In Response to Jakebe...

Recently, Jakebe, a prominent writer in the furry fandom, has written a blog about me from the point of view of someone who knows me. Interesting timing, considering all of the drama that surrounded me at the moment. Jakebe hasn't spoken to me in years, but my last memories of him were someone who wrote from a balanced point of integrity toward the subject, the facts and his own perspective. I eagerly opened his blog, completely expecting him to disagree with some things I had said or done or with the way I may have handled some things. Honestly, I felt compelled to see what he had to say. From what I'd always known of Jakebe, if there might have been one person I trusted to give me a fair look at myself from the outside, it would have been him.

How people change...

This will be a theme in my response here. Change. Because the thing that people simply must realize about Jakebe is that, as he admits, he hasn't spoken to me in years. Honestly, there have been times when I wish he had. I've always had fond memories of him and never had a reason to dislike him. There had been a lingering hope for years that we might return to speaking terms again. However, the fact remains that there hasn't been a single significant conversation between us since he moved away from Arkansas in 2006, almost 10 years ago. And in that amount of time, anyone will change.

In his blog ( found here http://jakebe.com/2015/07/22/non-responding-to-drama/ ) Jakebe frequently says things like, "2 doesn't believe...", "2 doesn't care...", "This is the way 2 operates..." He seems to have a staggeringly crisp image of my inner thoughts and feelings in his crystal ball -- especially for someone who hasn't bothered to speak to me for a decade. Keep in mind that neither Jakebe nor I are the same people we were 10 years ago... even 5 years ago. Honestly, I wouldn't be writing this response at all save for the fact that Jakebe is a very legitimized writer. People read his words and they believe what he says. And I am a bit flabbergasted that he would use a platform that he has built such as this to abandon his writing integrity for what appears to be, in part, pure sensationalism.

Jakebe's blog concludes by saying that I have no place in his community that it should simply let me go, and he arrives at this conclusion through a system of irrationalities and assumptions that might be taken by some to be an accurate view of who I am. As such, I think it's very important to publish the other side of the coin and warn people to remember that Jakebe does not know who I am. This is important because he's trying to tell YOU who I am. But no matter how much he tries to legitimize the idea of "I was around 2 when he was 20, therefore I know his thoughts in his 40's", the fact remains that he does not know me and cannot tell you what I'm thinking or feeling. For someone who doesn't like straw men, Jakebe certainly created a big, mean and nasty one to kick at.

So, let's take a quick look at Jakebe.

"So under [2's] framework, there are only two options: listen to what I say and agree with me, or don’t listen to what I say and lose the right to criticize me."

That's a mean sounding statement isn't it? Jakebe is very good at drawing emotions where he wants them to go. He's a writer after all, and a good one! But look at what he's actually saying here -- that it's wrong not to criticize someone's words when you haven't even heard those words. If you're going to criticize a book, shouldn't you HAVE to read it? If a friend approached you with an opinion about a movie they had not seen, shouldn't that opinion be taken with a grain of salt? Not according to Jakebe. In his view, telling someone that you can't accept their criticism unless they actually know what they're criticizing is wrong. This is just what I did when I was approached by people with criticisms for things that I had obviously never said or done. But what Jakebe is saying that whether or not you know what you're talking about, you should be able to express your feelings about it, and those feelings should be regarded just as legitimately as anyone else's. This belief became obvious as I read his blog since it was the foundation on which some of it was written. He doesn't know me. He has no idea what I'm thinking or feeling. Yet this shouldn't prevent him from being able to tell you who I am or what I think and feel and have it considered seriously.

This was always a personality trait of Jakebe's when I knew him. He acted for all the world that he believed his emotions should be the most important thing to everyone, regardless of what they were or where they came from. In all honesty, there were times when it seemed that he might not even believe that feelings and opinions other than his even existed. I began to notice patterns in our conversations. Jakebe might say, "The weather is so nice today," to which I might reply, "Meh. It's too cold for me." Now, this would genuinely seem to perplex him. His reaction would usually be to repeat himself or claim that you didn't hear what he said. At the time, this was interesting to me, until I began to notice that any time I had a disagreement with an opinion he had in an e-mail, he would write back and repeat the parts I disagreed with or tell me I didn't pay attention to those parts.

Jakebe couldn't seem to comprehend when I would listen to his opinion, disagree and have a different one. This never seemed to register with him. "Broccoli really sucks." "Well, I happen to like it." "No, you didn't hear me. I said broccoli sucks."

I began to realize that in Jakebe's head, when he thinks or feels something, he must believe that it's what everyone would think and feel. And if that didn't match up, then there was something wrong with the person who wasn't lining up. This is the lense through which Jakebe is currently writing about me. And he's writing specifically to people who view things through that same, limited lense. Himself and his targeted audience are people who will not -- possibly CANNOT -- comprehend the idea that there are people in the world who do not feel the same way that they do.

This is a dangerous way of thinking. This is the kind of thinking that gets books banned from library shelves and movies blocked from theaters. Because in this mindset, the people who are gaining enjoyment from these things don't matter.

Jakebe doesn't care about the people my material inspires to smile or laugh or think or discuss. Jakebe doesn't care about any sadness or disappointment it might cause people if I were no longer able to speak. He doesn't care about the people that I receive mails from every day telling me how much support they have felt from me over the years or how I did indeed inspire them not to commit suicide or thanking me for being there for them during their hard times and depression to help lift them out of it and give them a smile. Jakebe doesn't care about those people because Jakebe feels that what I do and say are bad. And if he feels that it's bad, then everyone must feel that it's bad and this is the basis for a greater morality which can excusably ignore everyone who does not feel the same. Jakebe feels it's bad, therefore it's bad.

Jakebe says that I'm damaging to the community. He doesn't have to actually show any damage or explain what this damage is because that's not the point. The point is that's how he feels, and that's all that matters. Jakebe tells people what I think -- literally stating what is going on in my own brain. He doesn't have to actually know what I think because it's what he feels. I could look right into Jakebe's eyes and tell him that I'm not transphobic and this wouldn't matter. He would probably tell me I either don't know what transphobia is or that I'm lying. Unless you tell him something he already feels is true, he will dismiss it -- setting up a perspective that creates itself in its own image and cannot absorb anything that it does not already contain.

Now, Jakebe isn't the only one with this mindset. And the people with this mindset are starting to find each other and get together in a community. I think that's great! It's always good to have people around with whom you can agree and share similar views and feelings. But when you begin to collectively think in a system that creates its own higher morality and does not allow outside ideas to affect it, that's when you have to check yourself. Jakebe may feel that what I do is bad. He may even have good reasons to feel that what I do is bad. But what he needs to realize is that the fact that he feels badly toward what I do is not universally important to everyone. He is in a community where feelings are of the utmost importance -- even more valuable than the feelings of people outside that community. But there are other places, other communities and other people who simply do not assign the value to Jakebe's (or anyone's) feelings that he believes they should have to everyone. Jakebe needs to understand that this difference in value is not "wrong". It's not evil, dismissive or "bad". It's simply a different way to live one's lifestyle.

Jakebe's representation of me is created from conclusions that he can only reach with a perspective based on himself and his own feelings. If I behave in a certain way he will tell you that I must feel a certain way because that's how he would behave if he felt that way. It's not an entirely unreasonable assumption, right? But since his collection of tools with which to create a perception of me is limited to only his emotions, thoughts and responses, he is essentially not telling people who I am -- he's telling you who he'd be if he was me.

To be fair... much of Jakebe's blog about me is accurate, particularly the parts he speaks of when we were both living in Arkansas. There are a few things I remember that he might not and some things that I have a slightly different perception of -- likely just the normal degradation of memory that many years tends to slap you with. And no matter now critical he is of me, it's ALL well written. I recall one point of annoyance in our relationship to each other was Jakebe's tendency to pass out asleep almost anywhere. The poor guy would never voluntarily sleep. He would simply keep going until his brain would shut him off in the middle of whatever he was doing... in front of the TV, at the movie theater, on the toilet -- even once in the middle of a soccer field when he was walking home, if I recall. Looking back on it, it was a good part of my life and I view it fondly, as does he apparently.

Where the blog starts to take its turn into fantasy is where he begins his projections of the way I think and feel currently. He says I will never apologize. Well, that's just not true. I've apologized for things many times and continue to. But I feel it's dishonest to apologize for things I genuinely feel I am not responsible for. What more empty words can there be than "I'm sorry," if you are, in fact, not sorry? I think what Jakebe wants from me is to honestly feel sorry for things that he might feel sorry for or that he believes I should feel sorry for, but again -- people are different.

Jakebe says that I dismiss criticism as "hate" and won't respond to it. Yet here I am, responding to HIS criticism after making a video responding to even more criticism. He says he watched that video. I notice he did not correct himself or acknowledge that I did the very thing he had just said I don't do. But again, I would ask Jakebe -- what would you want me to do? Jakebe doesn't have a tap to my phone, e-mail or social media. He doesn't see what I see. Perhaps he doesn't realize that my Twitter window scrolls once every 15 seconds and I don't see everything that comes through. Perhaps he doesn't know that a message such as, "Lololo old fucking stupidface U suck and R not funny U should die" is simply NOT criticism. And when I say that I hadn't yet received any real criticism to respond to that I actually hadn't.

In the end, Jakebe continues to create arguments against me by projecting his emotions onto my actions, assuming my thoughts and feelings and then disagreeing with them, the point of which seems to be to take advantage of the current rush of interest in the situation and cater to the pitchfork and torch wielding villagers who have just discovered that there is a witch in their village. So as you read his blog, do remember to keep this in mind and, as with those who haven't really read the book, take his concoction with a grain of salt.

Jakebe is correct in his account that I have become less mindful of the opinions of people out there. That's a criticism and a charge that I will accept and recognize. And the reason for this is because, having been in my business for more than 15 years, you begin to understand that no matter what you do, someone is going to react critically or hatefully toward it. When you get a negative comment from someone with every step you take, it's simply human nature for that negativity to eventually become background noise. Jakebe and I were still in contact with each other when this began happening to me. In this case, the only result from focusing on every negative thing you hear would be to shut up and walk away. There's no possible way to make everyone happy. But I made the decision, right or wrong, to continue to make some people happy, even if others felt upset by what I do. In my estimation, the ones who are upset are perfectly capable of avoiding what I say and for me, that was good enough to inspire me to continue thinking positively and move forward with my comedy, which I will continue to do.

In the end, Jakebe's perceptions seem to be just as shaped by his voice as I have by mine. His blog wasn't about me, it was about his version of me. He sees his world and describes me as I would be as a character within that frame, just as I see my world and do the same of government and social issues. Which one of us is right and which one wrong? The answer is neither. We're showing you our perceptions of the world as we see it. The only difference is, Jakebe cannot tolerate my voice intruding into his world, and that's where I believe he needs to consider his ideas on this matter.

Jakebe says I have no place in his community, but I believe his community is smaller than he thinks it is. Because not every person in his sub-culture feels and thinks the way he does, and I know he's intelligent enough to recognize that. If his "community" is a collection of people who feel that their own feelings should be everyone else's reality then yes... it's time to let me go from that community.  

To the complainers...

Dear Complainers,

Once again, we have reached that time of year when you feel it's necessary to complain that I'm being sent to Eurofurence and you're not. What you don't realize is that your complaints are born out of quite a few things you're not aware of. So listen up and let me edumacate you bitches.

1). The fact that you complain about me being sent to this one, single convention every year seems a bit ridiculous since I'm sent to between 10 and 15 conventions every single year. And it's not just me. Nearly every major performer has been given travel expenses to every convention, every year since the very first furry convention in history! It has literally always been this way. This is how you get your entertainment at a furry convention.

Do you really believe that Matt Ebel, Bucktown Tiger, Fox Amoore, Uncle Kage, or anyone has the financial means to fly all over the damn world a couple dozen times a year? When members at an event want to see a performer or an appearance from someone, the event brings them there. This isn't some kind of secret, it's just the way the business works, has always worked and will always continue to work in entertainment, regardless of genre or venue. Complaining because one convention of one genre is doing this for one person is like complaining that one company is giving one of their employees health benefits and nothing to you, even though you don't work there!

2). Eurofurence is NOT bringing me there. They're the only convention that doesn't! Why? Because of you. The complainers. Because of your complaints, Eurofurence has determined that it isn't right to help me out with travelling there (and I completely understand their reasoning. I love and support them completely). So as a result of YOUR complaints, if people want to see me perform there, they have to donate money to me out of their own pockets which you are now also complaining about!

YOU caused this result. Don't tell me that I'm "abusing power" or "forcing others to pay for my laziness", this is YOUR doing. Crying crocodile tears for the poor people who're having to pay my way to Eurofurence is just insulting since you're the ones who pushed this expense on them in the first place. I care deeply about my fans. You don't.

3). "If you can't afford to go, then you should stay home like everyone else." I completely agree. And I absolutely cannot afford to go. And I accept that. And when furries start asking me if I will make it to Eurofurence, I say that I can't. And when they decide they want to see me perform there anyway, those wonderful people throw in whatever they can to get me there so I can perform for them. What you're suggesting is that even in this case, I should refuse to go! They're already having to pay to get me there, now you want me to slap them across the face and tell them I refuse to go? That's too rude and insulting for me to even imagine doing to people who want to see my shows! Congratulations, you are far more heartless than I could ever be.

4) Another point you're missing is that you're going there to have fun. I'm going there to work so that you can have fun! I'm not going to EF to be on vacation. The last time I was there, I worked between 9 and 12 hours a day for the convention. I probably got 10 hours of sleep in that whole week. I nearly killed myself! And I ask for no pay whatsoever. I did it so that I could donate my time to help others have a fun weekend. You get to see me on stage and in panels, but what you don't get to see is me in front of a word processor for weeks prior to the convention writing material or me carrying boxes and moving equipment out to the trucks after the con is over. This is the difference between people who are paying to be entertained, and people like the performers, volunteers and staff who are busting their asses to entertain you.

So honestly, why are you complaining? Be honest, are you even going to Eurofurence? Would you ever be bothered to work there the whole weekend? Or are you just sitting around and piss-moaning from afar because you believe I'm snatching up other people's spare change so I can fly to Europe and sit around in a beach chair with a fucking umbrella drink or something?

From my heart, I truly am sorry that not everyone can make it to a convention they'd like to go to. It's gotta be frustrating to have to struggle so much to go to a convention and then see a fundraiser to get someone else to one. If it were up to me, everyone would go to whatever fur cons they'd like! But unfortunately that can't happen. Are you really saying that if you can't go, then the people who *can* go shouldn't get the entertainment they want while they're there just because it upsets you to see the entertainers getting help to go?

Blaming the victims of the victims.

Rape.

There's that word again. Did you feel something when you read it? Perhaps anger? Maybe resentment at the owner of the fingers that tapped the keys that formed it? I'm finding lately that this is often the case. I can intone this simple collection of sounds in a vacuum, with no other context at all, and it takes mere seconds for someone to respond with, "How DARE you!"

"Rape" is becoming a swear word.

Rape has been an issue for a very long time. It isn't a trending new atrocity that we'll see in the current events section of your local society magazine along with the brand of energy drink teenagers are cooking down and injecting into their eyeballs to get the most recent version of a drug trip. Societies have been concerned with the act of rape in different countries for hundreds of years. Rape is not new.

What *is* new is the aforementioned over-sensitivity to the concept, along with a disturbing new nonchalance in slapping people with "rapist" and "rape supporter" accusations like they were handing out protest flyers. One must merely *question* the nature of rape to be suspect. McCarthy has been resurrected and now stands in continual judgement of sexual integrity. But be careful not to say this too loudly or you too may be labeled a communis.... pardon me, a "rapist".

So, what changed? Why are people now stomping up, red-faced, spraying anime tears to any male who has a functioning penis to yell "rapist" at them? They didn't used to do that. Has the definition of "rapist" changed?

No sane person supports rape. No one ever has! And no one blames the victims of rape for what happened to them. In fact, it's impossible to consider a victim to be at fault! That's what "victim" means. A person can only direct fault at someone *another* person considers to be a victim, whereas they themselves do not. A "victim" is greatly open to interpretation. "Rape" is a sexual act that is forced on another person. The meaning of rape isn't open much to interpretation. It hasn't changed. What *has* changed is the meaning of *"victim"*.

This disappointing new social finger-pointing shit-parade isn't about rapists or victims or "apologists". It's about entitlement.

Not too long ago, a victim was something people didn't want to be. People who suffered tragedies like disease, physical violence or disasters most often didn't discuss them and they certainly didn't announce them. They were hard times that a person viewed as hurdles in life to overcome and conquer in the fight to regain a normal existence. Often, a person's ability to climb past being a victim helped define him.

Unfortunately, the children of these people noticed how victims were treated differently. Victims get extra attention. They get patted on the back and coddled. Victims are forgiven for social blunders, rudeness and inappropriate behavior that others aren't. Victims are special, non-victims are not.

Now, instead of being defined by how you move past being a victim, people are defining themselves by what they're a victim of. Being a victim isn't only desirable, it's sought after! People are lining up to be considered victims of anything that has a wide and ambiguous enough definition that they can squeeze between its margins in whatever way possible. Look at autism. A "disease" of which almost anything can be a symptom, of which almost anything can be the cause and of which there is no cure. It is a disease which practically anyone on Earth can have to some degree. Is it any wonder that every neglected, attention starved teenager is wearing it on their sleeve as though it were a fucking medal?

The problem with rape accusation isn't that there are more rapists or people who support rape, it's that a rape *victim* could be anything from someone who was raped, to someone who might have just *thought* they were going to be raped. Young people are being indoctrinated into the horse shit idea that rape is what happens when someone decides at any time that a sexual encounter they had wasn't exactly what they wanted, whether or not it was consensual at the time. People are so desperate to derive the awards of being a victim, they will invent the culprit. A victim could be anyone or anything at any time. And under these conditions anyone who questions the validity of any crime is "blaming the victim".

So, why does it matter? Because simply, being accused of a sexually driven crime or supporting sex criminals is one of the most destructive and devastating things that can happen to a person. When the accused is actually a sex criminal, then this effect is well-earned. However, the new fad in fashionable self-martyrdom has people slinging this accusation at people who've really done nothing wrong. And this is one of the most grossly abhorrent things that someone can do to another person. It's not just "guilty until proven innocent", it's "guilty until and even if proven innocent".

In short, I'm not speaking out against rape victims. I'm speaking out in support of the falsely accused. I don't support rape and I don't blame the victims. I simply reject your abominably self-serving, shit-brained definition of what a victim is in the first place. Rape isn't something that happens when a woman gets drunk and has irresponsible sex with someone, then decides a month later it was a bad idea. Rape isn't what happens when someone decides their ex is a bad person and was raping them the whole time. Rape isn't what happens when a person is so ashamed of someone they had sex with, that saying it was rape absolves their personal fucking integrity. Rape is being physically forced or coerced into a sexual act, period. Rape is not a negative emotional evaluation of a sexual experience. And as long as I am accused of supporting rape for saying what I just said, I will continue to invite my accusers to go fuck themselves.

Why I Will Not Be Leaving Furaffinity.

Because of some recent drama in the furry fandom, people have been asking me if I will be leaving Furaffinity and what I think about the whole situation. I've been trying to bite my tongue and avoid going into detail about what I think, but as more and more people are bringing up the subject, saying something about it seems unavoidable. So, this is my response...


Once upon a time, I found a nice little fandom that had a lot of misunderstood people in it. They were called furries. And I watched as mobs of unfathomably ignorant fuckballs pointed and cast judgement on these people without even knowing the first thing about them. They called them animal fuckers, perverts, sexual deviants and sometimes even child molesters. They fired furry employees, disowned them from their families and went about making their lives as much of a hell as possible just for being who they were. They had no proof, no evidence, no reason to believe the furries were these dangerously twisted people. The vast majority of them had never even met a furry or talked with one. However, if you confronted them with their lack of any actual data on the subject, their reply was that they "saw it on the news", or "watched it on CSI" or "read it on the internet", therefore it must be true. Thus, without knowing a thing about the furries they were judging, they continued to judge them relentlessly for the simple reason that they wanted to, without giving one single, minute shit about whom it may be hurting or if it was even the truth. And, as we quickly discovered, nothing we said or did would ever change their minds. They had turned into bullshit-babbling, sub-slime douchepots.  

Seeing the way the furries were treated, I wanted to defend them from the brainless prejudice of the ignorant masses, and it was a job I very much enjoyed doing. So why is it that now, years later, I find myself defending others from the furries who have hence become the exact same bullshit-babbling, sub-slime douchepots?

I have now seen 4 people I know within the fandom being accused of horrendous crimes with no shread of proof or evidence. In all cases, there were no police reports filed, no physical evidence, no witnessess. Yet the mob of furries with torches and pitchforks would rather have a monster to shout at than to take two seconds to give a single squirt of piss about the fact that they know nothing about the person being accused or what the truth actually is. Twitchfox's e-mail about DerpMoo's blog regarding the coversation his friend PigBonk overheard between MonkeeD1ck and StumpFuck recalling that girl they knew who dated a guy who used to know the ex-girlfriend of the person in question is enough evidence for them, so they'll continue to judge.

This unmitigated, baseless hatred is what I fought against when furries were in its crosshairs and the same furries are now using it against their own kind. And now, they're intent on showing their disgust for one of these dreamed up monsters by leaving the largest furry art web site in the world.

So, what I think of this situation?

The great majority of furries have taken this steaming pile of drama at face value and have long since shrugged it off. The biggest part of the fandom is the fun, creative, mostly-happy fandom it usually is. However, there is still a small portion of bullshit-babbling, sub-slime douchepots. And now they're getting up and walking away! So... where's the bad news? If every brainless idiot in your town stood up and said, "We're morons! So we're going to another town!"... how would this not be the best day ever? ...(except for the other town, of course.)

So my answer is I will absolutely NOT be leaving FA! And I fully encourage anyone who can actually be confident in their right to judge a person based on drama-generated, internet horse shit to please, go ahead and jump ship. I've been looking for a way to seperate furries from idiot furries for years. It'll save me a lot of trouble if you just did it yourselves. Make your own site and keep your bullshit faux activism entertainment over there. I'll even liscence www.bullshit-babbling-sub-slime-douchepots.com to you so the rest of us can know to avoid it.

As a final note: I'm completely aware that the retards perpetuating this drama will likely point to selected phrases and half-sentences in this blog and say, "SEEEEEE?!?!?!! Proof that 2 Gryphon supports RAPE! And hates all women! And cheats on his taxes and..... I dunno... gargles with the minty sperm of the nearly-extinct, green beaked tit moose, or something. And to you, I say the same thing that I do to the people who judge YOU as FURRIES based on nothing more than their need to be entertained by the newest bullshit, self-rightious crusade... 

Gobble my fucking balls! Like... right now. Just gobble them. And make a noise like "blublublublublu" when you do it. It will amuse me. I will record it and use it as a sample in my new DJ mix called, "The Sounds Of Stoopid". I'll make kerbillions.

There. I've said my peace. Now, back to real life...

The Death Of American Responsibility.

Hey folks! Did you know I am a magician? It's true! In fact, I will do a magic trick for you right now. First, read this statement a friend I like to debate with sent to me recently about his view of a particular social issue...

"Gang violence is a major issue in this country. It uses significant resources and tax payer money to deal with. We, the public, pay for the repercussions every day of gang violence in America. A government program to use our tax dollars to give gang members free crack would be the best solution to this problem. With free crack will come a reduced amount of gang violence and the public will pay much less than if we simply throw money at dealing with the problem."

That's a pretty ridiculous statement, isn't it?

But wait! Now comes the magic trick. You see, this is not actually what my friend said. Watch as I alter only two different phrases to return this statement to what he actually said, and change the whole statement into something that not only doesn't sound ridiculous, but is something that many people in the country support currently...

"Unwanted pregnancy is a major issue in this country. It uses significant resources and tax payer money to deal with. We, the public, pay for the repercussions every day of unwanted pregnancy in America. A government program to use our tax dollars to give women free birth control would be the best solution to this problem. With free birth control will come a reduced amount of unwanted pregnancy and the public will pay much less than if we simply throw money at dealing with the problem."

For some readers, your first thought will be, "But, it's not the same thing!" Think about it for a moment. How is it any different?

I'm not comparing all women to gang members, obviously. I'm comparing one group of people responsible for their own actions to another.

America has become a country where we insist that our personal lack of responsibility is the fault of the public, not ourselves. If we misbehave, make sloppy choices in life or commit completely morally irresponsible acts, the fault lies on the general public for failing to prevent us from making those choices. This is what American has turned into.

If someone kills or injures themselves or goes financially bankrupt -- if their children are attacked by predators or grow up educationally or morally stunted -- this is OUR fault and WE have to pay for it. And now, as Monty Hall shows us what's behind curtain number three, we can see the next thing we shall all be responsible for is when a woman simply can't manage to keep her legs closed or a guy just can't bring himself to stop humping whatever he can get his hands on.

Getting pregnant is a very delicate act. Ask anyone who's tried to breed pandas. You don't just trip over a banana peel and wind up pregnant. It takes either a lot of effort or a lot of very shitty, very conscious decisions.

Sure, it will cost the American tax payer less to supply drugs to women to save them (and us) from the repercussions of their own bad decisions. But I, for one, miss the days when people accepted responsibility for their own choices. And, if it were up to me, not a single cent would be given to any American by the government to bail them out of their own stupidity. It is only through the consequences of our mistakes that we learn not to make those mistakes. Isn't it interesting that the more we save people from themselves, the more they need saving?

Am I Creepy?: A Guide For Furries

As a furry, I've learned it's a universal fact that, sooner or later, everyone in the furry fandom will have a run in with a "creepy" furry. In most cases, this will take place at a furry gathering or a convention. Perhaps it will be a furry who goes barefoot in the hotel lobby, has a visible (and olfactorial) lack of hygiene or injects awkward subject matter into conversations with complete strangers. These are the furries the media look for to shock and awe their audiences at the quirky nature of the furries. The ones who, by no real fault of their own, can turn a social situation into an uncomfortable experience for those they're interacting with. When we call a furry "creepy", what we're really saying is that they're socially awkward -- they don't recognize or are unaware of the usual social clues and etiquette.

The problem many of us experience with these "creepy" furries is that they simply don't realize they're creepy. To them, they are behaving just like everyone around them. If they were aware of the social awkwardness they were stumbling over -- well, they probably wouldn't be doing it. Unfortunately, informing these furries that they are creepy, even in the most benign of situations, can still hurt their feelings and be very uncomfortable for the one informing them.

Now, here's the part that might be hard to believe. That furry could be you, dear reader. It is the goal of this post to try and help you realize if you are a "creepy" furry and, if so, what you can do to prevent those around you from feeling uncomfortable. I intend to be as honest and forthcoming as I can.

Let me start with a recent personal experience...

******************

I was at a dinner with another 20-or-so furries. My table was the one the celebrities had clumped up at (there is a reason for this, but I'll talk about that sometime in the future -- perhaps my next entry). Amongst the people at this table were friends and colleagues I've known and worked with for more than a decade and, in general, we were discussing convention business and musing over events that have happened in our pasts.

Suddenly, I noticed the conversation at the table fell silent, and I saw a furry standing rather uncomfortably close to a friend of mine seated at the opposite end. I'm unsure of how his line of dialogue started, but he appeared to be lecturing my friend on some of his accomplishments in the scientific field. (I'll admit, I don't remember exactly, but I'm fairly sure none of us were discussing science at the time.)

He didn't notice the fact that the people at the table had gone quiet, or that they were either looking away from him or staring down at their hands. He didn't catch the facial expressions and social gestures from my friend that he was uncomfortable with the situation. And if he did see these things, he didn't know how to interpret them. It appeared that he'd just walked up and began discussing his life in the middle of our conversation and none of us had ever met this person.

After a moment of awkward silence, I could see my friend trying to respond in the nicest way he could and stumbling a bit. I thought the best thing to do would be to try to turn the conversation to something everyone at the table could relate to.

"So, where are you from?" I asked. The response I received from him was a pause-less, somewhat frightening torrent of words I will try to render thusly:

"Well I was in western Canada when I was younger but then I moved south for a while and I've been to the Los Angeles area before and around the southern California area but then I moved away from there and why would you ask something like that?"

I was a little taken aback. "Uh. This isn't a hard one, man. Where are you from?" After a couple more tries, he finally told us that he lives somewhere in silicon valley. Wonderful! Something we could grab onto and interact with him about. And, as another person at the table began to remark on someone she knew in the Silicon Valley area, the man vanished without so much as another word! Dissipated back to his own table, I assumed.

A few minutes later, as I was eating the dinner that had been brought out and talking with the friend in the seat next to mine, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a rush of breath on my neck from behind. I shivered, disconcertedly. I turned around and there was our new friend, his face just inches from mine.

"So I couldn't help but notice that question you asked earlier back when you asked me where I was from, I didn't know if you meant the place I was born or the place I live right now but I was just curious if that's what you meant because if that is what you meant then it seems like a strange thing to ask and why would you ask something like that?"

My mouthful of food sat there, terrified and unchewed. The friend who'd been talking to me had been cut off mid sentence by this and could only stare at me with an expression both concerned and relieved that this was happening to me instead of him. I tried my best to speak around a mouthful of steak.

"I was just curious," I said. At this point, I was becoming worried that he might have thought I was a secret agent or an alien trying to discover his home address. I'd never been told that asking a person you've just met where they're from was a strange question.

"Okay, because I wasn't sure why you'd ask a question like that and I didn't really know what you meant so I'm sitting at that table over there and I saw you were sitting here and I thought I'd just come over and say hi."

"Hi," I said. I had no idea what else to say!

"So all right, I'll go back to my table now I guess and I just wanted to stop over here and say hi so I'll go back to my table now and I hope I didn't upset you or anything."

"A little bit creepy, actually." Maybe I shouldn't have said it. Maybe it would have been better if I'd just smiled and nodded and let him go. But I tend to treat people the way I would like to be treated, and if I was doing something socially awkward and didn't know it, I'd want to be told about it.

He paused in thought and then looked at me. "Really?"

I nodded, "Yeah, that was a bit creepy." For a moment, it seemed like he might actually have been interested and appreciative of the feedback.

But then, all at once, he said, "Oh. Sorry, then." He got on his hands and knees and crawled across the floor, between the legs of a large horse statue behind me and back to his table.

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Almost everyone reading this will understand that this was a creepy experience. This person was socially awkward and uncomfortable -- even a little frightening -- to be around. Do I hate him? Of course not. Was I trying to hurt his feelings? Again, no. He just simply does not understand that the way in which he was behaving was strange and uncomfortable to the people around him. He doesn't understand that it's awkward to crawl on the floor of a restaurant or that there is a certain, generally accepted physical distance at which it becomes distressing for a stranger to be within. He doesn't understand that it's important to have met a person you wish to engage in casual conversation first, or that speaking in barely controlled barrages is very difficult to interact with. He doesn't understand, but this does not make him a bad person in any way.

 Unfortunately, once he returned home, he began to raise holy hell on the social networks, claiming his character had been publicly and ruthlessly attacked.. Ironically, if he'd wanted to prove I was wrong, that would have been the first thing he wouldn't have done. If not for the public self-crucifixion, he'd have probably been able to approach me again in a few months and I wouldn't have even remembered it. Now, of course, he's burned in my head for good.

What does this mean for our creepy friend? Well, it simply means that I will be making a point not to be around this person in the future. It's an unfortunate way to start out what could have possibly been a friendship with someone. Though I don't blame him for his lack of social skills, I'm still going to avoid him in the future. He has likely missed out on other helpful or important interpersonal relationships for the same reason.

In the end, he had (and still has) no idea that he was behaving in a creepy way. It's even likely the description of what happened that night will be completely different in his perception. And that's where this blog comes in. If you are a creepy furry, you likely don't know it. So, to prevent you from causing people you might like to know better to flee from you, and to help stop others around you from taking on the uncomfortable task of informing you that you're creepy, I have put together some guide lines to help you realize when or if you're being creepy and what to do about it.

Keep in mind - It is far beyond the scope of this journal to explain every unspoken social rule, why they exist and how to deal with them. Many of these rules are instilled into people from early childhood and on through their lives. What this journal can do is help you recognize if you're breaking those rules and offer some easy ways to react.


AM I CREEPY?

Focus on the actions in which you are currently engaged and the other people around you and ask yourself these questions (note: these conditions apply only to actual events and not necessarily internet experiences):

1. Have you spent 20 minutes or more focused on or following a person whom you've never met or been introduced to?

2. Have you spent 30 minutes or more focused on or following a person who is not interacting with you socially?

3. Are you sitting with a person or group of people who did not invite you to sit with them?

4. Are the people you're with repeatedly attempting to excuse themselves and go elsewhere?

5. Has it been more than one day since your last shower?

6. Look at your current attire (with the exception of costumes). Do you feel you would get in trouble if you were wearing your current attire at school or in a shopping mall?

7. Have you spent more than a few minutes having a conversation with someone who is rarely responding and/or responding in short, passionless replies?

8. Are you sharing more intimate details of your life, relationship(s), job or fantasies with someone who does not know your real first and last name?

9. Does the person you're talking to appear to be frightened or disconcerted by your presence?

10. Have more than a few people told you that you were creepy or socially uncomfortable?

If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", then it's possible that you are socially uncomfortable for some people to be around. If the answer to more than three of these questions is "yes", then you are certainly socially uncomfortable to be around. And if you answered "yes" to all of these questions, then God just spent a lot less time on you.

Now comes the important part -- what to do if you *have* answered "yes" to any of these questions. The easiest solution is in the question(s) to which you answered yes. Simply stop doing it. Remember, if you have goofed when it comes to a social rule, then you've just goofed. It's very unlikely that anyone will hate you for it. However, unless you stop yourself, you may wind up with a person or group of people who will never want to be around you again. If you recognize that you are behaving in one of the ways listed above, simply say goodbye and leave the area -- or, if it applies, reconsider your hygiene. If you're interested in meeting or talking to someone, perhaps it might be best to do it later. And it definitely wouldn't hurt to read up on social etiquette, specifically how to meet someone or have a meaningful conversation.

In the end, if you suspect you are a creepy furry and you can follow these guidelines, your social interactions with others will likely be much less uncomfortable for you and for them. And ultimately, you may have a much better chance at meeting and talking to people you're interested in.

Group Guilt Line

In my writings, rantings and general scriptus vomitus, people have accused me of making blanket statements against people. And honestly, they're correct. I am not ashamed of this. I do, on occasion, blame the innocent for harm done by those in their group. You may be asking yourself what kind of person would hold an entire group of people responsible for actions that only some of them have committed. The answer is WE do... all of us.

I've always found it a bit comical how many people will jump out of the woodwork to defend a hundreds-of-millions-of-members group like Christians from little ol' me, and I've been doing some thinking about it because it simply doesn't make a lot of sense.

What I find the most fascinating about this psychological knee-jerk is that it demonstrates that we would ultimately rather absolve the innocent than blame the guilty.

To paraphrase a conversation I once had:
"Catholic priests are horrible! More of them turn up having molested children every day!"

Response:
"It's unfair to say that. Not ALL Catholic priests do that!"

How quickly we lean toward forgiveness of a group by demonstrating what it's NOT doing than condemning them for what they ARE doing. But wait a minute here... If the whole group isn't collectively guilty because some priests are not molesting children, then why isn't also the whole group collectively guilty because some of them are? If it's wrong to proclaim a whole group guilty for something being done by part of the group, isn't it just as wrong to proclaim them innocent for the same reason? It's as if the fact that 10 priests raping children is acceptable as long as 20 of them weren't! And this is a logical atrocity that I hear spewed over and over, by people from all walks of life.

If one person condemns ALL of the police force for shooting unarmed people, another person will absolve ALL of the police force for spending a quiet night with doughnuts and somehow walk away, happy with himself that he corrected such a fallible blanket statement.



Where exactly is the line drawn? If 2 out of a million people abstain from stabbing penguins, are they still all innocent because "Not ALL of them stab penguins!" How much of a group must be guilty before the whole group is? Who sets this number and what basis do they use? The fact is we ALL set this line for ourselves based on who we are and what we believe. And in spite of what you, yes YOU, might think, no one's "group guilt line" is any more or less correct than your own.



And, unsurprisingly, this defense of the innocent only applies to statements we don't already agree with.

Remember when I said we all hold groups responsible for the actions of a few? By percentage, only a small number of Nazis ever killed any Jews. As as distasteful as the topic is, it's just a fact. The majority of the Nazi war force held desk jobs, repaired equipment, drove supply vehicles... fairly menial tasks. They certainly weren't all running through the street blowing away members of a specific religion. Yet where are all the people to jump up and defend the Nazis when I proclaim that the Nazis were collectively an evil group?

In a society where we consider someone who downloads kiddie porn just as guilty as the person who took the pictures, how can we disassociate the blame between a Christian who is protesting against gay rights and the very pastor who encouraged it simply because he's not also standing on the street with a sign? It simply makes no sense.

My only hint of an answer to this lies in a certain selfishness. Very few of us knows or cares about any Nazis or child molesters. On the other hand, quite a few of us have friends or family who are Catholic, police officers or Christians. Our "group guilt lines" are in direct connection with our desire to fool ourselves into thinking we couldn't possibly care for a complete scum bag or two. If the group in question isn't present or able to defend themselves, we judge them all. If, on the other hand, we know a member or two of the group and have judged them to be good people, then it's wrong to judge the whole group, no matter what they do.

But keep this in mind. The very moment we make the choice to separate who is guilty and who is not, we are doing the same thing as those who have judged us. 70 years ago, would it really have been less ignorant to have a moral separation between the "good" and "bad" black people than to judge them all bad?

Either we're all guilty or we're not, folks. And the fact is, we're all guilty. And while I find it inspiring that human beings tend to favor innocence to guilt, I have been judged far too often to think I'm qualified to separate the wheat from the chaff. Thus, my personal "group guilt line" is set very low. If you disagree with it, that's fine. But you might want to take a look at where you've set yours and ask if it's any more correct.