Read any of the multitude of general groups on FetLife and you’ll find a barrage of “Hey, I’m new and want to learn!” messages. Some are smartly worded, some show a decent degree of intelligence, and some are so mind-bogglingly, incomprehensibly naive that you’d swear the person writing has lived their entire life in a box.
I responded to one of these messages today with a torrent that I’m sure the OP wasn’t prepared for. After finishing up, I realized the post made a great start to a longer written piece, so here it is.
The best tidbits of advice I can offer to new people in “the scene”: