Some time ago, a friend confessed to me she'd had a period of her life where she'd been unwillingly addicted to cub porn. She'd had these "fits" where she'd had unwanted sexual cub thoughts, looked up and masturbated to cub drawings compulsively, and then get repulsed at what she was doing and stopped; she'd try to resist the compulsion, and never made any content of her own or shared any content around. Outside those fits, she said she hadn't had any sexual interest in children and would've rather died than had sexual contact with one; she said she had other sexual interests that she was actually enjoying engaging with, and that she was disgusted with this uncontrollable mental problem. She said that last year, she finally overcame her shame and self-hatred and went to counseling; thanks to being able to unload her mental issues on a professional, the compulsion's hold began to fade on her. She said she's been free of it and healthy for a while, doing what makes her happy and fulfilling her sexuality without the baggage of her old compulsive behaviour. I trust her when she says she hasn’t harmed anyone and is now free of her compulsion: she'd confessed something so sick and shameful to me, so why would she lie now?

As she confessed, my friend said she felt a sense that even though her counselor had reassured her she hadn't harmed anyone and deserved to be gentle with herself, she still felt some lingering sense that she'd harmed children. This was because, in her words, she'd added to the viewcounts of cub artwork and therefore possibly motivated the creation of more of that kind of content, and that content could then have gone on to either

- be used to groom minors in the furry fandom and elsewhere or

- normalize and encourage the attitude that minors can consent to sex in furry spaces and therefore enable and encourage child sexual abuse.

She said she'd tried to convince cub artists not to make that content anymore and cub host sites not to host that content anymore: when that didn't work, she'd done something I think she called "countersignalling": favouriting the non-cub content of cub makers and followed their pages to create the impression of there being more demand for their other content. She said she'd missed doing so on FimFiction, but that she'd looked at much more other content and spread the viewcounts around that way.

While I was initially disgusted, the moral dimensions of it seemed trivial to me at the time; after all, she'd just looked at pictures, that was it. However, she was taking it seriously, so I tried to console her by saying that it was fine, that she'd harmed no one. I told her that all she'd done was look at this content and anonymously add a single view to the viewcounts of these works, and people using it for grooming or getting the wrong impression about child/adult relationships from it was out of her control, and so it wasn't her moral responsibility. She seemed really attached to her "reverse signalling", so I told her that it was enough to counteract the signal she'd sent by adding to cub viewcounts.

However, lately, I've also been seeing people say that that's not the case, and that people like her have harmed children by consuming this content by motivating the creation of content that can have the harmful effects of grooming and normalization, regardless of intent or other measures, and I can't seem to be able to dismiss them out of hand, either. I don't want to think of my friend as someone who's contributed to child sexual harm, but I don't know if that's just because she's my friend, who's been with me for longer than I can remember. I just don't know what to think, so I’ve been posting this in a whole bunch of places just so I can get some insight on the matter and know where I stand, because my thoughts are running in circles.

Cub content is going to be created regardless of whether it gets lots of views or not. Because artists who like drawing such content don't do it for the view count, and consumers who enjoy it enough to commission it don't give two shits whether other people like seeing it or not. Also, this whole notion of predators using cub porn to groom actual children, is a load of horseshit made up by people with an anti-cub agenda. There's literally no evidence for it. Prevalence of cub porn has no more effect on the rate of real children being preyed upon, than prevalence of violent video games has on the level of violent crimes. And people who actually do proper research on this stuff have said there's no correlation at all between video games and real violence.

If anything, an abundance of cub porn will allow pedophiles to get their rocks off in a safe and healthy way, rather than going after the real thing. No science to back that up, yet, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than that "grooming kids with it" crap.

The overarching theme here is not the cub porn, but the hyperbolic overreactions of someone who has compulsions and mental issues, with the two opposite extremes of cub fap fits and ineffective "countersignalling".

Just enjoy your fictional content and keep it to yourself. Incrementing view counts of some drawn images leading to child grooming is about as hypothetical as it gets. There are tens of thousands of images already, and they aren't going away other than being corralled onto fewer or different sites. As an aside, e621 used to display view counts but it was broken and removed years ago, but I guess you could say upvotes serve a similar purpose and the countersignalling approach would be to downvote all of it.

If anything, making non-cub porn of the latest popular animated franchises like Zootopia probably has an actual grooming effect since kids will stumble upon it and come into contact with adult furry sites. So we must Repeal Rule 34.

jacob said:
If anything

If anything, both of us ending with "if anything" is a tell of some kind.

It's genuinely not that big of a deal, honestly. While taboo in it's subject matter, it's a drawing like any other. All the negative aspects are self imposed and/or hyped up by individuals themselves. "Grooming" occurs with quite literally ANYTHING; cash donations/material gifts, text/voice/video chats, video games/video game interactions, sharing of "fandom" media/interacting within said media, sharing sfw, nsfw, hentai, adult media, furry media (anthro, feral, etc), the list goes on. Anyone that tries to convince you that cub porn is some be all/end all tool of child exploitation are sensationalizing their dislike of the material just for the sake of it. It's a niche within a niche, there's nothing cub porn does that quite literally ANY other means of grooming doesn't accomplish. It doesn't "do the job better" any more or less. Same goes for "normalization", it's baseless/misguided fear mongering at best, and a lazy way to make said website/community ban the content at worst, evident by he fact that EVERY time the topic comes up, no matter how adamant people pretend to feel about the "issue", all their convictions vanish the moment the content is banned and the art/artists go somewhere else. And really that's the main takeaway from this rant, none of it matters, it's a dramatic show to signal morals and virtues (more so directed to the "other people" than your friend).

While I personally feel your friend's reaction is a bit kneejerk and overblown, I can't dictate how they should feel about indulging in a taboo, but that doesn't mean everyone around them shares their projected feelings, or should be made to do so through manipulation, shame, and/or harassment (the last two being more general).

The buzzwords "grooming" and especially "normalizing" are just that, buzzwords. If someone was fucked up, they were already fucked up. This is like pretending the school shooter who played video games got it from video games. No, they were already messed up, and 99% of people consume it without being insane

Reminds me of the claims about funding of terrorism. Half truth as spending money ANYWHERE leads to indirect spending in literally every (legal or not) area. I feel like I see facetious reasoning more and more often.

The problem is not the cub porn. The problem is a person's poor handling of a subject that turns them on but doesn't want it to. This subject doesn't have to be cub. It could be pornography in general or even simply sexual thoughts of any sort. The more this subject pops up, the more they struggle with the shame they attach to it. So, they try to suppress their reaction so they don't feel the pain of shame, but suppression just makes the feelings worse, both in strengthening the unwanted desire and worsening the shame. So they end up wrecking their mental health because they can't brainwash themselves into being perfect the way they think they should.

The best way to break this vicious circle is to stop caring about having these desires. Sexual desires of any sort are easier to channel and control when you're not fighting them directly. Once you accept that you've got them and that they're okay to have, you let go of the shame and your desire eases off. By accepting this thing you're "not supposed to have" is part and parcel of who you are, it loses its power over you and becomes easier to manage. Of course, the hard part is nerving yourself up to accept an uncomfortable thing since it seems so counterintuitive and often feels like you're giving in to the subject when you're really not.

Actual CSA victim here. Cub porn doesnt hurt people. Some victims use it to cope.

Art isnt people. End of disxussion. Its that simple.

Here are many topics at the same time and I would say I disagree with more than agree.

1# The topic that gets the hottest and most fierce of them all: cub/child porn itself.
Humans like pedestals. The higher the better and that topic is on one of the highest. IMO that is not as big as a problem people make it seem. I could also indulge into biology but like I said this topic is quite a fierce one and never lead to any kind of understanding or improvement. I would be happy about anyone wanting to discuss it in private though.

2# Another topic people love: Fiction is fiction.
That's totally wrong and I can claim that because I myself can observe the workings of that on myself. I don't mean someone who plays ego shooters will just someday go out and start shooting because of the game. The effects are in the smaller range but nevertheless existent. Also they are more apparent on trivial things than some extremes like killing, raping, child grooming etc.. Normalization is also one of its effects even though that word got its place on another pedestal it stays true to its original meaning. Is it some main factor though? Don't think so.
This gets also more important the more your world gets farther away from reality which is more and more the case. Especially in this time of quarantine her and distancing there.
Until this day I never saw any scientific work which tackled this and could conclude that there is no correlation. All have their weak points they hide and hypothesis they sell as fact. Sadly there are more than enough (often willingly) blind buyers in both fronts though.

3# You should accept who you are.
How far does this go? When can you decide you did or do go to far? I don't want to say that the person here is one of them but in general the people who say that are doing some hypocritical blabbering to alleviate their self esteem. To one they recite that shit and to another they say you're ill.
Choose any topic you can think of. Could be anything, for example gender equality or homosexuality or zoophilia or child porn or whatever. Let's say I hate that (or love that. Whatever). So should I accept myself or worry and change myself? What if I can't do anything against that? What if I don't want to do anything against that?

There are always opinions which are building up a world and how it should be. I believe every person has to work on themselves but how and on what is up to every person themselves. The worries and values the "world" tries to force onto you are generally empty. You have to decide which worries or values you give which weight, fill them up yourself and act accordingly. The simplest way to analyze yourself is asking yourself like a child "why".

My opinion on this: I don't want to ridicule any feelings or actions or whatsoever but to burden oneself with and take such actions against this whole thing seems to me as ridiculous. I don't know where to start even. Anyways the human being is just complicated. Just by saying "Hey you have no fault" or "You shouldn't think like that" someone can't throw away their thoughts or believes. So I don't see a clear or "easy" solution here. I would ask myself (or my friend) what is the right thing and why until I reach the/a basis.

Completely agree with these concerns. Your friend really should avoid eating art.

Really though, a pixel is a pixel. As long as it is completely generated(not referenced or copied in my way from real life), no on is really being harmed. It is when they believe or question that real life content should be allowed that they need to be given a talking to about the implications and harm(both mentally and physically to both the viewer and subjects) such content brings.
(Originally was just going to post the first line but figured I'd add something of substance)

agiant said:
2# Another topic people love: Fiction is fiction.
That's totally wrong

Fiction is fiction, full-stop. If fiction isn't fiction, what is it? Non-fiction? No, fiction is not reality. Engaging in fiction is not engaging in reality, but that's what saying "fiction is fiction is wrong" implies.

agiant said:
I don't mean someone who plays ego shooters will just someday go out and start shooting because of the game. The effects are in the smaller range but nevertheless existent. Also they are more apparent on trivial things than some extremes like killing, raping, child grooming etc..

The word you're looking for is influence. Fiction can influence a person, just like non-fiction can. Fiction and non-fiction alike can cause a person to think, or re-evaluate aspects of themselves or what they thought, which in turn can cause them to change certain behaviors. However, it won't make you do something you aren't already prone to doing. More importantly, being able to be open and honest about these things can help such people come to a better understanding and engage it in a healthier manner, rather than them having to hide it or internalize it and end up with a warped understanding and inadvertently cause harm (even when they think they're helping a cause).

agiant said:
This gets also more important the more your world gets farther away from reality which is more and more the case. Especially in this time of quarantine her and distancing there.

Such is the danger of disconnecting oneself over a particular interest and bottling it up or internalizing it. Luckily in this case it seemed they did the right thing and got what they needed:

she finally overcame her shame and self-hatred and went to counseling; thanks to being able to unload her mental issues on a professional, the compulsion's hold began to fade on her. She said she's been free of it and healthy for a while, doing what makes her happy and fulfilling her sexuality without the baggage of her old compulsive behaviour.

She's healthier and happier, and no one's getting hurt. Unfortunately there are still those who want to say she is hurting a hypothetical future someone because it's not just fiction and/or she's normalizing it (implying it's causing people to become apathetic toward real-life child abuse), but as long as she keeps a clear head and has someone she can talk to should there ever be any issues, that's a positive outcome.

agiant said:
2# Another topic people love: Fiction is fiction.
That's totally wrong and I can claim that because I myself can observe the workings of that on myself. I don't mean someone who plays ego shooters will just someday go out and start shooting because of the game. The effects are in the smaller range but nevertheless existent. Also they are more apparent on trivial things than some extremes like killing, raping, child grooming etc.. Normalization is also one of its effects even though that word got its place on another pedestal it stays true to its original meaning. Is it some main factor though? Don't think so.
This gets also more important the more your world gets farther away from reality which is more and more the case. Especially in this time of quarantine her and distancing there.
Until this day I never saw any scientific work which tackled this and could conclude that there is no correlation. All have their weak points they hide and hypothesis they sell as fact. Sadly there are more than enough (often willingly) blind buyers in both fronts though.

You're not finding any scientific works on this because you're trying to go conclusion shopping. The scientific process doesn't do the thing where someone says the conclusion they want and then goes out of their way to find evidence to support that viewpoint. There has been plenty of studies performed on compulsions and how they come to be and can be dealt with. Fiction does not create compulsions, people create those compulsions themselves thanks to various different mental states, usually past or current trauma and abuse.
If fiction influences your behavior so much that it becomes compulsory behavior you need to get some professional counseling for that, because that's simply not normal.

agiant said:
3# You should accept who you are.
How far does this go? When can you decide you did or do go to far? I don't want to say that the person here is one of them but in general the people who say that are doing some hypocritical blabbering to alleviate their self esteem. To one they recite that shit and to another they say you're ill.
Choose any topic you can think of. Could be anything, for example gender equality or homosexuality or zoophilia or child porn or whatever. Let's say I hate that (or love that. Whatever). So should I accept myself or worry and change myself? What if I can't do anything against that? What if I don't want to do anything against that?

There is a really simple litmus test for this purpose that appears to be popular for health professionals: Does the behavior negatively impact you or others around you? If the answer is no it's fine. If the answer is yes then there might be a problem. Of course, sometimes it's hard to see if influences are positive or negative, so the criteria to check are usually social life, personal relationships (to friends, family, spouse), academic studies / work performance, past hobbies, physical health (sudden changes in weight, nutrition deficiencies, etc). Those are rather simple to process if answered honestly, and will allow for a quick check whether something needs to be dealt with or not. If a person is happy with certain changes and it doesn't affect any of those things negatively then there is little reason to assume the behavior might be bad.

notmenotyou said:
You're not finding any scientific works on this because you're trying to go conclusion shopping. The scientific process doesn't do the thing where someone says the conclusion they want and then goes out of their way to find evidence to support that viewpoint. There has been plenty of studies performed on compulsions and how they come to be and can be dealt with. Fiction does not create compulsions, people create those compulsions themselves thanks to various different mental states, usually past or current trauma and abuse.
If fiction influences your behavior so much that it becomes compulsory behavior you need to get some professional counseling for that, because that's simply not normal.

I'm not going conclusion shopping though, but let me put something straight anyways. While my former text can be read as scientific approaches had a biased opinion to this topic (that was not my intention by the way), I'll change it a bit. Money dictates the direction in many cases which leads sometimes to some bias. Anyways though many problems also come from humans working on this with other humans as subjects. There are sadly too many people who can't observe objectively. Add to this that the human brain is flawed and can't think of everything. In the end you get some conclusions which have their weaknesses which get overlooked and misinterpreted or tried to somehow conceal to keep the money flowing.
Also this is just the resulting work. This gets read and interpreted from the consumer sometimes over 5 corners.
Anyways what I'm telling here is not that people get compulsions because of fiction but that fiction affects people. People run around telling that fiction and non fiction are completely separate things which is not the case. Fiction affects our behavior, our thoughts and/or our opinions. Especially in thinks where our original behavior, thoughts and opinions are not that far apart from each other. Fiction can boost or hinder those.

Also very important is that sometimes your only reference point is fiction. In such cases fiction becomes your reality. For example I have some interest in japan but my only knowledge about it is over manga and anime. So my idea how to behave the right way and what not to do is only (mainly) based on fiction or a source where I can't see a difference between reality and fiction. The moment I get into a situation with Japanese people my compulsions will be almost totally be based on that. Naturally I will test out if my knowledge is right or not and adjust accordingly but nonetheless I'll behave to a majority on fictional sources.

notmenotyou said:
There is a really simple litmus test for this purpose that appears to be popular for health professionals: Does the behavior negatively impact you or others around you? If the answer is no it's fine. If the answer is yes then there might be a problem. Of course, sometimes it's hard to see if influences are positive or negative, so the criteria to check are usually social life, personal relationships (to friends, family, spouse), academic studies / work performance, past hobbies, physical health (sudden changes in weight, nutrition deficiencies, etc). Those are rather simple to process if answered honestly, and will allow for a quick check whether something needs to be dealt with or not. If a person is happy with certain changes and it doesn't affect any of those things negatively then there is little reason to assume the behavior might be bad.

That's even if tried to make it as objective as possible a subjective approach while I also should add if humanity would abide to that rule many things would even now be better. Add to this that nobody really knows what really is affecting someone else negative or positive and what not. For example is showing affection in public for someone else affecting people? What degree is acceptable and what is going to far?
There is one rule that never changes and that is the strongest rules while the strongest doesn't have to be an individual but could also be a group or community and is dependent on situation and place. Everybody lives life the way they get allowed to live it.
Let's say someone famous said something like "Everybody can do whatever they want but I hate homosexuality.". Do you think that person could just live on life the way they lived it. They would get lynched, at least socially. I saw and see thousands of times where people get forced to accept or deny things because the opinion of "the strongest" was like that.
So there are exceptions but in the end the "accept yourself the way you are" phrase is more hypocrisy than anything else.

agiant said:
So my idea how to behave the right way and what not to do is only (mainly) based on fiction or a source where I can't see a difference between reality and fiction.

don't do that

In medical science thats called schizophrenia so yeah thats /bad/

... Why does this read like it's something punched out by one of the guys that got bonked for repeatedly bringing up this topic to try to get the cub content taken down so they have something to validate themselves with?

I don't think there's anyone out there that looked at cub porn and that then lead them to sexually abusing minors irl. That's generally caused by some fucked-up upbringing or mental issue...not because they saw a certain image on the internet.

I think of all porn in terms of incest porn. I've jerked it to tons of "mom and son" porn...and not just the step-mother variety either...like the full-on mom/son roleplay where they act like they're actually related. Has that increased my desire to fuck my own mother one single iota? Hell no. Same with cub porn...looking at it doesn't mean you necessarily want anything to do with it irl.

There's lots of fiction out there that has people, children included, getting killed, kidnapped and whatnot. Funny thing nobody seems to get their knickers in a twist over that.

votp said:
... Why does this read like it's something punched out by one of the guys that got bonked for repeatedly bringing up this topic to try to get the cub content taken down so they have something to validate themselves with?

Bebuzz it buzztains buzz of buzzy buzzwords

demesejha said:
In medical science thats called schizophrenia so yeah thats /bad/

"That's simply not normal" Easter Bunny test concept applies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slender_Man_stabbing

Yeah, infamous case. Manipulator and her very-easily-influenced co-conspirator. I wasn't sure who was the worst, mental-healthwise. :(

votp said:
... Why does this read like it's something punched out by one of the guys that got bonked for repeatedly bringing up this topic to try to get the cub content taken down so they have something to validate themselves with?

Because it is?

supina said:
There's lots of fiction out there that has people, children included, getting killed, kidnapped and whatnot. Funny thing nobody seems to get their knickers in a twist over that.

LOL, reminds me of that scene in the movie based on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 They respond shocked that he would tell such a disturbing story to them, because they internalized it as if it was real.

strikerman said:
don't do that

There are two little mistakes here. #1 you took a sentence from my text but only that sentence without further context. #2 You replied with only "don't do that". What should I understand from that? That manga and anime don't depict Japanese society and lifestyle? Or what?

demesejha said:
In medical science thats called schizophrenia so yeah thats /bad/

If you want to explain schizophrenia in one sentence I believe "Having problems in perceiving reality or leading realistic thoughts" would be a pretty good one. If we get to what I'm talking about there though it's not a problem in perception of reality but a reality you can't or didn't perceive outside of fictional sources. Because I was never in Japan or made any acquaintances with people who came from there, my only source of how Japan is and how they behave or think was from fictional content. But that fictional content is based on reality often, right? So what is reality and what is fiction is for someone, who has only fictional sources based on reality, something left to their own judgement.

agiant said:
There are two little mistakes here. #1 you took a sentence from my text but only that sentence without further context. #2 You replied with only "don't do that". What should I understand from that? That manga and anime don't depict Japanese society and lifestyle? Or what?

I made a statement directed towards one of your statements. You wanted to make judgments based entirely on fiction, I told you not to do that. The specifics is less important than the main point of not using fiction as your only frame of reference.

strikerman said:
I made a statement directed towards one of your statements. You wanted to make judgments based entirely on fiction, I told you not to do that. The specifics is less important than the main point of not using fiction as your only frame of reference.

I understand that you did that and I'm saying that that is a mistake though. It has no positive point whatsoever but some negative points by how you did it.
There is not 1 person out there in the world who does not base their actions in a situation which they only know from fiction on that fiction itself. And you only take the part "base action on fiction", leave everything else out and just state "don't do that". Just the next comment after yours shows to what that leads. You have to at least give an alternative and that's bare minimum.

agiant said:
And you only take the part "base action on fiction", leave everything else out and just state "don't do that". Just the next comment after yours shows to what that leads. You have to at least give an alternative and that's bare minimum.

... "Don't do that" is the alternative to "do that". It takes no effort not to do something.
Normal people don't base their perceptions of reality on fiction.

agiant said:
Also very important is that sometimes your only reference point is fiction. In such cases fiction becomes your reality. For example I have some interest in japan but my only knowledge about it is over manga and anime. So my idea how to behave the right way and what not to do is only (mainly) based on fiction or a source where I can't see a difference between reality and fiction. The moment I get into a situation with Japanese people my compulsions will be almost totally be based on that. Naturally I will test out if my knowledge is right or not and adjust accordingly but nonetheless I'll behave to a majority on fictional sources.

Fiction should never become your reality. Period. If you're going to go somewhere that this is going to be an issue, you do this thing, and I know it's a novel concept, called "research".
Are you actually saying you are going to have a compulsion when you meet a Japanese person to start acting at them like a Manga/Anime character instead of treating them like any other human being?
Are you okay? If you'll "behave to a majority on fictional sources" I'm scared shitless you're going to try to fly because fiction told you you can fly. Normal people do not base their grasp of reality upon fiction, that's why it's called fiction, it isn't real. I know you feel the need to respond to anything where the topic of cub can come up, you've done it quite a bit, but dude, every time you pop in you go off on barely-relevant tangents that make me question your sanity.

Every time I get a bit more active and invested into something it feels like I'm talking to a wall or something. I'm again almost at a point where I will just say "yes. Yes, I'm schizophrenic. Yes, I have no sanity." Man.

votp said:
... "Don't do that" is the alternative to "do that". It takes no effort not to do something.
Normal people don't base their perceptions of reality on fiction.

What I meant with alternative is clear as day no matter what you say. You yourself state one alternative later on which is "researching" and also it takes effort not to do something. Not thinking is quite difficult which actually would be the result of what you suggest and you could see if you understood what I was trying to say.
Again what you describe is schizophrenia. It's not your perception which gets overtaken by fiction but fiction is the only source about one topic one has what I'm describing. And also I did base like nothing on this example. God damn. IT'S JUST ONE EXAMPLE WHERE THE ROLE OF FICTION GETS SOME MORE IMPORTANCE THAN IN NORMAL CASES.

votp said:
Fiction should never become your reality. Period.

That's not the case though. If the only thing you know about some topic is from fictive works the only thing you know about that is restricted to that and that's all I'm saying. Period.

votp said:
If you're going to go somewhere that this is going to be an issue, you do this thing, and I know it's a novel concept, called "research".

The things you do for something is based on priorities you set and/or situations you are in. To give examples with japan. If you plan to work in Japan for years you would spend things like money, time and/or energy or such to learn many things including things like language, norms, culture etc. but if it's just some interest you feel from watching/reading anime/manga and for example you meet a japanese person in a game chat or something you can behave to a way you concluded from those fictional works. By the way I did some research and also invested time into learning one thing or the other about japan and it looks like the base I build from fictive works boosted me so much that I couldn't believe it myself.

votp said:
Are you actually saying you are going to have a compulsion when you meet a Japanese person to start acting at them like a Manga/Anime character instead of treating them like any other human being?
Are you okay? If you'll "behave to a majority on fictional sources" I'm scared shitless you're going to try to fly because fiction told you you can fly.

I said it two posts prior, right? I'm not saying that someone playing an ego shooter will someday wake up and start shooting people. The effects are in smaller things and things that already kinda align with (or maybe are totally opposite to) your actual opinion. In the same way what I'm telling here is that fictive works affect you and if the only thing you know about something is fictive it's effect will be bigger.
And yes I had some compulsions I didn't accept as fact but took into consideration before I instigated some contact with japanese people and 95% turned out to be right. So is this the right way? No, but it's not wrong either.

votp said:
Normal people do not base their grasp of reality upon fiction, that's why it's called fiction, it isn't real.

It's often based on reality though. And again I'm not talking about basing my grasp of reality upon fiction. It's just a small example and I curse the thought which lead me to include that in my text.

votp said:
I know you feel the need to respond to anything where the topic of cub can come up, you've done it quite a bit, but dude, every time you pop in you go off on barely-relevant tangents that make me question your sanity.

#1 No, I don't like to instigate a new topic in a discussion. I always react. Be it cubs or anything else. If I feel the need to instigate something I open a thread myself.
#2 No. Again I just react to other comments and discussions going on in a thread. So the barely relevance is not coming from me but someone else. That, too, might be a problem though and I'll consider stepping back from how I did things until now. I generally answer the original post in the end of my first reply. So I'll maybe keep things to myself from now on and just reply to the original post.

agiant said:

That's not the case though. If the only thing you know about some topic is from fictive works the only thing you know about that is restricted to that and that's all I'm saying. Period.

I mean, sure, but to apply that sort of logic to something as ingrained and instinctive as "is it ok diddle/let random people diddle kids (random or familial)" because of/following the train of logic "I saw it in a drawing" is a bit asinine. There's a fair degree of separation between someone's impression of advanced technology or a foreign culture/people being painted by popular media, and the basic morality of violating another person. It's one thing to purpose that as a "what if", but to simultaneously deny and brush off other similar "what if's" and double down on this ONE thing in particular kinda screams confirmation bias.

The question in such cases is: How far would a person go if an opportunity occurs? That's something everybody has to ask him-/herself for any kind of situation (Cheating on the partner, doing a crime, and several other questionable scenarios). One of the hardest parts of that is to be honest, if ask everybody would deny doing it - but not being sure about that somewehere back in the own head is concerning enough. If she can say "Yes, I can be around children without considering doing such things" it's fine.

In my case it was the question if I could blow my brain out (due to depression). Honestly, I was playing with the thought and realizied... yes, I could do that. Stayed away from firearms since then, eliminating the opportunity.
Which leads to...

Decisions - Your friend decided to get professional help to deal with her problems instead of trying to suppress and solve them completely on her own. It also sounds that she enjoyed fictional art only, assuming she also made the decision not to cross the Rubikon by looking for real-life content. That's the important thing: She herself was the one setting her own boundries. (Something not everybody is able to do)

Last point is acceptance. A liking for cub content is something that can't be get rid of, like homosexuality it's based on brain physiology (I'm not a neurologist, but studies imply the involvement of the amygdala, prefrontal cortex and the hypothalamus responsible for pedophile tendencies). It's a task for the mind to keep it controlled on a healthy, non-harming level. Working against neurochemical processes can be very hard

Especially for your friend it's also important to accept that she can't get (unnecessary)atonement by fighting fictional cub art. It's a batttle that can't be won, with fights that only exhausts her. By the description it sounds like an obsession by now, which is a serious matter. People and groups that blame fictional content for real problems can be found everywhere, recently those particular folks got fuel with "Cuties" on Netflix (wihich is a fair point to call out). Learning to not listen to everything from the loud crowd is another step to lower unhealthy remorse.

One advice for you: Support her in this situation, there are things to just accept about friends that we may not like or have concerns about, It didn't influence the relationship and all the things that kept the friendship alive are still there (I assume). Don't feel obliged to paint everything in rainbow colours, honesty is the best way. Talking about opinions and impressions in a friendly manner often lead to positive conclussions. Whatever your opinion is, the main purpose should be to get her off the obsession of having to archieve some kind of salvation. Also dont see it as duty to do that all the time, burning yourself out on it isn't healthy either, take some time for yourself if needed

sirbrownbear said:
I mean, sure, but to apply that sort of logic to something as ingrained and instinctive as "is it ok diddle/let random people diddle kids (random or familial)" because of/following the train of logic "I saw it in a drawing" is a bit asinine. There's a fair degree of separation between someone's impression of advanced technology or a foreign culture/people being painted by popular media, and the basic morality of violating another person. It's one thing to purpose that as a "what if", but to simultaneously deny and brush off other similar "what if's" and double down on this ONE thing in particular kinda screams confirmation bias.

First like I said, it was an example. Also an example I could use myself in my life.
It might've been a mistake on my part to talk about this fiction is fiction topic in this thread, what I already regret, especially that niche example.
The things you assume like things being ingrained or instinctive or "basic" morality lead to so many problems in the world. Most are in the smaller scale but nevertheless existent.
Last but not least: It's not me ignoring other "what if"s and/or focusing on one. It's a tiny "what if" I mentioned that gets discussed and gets some biased, superficial and/or void of understanding attention I'm astonished about.

Anyways that's it from me regarding that. I'll try to keep quite about this even if further replies appear. I would be happy to hear in a pm maybe though if there are people kinda agreeing with me or I'm the only exception.

d4rk said:
The question in such cases is: How far would a person go if an opportunity occurs? That's something everybody has to ask him-/herself for any kind of situation (Cheating on the partner, doing a crime, and several other questionable scenarios). One of the hardest parts of that is to be honest, if ask everybody would deny doing it - but not being sure about that somewehere back in the own head is concerning enough. If she can say "Yes, I can be around children without considering doing such things" it's fine.

In my case it was the question if I could blow my brain out (due to depression). Honestly, I was playing with the thought and realizied... yes, I could do that. Stayed away from firearms since then, eliminating the opportunity.
Which leads to...

Decisions - Your friend decided to get professional help to deal with her problems instead of trying to suppress and solve them completely on her own. It also sounds that she enjoyed fictional art only, assuming she also made the decision not to cross the Rubikon by looking for real-life content. That's the important thing: She herself was the one setting her own boundries. (Something not everybody is able to do)

Last point is acceptance. A liking for cub content is something that can't be get rid of, like homosexuality it's based on brain physiology (I'm not a neurologist, but studies imply the involvement of the amygdala, prefrontal cortex and the hypothalamus responsible for pedophile tendencies). It's a task for the mind to keep it controlled on a healthy, non-harming level.

Especially for your friend it's also important to accept that she can't get (unnecessary)atonement by fighting fictional cub art. It's a batttle that can't be won, with fights that only exhausts her. By the description it sounds like an obsession by now, which is a serious matter. People and groups that blame fictional content for real problems can be found everywhere, recently those particular folks got fuel with "Cuties" on Netflix (wihich is a fair point to call out). Learning to not listen to everything from the loud crowd is another step to lower unhealthy remorse.

One advice for you: Support her in this situation, there are things to just accept about friends that we may not like or have concerns about, It didn't influence the relationship and all the things that kept the friendship alive are still there (I assume). Don't feel obliged to paint everything in rainbow colours, honesty is the best way. Talking about opinions and impressions in a friendly manner often lead to positive conclussions. Whatever your opinion is, the main purpose should be to get her off the obsession of having to archieve some kind of salvation. Also dont see it as duty to do that all the time, burning yourself out on it isn't healthy either, take some time for yourself if needed

Nice one. I agree and like this reply very much.

So, I am grateful for all of the responses and discussion this has generated, but I notice that much of the discourse has been "does normalization exist", when what my friend was deeply concerned with was "are cub consumers morally culpable for cub art's potential pedo normalization effects". Consensus seems to still be no, if I'm not mistaken?

At any rate, getting it out to some listening ears has cleared my head on the subject, at least a little. I think I'm closer to my answer, and I appreciate the help.

votp said:
... Why does this read like it's something punched out by one of the guys that got bonked for repeatedly bringing up this topic to try to get the cub content taken down so they have something to validate themselves with?

alphamule said:
Because it is?

These kinds of insinuations, not so much. I didn't come here to do some deep-cover psyop for a holy crusade to tear down cub art or cub enjoyers or some shit like that, I just thought a furry site could help me with this quandary that specifically involves a subsection of furry culture, because it would comprehend what I'm even talking about, unlike non-furries. I initially made this account so I wouldn't have to filter out shit like vore and rape from my searches manually, and then figured I might as well use the opportunity to jostle my brain about this shit, too.

bubobs said:
So, I am grateful for all of the responses and discussion this has generated, but I notice that much of the discourse has been "does normalization exist", when what my friend was deeply concerned with was "are cub consumers morally culpable for cub art's potential pedo normalization effects". Consensus seems to still be no, if I'm not mistaken?

At any rate, getting it out to some listening ears has cleared my head on the subject, at least a little. I think I'm closer to my answer, and I appreciate the help.

I'm sorry for the "does normalization exist" part because it looks like I'm a main part of that even if not intended.
As the one defending that normalization happens, even I think the things your friend did will most likely affect how things are similar to using one more piece of toilet paper, feeling guilty about the trees and distributing pamphlets to make people aware to save some trees.

Maybe I'm also included in helping you but even if not I'm happy to hear that it helped you.