Right, so I’ve been having an enormous amount of fun at the Something Awful forums reading about their interactions with Furries. I know they’re biased, I know the threads only exist to mock Furries and entertain themselves, but I really need help understanding them.
I’m not talking about the folks that find cat ears sexy on women, or the women who think it’s cute to wear them. But what about the people who dress up in animal costumes and have sex with each other? And the people who get off on pictures of fur covered fox-women with numerous breasts. What about the people who think they’re an animal trapped in a human body?
The people who enlist the help of a Furry Protection group, they’re an interesting bunch. Obviously some Furries take this thing very seriously, right? Sending angry letters about not being accepted for what you are for forty years of your life is not a sign of simple fandom.
I just don’t buy the idea that it’s on the same level as someone who finds Klingons or Elves appealing. Not when it’s on a sexual or “But I really am a wolf!” level (Which is what I’m talking about). Klingons and Elves are still very human. They aren’t covered in fur, have four breasts, eat with their “paws”, and roll around on the floor howling or purring. It just isn’t the same, is it?
I have no problem with them doing whatever they want as long as everything is done between consenting adults, but are these people right in the head? Should I believe anyone who says they’re completely functioning adults? Thanks.
I’m hoping someone who knows more about the Furry phenom will eventually show, but in the mean time, I thought I’d point out that you’re actually talking about very different groups of people:
Furries are anthropomorphic creatures and the people who like them (also, Furry Fandom.
Yiffies are the sexual element to the Furry Fandom and a subculture of Furries. This is who you’re talking about when you say, “But what about the people who dress up in animal costumes and have sex with each other?”
On a similar note, Plushies are the folks who like stuffed animals a little bit too much. This is sometimes seen as a subculture of the Furries or something completely different.
Finally, the people who think they really are foxes, cats, aliens in this life or another are Otherkin. My guess would be that Otherkin gravitate toward being Furries, but being a Furry does not mean you’re an Otherkin. Otherkin are the folk you’re talking about when you say, “What about the people who think they’re an animal trapped in a human body?”
So, fighting ignorance and all, those are your basic categories/groups. Note that they are different from one another and one word does not encompass all of them. Now go back to forming whatever opinions you may.
Not a furry, even though I make some cute cat noises,
moi
Well, according to the Geek Hierarchy, they are the third lowest geek lifeform, only above “Erotic Furries” and “People who write erotic versions of Star Trek where all the characters are furries, like Kirk is an Ocelot or something, and they put a furry verision of themselves in the story.”
But then, I qualify for inclusion within at least eight other boxes on that chart, so I can’t be judgemental now. Oh, wait — yes I can!
I know some furries so maybe I can help. I don’t like to make generalizations . . . but I will just to make things simpler.
For some it’s just a weird kink that they like to entertain now and then, but many of these people avoid associating with the hardcore furries anyway.
SOME of the hardcore furries are capable of being pretty normal, but a lot are basically just, well, obsessed. At some point furridom just becomes more valuable to them than what would be considered normal activities and interactions. In this aspect they’re pretty much like any other obsessive crazies, except that their love compells them to wear ears and a tail to work.
I think that furries get that way because they feel so different or alienated from other people that they start relating themselves and their souls to animals. They’re attracted to the freedom and wildness of animals. Many of them eventually decide that they’re animals in human bodies or that they have animal alter egos.
They also find animals to be more aesthetically pleasing than humans. However, being humans, they find human bodies to be more sexually attractive. Slap a wolf head and tail on a human body and BAM, we have a furry.
I first stumbled across this phenomenon fifteen years ago at a science fiction Worldcon. Amazing stuff.
I think that there are many levels to “furriness”. Some people seem to love the furry animal comics that we read as kids, and kep on loving them into dulthood. You can find comics and sketches and entire websites by these people. The comics are squeaky-clean and G-rated. “Furry” doesn’t seem to be just a sexual thing.
Then there are folks who draw pictures of such furry animals in sexy poses, sometimes nude and sometimes very explicit. They write stories about them, sometimes. I’ve long suspected that they ue it as a way to think about sex in a “clean, wholesome” way. – Look, sex isn’t dirty. Even cartoon bunnies have sex! (I might be wrong – I’ve never discused this with any furries)
Then there are fetsh furries – cute bunnies and foxes and such practicing S&M and B&D or other sexual fetishes. I’m not sure of the motivation here. maybe they’re making kinky sex innocent, or they’re looking at the nhumor of cute cartoon creatures indulging in odd sex. Or maybe they just get turned on by it.
Then there are the folks who like to dress up as these things. They did an episoe of CSI or something about a convention of these folks. This seems to be carrying the interest shown in the above cases to the logical extreme of realizing it. I’ll bet this is only a tiny fraction of the furry community, but, as the most outrageous bunch, they seem to get the most publicity. To me, it sounds like sex in a halloween costume, and more trouble than it’s worth.
As for the folks who like to get friendly with plush animals, it’s not clear to me that they’re in the same group. But all I can think about is the way my stuffed animls sometimes had wires in the most unexpected places,and that’s enough to dissuade me from ever trying a stunt like this.
If the internet has taught the human race anything it’s that for anything imaginable, there’s at least enough guys who get off on it to sustain some kind of internet community.
Some people have a foot fetish, some like whips and chains, some like bukake, and some like detailed drawings of minotaurs dressed in late eighteenth century British naval uniforms engaged in ritual polyamorous homosexual anal intercourse on an intergalactic starship. They all deserve to be judged by the same standards as people with “normal” orientations: if they actually harm something, condemn them, if not, graciously tolerate while inwardly howling with laughter. SA is hilarious, but too mean spirited for my tastes…
I don’t think you can answer the question “Why are some people sexually attracted to anthropomorphic animals?” until you adress the question, “What the fuck is up with the entire concept of anthropomorphic animals in the first place?” When you get right down to it, is reading a fanfic about two fox-people having sex really any more bizarre than watching a movie about two fox-people protecting the throne of England from treason? I’m looking at a picture of a man in a dress having marital relations with a talking rabbit. Furry porn or Looney Toon?
Bottom line is, the whole funny animals subgenre is fundamentally bizarre. Look at that Robin Hood cartoon Disney did. Maid Marion is clearly supposed to be a beautiful, attractive female. She’s even got some pretty nice curves on her, if you don’t mind the thick pelt of red hair covering them. You show a cartoon like this to a bunch of impressionable kids, a least a few of them are going to come away with the impression that “nice tits” + “bushy tail” = “sexually attractive.”
Still, if you’re spanking the monkey while thinking about spanking a monkey, you should at least have a sense of humor about it. I mean, sex is funny enough as it is. You add in talking animals, you simply can’t blame people for laughing.
Again, like others have said, simply “furries” is a pretty wide brush. The same way that the term “Elvis fan” could describe anything from “My favorite song is ‘Blue Suede Shoes’” to “I’m holding a candlelight vigil outside Graceland on the anniversery of the King, thy Elvis’ death”, and everything in between.
But, for what it’s worth (and to maybe bring some clarity to the issue) I’ve heard the term “Furvert” used to describe the “members of furry fandom who add an aspect of sexuality to it.” But even that encompases a spectrum of interests.
Slight hijack, and no offence intended, but it seems to me that the questioning of the sanity of “furry sex” enthusiasts by someone called Necro Romancer has got to be as good an example of chutzpah as any.
I have two friends who are into Furry Fandom. Their fetish seems a little weird to me, but they don’t. He’s an aerospace engineer and she’s an artist. Pretty normal folk. They just like to dress up in costumes and go to Furry conventions once in a great while. So what? Not really different from Trekkies who dress up as Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhuru. A little make believe once in a while can be a healthy thing.
As others have said, there are “Furries” for whom their interest is not a sexual one. They’re just people who like a particular kind of comic book/cartoon art, or at the extreme end people who enjoy dressing up in animal costumes. Geeky perhaps, but really no more bizarre than Ren Faire types, Trekkies, anime cosplayers, etc.
One of my closest friends from middle and high school now supports herself as a freelance artist doing mostly “Furry” art. She’s been interested in it for as long as I’ve known her. She does Furry porn by commission, and there’s apparently a good market for this. I think people who dress up in costumes for sexual purposes are rare and considered kind of weird even by many other people within the Furry community, but creating or collecting erotic artwork seems to be relatively common.
As for understanding it…well, if you ever do, you’ll be one up on me. I’ve been aware of this sort of thing for about a decade now, but I never got it. I can at least see how someone might develop a stuffed animal fetish (there’s some overlap between “old enough to discover masturbation” and “young enough to keep stuffed animals on the bed”, after all), but it’s beyond me how one could develop a serious sexual attraction towards creatures that don’t and can’t even exist outside cartoons or comics. Still, compared to other kinks that I personally find weird, having a Furry fetish seems pretty benign.
There may be some people who think of it that way, but from what I’ve seen of Furry porn and those interested in it, there’s no interest in “clean and wholesome”. I’d guess it’s more a “Do it like they do on the Discovery Channel” sort of thing – animals have no social hangups about sex, they do it whenever and wherever they want, and they don’t care what anyone else thinks.
This is probably not completely true, but it seems like nearly all ‘furries’ in the wierd, sexual sense are guys Why does my gender seem to get all the wierd sexual fetishes and junk? :mad:
Incubus: I’ve noticed that myself (I hang out on AnthroChat sometimes with friends) I’d say the majority are guys, though there are girls out there. And often when they realize I’m a girl hanging out here you can almost see them circling…
The ones I know seem pretty normal, I know they go to conventions and such but they haven’t given me any indication that they are stranger than anyone else (except for the furry thing of course, but as has been said there are weirder things). Sorry I can’t help you understand them, I barely understand myself.
Why does my gender seem to get all the wierd sexual fetishes and junk? :mad:
