Well said, Kivva.
I agree. And to add on a little bit to your bit about sexuality;
I used to be a huge naysayer and tell people that your sexuality is your business alone and there really is no reason to tell your family that at all. That it isn't important enough to warrant that, and will cause nothing but trouble to you and your family by telling them that.
Well, I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The want, no, need to tell someone, and be accepted, especially by a family member is HUGE. And the feelings after you have, and they have been accepting, is so wonderful, so incredibly fulfilling. It feels like a gigantic burden has been lifted from your shoulders, and that you couldn't possibly breathe before that, but now you can. It is important, but only should be done if you feel the risk is necessary.
(fetishes are a whole other issue though)
Just my two cents.
Arbutus, Naomi: Thank you (and big hugs, it's nice to be back in the forums <3 Missed you both!)
I agree with you Naomi. Sexuality tends to be a more 'public' topic... we need to go into public to find a mate. Of course, part of that is introducing 'furry' to a person we might be considering to be a mate or lifelong partner.
In that case, I think it's best to talk about it right away... breaking the ice about it isn't too bad. Being an artist, I can just ask someone what their favourite animal is and do them up a little doodle of themselves as that animal. The person's reaction to that tells me how well they could respond to that sort of thing.
Other options exist, though- you can always ask people if they animals in small talk. If you know someone pretty well, you can ask about something you think or know they like: "Hey, you remember the old Ninja turtles cartoon? Who was your favourite character?", etc.
Pets are awesome topic too, you can get an impression of how someone might feel about furry by how they talk about their pets.
Once you know someone really well, you should be able to understand how they might feel, and how open minded they are.
When I first started talking with my current mate, he didn't know much about furries. He knew 'of' them, but didn't look into them much. He did like having a feline "Kerra" character on Everquest (that let me know he was open to something like that). He was kind of skeptical about it... so I took him to FurFright.
He had a blast (face it, furcons are tons of fun) and began thinking of characters he would like to suit as. It blossomed from there.
If you can convince a freind or potential mate to come to local furcon with you, you
know that they're open enough to your being furry. And even if they don't enjoy it as much as my mate does, they'll at least get the jist of what you do at fur cons, and will more than likely won't mind you're going to cons and accept your being furry even if they really aren't into it.
My point here is that, many people are open minded to most of the aspects of being furry- the point of being a fur in my belief is simple: Fun! Now who doesn't like to have fun?
