Dear Papabear,
I feel like my thoughts are going to end up coming across as a bit jumbled in this message, but I will do my best to present my thoughts as cohesively as possible. About a week ago, I had a conversation with a friend I'd met online. We hadn't even known each other for a month at this point. However, during this conversation, he asked if he could see my penis. I told him I was uncomfortable with showing him, and he apologized and seemed understanding of that. He then asked if we could chat over webcam, and for a little while we did. Afterwards, he asked if I had a hairy body. I told him that I was confused about the questions he was asking, since they came across as incredibly creepy. Keep in mind, the guy had told me that he wasn't even 17 years old yet. Anyway, I talked with a couple of my friends about this conversation soon afterwards. One of my friends understandably told me that my lack of comfort was understandable and that if someone asks those kind of questions it would be better not to show them until I'm sure the person isn't just trying to get in my pants or something. Other friends, however, told me that I was overreacting, and that I need to work on getting more comfortable talking to people over the internet. One such friend actually offered to help me become more comfortable. Mostly this consisted of me talking with him about various adult-themed works of fiction we'd found on FA that I didn't like for one reason or another, either because I didn't like the characters or the morals being expressed in the story were ones I found reprehensible. Eventually, however, it ended up escalating into an RP where the person I was talking to started hitting on, and even kissed my fursona and tried to dazzle him/me with sweet nothings about how he would 'show me love' or 'I need to lower my defenses' or 'I should be more sensual'. I probably could have just blocked the guy and been done with it, except that this conversation, and our roles in it seemed to remind me rather uncomfortably of the conversation I'd talked with you about previously with my other friend, where she was expressing anger and frustration at me despite me not realizing that, or even if I had been doing anything wrong from my perspective. In this case, I felt like I was the one demonstrating anger at the person I was talking to, and he was trying to help me in a way that he thought was acceptable. The incident is still haunting me, even after a whole night's sleep. After all these things, I think I'm starting to experience the fear that I'm starting to lose my ability to trust people, or expect honesty from people. My social bubble is already fairly limited as is, but after these incidents I'm scared that it's going to end up shrinking even further, to the point that I can't even talk to people without getting paranoid, or even trust my own thoughts and feelings. ...I'm scared. My hands are trembling, my mind is numb, I don't even think I trust myself enough to be able to drive effectively in my current state of mind. What should I do? Valeyard * * * Hi, Valeyard, You are learning that there are a lot of people out there who want to do sexual roleplay on the Internet. This kind of behavior is fairly common online. HOWEVER, this doesn't mean you have to participate in it. Papabear advises you that if you do not feel comfortable with this kind of behavior, you simply tell the other person, "I am flattered you want to do this with me, really, but I am not interested in yiff. I am just looking for friends and I am not comfortable with cam-ing or sexual roleplaying." This might cause you to lose some "friends" who want to have sex. Don't worry about it. If people block or ignore you because you're not a slut, that's their problem. You will also find furiends who are totally cool with your desire not to be sexual online because, for you, sex is something that is a lot more personal and intimate. It might not seem like it, but there actually ARE a lot of furries out there who are not into the X-rated stuff. Too, you might be surprised, there are furries who DO like the sex stuff but they are good people who will respect you and your wishes even if you don't care to do online sex. Hang out with these latter two types :-) Don't be scared, hon. Stick up for yourself and do only those things that you are comfortable with. No one can make you do stuff online you don't want to do. Yeah, there are jerks out there who will get pissed if you don't, but they are easy to ignore and delete. There are plenty of furries out there who will respect you for that. I am one of them. Papabear
5 Comments
8/30/2013 04:33:46 pm
Well, I know for a fact that the safest place to be is the internet because what is a person going to do come through the computer. If they are that uncomfortable they can block the person and it be done with. And that is the best part of being online and knowing some one though it. Valeyard seems to be getting forced by some one into this and that's not cool the best thing to do is simply tell them a calm 'No'. Yiff is such a disgusting word too, it makes my stomach turn thinking we as a culture have to have a word to describe such things. But what ever be the case that's my two cents ;)
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8/30/2013 11:18:13 pm
Oh how many times I've come across this kind of incident first hand....^_^ Papa bear is right! Just tell the guy that you aren't interested in him or sex at the moment. Seriously what's the worst that can happen? He gets mad? He blocks you? So what. Obviously he wasn't much of a friend to begin with if he just wanted to get into your pants. Plain and simple~!
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BB
8/31/2013 01:51:08 am
I agree with Papabear. If someone cannot be respectful of your personal boundaries/comfort zone when it is clearly upsetting you, then they are just being really selfish by pressuring you--not something a person of friend material would do. Especially if you have made yourself clear about it, they should be feeling guilty, not you. ♥
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Diamond Man
9/2/2013 06:23:16 pm
People should probably control them selves around strangers they don't know when they do have a interest into X-rated stuff often more.
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Papabear
9/3/2013 01:37:17 am
Oh! I forgot to mention something important to Valeyard and all: in case you didn't know, when you cam with someone THEY CAN BE RECORDING THE ENTIRE THING. AND they can then post it online. So, be careful what you do.
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