Sarah Fanning: I think we need to step back and look at how the media and general uneducated masses perceive the goth subculture. Take for example all the negative remarks made in the media about goths after the Columbine shooting. Or how after tragic and violent acts happen where the perpetrator is youngish, someone will without fail blame goths.

The unfortunate reality is that much of the ignorant masses see us as preoccupied with death and the devil and therefore we must be evil and violent and a threat to their narrow-minded existence. So, they see us and they fear what they don't understand and because we are different and scary, they hate us. Then they act out in horrific ways.

Morrighanne Burns: When I was a baby back in 1986, we got beaten up for being freaks constantly. This was by teens our age and older. Scum will always feel threatened by people dressed differently, be it goth, emo, metal, etc. This article is from a crap right-wing tabloid so they will use sensationalism and compare it to high-profile cases to shock the middle-class hausfraus. You catch the eye of a scumbag and they'll go for you no matter how you look.

Carmilla Voiez: I think it's wrapped up in the drive to make everybody hate anyone who's different [from] them. The media, schools and society are based around conformity. Like Althea said, anyone who deviates from the norm is feared and/or demonized. It's a problem in particular for goths. I suspect because of the androgyny and the negative portrayals of the subculture, but anyone who has the audacity not to follow the norm can be targeted.

Ugly Shyla: I grew up and still live in Jennings, Louisiana, which is about three hours from NOLA and three from Houston. I started looking pretty much the way I look now when I was around 15, and I'm 32 now. People wonder why I tend to be a bit on the aggressive side, and the answer is I kind of had to.

I grew up in the ghetto. If I didn't stand up for myself and act more aggressive than the people giving me issues, I could have been beaten up or maybe even raped. And rape is a issue that the female punks, goths, etc. have to also worry about. I always carried a knife and still do just in case.

I would deal with everything from people barking at me like a dog because they thought I was ugly like a dog to having men come up to me when I was 16 freaking years old and asking if I had any piercings "anywhere else." I'd tell them no and that I was also 16, and some would back off. More scary, some wouldn't.

I think people do it to be showoffs. "Look at me! I kicked that freak's ass." Or they assume you have to be the biggest slut that walked the earth because you are weird-looking and female, and I think some of the animosity also stems from the aggressor being somebody that is so repressed by them wanting to fit in with "normal" people that they want to just bash your head in for having the guys to be how you want to be.

Alethea Carr: My mother and I were discussing ladylike ways of walking vs. other ways, and I told her walking like a runway model wasn't an option for me. I have to be a little more aggressive in the way I carry myself, for safety's sake. I don't know whether it wards off danger or not, but it doesn't hurt to look like someone who would punch back.

Ugly Shyla: Anton LaVey always said when out walking, walk like you are a lion. I always walk like I'm the one wanting to knock the hell out of somebody so it makes people think twice.