We knew this but this article really lays it all out. Terrifying.

Some weirdos are weirder than others! What a surprise!
I really wish people would confine their sexual activities to their own bloody bedrooms!

@Janie143

We knew this but this article really lays it all out. Terrifying.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I am actively opposed to workplaces encouraging people to bring their whole authentic selves into work.

That is not what I am there for.

Furries make my skin crawl. I will kink shame this activity without reservations at all.

Grim - and unsurprising to see how many paedophiles are now emboldened and openly target children.

Exploitation of children and animals. You can go no lower.

These bad-faith actors took advantage of the naivete and marginalization of theautistic and LGB youththat the welcoming, non-sexual idealization of the furry fandom appeals to. In the 1990s and 2000s, they hid behind the shame and cultural invisibility surrounding gender non-conformity and atypical sexuality of any kind,which occur more frequently in autistic people. They hid behindthe documented appeal of anthropomorphism to autistic people: anthropomorphic animals remain interesting to autistic teenagers due to social delay and face-blindness

If I wrote what I was thinking I would probably be banned.....

The Baltic Art gallery in Gateshead have had an exhibition on all summer with children's workshops linked to lgbtq queer feminism.

The artist is a "queer feminist." They then pronouns etc. Talks about how women and girls in her country are murdered in one breath and then talks about how queer feminism negates the uses of she and her in the other.

This is all in the leaflet. The exhibition looks like Lawrence luellen bowen was let loose with the addition of some model furries and a couple of futuristic landscapes (I forget how she links feminism to furries but she mentions fetish in the leaflet.)

In addition to that the gallery have brought in some huge posters all about their hate crime policy (huge letters too) which you pass as you enter the gallery. First I've ever seen anything like that.

Pretty pissed off with them.

(Made a few choice tags on twitter and I notice the mail shots stopped going on about queer feminism thank god. But I'm tempted to send them this article.)

To be fair everything in The Baltic is bollocks, that's its selling point I think.

If I wrote what I was thinking I would probably be banned.....

I imagine I may be thinking along those lines too...

Oh god what a mess ...

The links with autism / attraction for autistic teens are quite disturbing. That feels like a pool of vulnerable young people who are potentially being placed at risk.

In related wtf-ery, was in a training session about autism recently and was recommended to look at the Twitter/blog of Jamie and Lion:
twitter.com/spacedoutsmiles?t=IYUVymTHIWVhERknkxdkCw&s=09

Jamie is a software developer with the BBC. He is autistic, brings his plush lion with him everywhere for comfort and uses some adaptive devices, including an adult stroller. His house and bedroom are decorated in very 'childlike' ways and he sometimes uses children's utensils / plates etc.

So far, so good. But then I was scrolling through his blog and apparently he is part of the little/babyfur community (little is pretending to be a child; babyfur is baby furries )
spacedoutandsmiling.com/blog/2021-06-13-littleness-me

And now I am horrified and creeped out in equal measure. I cannot work out whether this is someone who is horribly naive and potentially being exploited, or whether he is fully into the sexualised nature of all of this - in which case using the stroller and the lion plushie in public (and blogging about it) feels vastly inappropriate.

I'm just speechless at how all this is apparently fine for a mainstream blog shared by healthcare professionals

Don't forget about the babyfur sub-community. If you put that term into Etsy you'll see how normalised this stuff has become.

Cross post. This previous discussion here is relevant:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4174892-Creator-of-assigned-male-comics-is-a-little

@InvisibleDragon

Oh god what a mess ...

The links with autism / attraction for autistic teens are quite disturbing. That feels like a pool of vulnerable young people who are potentially being placed at risk.

In related wtf-ery, was in a training session about autism recently and was recommended to look at the Twitter/blog of Jamie and Lion:
twitter.com/spacedoutsmiles?t=IYUVymTHIWVhERknkxdkCw&s=09

Jamie is a software developer with the BBC. He is autistic, brings his plush lion with him everywhere for comfort and uses some adaptive devices, including an adult stroller. His house and bedroom are decorated in very 'childlike' ways and he sometimes uses children's utensils / plates etc.

So far, so good. But then I was scrolling through his blog and apparently he is part of the little/babyfur community (little is pretending to be a child; babyfur is baby furries )
spacedoutandsmiling.com/blog/2021-06-13-littleness-me

And now I am horrified and creeped out in equal measure. I cannot work out whether this is someone who is horribly naive and potentially being exploited, or whether he is fully into the sexualised nature of all of this - in which case using the stroller and the lion plushie in public (and blogging about it) feels vastly inappropriate.

I'm just speechless at how all this is apparently fine for a mainstream blog shared by healthcare professionals

I am autistic and find all of that deeply creepy.

Alfonso

Yes, it's really weird.

It came up in the context of training around supports for children with autism - things like visual timetables, noise cancelling headphones and calming sensory environments. The trainer was making the (very valid) point that an situation person can be very able in some areas (high paid job in web development) but still need adaptations in others. Jamie was used as an example of an adult who has built a lot of adaptations into his daily life, which allows him to be successful. Then I read the blog and found his posts about kink and for very creeped out.

Interesting article.

This section sounds like bullshit to me though, which then makes me question the other claims more. FWLIW, Furries creep me out and I am very much of the position that I shouldn't be forced to celebrate or even validate someone else's link. Nonetheless...

"Asked to tweet an open secret in his field, one IT professional claimed: "Telecommunications as a whole, which also encompasses The Internet, is in a constant state of failure and just in time fixes and functionally all modern communication would collapse if about 50 people, most of which are furries, decided to turn their pager off for a day."

“Age play”?

This section sounds like bullshit to me though, which then makes me question the other claims more

All that section says is that someone claimed that in a Tweet. I verified this myself in under 5 seconds. Even if the Tweet is exaggerated, (which I hope it is) the article is just using it to indicate that a lot of furries are extremely tech savvy.

Sticking unverifiable tweet nonsense into an article doesn't make it any less nonsense or help the article IMO. It would have been more ideal to draw the lines between those dots with a less fanciful primary source.

That's not to say the article itself wasn't interesting or good. I picked up a few things from it. It just seems poorer for that specific addition in my view.

Nothing should surprise anyone anymore, considering the world is run by abusive men. It's a wonder there's any civilization left at all.

These people need to be laughed at, they are weirdos and should be mocked as such.