The Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education, or FURRIES, Act, filed by Austin-area Republican State Rep. Stan Gerdes, would “prohibit any non-human behavior by a student, including presenting himself or herself, on days other than exempt days, as anything other than a human being.”

The law would allow for exempt days, such as Halloween and other school dress-up days.

The law defines “non-human” behavior as “any type of behavior or accessory displayed by a student in a school district other than behaviors or accessories typically displayed by a member of the homo sapiens species,” with provided examples being:

Using a litter box for the passing of stool, urine or other human byproducts

A personal or outward display, except during a school play or by a school mascot, through surgical or superficial means of features that are non-human such as using tails, leashes, collars or other accessories designed for pets

Using fur, other than naturally occurring human hair or a wig made to look like human hair

Artificial, animal-like ears

Other physiological features that have not historically been assigned to the human race through a means of natural biological development

Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech

Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.

  • orclev@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Man they are still caught up on that fake story somebody sent to one of these morons claiming kids were using litter boxes in school. It never happened but they’re going to try to legislate it away anyway.

    The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.

    • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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      And when you try and tell anyone who bought it they say there is evidence, while never being able to provide any.

      • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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        They will say this legislation proves its real. Why else would this legislation exist? I’m sure the lawmakers have all the evidence.

        • Archer@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          If there’s one thing we can be certain of with Texas legislators it’s their competency

      • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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        I’ve just taken to saying “provide me with evidence or shut the fuck up” usually followed closely by “how about one that’s from multiple independent sources and not from a fox opinion piece or personal blog”

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          how about one that’s from multiple independent sources and not from a fox opinion piece or personal blog”

          and oops it isnt actually proof its just a headline because the article debunks it immediately.

    • something_random_tho@lemmy.world
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      It’s funny a Portuguese person just told me the same story happened in PT to justify anti-trans positions. So it’s the same bullshit story, localized, and repeated.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.

      Throwback to when 4chan started memeing about pizzas, and the resulting chain of events led to a real pizza parlor being shot up by a right-wing nut job who thought it was full of pedophiles.

    • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      The weird thing is for some reason people will lie to perpetuate these falsehoods

      Like I do therapy and I talk to teenagers regularly because teenagers need mental health support, obviously. And sometimes they’ll bring up shit like this: “my school installed a litter box because of these woke kids”

      But even the most basic of prodding: “did they really” with a tone of like “come on” and they’ll backpedal, “well no, but like there are kids that have fursonas and shit”

      It’s crazy to see it start so young. They’re realizing at like 16 they can get adults to gang up on the kid they think is weird by being dishonest, and adults buy into it because it’s a chance to bully someone weaker and politicians jump on it because it’s a new wedge issue to distract people from class consciousness

      And what’s crazy is that by some perspectives if I call them out on this dishonesty and point out this cycle I’m indoctrinating them

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Like I do therapy and I talk to teenagers regularly because teenagers need mental health support, obviously. And sometimes they’ll bring up shit like this: “my school installed a litter box because of these woke kids”

        this is literally just how fascism works btw.

        Step 1: lie, make it as preposterous as you can

        Step 2: if you aren’t called out, further it, legitimize it, make it real, gaslight people into believing it ACTUALLY happened.

        Step 3: If you are called out, downplay it, gaslight the other party, it’s such a preposterous claim that it couldn’t possibly be fabricated, otherwise why would anybody talk about it, it’s so easy to immediately disprove, surely you must be wrong if you haven’t already seen the proof, i mean everybody, EVERYBODY is talking about it? Haven’t you seen it? Would be a shame if you got caught up in the legislation (or similar legislation) yourself wouldn’t it?

        Step 4: win.

    • ch00f@lemmy.world
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      I always love using that example to dismiss some concerns about deepfakes sparking national conspiracies.

      Nobody even tried to fake a picture of it. I’ve seen photos on lemmy of people shaving their heads in weird ways or making some horrible bean-themed food just for the karma. Throwing an empty litter box in an empty classroom takes much less effort yet nobody even bothered.

        • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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          Beans were just some sort of meme that popped up randomly. I think it was one of those “mods are asleep quick post [x] before they wake up” types of things, and it quickly spiraled until half of everyone’s feed was just beans.

          I was around when it happened, and even I don’t understand it.

          • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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            8 days ago

            There’s not much more to understand. It was just a fun thing that happened. Sort of like all the void kitties that expIoded everywhere a few months ago.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          It is uncool to ask. Fortunately that doesn’t matter as none of us are cool.

          Beans are a lemmy meme. As are jeans. And German sturgeons though the last one is the least enduring and mostly just was an ich_iel meme that happened to coincide with the last exodus

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        Yup, camp toilets are a similar concept. It’s just a 5 gallon hardware store bucket with a snap-on toilet seat lid. You line it with what is essentially a trash bag, just to make disposal easier. Then you use a gelling agent (just like what is in disposable diapers to allow them to soak up a bunch of moisture) to reduce sloshing and smell. It’s handy for when you’re going to be away from toilets for a day or two, but don’t want to (or aren’t able to) dig a hole to shit in.

        But the same concept applies for when you’re going to be trapped somewhere (like a classroom) for an extended period of time. Like, for instance, during a school shooting. When you have 30 kids in a classroom, there’s a very good chance that at least one of them will need to piss after an hour or two. And nobody wants to deal with human waste in something like an open trashcan during a lockdown.

        And as an added bonus, the bucket can be used to store all of active shooter supplies when it’s not in use. So everything is in a single location to quickly grab and prep. Active shooter happens? Great, just grab the big bucket out of the closet, dump all of the supplies out, and you’re ready to go. Now all of your tourniquets, styptic bandages, etc are accessible.

        But it quickly got distorted into “they’re making kids use litter boxes to indoctrinate them” instead.

        • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          Meanwhile a percentage of the underpaid teachers are living in vans and shitting in buckets.

          The we give these heroes a raise already!?

        • metaldream@sopuli.xyz
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          As usual conservatives take something that makes them look like the evil shitbags they are and lie about it for political gain.

      • lka1988@sh.itjust.works
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        That’s how this whole “kids are identifying as cats and using litter boxes at school” shitshow started.

    • ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world
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      The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.

      Exactly this. Just like flat earthers (and that super bizarre one about time cubes or whatever), the rubes will gobble it up and eventually people will get hurt over it.

      Another one is the Birds Aren’t Real meme, which I think is pretty funny, but you just know that an innocent birdwatcher will get shot some day because an extremely mentally unwell person will assume that they’re some government spook checking on the “drones”.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      These are the same sort of dumbfucks that absolutely believed the “LSD stickers/tattoos” bullshit way, way back and would insist on schools passing out flyers based on that stupid urban legend.

      I remember being in sixth grade when they had a bout of that going around our school, and I was like, wait, what? And I had a lot of doubts. And that’s when I was in sixth grade. Years later, you could look it up and see what nonsense it was. Anyway, I was at TWO different jobs where someone was trying to “inform parents” with some printouts they had about you guessed it, the bullshit LSD stickers nonsense. The first time, I told them “you know, this is urban legend, right?” I get immediately treated like I’m some kind of criminal that does not want to protect the children.

      I suspect the bullshit around litter boxes will have a similar lifetime among those that are hard of thinking.

    • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      While you’re right about that being fake, it’s just pandering to their base who do take issue with forms of self-expression that are common amongst queer, trans and/or autistic students. Things like wearing a collar, a tail or cat ears are absolutely relatively common and this bill targets those all the same.

      • lka1988@sh.itjust.works
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        My daughters love wearing cat-ear headbands. It’s cute, they like it, end of story. Nobody has thrown a fit about it yet… 🤞🤞

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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      what? absolutely troll these idiots now that you know they are very susceptible.

      just do it in a way they pass good laws out of fear instead.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      IIRC it did have a hint of truth, like most things do. They then spun a totally different story from it. The hint of truth is it was for school shootings where they couldn’t leave the classroom for an extended period of time.

      Instead of addressing the real issue, which is that school shootings have become so common that preparations like this need to be made, they spun it into a story that the schools were pandering towards furries. As always, it’s all smoke and mirrors to keep people distracted and give them an enemy, so they don’t force representatives to actually help them.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        i don’t even think it was a litterbox even, it was just litter in a bag, or a bucket. That was it. Someone then probably made the joke, somewhere online, 4chan or something, that it was litterboxes, and furries, because haha funny, look how stupid everything is, and then it exploded.

    • m-p{3}@lemmy.ca
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      The lesson here is to actually troll these idiots, but with stuff that lead to idiotic laws so inconvenient that even their voter base will hate them for it.

      Give them enough rope, and they’ll hang themselves with it.

    • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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      The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots

      Maybe the lesson is to troll harder until they legislate themselves into ruin?

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      troll them, troll them relentlessly, and this is coming from a furry, this shit is fucking hilarious.

      The more they live outside of reality, the harder it becomes for them to exist. The quick the fall, and the harder they fail.

  • regrub@lemmy.world
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    They’re going after easy targets like schools because if they targeted furries in the state government, all of the IT infrastructure would crumble.

    • orclev@lemmy.world
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      Hah, that made me chuckle. I recently attended an outdoor market in my area that for some reason had an unusually high number of furries wandering around it. I was really curious what the bus factor of that market would actually be.

        • orclev@lemmy.world
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          Yeah in this case I kind of meant the corollary to a bus factor. Essentially if everyone at that market disappeared, how many companies would be severely impacted?

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            No worries, I understood what you meant. It’s like that photo of all the furries on an airplane… Pray it doesn’t crash or else the world infrastructure is done for 😂

    • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      I’m frankly shocked it hasn’t already, the pay for government IT jobs is kinda shit, and they’ve been trying to slash federal employee benefits for years (theres been recent rumors of increasing mandatory FERS deductions and turning insurance into a voucher program). they’ve started going after anyone LGBTQ+ federally as well.

      • orclev@lemmy.world
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        Ultimately the problem is that that works in their favour. Remember the Republican position is “The Government doesn’t work and if you put me in charge of it I’ll prove it!”, so the only thing they need to do is destroy anything they can get their hands on. The only part of the government they care about (other than their specific seat) is the military. They will gleefully watch everything else burn and then point at the ashes as proof they were right all along.

        • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          They piss on the DoD and call it rain too, just not as much. Contractors generally make more than the civilian employees at the cost of potentially getting screwed over at the end of the contract or during a shutdown (realistically, I’ve heard it doesn’t happen that often, they’ll usually just get hired by whoever gets the next contract), and civilian employees just get more stable work hours and benefits (separate annual/sick leave pools, insurance, etc); if shit needs done after hours, they’ll call the active duty folks in, and if they cant make things work it’ll wait till morning.

          Edit; forgot where i was going with this and rambled a bit. TL;DR, they want to replace everyone DoD with contractors and active duty. People who can easily be fired (ran by companies that bribe politicians) and people who can be imprisoned for saying “no.”.

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          Trump is attacking the military too. He hates anyone who swears an oath to anyone or anything but himself, and also the military is one power center that could (and should) remove him and his cronies from office. The military leans right, but takes a very dim view of treason.

  • Tomtits@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    Can we still say “what’s up, dawg?”

    It is funny that the litter box story was taken as gospel.

    What a time to be alive.

  • Fingolfinz@lemmy.world
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    It’s incredible that republicans can constantly waste tax dollars on worthless shit like this and still be viewed as the party of financial responsibility by their dumb ass voting base

      • Fingolfinz@lemmy.world
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        That’s a really good point I didn’t consider. Just like it was with “eggs”, the “financial responsibility” crap really is just a front they put up in bad faith to avoid admitting that it’s all about racism

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    Texans, next time you look at the prices in the grocery store, remember that this is what your representatives are spending their time on.

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    Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech

    I’m not quite sure what it is exactly (/s), but maybe—just maybe—this is yet another attempt to fuck over and ostracize transfem and autistic people, but instead of being direct about it, using furries as the boogeyman.

    • Akuchimoya@startrek.website
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      There are very many normal human sounds that are not speech, including, but not limited to: laughter, crying, yelling/screaming/yelping (in surprise, pain, fear), groaning, moaning, yawning, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, singing, whistling.

      What constitutes human speech? There are languages that have sounds that don’t exist in other languages (said as someone still trying to get a hold on rolling my Rs).

      In any case, we should all learn some sign language. Seriously, it’s useful to be able to communicate silently or just visually (e.g. Across a noisy room), plus it makes life way more inclusive for Deaf people.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        In any case, we should all learn some sign language. Seriously, it’s useful to be able to communicate silently or just visually (e.g. Across a noisy room), plus it makes life way more inclusive for Deaf people.

        that would probably count as roleplaying as an animal, and therefore, you must be abused by your parents, say hello to CPS. /s

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      unlikely, though im sure they would push MORE legislation in the future based on the ideas of this bill specifically. It’s just written so poorly that’s catching strays from every conceivable direction, because most republican legislation is batshit insane these days.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      I fully agree but it’s really only associated with transfem people because of the high rates of autism in our community

  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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    Besides them being stupid as hell to conduct this ridiculous culture war, I take issue with another thing, the name:

    Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education

    It’s not unlawful until you forbid it. So the title makes no sense. You’re not forbidding the unlawful. You’re forbidding the previously lawful, making it unlawful.

    Stupid assholes.

    • Iceman@lemmy.world
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      Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education

      In Texas parties only lawful alignment is allowed. We don’t care if your Good or Evil, as long as your not chaotic or neutral.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    Wow.

    I remember learning about dinosaurs as an elementary schooler after Jurassic Park came out, and spending a few months on the playground pretending to be a velociraptor (well technically they’re closer to deinonychous but w/e) … apparently that is now banned, because otherwise I might have become a scaly, for life?

    Wonderful.

    • gnutrino@programming.dev
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      apparently that is now banned, because otherwise I might have become a scaly, for life?

      I’m not seeing a denial…

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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        Closest I ever got to being a scaly was… enjoying those old dinosaur comics from almost two decades ago, where the gimmick was it was the exact same 4 panels every time, buy with different dialogue?

        But uh no, I do not have a … scale suit? Scale-sona? I don’t even know if thats the right terminology.

        I just had a few friends who were DeviantArtists decades ago, and am vaguely aware via osmosis that there is a subset of furries with dino personas.

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          are you a furry though? Conveniently avoided that one.

          And technically, i think a scalie would still count as a fursuit/fursona, it’s just a weird offshoot of furry to refer to people who like scaled creatures instead, though i guess nothing stops you from calling it a scalesona/scalesuit, lol

          • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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            jfc, no I am not a furry.

            I don’t even have programmer socks.

            I’ve cosplayed a few times at conventions… Dr McNinja, Dr Who, Alan Wake, … think I was L from Death Note once…

            …I once made my own Drive jacket for a halloween party.

            Taught myself how to sew, found a pattern, made the jacket within the roughly 2 months between when the movie came out and the next halloween. I could only find one place on the entire internet selling the jacket, but they were basically either high quality repros or actual left over warddrobe from the movie, going for over a thousand bucks, wouldn’t ship until after halloween.

            I had to just use a felt cut out of the scorpion on the back, as … yeah, didn’t have enough time or skill to embroider it. It wasn’t reversible like the one in the movie was, but I did get the brown as the inside color/material, just with all the stitching exposed willy nilly.

            I’ve known a few furries, across the internet, but no I’ve never had a fursona or fursuit or any of that, never used a furry ingame avatar, nope.

            … I guess maybe I had an alt FFXIV character that was one of the … Miqote? I got bored and stopped playing after about 6 months, I don’t think I got that character beyond level 10.

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              jfc, no I am not a furry.

              i’m just giving you a hard time, don’t sweat it.

              I don’t even have programmer socks.

              i thought this was for the femboy certification, relevant to furries, but only in relation.

              pretty sick story though, cosplaying is neat, wouldn’t ever get into it myself, too computer pilled personally.

              I’ve known a few furries, across the internet, but no I’ve never had a fursona or fursuit or any of that, never used a furry ingame avatar, nope.

              aw, you’re missing out, it’s fun! (i jest)

              anyway, judging from this comment you’re like, once, maybe twice removed from the furry community. It may or may not crop up in your future, long term or short, anyway enough palm reading or whatever the fuck this is.

  • Rooskie91@discuss.online
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    Any behavior humans do is human behavior, this law is legally dubious at best. Mimicking animals has been a human thing since humans came to be.

    Okay seriously, did someone write this law just so it could be contested in court??

    The forbidden non human speech is written as onomatopoeias. Like how can you call that stuff nonhuman speech after literally writing it in human language? If I read this part of the law out loud am I violating the law?

    I could also see the rights to perform cultural religious dances being infringed upon by this law.

  • Krik@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.

    Good luck trying to enforce that. Most people lick a small wound on their hands an fingers. It’s our subconscious that triggers that.

  • dontbelasagne@lemmy.world
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    So they’re scared of people becoming furries. I know a few furries, not in the scene myself but furries are genuinely some of the nicest people I know. And also this bill seems ableist because I knew an autistic person that would growl whenever he had a meltdown. He wasn’t a furry, it was just how he was wired.

  • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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    Man, republicans really fucking hate freedom.

    “You are only allowed to express yourself in ways that are approved by the state!”

  • baltakatei@sopuli.xyz
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    Filing this under “Closeted conservative so ashamed of their kink that, instead of discussing their feelings with a therapist, psychiatrist, or even a trusted friend, believe everyone must share their taboo thoughts and therefore be preëmptively punished to stamp out the contagion since the only honorable alternative is undergoing apoptosis like some malfunctioning cell”.