02-28-2018, 05:58 AM
Yikes, it ended up long again! (I suck at word economy (?:^(
Oh well, here goes...
I would have to be one of those whose "delurk" - if that means "open" as in a forum vs "private" as between two people only - was not optimistic or exuberant at all. Indeed, it was quite the opposite.
Some background...
Even before the start of my sexual awakening at the end of the sixties, I knew that the world's population was numbered in the billions. So when it became apparent what I was turning out to be, I was confident that even at a small fraction or decimal of a percent, that others of Zoosexual orientation had to number in the tens of thousands at least, probably in the hundreds of thousands, and maybe even millions.
Even when it extended to, and then became, a full-on imprint on Birds, I was confident that the numbers still had to be in the high hundreds or thousands.
So for me, even then, the question was not if there were others like me, but rather, if there could somehow be a safe way to find and to contact any of them.
Also, taking Latin in high school at the time and reading scientific journals, I had learned Latin & Greek roots, and independently coined the words "Zoophile"and "Zoosexual". likewise with "Orniphile" and "Ornisexual", only learning decades later, that they should have been spelled "Ornithophile" and "Ornithosexual".
I even used the word "orientation" to internally reference my developing and bifurcating sexual focus, long before I ever heard or saw it being used by others in reference to sexuality. It would be soon after that I would learn the name of that process, the ethological process of "imprinting".
Fast-forward to late 1994. A zoo-friendly friend loaned me time on his computer and helped me to learn it and the internet. With my not understanding the differences between account names, usernames, addresses, and passwords, I had accidentally created the username "Resident Hyaena" while setting up my first - and for Zoo-use-only - e-mail account. And in the next four years, I had made e-mail contact with about half-a-dozen other Zoos, by way of their personal web pages.
Nearly all my online Zoo time was at personal web pages, reading personal accounts, essays, checking rather few images, making contacts, checking out how-tos and story archives, and exploring the Zoo Ring, Ian's Zoo Links, & other "road maps", both Zoo and non-Zoo, for this new "information super-highway".
I had run across forums, but I did not understand how they worked. I saw all these tight stacks of staggered lines, and trying to read them just yielded a big string of apparently disconnected and disparate snippets of conversations.
Then, spring of 1999. I had been online for about four years & some months, weeks, and days. I had finally figured out how to follow the forum "threads", and for a few months now, I had been "lurking" at one called "The Vivarium Forum", or "TVF", operated by Hermes Trismegistus, and another, the forum of the site "The Pages of Proteus" operated by Proteus Protei.
By now, I had seen much of the online Zoo "community" of the time, the good, the bad, the full gamut of what people had - and didn't have - to offer. But in these two forums, the stress & strains within the community were particularly evident, especially regarding who and what should or should not be considered a "True Zoo".
The delurk....
Then, the end of April or the beginning of May. It was well after midnight, and the end of an hours-long drive back from a convention. I checked TVF, and found that a Zoo regular named Valerio, had posted his take on who and what were & were not Zoo.
(Soon after, I had, with the help of Ren, saved the then recently deleted posts in that thread. But they then died again, with the fatal crash of my first computer. So I cannot properly quote the content, only paraphrase or summarize it).
In Valerio's diatribe or "rant", he discredited and disparaged those who had or wanted sexual activity with the "Wrong" Animals, dismissing and condemning all those that engaged with Birds and some other Animals, as abusers and rapists. Others chimed-in with their approvals and "yessah's".
And with that, I "delurked".
It was not optimistic or exuberant, not in the least.
It was fury and rage!
I began - even then and there - with the paragraph I had always used when making my initial introduction by e-mail, and have used in all Zoo forum introductions since:
"Hello there.
My online name is Resident Hyaena (a name that came about more by accident than design). I'm a Zoo, most specifically an Ornithophile, a lover of Birds."
After that, I let loose.
Again, I have no surviving copy of it, and with the writing of the original post done largely under post-driving exhaustion, the fog of rage, and unaccustomed-to levels of adrenaline, my retention of what I wrote was deficient at best. But I did express my love for Birds, my care for their well-being, and challenged his harsh presumptions of abuse, describing what I knew that Birds enjoyed, and what could be done safely.
But for his assertions that because of the presumed "abuse", that sexual contact with Birds proved that you didn't care and so didn't really "love" them, I gave my harshest reply. Paraphrasing here, as per the above limiting factors, I asked him, in part:
"Have you ever raised a young Bird (or other Animal) from birth to adult?
I have!
Have you ever had a Bird (or other Animal) come to you, begging for sexual attention?
I have!
Have you and a Bird (or other Animal) ever gone to a "special place" to spend time together, to grow together, and to share in each others lives?
I have!
Have you ever had to watch your Bird (or other animal) as they aged, and declined, knowing there was nothing you could do to stop it?
I have!
And finally, have you ever had to return to that special place with what was your Bird (or other Animal) to finally lay them to rest, and to cry over and agonize over them, forever?
I HAVE!"
Many minutes, more typing, and eight "zinging" fingertips later, I finally posted it.
No optimism, no exuberance. Just anger, despair, and agony.
Physically and mentally spent, I shut down the computer and plopped into bed.
The next day, I returned to the site and the post. And to a number of replies. Most were supportive, but one titled "Whoh There!" stood out. It was from Valerio. In it, he "clarified" his points, and "assured" that he did not mean to portray Ornithophiles as abusers, as not caring, not loving, or not real Zoos.
And he expressed a willingness to learn more.
I sent him info in multiple mailings, including development, activities, and accounts with various Birds. Only the "accounts" mailing had survived.
What followed...
I was accepted at TVF, and continued posting there as time and limited typing ability would allow. But never again in the manner I did that first time! The thread with my delurk did not last though, it was deleted just two days later by Hermes, who was prone to delete not just what violated the rules, which it did not, but also anything that he just didn't "like".
Considering the even more acrid atmosphere at the Proteus forum, I remained just a lurker there.
It would not last; citing health issues with him and his Dog, Valerio posted less and eventually stopped, his e-mail going dead. Not long after, Hermes, citing frustrations with the community at large, shut down the site and vanished. His earlier, abandoned page, "Welcome To Paradigm" persisted as a moribund, or "zombie" site, but eventually disappeared as well.
Not long after, he resurfaced as Ebonlupus, with a new personal web page - Tailhole.org - sans forum. I looked it over a couple of times, but quickly gave up on it.
I soon found a forum of sorts - I *think* under the Yahoo Groups umbrella - called the Zoo Writers Group. (to Silverwolf: please correct me if any of the information, chronology, or accounts are incorrect).
I found it a good fit, and began a story under a story writing contest. But due to vehicle failure and misjudging the magnitude of the task, it was never completed.
Unfortunately, if I remember right, Yahoo shut it, and many or all other Groups down. Another iteration later emerged, but disappeared as well.
Before the forums, I found fellow Ornithophile, Hawk, and after or around the time the Groups vanished, he re-launched a new version of his old forum, Zoophile.org, which had disappeared before I found Hawk. I established a good presence there, and Ornithophiles were welcome, though questioned by some members.
But with his disdain for Microsoft, and tendency for running things incompatible with Internet Explorer, Windows, and other Microsoft systems, I often found myself unable to access or navigate the site or to post there.
Eventually, with another site reboot, I found myself unable to access it at all, getting "red screen" blocked. E-mail addresses began to change, bounce, and change again, and contact was eventually lost.
I soon found another site, called "Pet Lovers Forum". First, under White_Shadow, then Midnitecrow, it was much less formal, and a much friendlier place than TVF.
Later, having established a good presence, I was invited to join a secret forum, known only by, and available by way of, a very limited invite only.
And both were Ornithophile friendly.
I spent more time and made many more posts at those two than at any other forum. Unfortunately, due to provider & host conflicts, spurred by moves or legal changes in the host country, those two and other "problematic" Midnitecrow forums were eventually shut down.
During all that time, personal web pages were disappearing at an alarming rate, with almost no replacements. By the time PLF and the others were dropped, only Ren's Kennel and The Ultimate Zoo Page remained. And they soon disappeared as well.
I searched around for other forums, but the few I found, like the latest iteration of Zoo.org, and Zoophile's Forum were "Red-Page" locked-out, with no way to bypass the barrier.
After two years or more of nothing, I finally found "BF", as many are wont to call it. Despite the crowded and "alien" feel to it, I joined, having found no other accessible forum.
I was welcomed well enough, and figured I might do okay there. But I soon found out that the admins frowned on activity with Birds, that the "Chicken raper" model, the "ALL sex with birds is ALWAYS harmful" mantra and associated Avian myths, had been repeated to the point of being accepted without question as "Established Fact", never to be disputed or challenged. And not even to be discussed, other than yessahs' and hear-hears' to their gospel "Truth".
It was not looking good for me there.
But there was a thread posing the question of whether it was possible to ethically have sexual interactions with an Ostrich. Seeing it, and some of the downright ridiculous things being said, I decided to reply to it.
It apparently was enough for the moderators to reconsider their initial plans to lock that thread, though not enough to reconsider the "indisputable facts" referenced above. The thread is still open, but is currently going nowhere.
Two years after finding BF, I found a site called "Herpy". A "Scalie" site for Reptile & Dragon Furries, it was welcoming to "Avians" as well, and "accepting to tolerant" of my Ornithophily, though I was advised to be careful about presenting any real life accounts or descriptions of actual events.
It was still a much better fit for me than BF, and I found myself posting much more there, and my posts being surprisingly well received. I even considered it as a place to post my still unfinished story.
But there were troubles ahead. The site was running unreliably on old "patched-up" software, and the co-founder of the site, with all the technical skills, had gone off a few years earlier to attend full-time to his other enterprise. For a long time, the Herpy admins had been trying to contact him for help.
But when they finally got in touch, he, with no notice to the admins, shut down and wiped-out the entire site and its archives, leaving only a lame message page which essentially added up to "So long, and thanks for all the fish!"
Finally, by a very fortunate series of coincidences, I recently found this current iteration of the Zoo Writers Guild, and its sibling site, Zoophilia Pictures. Reminded again, by the loss of Herpy, I had resumed work on the story.
And with the finding of this latest Zoo Writers iteration, the continuation of my work on the story, and the re-surfacing of some of my earliest and best Zoo contacts, much has now come "full circle".
What now?...
So as for the "doesn't feel differently" part, yes and no. The "optimism and exuberance" wasn't there for me at the delurk, and so wasn't there for me to lose. The "onlining" of Zoo has caused social backlash and legal repression, but it has also allowed us to share information that enables us to better care for and protect our Animal partners, and if we take the situation seriously and act sensibly, it should enable us to better safeguard our privacy.
And it has also removed our isolation from one another. For many Zoos, the pre-internet loneliness and isolation must have been devastating, a social solitary confinement. And it has been shown many times that social isolation has terrible effects upon both the physical and mental health of those so burdened.
But now, a really bad - and little talked about - situation. For all the negativity we face, we, the online Zoos, are in many ways the lucky ones. Though we face social and legal oppression and backlash, we and our Animals still have, or can have, the support of other zoos.
Even if its just you and one other Zoo writing to each other, and just letting each other know that you and they are not alone.
But most Zoos probably don't have even that. Considering the grossly disparate distribution of resources, with most of the world's population living in what we would recognize as deep poverty, it is likely that most of the world's Zoos are not, have not been, and will never be online, and have rarely found other Zoos without first finding or being found out by disapprovers. Or worse.
These "disenfranchised" Zoos have none of the benefits of being online, but are still subject to all the disapproval and legal oppression, which is readily "available" to them, whether online or not.
I suspect that most of the world's Zoos are living in constant fear, with no reason to hope for things ever getting better.
Unfortunately, other than our sympathy, there is, like the aging of our Animal companions, probably little or nothing that we can do about it.
There's a lot more to those issues, and many other issues untouched here. And cannot be touched here, as this reply is already way too long! Maybe to be taken up in other threads?
What next?...
One thing we probably should be keeping an eye on though, is the upcoming repeal of "Net Neutrality". It may have a major impact on our online presence. Or it could also have very little effect at all. Or something in-between.
Then again, with so many confident otherwise, look what ended up in the White House!
If for no other reason than "Old Man Murphy", we should probably be prepared for substantial impact. If not being done already, we should be making sensible preparations, such as alternate lines of communication and backing-up of archives (the latter of which I had to learn the hard way (?:^(
Just in case the "vehicles" of our information super-highway should suddenly "go south".
Resident Hyaena ^..^
