Based on what I’ve read from the Something Awful forum excerts and some other forums I’ve glanced at, it seems that a higher percentage than normal of furries have either gone through somekind of arrested development (often childlike in thinking, reasoning), or are into bestiality. Would you say these are fair observations that hold up in real life? Or would you say the ratio of “sane guy” to “batshit insane sexual deviant” is about the same as it is in other circles?
Kimera’s post is about right. “Anthrofan”, to my knowledge, is the cleaner part of furrydom’s attempt to escape the “furry” label and all the Untouchable baggage that goes with it.
I read that whole page and msot of the pages linked from it, and I still don’t know what a “furry” is. It gave a lot of circular definitions like “Furries are people who believe in the furry fandom” and such.
I’m sincerely clueless here; I have a vague notion that the term “furry” has something to do with people dressed up in animal costumes having sex. This strikes me as unpleasantly hot and logistically improbable.
Would someone please tell us clueless types, in as much detail as necessary, what a furry is? Or what “furry” means?
It is. It’s also completely wrong.
There are 2 definitions of furry:
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An anthropomorphic animal.*
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A person who enjoys art, fiction, and/or roleplay involving furries (definition 1).
Some furries (definition 2) are also fursuiters - they enjoy dressing in animal suits. It’s possible, though I know of no actual examples, that some 'suiters enjoy having sex in their 'suits. But, since full suits are large, expensive, and tend not to be terribly comfortable to attempt to do anything strenuous in, and sex tends to be strenuous and messy, they’re not really common.
It’s less unlikely that a furry may enjoy having sex wearing (with with someone wearing) a less extreme costume - like a halloween cat costume, for example. But, again, that’s just a potential kink that some furries might have.
The sexual stuff is there, but it’s not what the fandom is about.
- There’s some disagreement about just what fits in here. Some people insist there must be some definite animal traits in behaviour, not just appearance (referring to the latter as ‘humans in animal suits’), and some insist on real animals, but, generally, realistic (but intelligent) animals - a la Redwall or Watership Down and Funny Animals (ie, Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny and the like) are uncontroversial, and most accept fantasy creatures, anime catgirls, and soforth.
I think “fursecution” just broke my brain.
Okay, here is my question. Keep in mind that the only exposure I have had to furries is via pictures posted as a goof (that is, to make fun of the furries) on the internet. It seems to me, from what I can tell, that some people are dressing in a way that looks, as best as can be expected, like an animal. Possibly a fantasy-type animal, but kinda sorta like a real animal. That attraction I can get my mind around in some way.
But other people are dressed like … those people who dress like animal mascots at amusement parks. You know, with colors that no real animal would ever be, and big heads and smiley faces. That is what I am just not getting – the fakey animals.
So, while I suppose that just because I personally find the fakey amusement park animals to be possibly the least sexy thing ever (in fact, they remind me a little bit of eating blue sno cones and then throwing up after riding the Tilt-A-Whirl too many times) doesn’t mean that other people don’t find the idea arousing … do the two groups see each other as part of the same culture?
It’s not meant to be sexy. It’s meant to be fun. So, that part’s pretty much irrelevant.
And, yes, they’re the same culture - again, any sort of anthro, from naturalistic to Funny Animal is a furry.
There are a few people who prefer naturalistic types who bitch about the cartoony kind (although I’ve not heard it in reference to 'suits), but they’re not particularly common.
God, I’m starting to sound like a Burned Fur. >_<
A furry is either some kind of human-animal chimera or a fan of such, in the widest realistic net. Some people count sapient animals (as in Watership Down), but mostly people mean something like Omaha the Cat Dancer. There is a very large contingent of fans who like to see these chimeras in sexual situations (whether this is the majority or not is up for debate, but the fact that there is a convention specifically billing itself as PG-13 is saying something). If you wander over to the Vixen Controlled Library (us.vclart.net), you can see more than you ever care to. A lot of it is pretty bad (and not work safe), but that’s Sturgeon’s Law for you.
Some furries make costumes (mostly mascot-style, since most furries don’t seem to be in particularly great shape, but some people can pull off Spandex costumes). These are called fursuiters. A fairly small set of fursuiters modify their costumes so they can have sex with them. There is even a company that makes porn of this (mascot-style, even). I believe it’s called FurSuitSex if I haven’t seared your eyes properly yet. These are, like most of the other variants I’ve discussed today, actually not all too common. They’re just loud.
Little from Column A, little from Column B.
One of the problems is that fandom is so accepting, the freakier elements have relatively little concept of “keep your goddamn trap shut.” There aren’t that many bestialists (they prefer the term “zoophiles”, but to Hell with that), at least as far as I know. Probably there are an abnormally high number of them, but in my experience it’s still uncommon. I only knew… uhm… half a dozen or so. It’s one of those “many bestialists are furries, but not many furries are bestialists” things. The problem is that the ones that exist can’t shut up about it, think it’s normal-and-beautiful, or something silly like that. So they post about it, make websites about it, and everything gets tarred in the splash.
The arrested-development thing works the same way. Some people people spent hundreds, sometimes upwards of a thousand dollars on a convention weekend… and didn’t know where next month’s rent was coming from. I’ve seen people pack up to move in with other furries they only knew through cybersex and had never even seen in pictures. I know a guy whose fursuit is the single most expensive thing he owns (including his car). My first girlfriend had serious delusions of grandeur over her drawing ability. I’ve seen people categorically refuse to trust anyone who wasn’t in the fandom, then unconditionally trust other fans… usually to catastrophic results. It goes on and on and on. As I said, furries make more Drama than the rest of the Internet put together.
That said… so what? I also know furries who are some of the most mature people I’ve ever met, who keep spotless finances and can be open and hospitable without being foolish about it. MMO players sometimes die of starvation or lack of sleep, trying to get one more level or one more bad-ass item. I’ve never heard of anyone dying because of furrydom. I’ve never heard of furries rioting after a favorite comic failed to win an award, but sports fans do it sometimes if they lose. Most of the furries I knew ran a little to the irresponsible, but they scraped along OK.
Overall… slightly higher general incidence of Crazy, but in a generally endearing sort of way. Watch those outliers, though; they’re truly spectacular.
You’re veering off into things I don’t know about, since I’m not a fursuiter at all. I do a little anime-cosplay, so I imagine it’s much the same - your costume is your costume, and at the end of the day, what matters is that you’re a costumer. Tengu is right - if sex is involved there, it’s secondary for the vast majority of the people involved.
Thanks, Tengu and MrJackboots; I think I’m catching on.
Tengu, when you say one definition of a “furry” is “an anthropomorphic animal,” you mean it’s drawn in an anime or manga or other kind of comic book*, or maybe on a computer or something, right? I’d been trying to imagine actual people for all of this, and was getting very confused.
So far, the main visual help I’m getting is the mentions of Watership Down.
*No offense intended if “comic book” isn’t the right term here.
Surely there’s a crow-like trickster creature in there somewhere?
That would be a confusing point, yes.
You’ve got the handle of it, mostly. A minor expansion: Furries also exist in written works, and RP, not just visible art. Cartoons, non-narrative art (character portraits, and the like), comics, novels, short stories, and role-playing.
When ‘furry’ is used to refer to a real person (or a human character in a work of fiction), it refers to a fan/role player of the above.
That clear it up?
Doc, I haven’t roleplayed a tengu for a long while. But my list of anthropomorphic characters would include one. I mostly RP felines, lately.
Jackelope For a nice, worksafe visual, remember the Thundercats. They represent humans with some animal (in this case feline) characteristics and behaviors. At the other end of the spectrum are representations of creatures that are almost entirely animal, but with some human characteristics.
My usual example of this end of the spectrum is the Redwall books - or for a more extreme example, Watership Down.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be another good example(Okay, they don’t have fur, but the priciple stands).
Would their adherents be called Shelleys?
And if they had an annual convention scheduled around Christmas, might they call those gatherings Shelley Winters?
And if you wrote romantic poetry about your turtleself and carried it in a small handbag, would you be known as Pursey Shelley?
I’ll stop now.
Shelley Not!
What? I can’t believe you stopped before telling us about the Happy turtleself who made stone walls very well (and went on to write a classic horror novel while still a teenager – talk about your Teenage Mutant Author Turtles!)
I like the alternate history novels entirely populated by bi-species furries. I think the name of the writer is Hairy Turtledove.
In the world of webcomics, you have strips like A Doemain of Our Own[sup]1[/sup], Misty the Mouse[sup]2[/sup], and Kevin & Kell[sup]3[/sup].
[sup]1[/sup]Drawn by a furry and often features the characters of other furries.
[sup]2[/sup]The artist of which is not a furry and is moving away from furry-themed art.
[sup]3[/sup]The artist of which is also responsible for On the Fastrack and Safe Havens and is not a furry, AFAIK.
That’s the definition I was thinking of too. Thanks to everyone who cleared that up.