"Plushies" and "Furries":is this a hoax?

[davesink]

My wife handed me an article from the latest Vanity Fair magazine that almost defies credibility. I don't have it in front of me, but the gist of it goes like this: there is supposedly a subculture of people (exclusively male from what I gathered from the story) who, how shall I put it, get turned on by and actually have intercouse with their stuffed animals. Another subset actully dress like animals (think team mascot type costumes) and rut around on each other.They have dubbed themselves varoiusly as "Plushies" or "Furries".
Far be it from me to pass judgement on others, but I frankly have never heard of such a thing before and I was wondering if there was any corroboration concerning this proclivity. In the article, they mentioned someone having a website devoted to this fetish, but haven't found it yet.

Could this be a hoax on the part of the author and/or subjects?

[Eve]

I work at a magazine in New York, and even here opinion is divided as to whether that's for real or not . . . Had it been their April issue, I'd have no doubt.

Yikes! I thought I'd heard of everything, but that article really capped the globe. OK, these people get their jollies from humping stuffed pandas, fine . . . But what would compel them to be photographed by and interviewed for Vanity Fair?!

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "he's fuckin' Goofy . . . "

[Alias]

http://www.bloodmoonz.com/issue1/bm_fetish.html

This sums up quite a bit, huh? I read an article on the "plushies" and "furries" a year or so ago in JANE magazine. I assume it's for real.

[kunilou]

I have no doubt that somewhere in this vast, diverse world, there are a couple of people who get their jollies doing the teddybear with two backs. Someone or another may have actually devoted a website to it. From there it's a short jump to the pages of an edgy magazine.

However, I cling to a desperate hope that such people are merely a tiny, isolated segment of the world, and in no way indicative of a fad, a trend or -- God help us -- a lifestyle.

It is the same thin straw of hope I grasp when I accidentally turn on Jerry Springer.

[Jodi]

Actually, the only reason I even know about this -- legit or not -- is because someone posted a link to a "plushie" site here on the STMB as a Weird Earl. I'll admit the link was educational, though it did require me to scrub my eyeballs after viewing. (And don't ask me for it; I don't remember it and wouldn't repost it if I did. But surely a web search would turn up something?)

If the people in the (very explicit) pictures in that link were not on the up and up, they were doing a pretty good job of pretending to be.

[Jodi]

That would be the Straight Tope Message Board, of course.

[Geobabe]

This is indeed a real phenomenon. The link was posted in a thread in MPSIMS--I happen to have bookmarked the url before the link was edited out by our vigilant mods (I had to make a note of it so I could tell all my equally morbidly curious friends about it). I will not post the link here, but if anyone wants it, email me and I will send it to you.

[jb_farley]

so that's what those guys in The Shining were doing! zounds.


jb

[Kamino Neko]

And your problem with furries is...?

(Not that furries are exclusively a sexual thing. Nor is furrie-fandom exclusively a costume thing.)

A good page to get some basic furry information

[Ashtar]

Originally posted by Tengu
And your problem with furries is...?

(Not that furries are exclusively a sexual thing. Nor is furrie-fandom exclusively a costume thing.)

A good page to get some basic furry information

Thank you very much, Tengu.

If you search the thread archives, in one of my earliest post, I inquired about 'other' furries. So now you know that I am one myself. I also read that Vanity article in question and was disappointed. There have been worse articles about Furry, but there are better ones, too.

'Furry' does not automatically equate with dressing up in costumes (fursuiting) or getting off on stuffed toys (Plushophilia). Nor does it automatically equate with Zoophilia.

But it would be a lie to say that it -didn't- exist within the Furry culture, because it does. Mostly because those people who would otherwise be social outcasts find a certain 'acceptance' within us. I think that's a noble thing. But I know some of ya would disagree with me. And for what it's worth, there is a splinter group of Furs who look upon the type detailed in Vanity with disdain. (The Burned Furs.)

Some of ya might think it's wacky, but we live in a wacky world. And before you call plushophilia an 'oddball' thing, take another look at some of the other oddball sex fetishes that other silly manfools engage in.

I'm sorry I couldn't provide any cites--but I'm at work right now, and in a hurry.

-Ashley

[gorkamorka]

:eek Why, why, why did I open this thread?

[mblackwell]

For some reason I found this statment extremely funny

Plushophiles who enjoy poking or humping their plushies are sometimes known to modify them for maximum gratification. Two common modifications are SPH (Strategically Placed Holes) and SPA
(Strategically Placed Appendages) for pleasuring males and females, respectively.

humping stuffed pandas

That would make a great band name .

[CalMeacham]

Thre s an entire webring devoted to plushies. There's a LOT more than that devoted to furries. Furry culture seems to exnd over a pretty broad range, from G-rated to downright X-rated. I first encountered this stuff at a science fiction convention over ten years ago, and it was aready old then. If you go into a comic book store you can find TONS of furry comics.

I think it's a sort of "safe sex" to a lot of people -- a blend of the gentle cartoony pleasures of childhood with emergn sexuality. Looking at a drawing of a Disneyesque cartoon hore with explicit genitalia is weird, but it doesn't seem ... well,... dirty. THAT, think, is the draw.

On the other hand, actually having sex with stuffed dolls seem very eird. If nothing else, you'd get stuffing all over the place. And I'd worry about those damned hiden wires that seem to be in all those toys. (try explaining to the emergency room people how you got a cu THERE.) But I've long since stopped trying to explain other people's sexual turn-ons. If you think having ral sex with dolls is weird, look at the furry "Vore" culture -- people who get off on imagining they're being eaten )literally, not having oral sex) by their furry friends. I don't understand that AT ALL.

[Guinastasia]

What about people who hug stuffed animals and pretend they're hugging or kissing someone else?

I always sleep with a teddy bear, but that's just a comfort thing, I guess. Fucking stuffed animals? No way.
Ick!

[NotWithoutRage]

One of my best friends is a furry fanatic. I had never heard of it until I met him, but now am sorta quite comfortable with it. He has a furry library with all kinds of fiction at: http://www2.kenyon.edu/people/smithr/FPL/FPLmain.html

Any more questions?

[zen101]

so people who get off on plush dolls and whatnot get a club and simple folks like me who enjoy that "special" tingle you get from rope climbing get left out in the cold? sheesh.

I'll have to start my own club, but I need a name- How about "Ready Belay Me Harder." or "Australian Harness Lovers of America".


Aplogies to those of you who don't climb as this isn't even all that funny for folks who know what I'm talking about.

[Drastic]

No matter how weird a thing you can think of people putting their energies (sexual and otherwise) into, I'd bet my life savings that there's something about ten times weirder, with multiple webpages no less.

For an ongoing education in this fact, witness http://www.portalofevil.com

Not affiliated, just one of the best sites out there for ongoing continual morbid weirdness in every form you could ever imagine, and then some, and then some, and then some more. God bless the mutants!

[Eve]

"And your problem with furries is...?"

—Absolutely none. It strikes me as one of the most harmless-and undeniably cute!—sexual fetishes there is. What I have a problem with is anyone who would discuss their sexual fetish (no matter WHAT it is!) with a national magazine, and have themselves photographed for it!

Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned custom of sweeping things under the rug, not "letting the neighbors see one's dirty laundry?" I'm sure there are facets of ALL our lives we would prefer not to see in a four-color spread in Vanity Fair . . .

[Diceman]

Most furries are just people who enjoy looking at anthropomorphic art. This runs the gamut from harmless kiddie stuff to explicit adult images. Vanity Fair screwed up when they equated "furry" with "fursuiting." It's an understandable mistake, but one that probably pissed off alot of fans of furry art.

[Lute Skywatcher]

There's more than just "plushies" and "furries", poke around Xydexx's page, if you dare.

[Kamino Neko]

Eve - thanks for the clarification, though my indignation was directed more at kunilou ('...desperate hope...' BAH!). (And to a lesser extent at the OP, since the 'is this a hoax' stuff feels somewhat hopeful to me.)

[CalMeacham]

Tengu and Eve:

If it isn't clear, I agree with you.

Need I point out that this board ran a thread about which cartoon character people they'd like to have sex with. Let he who is without furries or cartoonies throw the first stone.

[Kamino Neko]

Originally posted by CalMeacham
Need I point out that this board ran a thread about which cartoon character people they'd like to have sex with.

Several of them, in fact. One of them being specifically cartoon aminals. (Come to think of it, I think Eve might have started it. Gonna have to look that up... ::Checks:: Indeed it was her. Here it is.)

[Lute Skywatcher]

There's this email list that I'm on, you might say it's for "animal lovers". One poor simp thought we were being literal. Thankfully, he didn't stay subscribed very long.

[Guinastasia]

Love your stuffed animals, just don't love your stuffed animals.

[Lumpy]

This week, my local paper started carrying the Wildwood comic strip; and I was reminded of this thread. Damn, that Carol is a "fox" in more ways than one!

[Lute Skywatcher]

That reminds me of another strip I found on the Net once. For the life of me, I can't remember what or whose it was. I do remember that the main characters are a male herbivore (rabbit) and a female carnivore (wolf?) who fell in love and that the creator is better known for another strip. Any ideas what this strip is?

[Spoons]

Jeff Olsen asks
That reminds me of another strip I found on the Net once. For the life of me, I can't remember what or whose it was. I do remember that the main characters are a male herbivore (rabbit) and a female carnivore (wolf?) who fell in love and that the creator is better known for another strip. Any ideas what this strip is?

That would be "Kevin and Kell," by Bill Holbrook. Their comics are online and you can read them at their web site.

[Enola Straight]

This thread reminds me of a skit they did on MONTY PYTHON'S
FLYINC CIRCUS...MOUSE PARTIES.

Graham Chaplin goes into detail about:

Passin' roun' the cheese...

Then they started squeakin'...

[Lute Skywatcher]

Kevin and Kell! Thanks, Spoons!