Concerning furries, I think the interesting dichotomy here is that the concept of furries (bringing to mind things like human-sized stuffed animals and emotional investment combined with role playing/cosplay, kinky fetishes, and so on) leans toward a female role, which is at odds with the origins of the furry (namely online gaming) which leans strongly towards the male role (interest in video games and RPGs in particular.) I’m not entirely sure what this says exactly, except that perhaps there is a certain stigma preventing more males from engaging in furryism or those things related to it on a deeper level because of its link to feminine behaviour that FurryMUDs/MUCKs allow them to engage in virtually without fear of persecution by society at large – especially because they’re doing it in a supportive enviroment with others of like minds.
The idea that it attracts transexuals (and I presume ordinary gay men as well), oddly, doesn’t surprise me, since by and large they began life as role players – born in such a way that the inside did not reflect the outside, so it seem like it would have a natural attraction in a sense. I would imagine though that this would still keep the whole furry concept in the realm of “unnatural” to the mainstream because of such an association.
As far as primates, for whatever reason bonobos in particular seem to have the most imaginative (or at least nonstandard) sexual habits. Much of it I imagine owes to the fact that they’re (mostly) bipedal, which gives them the advantage of choice over quadrupeds. Still, it would be interesting to understand why they seem to have more deviant sexual practises compared other chimps, apes and gorillas.
I have no knowledge or insights to contribute to this thread, but I’ll add a question based on my own observations — you folks ever noticed how fetishes aren’t particularly random (one guy is seriously into previously-worn women’s gym socks; another keeps a collection of empty tampon wrappers to masturbate to) but rather, instead, people with fetishes tend to congregate to the same small handful of fetishes which most of us have heard of (one guy is into spike-heeled shoes, another keeps a collection of previously-worn underpants, but no, no gym-socks guys and no empty-tampon wrapper guys, or very much of anything except the same small handful of patterns over and over again) - ?? I’d extend that to include “nonvanilla sexual practices” and not just fetishes — the ubiquity of handcuffs and tie-restraints, compared to the complete absence of, I dunno, let’s say dental picks and probes, in BDSM, etc.
So why would these deviations from the erogenous mainstream fall into such discrete clumps? Why wouldn’t the variations be all over the map?
I don’t know if you ment to imply this, but mtf transsexuals are not all “gay men,” in fact, most of the furry mtfs I know are sexually into women. But I agree with your assessment of why so many transsexuals and gay men are furries. I’ve also never met a stable furry, most of the furries that I’ve known seem to used it as a form of escapism. And they grew out of it when their lives became more stable.
Humans are between bonobos and chimps in sexual expression. We mate even when the female is not in heat but are not nearly as openly sexual as the bonobos. Bonobos are so sexual because it is their way of solving conflicts. As is often said - chimps solve sexual issues through power and bonobos solve power issues through sex. Bonobo society is considerably more peaceful than chimp society and female bonobos avoid the rapes and domestic violence that female chimps face. Because bonobo sex is not tied to reproduction, it is used for many other purposes including forming friendships, settling conflicts, and easing tension. This opens to the door to unusual sexual practices and possibly fetishes.
That’s a very interesting point AHunter3. There are a lot more men with foot and shoe fetishes than with hand and glove fetishes. I wouldn’t say that there is no one into those fetishes you named, I’ve seen a lot of really random fetishes. But there are certain fetishes that attract large populations of people compared to other, seemingly equal fetishes. I’ll look through my text books and see if there is anything said on this observation.