I’ve seen damn near every episode of the various Star Trek series, but that doesn’t make me a Trekkie. I’ve seen every episode of lots of shows. The Trekkies are the people who put on alien makeup and go to conventions. Or, more generally, they’re active participants in the Trekkie subculture.
Anyway, questions like “Does X make me a furry?” are rather pointless. I’d say a necessary condition to be a furry is that you have to self-identify as a member of the subculture (and likewise for Trekkies or any other subculture). It can’t just be “People who enjoy works with anthropomorphic animals”. That’s not a subculture at all, that’s mainstream pop culture. Many of the most popular characters ever created are anthropomorphic animals.
I’m all for people defining their subculture however they like, as long as they’re not casting so wide a net that they’re including people who don’t at all identify as part of their subculture. As Diogenes said, Walt Disney wasn’t a furry, just a guy who created antropomorphic animal cartoons. And people who enjoy anthropomorphic animal cartoons but aren’t involved in the furry subculture aren’t furries either.
Note: Other than the bit about Trekkies, I’m not really responding to Silver Tyger Girl here, but rather to some of the comments above.
Further investigation reveals that orange hat man on the right is, in fact, wearing some sort of skullcap meant to suggest that has the ears of a Serengeti herbivore:
What’s that around his neck? I…must know…
It’s a pacifier. A green plastic, well-used pacifier hangs around the neck of a grown man who is wearing a rainbow-colored paw button and rhino ears, and he proudly holds aloft a stuffed teddy bear.
He is in a hotel, in the company of many, many other men.
Not really. The idea of dressing up as your favorite fantasy/sci-fi character isn’t some uniquely Japanese thing that was recently imported. Trekkies and SCAdians have been around long before anime made it’s big US breakthrough.
Well, okay, yeah, you’re right. But as a former Trekkie, I still insist they shouldn’t be. I think most people realize that most Trekkies aren’t that way. I never knew any who did, although I did get my picture taken with some Klingons the one time I went to a convention (where I bought furry action figures. Yay Thundercats!)
I think people and especially the media just always pick up on the freakiest part of a fandom. Most are just fortunate enough that it’s not sexual.
Oh yea, I understand that.
It just seems like cosplay took it to the next level and furries evolved from the pop acceptance and culture that is modern cosplay, or at least took it aboveground.
My theory is that furry culture probably started in the dressing room of Disneyland with the horny Anaheim Community College students charged with dressing as Disney characters.
Not really. Most furries never EVER create a costume. Or even have any interest in it. They’re hot, expensive, and uncomfortable. Most furry fandom is about art. And NO (and this isn’t aimed at devilsknew) not just porn. Unless your definition of porn includes mostly to fully clothed men standing around. And portraits.
VCL, one of the most–if not the most–popular sites for furry art has a disclaimer but isn’t about porn. There are a few notable artists [sub]Winger[/sub], though.
And for women? Isn’t there a certain fantasy to fucking a major league sports mascot en suit. Scoring one for the team? Team Spirit!
It’d make a great movie. I can see it now… Adam Sandler as Big Mo (10.). The whacky comedy travails of lonely, drunken, mascots, on the road. Sort of a Bull Durham meets Shakes the Clown with some Parker and Stone direction. Maybe a cameo by John Goodman.
I was in Denver last year on business. I stayed at the Adams Mark Hotel and unknown to me almost all of the rest of the hotel was taken up by a Furry convention. I saw a smattering of people wearing full mascot costumes, but most attendees spent their time with animal ears on and pinned on tails. The convention exhibits and the general vibe was heavily sexual, although not exclusively so, and had an vibe of dysfunctional nerd sexuality. There was an adult art exhibition and late at night there was conspicuous cuddling and canoodling in the lobby and the elevators.
I actual came in thinking of these folks about like I consider Civil War reenactors, eccentric, but only mildly creepy, and decidedly not my thing. After spending a week with them my opinion veered more towards the ‘smelly weirdos’ end of the spectrum. I find Tengu denying the sexual aspect to be disingenous based on my observation on the largest get together of these people for the year. I chatted with a number of people and the social graces and general hygiene weren’t much in evidence either.
My guess is that this fellow likely represents the “babyfur” subculture within furry fandom. I daresay that even other furries may well find this practice to be a bit on the odd side. On the other hand, if you’re attending a convention where a significant minority of the participants are already dressed as animals to one degree or other, I suppose it’s only a short leap to dressing as a baby animal if that’s what bakes your beans.
Anyway, he appears to be having a good time, and that’s what’s important. You’ve got to figure that’s probably the only safe opportunity for that guy to publicly indulge that particular impulse. Imagine what life must have been like for people with the urge to dress as baby animals before furry conventions were invented.
The linked article offers some helpful advice:
The notion of a diaper-wearing animal seems retrograde even by furry standards. Don’t actual animals pretty much relieve themselves wherever they please? Yet this is presumably not true of most furries. Trained chimps are about the only animals that routinely make use of diapers, and chimps don’t seem to be hugely popular among the furry fandom.
I find you mischaracterizing what I say to be disingenuous.
Of course there’s a sexual aspect. There’s a sexual aspect to everything. The sexy stuff’s even got a name within the fandom - ‘yiff’.
But that’s a far cry from it being a sexual thing primarily. Hell, the fact that it has its own name should be a pretty good indicator that it’s only a specific sub-genre.
And yet, similar to sci-fi, Star Trek, comics, and other fandoms with cons, most furries never go to a convention. But yeah, most furries, IME, are majorly geeky. There’s a loud minority that’s majorly weird, not in a sexual way, and other loud minorities that are weird in a sexual, please stand over there, way. I’ve been to comic conventions over the years. They get creepy too (YOU! Go put on clothes! type creepy). The Star Trek convention wasn’t, but that may have to do with the higher average age of participants and that it was only an one day con.
The non-sexual weirdness is mostly people taking it WAY too seriously. Otherkin type weirdness. It’s been several years, but I heard of people who seriously walked like they had a tail, wore a tail all the time, truly believed they were supposed to be born a wolf or a dragon or a winged rabbit. It’s kind of why I got out of it - I couldn’t take it that seriously. I can’t take anything that seriously. If there was the option of being an anthro animal without prejudice from others would I take it? Yes. Otherwise, no way. I’m not going to turn myself into a freak just because I’d like to have fur and wings and a tail. I always got the impression that these people would. Some have (Catman comes to mind)
Furry was never sexual for me. I was most interested in it for the art and community. At the time I was asexual - I had no libido at all. The furry community is very open to any interest, possibly TOO open. But that doesn’t mean that every furry fan is into it for wanking off purposes.
