That was a nice sincere comment. (It's good to beware of sincere misguidance when there's a debate about beliefs...)
The topic I want to raise in these comments is agendas. People may not even be aware of holding them. If anyone doubts that there are agendas at work - take another look at comment #9. The reporter got caught fibbing!
So Nuka, let's parse this with an honest aim to set forth what the agendas are. Of course you deserve credit for doing caring research, and not feeling rivalry. But your comment raises some issues while it clears some up.
1) Kage:
It's interesting that you didn't address the relationship with Kage (Dr. Conway.) He's both given authorship of IARP papers, and he directs the biggest fandom institution, letting you in and barring others at your request. What kind of independence is that?
Why is there a very close relationship giving research decision-making, to someone who apparently has no professional qualification for social research? He's an experimental chemist, right? Could we get psychoanalysis from a plumber too? It seems the primary role is what you flat out stated - public image, from the top.
In service to Public Relations, Dr. Conway directs policies that are at odds with what the population wants and does. The "family friendly" media PR goes against a lot of activity that a lot of people want. Not that this is bad - but it's very political. That's an agenda.
It makes me wonder - if one researcher is inappropriate for informally attending a convention as a member of the public - why is it OK for another to RUN the convention?
2) Intimate relationships and "science-sonas":
It's suggested that Kevin is an outsider, while Kage and the IARP work with intimate trust. But there are boundaries for that, right? Researchers aren't supposed to sleep with subjects, for example. From a perspective apart from yours, there's reasons to question the closeness. One is above. There's more we can discuss below, with particular concern about confirmation bias.
It's proposed that this is covered by going through an ethics board. A counterpoint can raise criticisms about academia itself - far and above just this tiny social/hobby niche of furry fans - and ways it's politicized towards certain ideology instead of evidence. We could discuss well-known criticisms like the "echo chamber" effect. It's not just speculation that this may come into play. It comes from things you have said.
In one conversation on social media, there was a topic about what forms the membership of this hobby/social group. I have an impression that Maslow's heirarchy is important in social research - isn't a recreational hobby different from basic needs of life? It would filter people in with all kinds of more basic outside influences. For a stigmatized group, one of those could be bullying. That topic came up, and you assumed it meant bullying INSIDE furry fandom. That's surely very low on the list of places that happens to members, and it was concerning to see this tunnel-vision.
A related topic is the way a lot of gay people congregate here - a difference from general society that may say something about essential character. Yet it's a recreational group with undisputably high acceptance and open boundaries, and free choice of membership. Conclusions about such influences get squishy when there's tunnel-vision closeness to the subject. Then research can turn into something else.
Objective research, or PR for friends? Science or propaganda? In all of this defense, pride in the work, touting of trust relationships, and being careful to please people and not offend them - it makes suspicion of so much closeness, it's like role-playing a Furry "science-sona".
3) "Rivalry" and Kevin Hsu:
I take at face value what you said about no rivalry with other researchers. Considering the above, the real topic would be protectionism. That comes from lack of perspective - speaking as a biased advocate, and identifying so closely with subjects that people make non-personal things personal.
That's the reaction I sensed from Gerbasi, who seemed to vehemently overreact to what Kevin was doing by calling it "shameful". Rather than Kevin "brushing off Dr. Gerbasi's concerns" as JM claims above, it appears she brushed him off and ignored his invitation to contact him personally - although other IARP members had nice conversation with him.
In that comment Kevin defends the lack of an informed consent. If you say it's a mistake, OK. As you say, I only sensed he's a well intentioned graduate student attempting to answer a question that's interesting to him, nothing evil. As previously stated, the only complaints I've heard of have come from other researchers and not the public.
You believed his hypothesis is "a gross overgeneralization of furries". Really, did he? Did he generalize, or simply wonder if something might exist even rarely? JM reports he said "many furries – possibly most – are zoophiles" and so forth. I would be very curious to see a source for this. I suspect that comes from JM. All thanks to him for bringing out the topic in the first place, but his writing often shows extreme, out-of-context, disingenuous mischaracterizing disguised as concern. I'll cite some below.
4) "Eliciting response" and an ideology agenda.
In that conversation buried somewhere on social media, you discussed IARP research results that appeared to reveal "sexism" in a way that was heavily biased. Your survey failed to give any operational definition for "sexism", leaving it entirely feeling-based in the eye of the beholder. It fails to define things like "degradation" by pornography - the drawn cartoon kind (really?) - not even allowing that research can't show real (legal) pornography as causing negative influence. You admitted segregating apart your chosen subjects, a group of female furry fans, to "elicit response." Isn't that what PR, advertising and propaganda does?
It was if they were too weak and fearful to honestly speak for themselves, without being directed to give you the results you already had in mind. The questions prepared the answers by throwing out an undefined term many times before the survey started - like, how much sexism do you feel from the sexists who dominate the sexist culture?
Reducing the ideology to it's most absurd basic premise, we learn that "sexism" is the reason for gathering together any group of two or more males. (Gay bars must be the most sexist places on earth!)
Credit to JM for other topics he's good at, but this one is the most stinky piece of rancid bullshit I've ever seen coming from this fandom. It's patronizing, and more than a little toxic towards the existing membership, especially their motivations to join out of free will and positive interest.
Of course, any group of two or more males is not evidence of "sexism". But it's easy to prepare people to get answers you already know, if you treat it like it is. Then, you can go ahead and ignore all the reasons the belief is flawed and wrong, with cultish devotion: https://dogpatchpress.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/nerd-culture/
That brings us to here - there are agendas at work that need to be disclosed if we want honest conversations. If you say there's no power or rivalry, OK - there's still plain devotion to dogma.
It's even in loaded words. "Sexism," Degradation, "Male-dominated." Male-populated isn't male-"dominated". People's reasons for being here shouldn't be reduced to body parts. There's plenty of apples-and-oranges differences among different kinds of people, and that's not bad. I look forward to when we can honestly discuss that with minimal agendas.
Kevin's research seemed to me to depart from that framework and maybe raise questions about biology. ("the fact that men are far, far more likely to develop fetishes than women was always a clue that there was some underlying biological predisposition in the male brain towards developing fetishes." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/billion-wicked-thoughts/201205/fetishes-do-... )
Completely apart from how MUCH this comes into play with furries (or even how good his attempt), I think it's a good reason to encourage more research and not block these questions. I'm glad you seemed to welcome that.
That was a nice sincere comment. (It's good to beware of sincere misguidance when there's a debate about beliefs...)
The topic I want to raise in these comments is agendas. People may not even be aware of holding them. If anyone doubts that there are agendas at work - take another look at comment #9. The reporter got caught fibbing!
So Nuka, let's parse this with an honest aim to set forth what the agendas are. Of course you deserve credit for doing caring research, and not feeling rivalry. But your comment raises some issues while it clears some up.
1) Kage:
It's interesting that you didn't address the relationship with Kage (Dr. Conway.) He's both given authorship of IARP papers, and he directs the biggest fandom institution, letting you in and barring others at your request. What kind of independence is that?
Why is there a very close relationship giving research decision-making, to someone who apparently has no professional qualification for social research? He's an experimental chemist, right? Could we get psychoanalysis from a plumber too? It seems the primary role is what you flat out stated - public image, from the top.
In service to Public Relations, Dr. Conway directs policies that are at odds with what the population wants and does. The "family friendly" media PR goes against a lot of activity that a lot of people want. Not that this is bad - but it's very political. That's an agenda.
It makes me wonder - if one researcher is inappropriate for informally attending a convention as a member of the public - why is it OK for another to RUN the convention?
2) Intimate relationships and "science-sonas":
It's suggested that Kevin is an outsider, while Kage and the IARP work with intimate trust. But there are boundaries for that, right? Researchers aren't supposed to sleep with subjects, for example. From a perspective apart from yours, there's reasons to question the closeness. One is above. There's more we can discuss below, with particular concern about confirmation bias.
It's proposed that this is covered by going through an ethics board. A counterpoint can raise criticisms about academia itself - far and above just this tiny social/hobby niche of furry fans - and ways it's politicized towards certain ideology instead of evidence. We could discuss well-known criticisms like the "echo chamber" effect. It's not just speculation that this may come into play. It comes from things you have said.
In one conversation on social media, there was a topic about what forms the membership of this hobby/social group. I have an impression that Maslow's heirarchy is important in social research - isn't a recreational hobby different from basic needs of life? It would filter people in with all kinds of more basic outside influences. For a stigmatized group, one of those could be bullying. That topic came up, and you assumed it meant bullying INSIDE furry fandom. That's surely very low on the list of places that happens to members, and it was concerning to see this tunnel-vision.
A related topic is the way a lot of gay people congregate here - a difference from general society that may say something about essential character. Yet it's a recreational group with undisputably high acceptance and open boundaries, and free choice of membership. Conclusions about such influences get squishy when there's tunnel-vision closeness to the subject. Then research can turn into something else.
Objective research, or PR for friends? Science or propaganda? In all of this defense, pride in the work, touting of trust relationships, and being careful to please people and not offend them - it makes suspicion of so much closeness, it's like role-playing a Furry "science-sona".
3) "Rivalry" and Kevin Hsu:
I take at face value what you said about no rivalry with other researchers. Considering the above, the real topic would be protectionism. That comes from lack of perspective - speaking as a biased advocate, and identifying so closely with subjects that people make non-personal things personal.
That's the reaction I sensed from Gerbasi, who seemed to vehemently overreact to what Kevin was doing by calling it "shameful". Rather than Kevin "brushing off Dr. Gerbasi's concerns" as JM claims above, it appears she brushed him off and ignored his invitation to contact him personally - although other IARP members had nice conversation with him.
In that comment Kevin defends the lack of an informed consent. If you say it's a mistake, OK. As you say, I only sensed he's a well intentioned graduate student attempting to answer a question that's interesting to him, nothing evil. As previously stated, the only complaints I've heard of have come from other researchers and not the public.
You believed his hypothesis is "a gross overgeneralization of furries". Really, did he? Did he generalize, or simply wonder if something might exist even rarely? JM reports he said "many furries – possibly most – are zoophiles" and so forth. I would be very curious to see a source for this. I suspect that comes from JM. All thanks to him for bringing out the topic in the first place, but his writing often shows extreme, out-of-context, disingenuous mischaracterizing disguised as concern. I'll cite some below.
4) "Eliciting response" and an ideology agenda.
In that conversation buried somewhere on social media, you discussed IARP research results that appeared to reveal "sexism" in a way that was heavily biased. Your survey failed to give any operational definition for "sexism", leaving it entirely feeling-based in the eye of the beholder. It fails to define things like "degradation" by pornography - the drawn cartoon kind (really?) - not even allowing that research can't show real (legal) pornography as causing negative influence. You admitted segregating apart your chosen subjects, a group of female furry fans, to "elicit response." Isn't that what PR, advertising and propaganda does?
It was if they were too weak and fearful to honestly speak for themselves, without being directed to give you the results you already had in mind. The questions prepared the answers by throwing out an undefined term many times before the survey started - like, how much sexism do you feel from the sexists who dominate the sexist culture?
That's the advocacy and confirmation bias. Here's the echo chamber effect and disingenous mischaracterizing that follows: http://adjectivespecies.com/2014/05/05/dogpatch-press-on-women/
Reducing the ideology to it's most absurd basic premise, we learn that "sexism" is the reason for gathering together any group of two or more males. (Gay bars must be the most sexist places on earth!)
That article comes from a dogmatic aversion to evidence and reason, that comes with lots of links in the article being mischaracterized with cherrypicked attacks: http://dogpatchpress.wordpress.com/2014/04/21/all-humans-welcome/
Credit to JM for other topics he's good at, but this one is the most stinky piece of rancid bullshit I've ever seen coming from this fandom. It's patronizing, and more than a little toxic towards the existing membership, especially their motivations to join out of free will and positive interest.
Of course, any group of two or more males is not evidence of "sexism". But it's easy to prepare people to get answers you already know, if you treat it like it is. Then, you can go ahead and ignore all the reasons the belief is flawed and wrong, with cultish devotion: https://dogpatchpress.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/nerd-culture/
That brings us to here - there are agendas at work that need to be disclosed if we want honest conversations. If you say there's no power or rivalry, OK - there's still plain devotion to dogma.
It's even in loaded words. "Sexism," Degradation, "Male-dominated." Male-populated isn't male-"dominated". People's reasons for being here shouldn't be reduced to body parts. There's plenty of apples-and-oranges differences among different kinds of people, and that's not bad. I look forward to when we can honestly discuss that with minimal agendas.
Kevin's research seemed to me to depart from that framework and maybe raise questions about biology. ("the fact that men are far, far more likely to develop fetishes than women was always a clue that there was some underlying biological predisposition in the male brain towards developing fetishes." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/billion-wicked-thoughts/201205/fetishes-do-... )
Completely apart from how MUCH this comes into play with furries (or even how good his attempt), I think it's a good reason to encourage more research and not block these questions. I'm glad you seemed to welcome that.