my waking thought

[wilomn]

Ya know, the thing is, all this stereotyping, it has .... a solid foundation based on survival.

Things that look certain ways generally behave in certain ways. This is simply a fact. Another fact is the exception to every rule fact, but exceptions, by definition, are not common and for the purposes of this post, not included in general.

So. let's talk about cheese loving heavily tatted and pierced people, some of whom are found in pits. That very general description fits, generically, a lot of people who keep reptiles. Factor in that many who are so marked in order to stand out, do in fact compound the decor by .....strutting, cockofthewalking, uncovering, strategically covering,being their everyday selves, being their lookatmeI'malldecorated selves, what ever the method, they are seen and they encourage this seeing.

There is NOTHING wrong with this. However, since there are so many who so much want to be seen, they are seen by those who simply assume that it must be a common condition amounst those of us who keep our slithery pals. To the uninitiated, this is not unreasonable.

We stereotype or profile for really good reasons and they work. We go certain places because they 'look' safe. We allow certain people liberties that are denied to others, all of whom are strangers to us, based on looks and feelings and absolutely nothing concrete.

It's also reasonable to think that those who don't know you don't have to set off a metal detector or rival a modern day comic book to be allowed to keep snakes, since so many detectors are detecting and so many comics through up their hands in disgust, er jealousy.

Your feelings, OP, are reasonable. What you do with them, or allow them to do with you, your feelings, is another matter entirely.