Hey, any minors reading this, I want to tell you *why* being exposed to a lot of sexual content before you're 18 is harmful. Because like, very few people explain *why* it's bad, just that it's bad, and it's perfectly reasonable to want an explanation. So, I'm going to give one.

Ever heard of being desensitized? It's when you get exposed to something so much that your brain just accepts it as the norm and you react less and less to it. Example: watching violent shows as a kid to where you don't feel much of anything when you see it anymore.

This applies to being exposed to sexual content at a young age. Typically, the more you see it, the more numb you feel towards it. This rings especially true for minors because the brain is still developing and is more prone to things like grooming and desensitization. So, you're probably wondering, "Why is this a bad thing?" Well, for multiple reasons:

Primary reason is that if you become so desensitized to sexual content, you're more likely to be exploited by predators. If you're desensitized, you might not be so opposed to say, sending explicit images of yourself to someone or engaging in what's called erotic roleplay (ERP), you might not see *why* it's wrong for an adult to be using you like that because you've been exposed to so much explicit content that you just internally go, "It's not a big deal." Spoiler alert: it IS a big deal.

Second reason is that it can lead you into developing a porn addiction. And with addiction, after your first hit, you'll forever be chasing the same high. But the issue is, that desensitization causes you to build a tolerance, causing you to seek more and more taboo content to get the same level of pleasure, and it creates a vicious cycle. And that can *also* lead to you being targeted by predators, or worse, you becoming a predator yourself. It can get to the point where you end up either harming yourself and/or others.

In videos about outing like, #Discord predators, I see so many people in the comments talking about how they were exposed to so much sex content when they were kids and how badly it messed them up. I've seen videos about #Twitter predators that point out the porn addiction issue where there's plenty of comments being like, "I have this addiction and this video helped me realize it, thank you for helping me," or, "I had this addiction and I'm still recovering." Predators groom their victims into *becoming* desensitized as well, and it's like generational trauma where these sick fucks create the next "generation" of scum by roping new victims into it and cultivating that addiction.

So that's why I'm writing this post. I don't know how many minors are on the federated timeline or even in my own instance, but for all the minors that wanted to know why sexual content is harmful to minors, that's the reason: desensitization.

#LongPost #PSA #MiniEssay #Essay

Y'know, I have partially been in a deep-dive into videos outing horrible people, from zoophiles in the furry community, videos about a group pretending to be a 15 year-old furry and showing how many pedophiles DM'd them, how horrible communities like #VRChat can get, the sheer amount of bigots in the anime community, and just generally witnessing the outing of truly, truly disgusting individuals.

And I started to wonder and look at the timestamps of these documentaries: most of them besides like, Kero the Wolf (GOD) are post-Covid. How it seemed like these outing [insert horrible person/group] videos came out lot more frequently in 2020 and beyond. It really makes me think of how #Covid legitimately could've played a role in the downwards spiral we have seen with online communities. Of course, you could say it was simply a result of this kind of content gaining traction, and I'm not going to disagree on that entirely. But just think about it: with so many people being cooped up inside, rightfully fearful for their lives turned to the internet to fulfill their social needs, how many people have been left socially stunted because of overexposure to the internet and not enough outside world person-to-person interaction?

How many people have turned to really fucked up sh!t to fulfill those intimacy and social needs? How many desperate individuals have been manipulated and groomed because they'd do anything to receive even a smidgen of attention and affection? How many people have developed porn addictions because they're so chronically online, to where they fall down the pipeline where they seek the same initial high with increasingly taboo material until they end up hurting someone? How many pedos/zoos have gained a platform to reach more victims because of how many more people being chronically online? How many minors have become desensitized to explicit material, especially more uncommon fetishes because they've seen so much of it online, which then makes them more likely to be the targets of grooming and exploitation, or worse, become bad actors themselves?

We know it is SUPER common for groups like furries and weebs to be socially-awkward and mentally unstable, and we also know those communities are more likely than the general population to house bad actors. Whether its because those communities are *too* tolerant/forgiving, are adjacent to terrible things, have those very bad actors in places of power, or any number of factors. Not to mention the layer of anonymity encourages people to act more boldly than they would in physical spaces, which includes being abusive.

NOTE: Obligatory mention that not all weebs/furries are like this, nor are all of them bad actors. I am just using these groups as two examples because they are popular examples, and mean absolutely no ill will towards them. I want those communities to recognize these issues they have and improve on them, not only for themselves, but for all future members of these communities.

Truly, how much has Covid fucked us as a population? How much worse has it gotten because of Covid specifically? Will it continue to worsen? Humans as a whole are social creatures, they *need* actual physical interaction for healthy brain development. Loneliness can literally kill people, it can drive people to do insane things just for attention with the recent scourge of clout-chasers as a sign of that. And of course, there's way more factors to this than just Covid, but I sure as hell don't think it helped.

I hope someday, a study is conducted on this topic. Not just on the social development of children, but the social development of online communities and any potential shifts that could have occurred pre and post-Covid. It's a depressing, but fascinating subject. Anyway, I have just been dying to get this off my chest because I have been thinking about it for over a week straight.

Also, I just want to appreciate the people who dedicate time to reporting pedophiles, zoophiles, and groomers to the police, or if the pigs don't do anything, outing these scumbags publicly so people can stay away from them. People like LagoVirt, Jax, Lanza, and more whose names I probably forgot (sorry). Thank you for looking out for people and spreading the word!

#LongPost #Covid #Observations #MiniEssay #OnlineCommunities #Essay #Social #SocialMedia

ever have a bit of a health scare, but then you're like, what if it's nothing? 🤔

but THEN you're like, what if it's ~something~ but you've internalized the way healthcare professionals dismiss legitimate concerns due to misogyny ( :queercat_enby: ) and really not-holistic methodologies

[before anyone assumes this is a crunchy granola post - "holistic" is a red flag for some ppl - let me point out that dental care being seen as separate from medical care, even tho your teeth are I N Y O U R B O D Y , is an example of non-holistic care.]

and also the local hospital is critically understaffed due to chronic labor shortages and a profit-hungry corporate overlord,

and also also, you've had multiple experiences being let down by Western medicine insisting there's nothing wrong with you (because they can't figure it out, so when you still feel like shit after multiple blood tests and other exams, and your doctor basically goes ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯, you don't trust another doctor to do any better in the future, and even if you did, you don't have the money or time to pursue it, you just get used to feeling shitty)

AND ALSO ALSO ALSO, if it's a particular thing, that would potentially have other really negative implications for your life because of ableism from neurotypicals and really fucked up drug policy,

AND THEN you're like, you know, it could actually be nothing!

and you'll have wasted who knows how much time being neglected in the ER and have to pay hundreds of dollars (if you're "lucky" enough to have employer health insurance, which also costs hundreds of dollars every month - yes I am based in the US, thank you for asking, please send help) to find out you just had to burp or something?

#healthcare #health #AskingForAFriend #ItsMeImTheFriend #hypothetical #ADHD #MiniEssay #rant

(i do not typically hashtag anything so I'm bad at it. i also do not typically capitalize words like that but I read it was better for screen reader use?)

044 A better place in Fediverse?

https://write.as/zettelwerk/a-better-place-in-fediverse