I’m willing to bet the Thundercats cartoon is really popular with this crowd. 
As an Anthrofan, I’ll try to answer this a bit.
As with any genre of fandom, furries have their extremes, and those extremes do tend to take the lime light, and cast the rest of the fandom in a bad light to many. Many furries do seem to have a dislike for themselves and a strong sense of wanting to be other than they are.
I am not interested in sex with stuffed animals, or normal animals for that matter. Sex with sentient animals or beings that look animalistic? Well, only on the same level as an SF-Fan might want to get into B’Ehlana’s (The Klingon on Voyagers) pants.
My interest in ‘furrydom’ is more from the intellectual end than anything else. How would such species act, think, build their civilization. My first exposure to the furry world as something other than cartoons was Erma Felna, which was very much an SF story where the furry aspect was thought about and important.
To summarize, furries are like any other fandom in many ways. It does seem to attract a large ‘wierd’ contengent as well as a large ‘flake’ contengent. It has its good points as well as its bad points. Many tend to try to stay away from the bad points, but the bad points are as always, the points that get attention.
http://www.furry.com/getting-started/furry-semi-faq.html is a decent talk about it.
I’m a furry, I suppose (The majority of furries consider dragons to be similar enough to count, and I’ve got a good interest in anthropomorphics anyway). My first introduction to furries (Though I didn’t know the term then) was Albedo/Erma Felna, and later (Though not quite as seriously), the Redwall series. It was several more years before I even heard of it as a fandom.
In general, it seems like furries get stereotyped generally by sexual habits, and usually wrongly. The most common I’ve seen being, of course, the idea that furries all have sex with plush animals or in fursuits. Of all my furry friends, none do that. One posed with a plushy as a joke, a one-time thing, but I don’t think that would count. Furries do tend to be more open-minded about sex, and many other topics as well, but interest in furry porn isn’t a universal interest.
The only real common factor is interest in anthropomorphics, in whatever form. Art, stories, etc. Furries definatly do not all believe they are a certain animal, though many do, and almost all have some particular animal as their ‘persona’.
I havn’t met any reeeealy weird furries, and only heard of a couple (Catsix’s example is probably the most severe I’ve heard about… And also of the severity that most furs would look at the behavior and consider it at the very least rude, if not just plain outright weird).
And actually, untill I found Straight Dope, furries were the only really open-minded and generally intelligent group I’d found online.
As for myself… I’m a dragon in spirit (Soul, whatever. Not entirely sure exactly how it all works, honestly), and I like furry art and stories because it’s varied and different, and especially in sci-fi type situations where it shapes the situation, like what Narile mentioned. That would include ‘erotic’ stuff, too, though for that, I go more for stuff related to dragons. Don’t care one way or the other about sex with plushies or real animals, though neither are of any interest to me (If real anthropomorphic, intelligent animals existed, that might be different. Or if a dragon showed up…). As for a fursuit… I dunno, might make for a fun costume, and a fully-setup dragon outfit could be fun, but it’d be one of those novelty items that would rarely get used, if at all (I’m definatly too shy to wear something like that in public, even if I felt the inclination to for some reason). As for behaving like an animal, well, I seem to fit the “dragon sterotype” very well, and I’ll occasionally fall into minor behaviors, but nothing that would really be noticable to anyone else. Though I might be wrong, I was kinda surprised once when I was told I had been actually growling, I hadn’t even realized it at the time, I was rather focused upon trying to protect my life… I do occasionally play-growl when my furry friends are over, though 
Well, I have been known to say that when I die, I want to come back as one of my cats. Or that I’d love to trade places with my cats and sleep all day instead of going to work.
And when I was little, I wanted a tail. Does that count?
You’ve taken the long way around, but the answer is yes.
Esprix, is worried that if he reveals that he wears a bald-cap, a carefully painted crest, and Minbarri robes as part of his Babylon 5 fetish, the Doper community will turn against him.
Don’t worry, we’re a loving, accepting group.
Re-Thundercats
I’d say every American heterosexual male between the ages of(can’t remember air date)25 and 31 wanted to have sex with Cheetara at some time.
BTW-I’ve wondered whether the various cats and kitties on the board are furries. And what about Gobear, Phoenix, Venoma, etc. But the really interesting question is if Tars has a green man fetish.
Another Furry here.
Not hardcore fur suit wearin’ guy going to confurrences, just surfin’ the net for pictures and stories.
The sub-genre I’m interested in isn’t furry porn, but furry freedom; stories of oppressed furs in a human dominated world.
Check out “The Blind Pig” on Google. Anyone who has encountered discrimination based on race, religeon, AIDS, etc. will find this story archive compelling.
Um, no, I’m not a furry, but I have recently met a spate of furry fans with whom I have made fast friends. Generally, they’re fairly keen.
Esprix
Dear God no!!!:eek: Now green women…
And i read the Redwall books and do NOT consider myself a furry. My MSN messenger name is Furry Muppet but that had nothing to do with Furries, i didn’t even think of it until RexDart said something. It probably explains that weird guy who tried to talk to me once going on about shacks in the woods. i promptly denied him permission to talk to me without ever replying.