There is no such thing as a victim of zoophilia. "Zoophilia" is an attraction someone has, and if you think that makes them a victim, you are perpetuating the idea that attractions can be mental illnesses. This is a myth. In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association explicitly stated that having an attraction is not a disorder, and that to qualify for a related disorder, one must suffer as a result of one. They said that paraphilias (attractions) are not even diagnosable conditions. Having an attraction is healthy, normal. Encouraging people to hate themselves for attractions that they did not choose, *causes* diagnosable mental disorders. You are quite literally making people sick by pressuring them into self-loathing. People say "get therapy", but this goes against everything therapy is about. If you're saying "victim" while talking about people who have been exposed to porn (or worse), then that is an entirely separate issue, and you need to call it what it is. Because mislabeling it as "zoophilia" still impacts people with such attractions, and ultimately leads to harm. Whatever you do in life, you should always try to reduce suffering around you, not worsen it. Be kind to people. Help where you can. If you don't know how to help, then at the very least don't be cruel. We have enough bullies on the internet. - As always, you are welcome to reach out if you need someone to talk to.

In the context of an animal orientation, the only time a person getting psychiatric help will involve their urges, let alone intervention or suppression of impulsive or compulsive behaviour, is when the act is the source of distress for the person. Feeling guilty is precisely the kind of thing a psychologist will look for when diagnosing zoophilic disorder, and this is also why I encourage people to not attack zoos; because if you achieve them feeling that way, you are the cause of their mental illness. Clinically, the act is not a sign of a psychopathology, unless the act is wantonly harmful or dangerous (either intentionally or carelessly) - but then the issue isn't the attraction; instead, it's some other condition the person has which allows them to do that. The average person, even with such an attraction, is still going to have empathy and not want to hurt an animal, or be hurt by an animal, regardless of whether they act on it. From a psychiatric perspective, whether or not somebody acts on their animal attraction is rather irrelevant, because acting on it is not a criterion of diagnosis, as it is currently written in the DSM-5. Some uninformed or biased therapists get this wrong, however, which only leads to more suffering for the individual - we've seen it time and time again. An attraction to animals may lead to accidents where people or animals get hurt, but it's never solely responsible for ongoing hazard or abuse; some other condition is always required in addition to it. It's the exact same if we're talking about a straight or gay person committing abuse: their orientation isn't the cause; it just changes who the victim is going to be, unfortunately.

Dog found dumped in the woods was rescued and rehabilitated.

Of course they blocked me. And after asking for the argument, too. I'm gonna put the final one here, because this needs to be said loud enough that it never gets debated again. Cutting pieces off dogs is bad. Period. Images source>vnj.bvna.org.uk/vnj-volume-4…

Even if that were true, there's still nothing wrong with having the attraction. The majority of humans around the world have weird and wonderful attractions and fantasies, and many if not most of them are never acted out. And even when they are, the vast majority of people do so *ethically*, through things like roleplay and fiction, because like it or not most people still have empathy. Having an attraction does not mean someone loses their moral compass. Nobody can help what they like. Pretending that they can, and that they should, is simply oppressive thought policing.

If you feel numb to the world, but something like this moves you to tears, you understand in part what it's like to feel like we do.

It doesn't matter if you come from faith; you deserve to be happy. - My side of a conversation from DMs:

The jokes write themselves You know it's bad when the actual fucking zoophile has to come and clarify that you're fucking retarded What the fuck is this timeline bro

i always find it funny when people try to use "zoophile" as an insult. "philia" (φιλία) was one of the four Ancient Greek words for love, meaning an affectionate regard or friendship, requiring virtue, equality, and familiarity. like hell yeah, i do think animals are our equals!

It is fascinating that provoking anger is a universal form of fun

If you're condemning people who like feral art on the basis that you think they're a zoo, then you don't understand what zoophilia even is. You're talking about people with a fetish (and demonizing them for it?) I can understand at least a little when people care a lot about animals and mistakenly have an ethical issue with us because they don't yet know better, but what you're doing is puritan thought policing. You're against people having feelings, ideas. That's discrimination using the same rationale that some people use to justify being racist; judging an entire demographic by the actions of their *worst* members. Do you have any idea what the worst of *your* demographic is responsible for - and how you would be judged if we used your own logic against you? We don't, because we instead choose to be rational.

Introducing a new cat into your home? This might be for you.

Cooking animals alive is one of the most barbaric and inhumane things people still do (and it's somehow so widely accepted). People don't seem to be able to empathize until they see a screaming dog failing to climb out of a giant wok for the first time. 🤬

I've seen people do less when someone was in need.

Furries should skip the debate and come to the realization that being into animals isn't inherently bad in any way - because it's not. You don't automatically go and assault people if you're into them, so why do you think others do? It's just an attraction. Don't thought police.

Check this out, zoos:

Intrusive thoughts. 💢

I know that communities have generated an exponential load on moderation, but I'd love to give my final thoughts. Without communities, there is no collective way for a group of users to moderate their audience. Individuals can hide comments and block people to prevent them from interacting, but outside of using third party applications to import a blocklist (dangerous), there is no way to offer that decision to other users. Community administration and moderation filled that gap, and will have reduced reports from legitimate communities, because exposure was easily controlled. I find it hard to believe that there isn't a solution here that lowers the load on X systems and employees, by allowing people to collectively revoke access for bad actors, rather than simply reporting them when they inevitably interact. Communities as a network might be troublesome, but it would be effective to retain the mechanism of posting to a community, perhaps as a tag on the post, more like hashtags (maybe even an upgrade to the way hashtags work), with registration and effective ownership over certain tags; giving the ability for moderators to remove their tag from unapproved posts, making those posts no longer appear when searching for the tag. People could still pin these tags in the same way communities are pinned to their home screen, generating custom feeds for different topics. Yes, it would be very similar to communities, but without a member list for harmful networking; all posts would remain on an account's personal timeline. I don't know if this is where the problem with communities came from, but I suspect it was. For me personally, we run a group focusing on mental health, but the tags associated with our community are coopted by scam bots and porn accounts, which we have managed to restrict from participating in the community space. As soon as we go back to using only hashtags, you will be receiving far more post and account reports, because five and a half thousand of us are about to become exposed to that shit again. Obviously limiting communities to paid accounts did not solve the problem; perhaps if communities did have a chance of continuing to exist, they could do so being created and managed only by users with verified identities? As a genuine user, I did not hesitate to ID verify my account, but I'd wager spammers, scammers and bad actors would be more reluctant, potentially solving the issues you guys have with the feature being abused in the first place. Food for thought. Thank you for the feature and the time we had with it, in any case. It was great. I look forward to seeing what you come up with in the future.

"it goes against everything we were ever taught about alligators" Because the people teaching don't allow room for the possibility that humans don't know everything. Get out there and learn something that isn't taught. Then teach others. youtube.com/shorts/xIhqNk-cz…

What does the “science” actually say about wolves and wolf management? Scroll through the internet and you will find endless content by both pro- and anti-wolf advocacy groups about “wolf science” and how the science always supports their perspectives on wolves and wolf management. For instance, somehow the ‘science' simultaneously says we can never hunt wolves (per some wolf advocacy groups) and we should hunt/trap wolves (per some pro-wolf management groups). Which naturally leads to the question: what does the science say and who can you trust to provide scientific information straight up without spin and an agenda? Our goal is to be that source—a source of sound and reliable scientific information on wolves that people, regardless of their perspective, can trust. Many pro- and anti-wolf groups have value-based agendas, and often such groups claim the “science" supports their values/agenda—which simply isn't the case. Science simply tells us how the natural world works and how our actions may impact the natural world. Put differently, science cannot tell us how we should act—that is where values come in. Our project is focused on science, not values. We aren’t trying to push an agenda, a set of values, or convince you to change your thoughts on wolf management. Of course, sometimes scientific findings, including our own, are not consistent with the narratives that pro- or anti-wolf groups are pushing. And as a result, we take the heat from both sides. However, we have not and will not let that influence the information we share or how we approach our work, no matter how much people try to pressure us to do so. We are simply trying to do rigorous research and to share that research along with insights from the most up-to-date scientific information with everyone. If you value this approach, please help us keep it going by donating at the link below. Your generosity enables us do rigorous research and share what the science actually says—not what we want it to say. Support the project here: crowdfund.umn.edu/campaigns/…