The Sword of Damocles

Have you ever heard the allegorical story about the Sword of Damocles? It's an old anecdote, passed down through Silian texts a la the historian Timaeus of Tauromenium, and then spreading through Greek and Roman cultures until eventually becoming a powerful allegory many people still make reference to even until this day. As described on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles#Sword_of_Damocles):  
 
 
According to the story, Damocles was flattering his king, Dionysius, exclaiming that Dionysius was truly fortunate as a great man of power and authority without peer, surrounded by magnificence. In response, Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for one day so that Damocles could taste that fortune firsthand. Damocles eagerly accepted the king's proposal. Damocles sat on the king's throne amid embroidered rugs, fragrant perfumes, and the service of beautiful attendants. But Dionysius, who had made many enemies during his reign, arranged that a sword should hang above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail to evoke the sense of what it is like to be king: though having much fortune, always having to watch in anxiety against dangers that might try to overtake him, whether it is a jealous advisor or servant, a slanderous rumor, an enemy kingdom, a poor royal decision, or anything else. Damocles finally begged the king for permission to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that while he had everything he could ever want at his feet, it could not affect what was above his crown.
 
 
It can have many alternative interpretations, and while it is often used to describe either a situation of someone in power being in constant risk of losing it, more generally it describes a person in some kind of a constant peril because of various circumstances. Basically, "Having a thing that looms over you that can fuck you up anytime."
 
 
And, for probably already obvious reasons, it also can start being very relevant to a life experience of a zoo. 
 
 
There's many different flavors of the zoosexual life experience. Many different combinations or attractions, many degrees of its depth, many ways how it impacts one's journey through the world. There's different levels of how much people think about their zoosexuality. Various strong needs to talk about things and to be open and accepted, versus other people whose needs tell them quite another thing, that they do not desire to be seen and are more comfy in hiding. All different motivations, mindsets, experiences driving one's actions. And those differences developing into different scenarios on various social landscapes, taking forms of fruitful meadows where one can frolic and treacherous minefields capable of blowing one's world to smithereens. Some things are quick to fizzle out. Some take painful time to sort out, like healing from a poisoning. And then there's just those that are kinda... in a limbo. 
 
 
Today we'll talk about how it feels when things kinda... get stuck. 
 
 
 
When a zoo stops being content with living their zoo experience in solitude, life suddenly becomes a game of risks. Every interaction you take where you open up has potential not only to bring company and kinship, but also fear and destruction. 
 
 
Due to the taboo nature of our orientation, we are often forced to live a double life, hiding a significant part of our souls in fear of the world pushing back against our individuality. And because homo sapiens are social creatures after all, we long for contact. As mentioned in a movie made after a certain scientist's book, it's what makes loneliness bearable(Contact by Carl Sagan for those who don't know). To be able to look into the distance, wave, and know that someone waves back. But to actively find someone, that requires you to shout. To be a lighthouse. Or at least send smoke signals. And it's not only those on your desired wavelength who can intercept your broadcasts. And they can respond back in a way you do not want. 
 
 
And the effect doesn't even have to be imminent. People are volatile beings. Some take time to process things before it kinda clicks completely within their mindset. Some don't realize the extent of things when talked about first. And some simply can fall out of liking you and start feeling like your secret life isn't worth keeping private. And these things can all propagate and evolve over the cobweb of social connections. One flap of the butterfly wings and things can start to collapse... or not.
 
 
Let's look at how it could theoretically happen.
 
 
It might start innocently. A very carefully passed joke there and there. A meme that could possibly be interpreted from a zooey perspective. And slowly you might start just gently signaling zooey stuff. Maybe you share mostly feral art, maybe you try to innocently and vaguely defend zoos whenever the topic comes up in the heat of the debate. Your jokes and memes might increase their zooeyness factor. And just maybe someone catches onto your flow and you start to talk. 
 
 
And maybe you start to talk with more people. And engage more. Start to have inside jokes.
 
 
And people inevitably notice. And even without you noticing, something ominous is now hanging above your head.
 
 
Before you even realized, you started tickling the beast. Being a bit reckless, one could say. But the lack of actual pushback reinforces your courage. Perhaps the response to your signaling has been much less loud than you expected. Maybe it starts showing that no one actually listens to those few screaming mean words at the likes of you. Despite all the signaling, it seems like... mostly people just generally don't care.
 
 
And then the more direct call outs happen. and.....nothing else? Nothing happens? No insane drama that you're a zoo? No one catching on the hate train? Scream of antis fizzling out and they, tired and disappointed from not having an audience, give up? How did that even happen?
 
 
Welcome to the limbo.
 
 
Say hi to the sword dangling above your head. Seemingly on the verge of falling being on the single hair of a horse's tail, now it seems as if it was made from heavy duty steel cable. As if the gunpowder trail leading under your chair was all wet and refusing to ignite.  
 
 
And while it makes you feel like you can breathe out in relief, it also starts feeling... weird. From now on, you live in uncertainty.
 
 
You know people probably know, but also that they can't be really sure about it. You know you are seen, yet you don't feel the searchlights of a hunt. You know the cat's out of the bag, but you hear no crashing of broken furniture. 
 
 
You know you caused waves, and that something should happen. But it doesn't. the sword just hangs, watching you quietly.
 
 
It all becomes one huge wave function refusing to collapse into an actual state.
And you just won't know the full extent of the effect until you actually publicly come out and watch people's reaction. Which can as well be the sword finally ending its tug of war with gravity and slicing your throat open. Or you can find out that, to your surprise, the sword has actually long been lying on the ground beside you, watching you with amusement over your paranoia. 
 
 
And you never know until it all happens. Just as I don't know right now.
 
 
In my life, I've actually went through many of the situations zoos can struggle with. 
 
 
My journey to zoo acceptance started with a very bad person who one day hurt my boy. 
Then I had my zoosexuality used against me in manipulation to make me stay with a toxic and dangerous person. I have been blackmailed and threatened and almost forced into marriage on the basis of it.
 
 
I've been outed to the local furry community by another zoo years ago, although back then I somehow damage-controlled the situation. To this day I don't know who actually believed me back then and who to this day bases their zoo allegations of me on that. 
 
 
I've met someone pretending they need help with starting hormonal transition just to gain my trust and try to expose me.
 
 
I've been sent death threats, blackmailed, betrayed more times than it's healthy, and yet... I'm still walking through the world somehow. 
 
 
I've never been reported to the police, but that might possibly be thanks to the fact that engaging in bestiality actually isn't illegal in my country, and vets or police instead care about whether you physically abuse your animal. At least unless you record stuff and share it, but since I'm not a fan of producing evidence on myself, there's none of that. My story might have taken a completely different turn in another place in the world but... I'm here. 
 
 
Despite all the failures that went down in my life, whether it has been because of my decisions or not, despite all the risks I shouldn't have taken and did, and through all the potentially catastrophic developments I went through, I'm still here unscathed, in all my zooeyness, and if anything, more bold after each thing I survive. It almost feels like the world doesn't care enough. 
 
 
Some time ago, I found out there's some guy that I never met who was outing me. Going around doing talks on the theme of "why people hate furries" and showing a wonderful slide titled ZOOPHILES with my name in huge capitals under it... and... no one confronted me about it. I've been told people saw it, but... no one screaming in my DMs. 
 
 
Up to two months ago, I've had two antis constantly scream at me sharing feral art and calling me out as a zoophile. After a while I noticed that... no one joins them. They are alone.
 
 
I started telling them I don't care what they say about me. They screamed even more. And people still didn't care. 
 
 
So I made a reaction gif about how no one cares they claim someone is a zoo. They were fuming. And that was all. No one else bothered. If anything, I've had some more zoofurs place a laugh react on my beautiful gif. 
 
 
Recently I've been banned from a trans Discord for being a zoophile. A place where I wasn't even active for over a year and have never talked about my orientation. Yet somehow multiple people supposedly outed me to the mods and demanded I get removed from the server or people will start leaving. But... that's the end of it. Nothing else happened. No troves of my trans girl friends asking in horror whether I do indeed kiss dogs. 
 
 
During the days of writing the article, I actually basically came out to a Telegram group of 20 people. It's a safe space I've been helping with building, for people to speak free of judgement and provide support to each other. And I've already heavily implied some stuff there already (not even mentioning the outright zooey art I keep sharing there). But that day I opened about trauma from childhood from when I was eight years old, fell in love with neighbor's dog and lost him a few weeks after due to a stroke. I admitted to feeling romantic feelings towards dogs, and even gave explanations to some remarks some people had. I talked about zeta principles and how it is important for people to realize that zoosexuality has an inseparable romantic component. And so far... no one reacted badly. I expected hate and got compassion instead. And yeah this all can backfire spectacularly, but... The sword keeps hanging.
 
 
I feel as if I've been at this point for ages now, screaming at the sword and throwing things at it, begging it to come down finally. 
 
 
Hell, even just talking about all this here is risky. I'm talking about events which were not without witnesses. Someone could just run into this article, get it sent by someone, and realize... wait, I know this person, I've seen this happen. I was actually worried after writing my first article that I might have given too many details. But... it seems I didn't. Or people don't care. 
 
 
It all feels even more absurd with how many people I already came out to. I did a count some time ago, and not counting the recent Telegram group incident, I've already told over eighty people. I even know there's at least three people that are right now not shy of sharing my secret with the intent of bad mouthing me and hurting me.
 
 
It still hangs.
 
 
And while doing the count, I found out that the majority of the people reacted well or neutral. There's been only a few bad reactions or someone abusing the information later. In general, it really seems that... nothing really happened. Except maybe for some bigoted, spineless people trying to hurt me while failing to do any actual serious damage.
 
 
So yeah some people don't like me and never will. Some places don't want people like me around and I guess that's acceptable. It's still a small price for living like my genuine self. 
 
 
But other than that, I'm still standing firmly in my zoophile shoes. I don't know if it's luck or the world not caring. But things are just staying still. 
 
 
Even despite everything, I have no police knocking on my door. No angry vets demanding welfare checks. No one harassing my family or my employer with "the news" (not that most of my family wouldn't know already).
 
 
And while that's great... it changes nothing of the uncertainty. I still don't know if I'm just sus to the outsider's eye, or if everyone just considers it confirmed that I'm a zoo. Does no one react to the antis because they don't take them seriously, or because everyone knows and is tired of the screaming of people who don't actually accept your existence and are angry you're not being chased out?
 
 
So many questions. So few answers. So much of what won't show its true colors until I cut through the rope and let the sword fall. Maybe by putting an actual zeta in my name. 
 
 
It all just makes me think.... what if I actually come out as a zoo publicly? Do people just know, and won't be surprised? Will there be a small wave of hate by some and then nothing? Or will it collapse everything, despite all the hurdles on the way doing nothing in the great scheme of things?
 
 
And the worst is you can't know until you do it. The uncertainty slowly becomes almost as unpleasant as hiding oneself completely. Do you stop caring and filtering yourself, or do you keep being on your toes and having your defenses up? Do you keep feeding on the lie, or accept the openness with all it brings?
 
 
I know of zoos who made a single leaf move with the wind of their efforts and the blade came down their neck, putting them in a very dangerous life situation. Losing close ones, losing their animals, losing their safety nets. 
 
 
I also know of a zoo who came out in real life in front of over a hundred people and they can't exactly say they went through something they couldn't withstand and fight off. They kept their influence, their job, their friends. There's just many more people aware that they kiss dogs and hug horses. 
 
 
Anything can happen. I wish I knew what will happen to me once I'm completely and undeniably out. And I'm slowly getting there. My jokes are getting so zooey and my care for any hate for it so miniscule that I'm almost at the level of just missing a zeta in my name. It even becomes hard to actually assess the risks, when most bad reactions to you become just useless screams into the dark. It doesn't help that the more people you come out to, the safer you feel, the more reckless you can get, the more likely the sword can fall. 
 
 
And what if the sword actually has fallen already? What if the passive limbo of no one really saying anything against me really means that just enough people know and don't care, and nothing's going to happen at all?
 
 
Some people try to make you feel like you'll never be accepted and loved. And yet I have moments when I lie in the bed cuddling my boy and realize I live a pretty happy life. And very happy for a zoo. Got a loving animal partner, great job, many friends who accept me with my zoosexuality. Can one actually lose it at this point? When the safety network becomes so big, does damage just become temporary? When people get so used to your zooeyness that its confirmation creates no waves whatsoever?
 
 
All hard questions. All very uncertain. All unclear until the wave function collapses, until the sword falls. 
 
 
And the longer you spend in the limbo, the more you want to get out. The desire to come out becomes a compulsion. You just want it over.
 
 
There's a certain comic by Toxic which hits really hard. After they came out, they lost some friends, gained some other... but mentioned two important things. 
 
 
The first is, "[losing friends because of not being yourself] is the cost to not being yourself from the start."
 
 
And that is very much true. No one wants to wear masks. It's hard to build genuine relationships with those. But not wearing it in the first place, how would things look different? The people I came out to before would probably not really care had they known first. People with bad reactions would probably still have them, but I wouldn't have to deal with the interpersonal fallout of a coming out failing to be accepted. 
 
 
The other thing Toxic mentioned is, "I never have to worry if someone talking to me would hate me if they knew because they simply do."
 
 
And that is very much something I'd love to have as well. It just hits hard and deep. Not having to deal with the surprise of people again. Being more visible to other zoos to network better, and in return be able to help other zoos better. Getting to the state of "oh, [Kracc]? Yeah she's a zoo, everyone knows, she's chill." It might be too idealistic. It might backfire in such a crazy way it breaks my neck. And until it happens, there's only one thing I can be sure of, and that's that I can't be sure of it. Only the uncertainty persists.
 
 
So... what does even one do during the time? There certainly must be some ways to mitigate the possible risks, right? Well, I don't know how much actual advice I can give, but there are a few things that I feel help a bit.
 
 
 - Probably the most important one is to learn not to care. All bullies want to get is your reaction so do not give it to them. And even strategically, any emotionally stronger response from you to any kind of bullying, humiliation and accusation just makes it more probable people will get so riled in the emotion they will start dog-piling against you. It also doesn't really make your defense look good if you are obviously panicking and getting lost in emotion. This also extends to learning not to care for people that will refuse you solely on the basis of your zoosexuality. If someone's adamantly set to refuse someone's existence because of an unchangeable orientation that no one picked, they probably weren't actually worth your time anyway.
 
 
 - It's also useful to learn to just shut up. Not every shit-talking of zoos needs an elaborate and invested response, or any at all. Not every anti is actually worth fighting and not everyone's mind can be easily changed. Not every argument can be won, be it for how you are (under)equipped with arguments or for how those on the other side might just refuse to actually listen to them. It is good to pick your risks and fights carefully. Teasing antis might be fun, but done in the wrong situation it can end with a group of hysterical puriteens harassing you and your friends. And while that might pass in a while, it's still a nuisance, especially when it reaches your friends.
 
 
 - And finally, when you get to actually admitting stuff and talking openly... it's always good to try to go the safest route and talk within boundaries of stuff you can effectively defend. Sometimes it's good to think about how you would react if you were actually confronted with a message. Being knowledgeable and prepared with your arguments can be vital in such situations if they get heated and require rapid response. 
 
 
And while I'm giving tips on how to navigate the limbo, I'm still just fumbling in the dark. I don't know how much of it actually works. I don't know how out of the closet I actually am and how many people really know. And how many of these could be considered bad actors. Even time can be treacherous. The fact that no hell rained down right after you've spoken about something doesn't guarantee you safety. You can go silent for a year and then find out someone dug up old stuff and started stirring drama again. Remember me mentioning being outed on a "why people hate furries" talk? That happened almost a year after I quit the fandom and stopped being active basically anywhere. I never met the guy, we never shared the groups. He still got the info. So even a calm time can just be calm before the storm. It's hard to assess your hope when so many variables are unknown. 
 
 
Now, knowing all that, being where I am now, would I even start coming out to people? Would I try to be a lighthouse if I knew I'd end up in such uncertainty? I feel that this answer would be very different for each zoo with their own life struggles, but with me I'd say I would. I still think what I gained is more than what I lost. And I'd probably expect many zoos to come to the same conclusion, because no man is an island. Although the sea of uncertainty around can get very deep indeed. 
  
 
 
At least in the allegory, Damocles could just pass the throne back. It's not like we get to have that choice once the sword is hanged. We can only cut the rope.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Article written by Kracc (May 2025) 
 
 
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