Furry fandom. It doesn’t appear to be generally classified as a fetish.
Also, Pittsburgh seems to have a surprisingly active furry presence?? The hell?
I assure you, if furries were all about sex, there’d be more here in Tampa.
Wow, could you be MORE wrong?
First of all - it’s not a fetish. Nobody calls it a fetish. It’s a fandom. And it was around before becoming popular on the internet.
There are furry conventions - I nearly went to one. There are people who live openly as furry.
Why don’t you do some basic research before you talk about something you know nothing about? The wikipedia entry Terrifel linked to is a good start.
I think it’s cheeky to use the term “bigotry” to refer to the dislike of an entirely voluntary belief system/lifestyle.
Too hot for all that fur.
Anti-semitism isn’t bigotry? Anti-catholicism isn’t bigotry? Anti-mormonism isn’t bigotry?
Jesus fucking Christ.
“There are people who live openly as furry”? What the fuck does that even mean? You like cartoons that feature talking animals that kinda sorta look like people. How that becomes a “lifestyle” is completely beyond me.
Why is it any less bigotry if the belief system is voluntary?
It’s one of the saddest fetishes out there. Seriously. Thewhole thing makes me sad.
I’ve always understood it to be predominantly a sexual thing, though I’m sure there are those who are into it for other reasons.
It’s widely accepted in our society that making fun of someone for wearing bicycle shorts is not as bad as making fun of someone for being black. Voluntary things can be wrong, but traits you have no control over really can’t, and aren’t as fair game. I’m not saying it’s perfectly ok to rip on someone for being mormon or whatever, but it’s not quite as bad, IMO. They weren’t born mormon and they might not die mormon.
(I wonder if there’s another language lesson buried in here somewhere. Perhaps it’s more acceptable to make fun of traits that we would use the Spanish verb estar to describe than the verb ser. I’ll have to think about that.)
I’m still allowed to dislike NAMBLA members, right? Theirs is also a voluntary belief system, I suspect they’d prefer to classify kiddie-fiddling as a “fandom,” and they also preceded the Internet…
Then do it.
What mainstream politician has ever advocated a prejudiced position against Arabs because of their race? (This doesn’t mean advocating attacking Iraq - I’m talking about anti-Arab bigotry.)
Between this and your absurd attempts to re-classify the word anti-Semitic to include Arabs, I’m suspecting that you’re trying to lead us down the garden path. I think there’s some other agenda going on here, and I’m not liking it.
Did you just seriously compare furry fandom to pedophilia? Seriously?
How does it even come close? I mean, I can understand being kind of weirded out by furry fandom, but seriously? Moral comparisons to pedophilia and NAMBLA? Honestly?
You might want to work on that reading comprehension thing. Did you read the link in Terrifel’s post? While some people in furry fandom may see it as a sexual thing to one degree or another, there are a lot of us who don’t. Calling all people in furry fandom “fetishists” is like calling all science fiction fans “costume-wearing geeks”, or thinking that all sports fans attend games stripped to the waist and painted in their team colors.
One of the problems furry fandom has is that, just like Star Trek/Science Fiction conventions, almost every time there is any media coverage it focuses on the most bizarre attendees. There’s never any mention of the panel discussions on the space program, the presentations by scientists, the charity fundraising that takes place. I work for a Chicago furry convention which has a strict “no media” coverage policy because the only thing the media does is look for people who will give them interviews about their sexual activities.
Heh, yeah! I couldn’t believe it either, but I did!
There are people who wear ears and a tail everyday. There are people who have gotten themselves heavily tattoed to match their particular totem animal or done other body modifications (like split tongues). There are people who walk as though they have a tail or that they’re digitigrade. I think all of that’s a bad idea, but it’s not my life. These are all people who feel they have a very deep and real connection to animals, beyond just liking furry shows. A lot of them see themselves continuing in the tradition of shamans.
Why don’t you try not being so judgemental about things you don’t understand?
Just tossing this out there . . . do you think this could be related to their not so deep and real connections to other humans? Is it possible there’s some sort of cause and effect thing going on here?
Oh probably. When you feel like a freak in real life, you look for something.
On the other hand, like I said, there are furries who see themselves as continuing in a long tradition - anthro animals are used in prehistoric art around the world.
I find this article by the Anthrocon to be a good summation.
I’m sorry, but being judgemental is a perfectly legitimate lifestyle choice. Or do you have some sort of problem with judgemental people?
What’s there to understand? You like cartoons with walking, talking animals. That is not a lifestyle anymore than my love of The Simpsons is a lifestyle.
Heh, it is true that Furrydom is pretty well universally looked down upon. Particularly by people who pursue other forms of more or less geeky fandom.
Heck, someone has to be at the bottom of the heap - the absolutely lowest, most ridiculed form of fandom there is - and Furrydom is it.
That way, every Trekkie, D&D fan or whatever can legitimately say: “I may wear spock ears at conventions and write fan-fic where I have sex with Klingons, or fantasize about chicks in chainmail bikinis but at least I’m not a furry. Those freaks are seriously sick!” 