Damage Control Needs to Be Done to Reverse Girlfriend's Bad Views of the Fandom

Dear Papabear,

I don't want to beat around the bush. I am, obviously, a furry and I got a girlfriend and she is not ok with it. This bothers me a lot, but I never say that to avoid further, sometimes even embarrassing, discussions.

To give you some background: I always loved cats and by pure chance I discovered Nekos which in term led me to the furry fandom quite quickly. The first time I joined a furry chatroom was about two years ago, but I haven't gone to any furry conventions yet. I already was in a relationship with my girlfriend at this point. I didn't think the fandom would stick on me like that, but I quickly found friends and I'm friends with them to this date, although we live on different continents and rarely do something together outside of the chatroom.

And I yiffed and yiff to this day, though less frequently than before.

I admit, I shouldn't. To my girlfriend, it's cheating, to me it means nothing. I also know that she thinks of people yiffing left and right when she hears the word "furry" and a friend of ours, also a furry, is a good example of this. When we discussed about them, i tried to defend me and the fandom, but I can't make her change her opinion on them.

But I do love her! She means more to me than anyone else and leaving her is not an option for either of us, but I don't want to torture her or me by keeping it secret. I'm certain that I can change my behavior about yiffing, which would make the situation manageable, but I cannot change her.

I don't want to betray my girlfriend and/or myself. How do I convince her that furries are not a group of people to hate?
 
Fia (the Braixen) (age 18)
 
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Dear Fia,
 
Your girlfriend, like many other non-furries, believes that the fandom is about kinky, weird sex. You and this other friend, by apparently indulging a lot in yiff, have reinforced this conception she has.
 
Since you assert that you love your girlfriend and don’t want to lose her, and since you also say that you are willing and able to cut down (or perhaps eliminate entirely) your yiffing behavior, I would start there. I would then recommend you try to expose her to all the great stuff in the fandom that has absolutely nothing to do with yiff. To change her views about the fandom, you see, she needs a lot of evidence to contradict what she has already seen and heard about furries. Here’s a pretty good article about misconceptions and the fandom published in the UK’s Guardian.
 
Because you started off on the wrong paw, you’re going to have to do some damage control, and this will likely take quite a bit of time. Be patient and diligent, and hopefully she will come to see that the fandom isn’t just about fuzzy kinkiness.
 
Good Luck!
Papabear
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