There's a very important distinction that people don't really make about adult therians, and misunderstanding this crucial difference is what leads to a lot of well-meaning adult therians getting ousted from the community by reductive arguments about sexuality and personal expression.
I am an adult [insert animal or kintype here], capable of consent, with sexuality ≠having sexual feelings for theriform animals.
This isn't to demonise people who struggle day to day with an attraction to theriform animals either, because I recognise that it's hard enough for those who struggle with paraphilias to talk about them openly and seek support, but to highlight that it's wilfully obtuse to conflate adult therians who express sexuality with people who experience serious paraphilias. It's also harmful to conflate everyone who experiences paraphilias and do not act on them, to people who actively cause harm, but I digress.
There's a lot of talk out there about the use of packers, 3D modelled fantasy toys (I make this distinction because live cast toys cannot be made ethically), sheaths and extenders, pet play gear such as plug tails, crates, bowls, cages, aversive training collars like ecollars and prongs, etc. that one might use for kink or self-expression purposes being 'problematic' and normalising paraphilias. When you demonise these things, you're drawing a virtual line on what's 'too weird' in your community for you to accept and embrace.
You don't have to partake in these activities, but if you reject the 'weirder' concepts in your own community, you're playing directly into the hands of the people who harass and treat you as weird for identifying as/with an animal. You're sucking up to the bullies who have ever harassed you online, and you're doing that to other members of your own community who would otherwise have accepted you for who you are, simply because you are too ignorant to learn about or understand the difference. What's more, you don't earn any 'kudos' with these bullies for doing it. They don't care if you aren't 'as weird' as me or the other adults in this community who engage in kink and sexual aspects of their identities, so instead you're just joining them and punching down on smaller elements of the community you don't understand and don't participate in.
If you believe someone who uses adult toys is the same as someone participating in zoosadism, then I am very, very concerned about your lack of understanding around the subject of consent, and you should make more of an effort to think critically and understand the difference, and realise that your behaviour, assumptions and blanket statements are actively aiding real zoosadists who perpectuate genuine harm in going under the radar. Every uneducated accusations waters down very serious terms that shouldn't be thrown around like playground insults.
That's it, back to my regular scheduled arfposting.
