Originally Posted by
Kenny
"Working up the courage" is not called "escalation". Those people who choose to live as furry as a means of circumventing taboos they do not want to break are only doing so because they are fully aware of what those taboos are about. Escalation however happens when you lose that awareness, or when you never had it to begin with and are trying new things. "Courage" does not make you lose that awareness. Courage would make them feel more comfortable with their interests, and further strengthen their self-esteem. For someone to start abandoning their values and to start breaking taboos they held onto before, the exact opposite of that would be needed.