I've never made a forums post here on e6, so uh, here's hoping I'm putting this in the right place?

Anyway, to cut to the chase, I know cub porn is especially contested in the fandom for... admittedly obvious reasons, but I myself am pretty neutral on it. It's definitely not my favorite genre of furry-related sin out there, but I'm pretty open to it so long as it meets my standards for art in general, and I've done some art either for others or just for fun that would probably qualify or at least come close. But in the wake of the whole Zaush fiasco and perhaps just in general, it's become clear to me that a lot of the furs I mingle with are very much opposed to this mindset.

My friends are extremely against cub porn as a whole concept, and just as extremely open about that sentiment whenever it comes up on Twitter/Tumlbr/DA/FA/what have you. Now I'm fully aware of some of the more questionable things concerning what's going on with Zaush, so I won't try to use that as justification for my own views on cub porn, but largely due to that whole situation there's been a growing consensus among all my friends that even trying to defend its existence is worthy of being publicly shamed.

From what I can gather, this is largely supported by their belief that it enables actual pedophiles/molesters to gather and have their feelings or actions validated, and also that it paints the fandom as a whole in a bad light if this sort of thing is just accepted. I can honestly agree with the second point somewhat - especially with all the already-existing stigmatization of furries - though of course that could be said for many other prominent fetishes. One might even apply that logic to yiff in general since you could argue that being sexually attracted to anything clearly non-human is amoral, but I digress.

And concerning the first point, it's not something that I really believe myself; from the studies I've looked at, there isn't really a correlation between porn and sexual violence, and in fact even following the rise of the internet child molestation and general sexual crime rates have actually gone down (in the US at least). I'd imagine underage stuff like cub would fall under that same logic, but I could be wrong. And even if not, this isn't information I'd ever feel comfortable presenting to my friends for fear of being "outed" myself.

Now I can say with conviction that I do genuinely enjoy being acquainted with them all and in general, I wouldn't call them hateful people who lash out at everything they don't agree with. But at the same time, with every affirmation passed around about how anyone who's okay with cub should be persecuted and "fuck off", I can't help but feel a growing discomfort whenever I have to let them go unchallenged, or risk being ostracized. And that's to say nothing of what might happen if anyone were to stumble upon any of the cub stuff that I've made, but I feel like that's bound to happen at some point and I honestly don't know how I'll handle it if/when it does.

So I guess I'm just looking for some advice for how to go about this. Would it be better to just keep my mouth shut, or to be open about how I feel and hope for the best? Or, am I wrong, and cub porn is something that people should be shunned for not opposing?

Too hot of a topic. Sorry.