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Comment by steve1977 | Hacker News Reader

steve1977

> Good luck finding a furry community in the 50s.

I’m not sure if it’s healthy to reinforce each and every behavior in the name of “equality”. Maybe it would be better if some things don’t have a community?

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Furries have always struck me as odd, but generally wholesome. Yiff aside, they're a LARP group, not a cult of sexuality-- a social clique engaging in cosplay theatre. Where's the harm here?

My comment wasn’t specific to furries.

But the harm in this case would probably be reinforcing infantile behavior and escapism.

Even if they were a 'cult of sexuality' - what exactly is the harm here? I'm always struck by how, even on HN, there is a current of moral busybodies who, often without understanding the topic or subculture, deem certain activities outside the scope of toleration - even those activities which do not cause harm. The justification is usually rather weak too if not backed up by some religious principles.

The sibling comment refers to "escapism" (as though this is always a bad thing, we should chuck out fantasy and most music too) and "infantile behavior" (citation needed, even if this is a thing we should not tolerate).

My point was reinforcement of escapism and infantile behavior.

Again, I can't see those things as necessarily bad in any kind of global sense that applies to everyone, unless you claim to know what's best for everyone. Escapism might be a problem if you're neglecting your duties as a parent, for example. Infantile behavior might be a problem if you're expecting to be constantly helped in the workplace. But those are individual problems caused by underlying issues.

It's similar to gaming. You could say solo gaming reinforces escapism far more than meeting of like minded people in a furry community. But that doesn't mean gaming is bad - it's only bad to the degree that this escapism causes problems in the gamer's life.

> Even if they were a 'cult of sexuality' - what exactly is the harm here?

Because advertising a fetish in public is considered unacceptable by most people?

Shouldn't that be obvious to them? If they go around in public consciously trying to make other people uncomfortable, do you seriously expect them to not get angry about that?

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