Hello, everyone. It has been several years since I have posted anything on here. That mostly has been due to protracted health issues and poor lifestyle choices that I have only recently made significant progress on- though there remains much work to be done, and as is usually the case, I am the greatest obstacle to progress and faster health improvement. However, that period of aloofness from the world and furry has been very beneficial to me, as it helped save me from myself. I have done a great deal of introspection and self-analysis over these last several years of more or less forced seclusion, and I have come to many realizations- many of them painful and uncomfortable- about my life choices, my behaviors, my financial planning, and my sexuality. I have come to the realization that I have been an emotionally and developmentally stunted individual, and even now it feels as if I am racing to try to catch up to the level of development I should be at generally at my age. I also have come to the realization that the things for which I had become most notorious were a farce, an illusion I was under for an assortment of reasons and chose to proudly broadcast to feel special and be known for something.
I no longer identify as either MAP or a hebephile. In fact, I don't have much attraction towards actual people in general. I can't remember the last time I pawed off to fantasies of RL humans; maybe it's been once or twice in the last few months. Furthermore, my art collection and faves are mostly comprised of general twinks, femboys, and females over shotacon and cub, though my fantasies often gravitate towards male furry pubescents and adolescents engaged in activities with each other or adults. I had sensed for years that the "pedofurry" moniker was something of a lie because I tended to get off to non-cub and non-shota materials and sought them out far more often. I still have a strong interest in cubs, and to a lesser degree human shotacon, but toned adult/ambiguously adult boys are my preference in artistic renderings, closely followed by females with generous breasts and hourglass bodies.
I imagine a high proportion of however many people will have read this will be mystified at how I could have so badly misjudged my sexuality. With the aid of time, and exploration aided by copious amounts of drawn smut, I have realized that what I was attracted to in children- especially male children- was their femininity and tendency to have longer hair relative to adults, rather than the immaturity per se. I like soft facial features and androgynous voices, and hate body and facial and pubic hair. Adult males tend to be the reverse, so I was turned off by them generally. Therefore, my immature, younger, more ignorant self had come to the conclusion that I was preferentially attracted to male children in general, and overwhelmingly IRL.
This isn't the first time I have misjudged my sexuality, and both times are related. Before I ever knew about femboys or had exposure to them, I honestly believed I was heterosexual. Females just resonated with me because, well, they're feminine, and some of them have nice titties. I love big titties and busty cheerleaders and the like. When I was a pubescent child, I used to get off to lingerie catalogues because that was the best material I had. I had a couple of fleeting moments of being attracted to another male when I was 14-15, but I kind of just forgot about them and/or shrugged them aside. No other males really struck my fancy IRL because they tend to have short hair and often have facial hair, and my discovery and consumption of the furry and weeb artwork that would facilitate the discovery of my bisexuality and my fetishes wouldn't happen until later. I realized I was bisexual via furry smut, a very common experience of furries. It would take years more of perusing artwork and exploring my fantasies to lead to further and advanced self-discovery of my sexuality.
There was another, less sympathetic impetus for me jumping onto the MAP bandwagon and identifying as a hebephile, and this is the aspect that has caused me the most grief and shame as I have pondered and recalled how and where and to whom I outed myself as such. I really just wanted to belong to a special and maligned group, because I fucking hated most of you and most of the world in general and I wanted to troll you all with my radioactive newfound sexuality. "Hahaha, I like hot toned 11-year-olds and they can consent if given the right education, and fuck all of you who don't like it!", is the gist of my general attitude and approach to this for most of the 2010's.
My warped desire to be special and unique and radioactive to 95-99% of people compelled me to take up the MAP banner and wield it as a blunt weapon against society in general- many of whom are trauma victims- and as a method of garnering attention. The fact I was a mentally and developmentally stunted manchild with essentially untreated autism and a lack of social competence both fueled my malicious motivations and increased the number of victims of my impure and misguided crusading. There were a few occasions in particular which cause acute remorse and shame whenever I recall them. I hurt and made extremely uncomfortable undeserving people for sadistic reasons, and there is nothing I can do to undo that or remove the memories of such.
Of course, these assorted antics caused incalculable damage to myself and greatly limited my potential involvement in the furry subculture and the happiness I could derive from it. I consider my foray into furrydom to be an abject failure overall. I've achieved nothing of appreciable positive consequence, and I have resigned myself to eternally being on the distant periphery of the fandom. Perhaps this is a deserved outcome for all the malicious bullshit I wrought upon other people in years past, and in any event I don't deserve pity.
I have derived even less satisfaction and contentment from the MAPs I used to try to associate and cavort with. Not very long after I started on this path, I began to take issue with fellow MAPs, and even sided against them in some circumstances. I noticed that some would just spend all day on Twitter arguing with antis, and making their entire lives and reputation online revolve around their sexual attraction. This disdain was, in hindsight, hypocritical, and another way that my desire to stand out and feel superior to others at their expense manifested. True, I didn't argue with antis all day every day, but trolling anti-cubs and joining in MAP arguments on Twitter even in moderation weren't worthwhile pursuits indicative of a truly sound and mature mind, either.
I found that some of my so-called brethren were likely or definitely insincere about their beliefs. Some of those who proclaimed to be anti-contact were absolutely obsessed with wooing about how cute some kids are, and would deliberately be around them. There seemed to be a high number of them who are anti-contact only because the law requires it, and would look at child porn (the vast majority of which, I have read from researchers and experts in the field, is of pre-pubescents, and the majority of which shows coercion or violence) if it were legal. I used to cavort with one person here who I later found to be disconcertingly pro-contact: he felt all kids could consent regardless of age. He also turned out to be a transphobic jackass.
Those fellow pedo/hebephiles who I found to be unethical or dangerous, I decided to go after. I fancied myself as a furry drama investigator for justice, the pedofurry who didn't hesitate to go after other pedofurries and would tell it like it was. Honestly, I did some good quality work, and did it with a superb level of objectivity. However, my motivations for such work were impure and self-centered- not unlike most of my peers which I fancied myself as superior to. My work, whether it be on pedofurries or other furry drama, never got much notice or attention, with the possible exception of that gargantuan essay laying out my findings on Bad Dragon (most of the evidence therein I didn't properly archive, and now is probably for the most part gone for good due to a HDD crash). Even that wasn't much of a success, really. I never gained any real respect from fellow drama enthusiasts and researchers. It didn't protect me when it was my turn to be scrutinized. My rapidly declining physical and mental health, which was what caused me to stop such endeavors, was a blessing in disguise, albeit with catastrophic life consequences (being sick and lightheaded all of the time isn't conducive to making necessary basic life decisions, and that inaction and analysis paralysis cost me dearly).
I am having realizations even now as I write this. As I remembered another topic to discuss while writing this one, I realized that my pursuits as a pedofurry hunter/judge of pedofurries and the underlying motivations for such may not be very unlike those of the babyfurs and diaperfurs who vociferously attack others over perceived or actual cub porn, or the furries who fetishize paws and animal genitalia yet rail against NSFW "feral" porn as being more or less tantamount to zoophilia. They are engaged in a laughable- or, if you're more generous, pitiable- attempt to find moral absolution for their furversions and fetishes, to quell the moral insecurity and feelings of guilt by waging war on the REAL undesirables and perverts. I was not so different from them than I earnestly believed, I am starting to realize.
While I began to better understand my sexuality and question my self-identification as a hebephile both in real life and in fiction, I began to question and reassess my beliefs on child/adult romantic relationships and how dangerous it was for children to be openly so in adult/sexual settings. I had been a moderate on the pro-contact side even during the most outrageous period of this saga, not approving of active pedophilia (pre-pubescent meaning of the word) in general, and having reservations about kids 12+ being in relationships with adults. This actually put me at odds with most of my erstwhile brethren: most of the open MAPs were anti-contact, and many of those who were pro saw me as something of an anti. In fact, I eventually changed my stance from pro-contact to neither pro nor anti. I qualify now as being on the anti-contact side, though this is because of what I have witnessed and researched personally over the years, and my general experiences in life, and not because society says so.
After witnessing and reading what I have over the last several years, I have concluded that relationships between minors and adults which have substantial age disparities are inherently reflective of some sort of dysfunction, very often of a developmental or maturity nature. Some of these adults are genuine predators, but many or most, especially when the adult is a decade or more older, have severe mental, cognitive, or emotional issues, or are just very immature. Sure, there are exceptional 16-year-olds or whatever who are more mature than the average 30-year-old, but they would likely be better off finding other exceptional teens to be mates with than a 30-year-old, generally speaking. Same goes for the 30-year-old. In most or all cases I have seen of older (let's say 25+) adults pursuing minors, the adult seemed impulsive or immature, sometimes even more immature than the teen they were pursuing.
Additionally, I have come to understand that children are more at risk from predation, perturbance, and illusionment than I had previously believed. I have observed a lot of troubling trends and situations, and I no longer believe minors are as safe online as I had once expected.
I've seen many report being approached by creepy people or otherwise having unwelcome communications after they disclosed in a public setting that they were a minor. I don't know if this worse within furrydom than in other subcultures or on the internet in general, but it seems to be a common- if not near-ubiquitous- experience of kids. It probably is a worse problem in furrydom, but whether that's more because furrydom is very sexualized, or because furries have a greater proportion of people who want to cyberyiff minors, I don't know for sure. Either way, I think horny teens should explore their sexuality solo or with other horny teens. They have plenty of material to help them in that process that entails no risk and requires no interaction, though it does become a problem when porn- whatever the type- becomes the de facto sexual education for kids.
The behaviors and actions of many minors themselves have also prompted me to reassess my positions. Over the last few years, I have observed this trend on Twitter (also Tumblr, but they mostly went to Twitter after the NSFW catastrophe of 2018) of teenage minors coming out as pedophiles, zoophiles, zoosadists, necrophiles, etc. I observed other kids- usually 14-16 years old and disproportionately self-identified as asexual- crusading against cub porn or all porn, fully convinced that they understood sexuality better than people 2, 3, 4 times their age did. I've seen teenagers go after other teenagers for shipping 16-17 YO characters.
The actions and behaviors of certain adults towards and with children is a huge factor in my reconsiderations. I watched with horror and alarm as HypnotistSappho attracted minors to her pro-zoo and pro-MAP cause as if she were a pied piper of sorts. I witnessed enemies of hers start up "recovery" groups and investigative outfits- some of whose members were kids, including the same kids that had been with Sappho- that seemed to always either implode spectacularly or were otherwise disbanded under ignominious or acrimonious circumstances. I witnessed adults and children target kids who were with Sappho with an appalling level of sadism and malice, as if they were simply another target that needed to be beaten into submission (and I've witnessed similar behavior against other kids for other real or perceived sexual transgressions/mistakes). Other kids were groomed into being provocateurs and operatives against predators and pro-contacts by supposedly anti-pedo people. Some of those kids were traumatized by the experience, or were themselves seduced by their supposedly anti brethren. In one case, a 17-18 YO went rogue and sided with the same people they were supposed to be against, and caused the entire outfit to implode because they were so crucial to the outfit.
I looked on from the sidelines at all of these happenings and trends with horror, bewilderment, and disgust. Obviously, many kids- probably most- won't have such harrowing experiences when they interact online. Only a few will be involved in some way with such internet dumpster fires. This wasn't the main factor in my change of heart. However, I firmly believe that probably more harm than good comes from minors (and arguably adults as well, especially Twitter) being on Twitter or social media in general. I truly think minors should probably be barred from wading into these radioactive and contentious matters, or identifying as a paraphile. Nothing good can come from a confused and lonely child proudly proclaiming they are a zoo, pedo, or worse, or becoming a crusader for justice for pornographized underage characters. In retrospect, however, I realize that I had been doing more or less the same thing these kids were with regards to the paraphilia advocacy, only without the grooming or the excuse of being a juvenile.
CONCLUSION
In case anyone comes across this in the future and is wondering, I am faring much better now than I was in years past. I am under substantial stress and frustration because I have several important projects and objectives I must achieve and not enough money, energy, and willpower to do them all in a period of time I naturally prefer because I am impatient and am trying to make up for lost time. However, events and outcomes could have been far worse. I'm now in a period of relative stability, far away from my hometown and all of its accompanying bad memories and bad events- most of which were of my own making, I acknowledge. I'm even in the process of exploring vocational rehabilitation to work part-time or maybe some sort of self-employment, after I make sufficient further progress on necessary things like sleep stability.
Oh, yes, for those who are wondering what happened to me, I had composed a huge explanation of factors and events, but instead I'll just condense it to this: not enough electrolytes (especially magnesium), assorted other deficiencies, chronic dehydration, and over-reliance on stimulants. People should be amazed and dismayed at how often and reliably doctors and tests overlook basic things like that, and how lacking their knowledge is. Tests often came back normal, and things that should have been tested for weren't. Biochemistry is so extremely complicated, too. It took years of trial and error and research to start really regaining functioning.
Also, if you take high doses of ADD meds or drink lots of coffee, that can REALLY throw off your system, especially if you're already deficient in magnesium (particularly brain magnesium- the Blood-Brain Barrier prevents many things from entering the brain once it's been metabolized, so it can be starved of something despite blood tests for it showing normal levels) or are dehydrated. You're even more at risk if your body often doesn't tell you when you need more water. (Small tip: If you're feeling lightheaded and anxious, and it's not contra-indicated for you, try drinking at a moderate pace 32 oz of milk with 1-2k mgs of salt mixed in, and take some magnesium glycinate, chloride, or threonate with it. You will get lots of various electrolytes, the mag will alleviate anxiety, and the sodium will help your body retain the fluid. Don't just drink lots of plain water quickly because that will prompt your kidneys to filter it out as quickly as you're drinking it. If the mag makes you nauseous, you may have a Vitamin D and/or calcium deficiency.)
I have heavily re-written and revised this draft on my Notepad file a few times over a large period of time. I decided to make it a bit more succinct and remove some details which I felt were superfluous or too exhibitionistic. I had originally written a much larger multi-faceted essay, but I scrapped that idea. I'm satisfied that this is about as good as I am capable of making it and I need to kick it out the door now.
