Why the hatred for furries? (aka: Can't we all just get along?)

[Silver_Tyger]

@Hello_Again

You still haven’t proved to me that the existence of assholes on the internet means that most or all people a)have heard of furries b)hate them, rather than think they are inoccuous yet funny if they have heard of them.

*I feel free in saying that anyone who is sexually aroused by actual videos of actual tiny kittens has a problem.

I doubt that most people that don’t spend great amounts of time on the internet have, aside from the CSI episode (which is a problem). However, most places you go that don’t place an emphasis on not being a total dipshit (which works out to about… the sdmb and customerssuck.com) if furries come up, the comments of ‘furfags’ and bestiality start flying. If you haven’t encountered it, well, then you just hang out in higher quality places.

However, even some of the comments in this thread approach the line, just like, say comments of ‘all women are crappy drivers’ approaches the line toward misogyny.

Obviously no sane person is going to say that the so-called plight of furries in any way matches that of black people, or gay people, or even women. But there is a level of casual and acceptable contempt that’s hard to overlook if you’re the target of it.

The fact that there is a very loud, if small, percentage of furries that are completely nuts, doesn’t help any, but the same can be said of any group.

@MrDibble

Slight hijack - do you ever feel like it’s, I don’t know, cheating? to wear re-enactment gear to “regular” costume parties/Halloween? I occasionally have twinges of guilt, which is weird to me…

I do to, whether it’s Renfaire garb or whatever. Even though I didn’t get to wear my pirate stuff at all this year!

[hajario]

@Silver_Tyger

However, most places you go that don’t place an emphasis on not being a total dipshit (which works out to about… the sdmb and customerssuck.com)

You seriously need to get out more.

[Der_Trihs]

@Bosstone

But I feel safe in saying that a preference for anthropomorphized intelligent animals has existed at least since Disney and Warner Brothers started making cartoons, if not earlier.

Someone on another forum in a discussion about furries posted a bunch of pictures by Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1805-1874) that these days would instantly be labeled “furry”. Example, another, a third.

In my view the main difference between now and then is that people with such niche interests can find each other and form a subculture; I expect they’ve always existed. There’s anthropomorphic animal art and statues going back thousands of years; sure a lot of it is religious but those religious images were chosen because they appealed to people.

[Trinopus]

In my mind, the “furry” motif has always been subtly sexual. I mean, go back to Walt Kelly’s Pogo: the guy isn’t wearing any pants. That’s…um… Well, it invokes cognitive dissonance.

(Kelly made fun of it himself several times, by having Pogo be embarrassed when caught with his shirt off. At least one Donald Duck comic explored the same absurdity.)

A lot of anti-furry animosity came with the overt sexuality (Yiffing, etc.) As in so many other cases of aesthetics, less really is more.

[Rogersnow]

Wow. This is how this thread ended? Depressing.

[Leaper]

Four years ago, yes.

Though I just thought of a possibility (apologies if it was already suggested; I didn’t really feel like reading it over again just to confirm my brilliance): what if furry images are associated in the Western mind with stuff that’s stereotypically only for children, like cartoons, and thus it creates this unconscious and visceral association with pedophilia?

[Rogersnow]

@Leaper

Four years ago, yes.

Though I just thought of a possibility (apologies if it was already suggested; I didn’t really feel like reading it over again just to confirm my brilliance): what if furry images are associated in the Western mind with stuff that’s stereotypically only for children, like cartoons, and thus it creates this unconscious and visceral association with pedophilia?

I’m aware it was four years ago, I’m aware necroing threads is frowned upon everywhere, I also don’t care. Just another one of those disappointing threads where so much more could’ve been said and rebutted that wasn’t.

[running_coach]

@Rogersnow

I’m aware it was four years ago, I’m aware necroing threads is frowned upon everywhere, I also don’t care. Just another one of those disappointing threads where so much more could’ve been said and rebutted that wasn’t.

If you had something worthwhile to add, it’s not generally a problem.

[Rogersnow]

@running_coach

If you had something worthwhile to add, it’s not generally a problem.

Well, as a little nibbly sample, for one thing you have to love the implication above that if gays and blacks and so on could change their orientation/race/whathaveyou that it would then be totally okay to hate them. That their acceptance is merely a grudging concession of something people can’t change.

[Senegoid]

I wash apples before I eat them. I think I’m channeling my inner raccoon.

[Sage_Rat]

@Rogersnow

Well, as a little nibbly sample, for one thing you have to love the implication above that if gays and blacks and so on could change their orientation/race/whathaveyou that it would then be totally okay to hate them. That their acceptance is merely a grudging concession of something people can’t change.

I have no ill-intent towards furries, let me note. However, that argument doesn’t really work.

You’re trying to imply that sexual attraction towards anthropomorphic animals is innate and unchangeable. If that were the case, we would see people in history who were sexually attracted to anthropomorphic animals, just like we see homosexual people, transgender people, black people, etc. in history.

That this sexuality only came into being subsequent with the popularity of Saturday morning cartoons would strongly imply that it’s a learned (and thereby changeable) behavior.

[buddha_david]

Furry Scale [SFW]

Furry Family [considerably less SFW]

[Rogersnow]

@Sage_Rat

I have no ill-intent towards furries, let me note. However, that argument doesn’t really work.

You’re trying to imply that sexual attraction towards anthropomorphic animals is innate and unchangeable. If that were the case, we would see people in history who were sexually attracted to anthropomorphic animals, just like we see homosexual people, transgender people, black people, etc. in history.

That this sexuality only came into being subsequent with the popularity of Saturday morning cartoons would strongly imply that it’s a learned (and thereby changeable) behavior.

No, not my argument at all.

@Terraplane

MeanOldLady pretty much nailed it. You shouldn’t be judged on the things you can’t help. Disability, skin color, sexual orientation, you couldn’t change these things if you wanted to. Comparing these issues and struggles to somebody who wants validation for getting a boner when they watch Steamboat Willie is outright offensive.

I was responding to this old post from four years ago. The reasoning of this post implies that, if gays could change, it would be okay to bash them. This implies that these things, such as different skin color and sexual orientation, are only tolerated because they’re not a choice, and should otherwise deserve contempt.

[Bering]

@Sage_Rat

That this sexuality only came into being subsequent with the popularity of Saturday morning cartoons would strongly imply that it’s a learned (and thereby changeable) behavior.

Anthromorphic art goes way back though doesn’t it, who’s to say the early humans drawing animal-people on cave-walls didn’t get off on them?

I’m semi-kidding with that though!

Personally although I wouldn’t call myself a furry, mostly because of the sexual connotations and that’s more a lifestyle thing, I do like anthro-art. I’ll try and find some nice clean pictures to see what people here think of them and to show its not all porn.

Though to fair, as much as I hate it, a lot of it is…

[Mavis_Topholese]

I realize this thread is a zombie and that I shouldn’t feed the zombie Zombie Brain Chow, or whatever. But whatever.

I’ve been in fandom a while. I’ve known self-avowed furries who were pleasant, friendly folks of whom anthropomorphic art was only one of their interests. I’ve also known self-professed furries who were poorly socialized community pariahs who, and I speak from personal experience here, would display their X-rated cartoon porn to minors at the drop of a fedora. And who, to the surprise of nobody, later did jail time for child molestation.

There’s a level of anthropomorphic fandom that goes beyond liking Warner Brothers cartoons and Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge comics, that takes the aesthetics of a sexy Bugs Bunny and plants both feet firmly into that Sexy Bugs Bunny camp, the territory where the clean simple advertising-art attractiveness of American mid-century design slams up against the newly sexualized world of underground comix, it takes that aesthetic and builds an entire world out of it. There’s a vibe you get from “furry” that you don’t get from Daffy Duck, it’s halfway between a fetish and a motif, but you know it when you see it.

Most fans go through the stage of “hey that’s interesting”. If they’re teenagers they go through the stage of “holy cow, those cartoon characters are having sex.” But if you spend any time at all anywhere near the furry fandom you find out that the furry fandom is full of examples like the one I referenced. They aren’t all child molesters, some of them are just drama queens, serial couch surfers, welfare cheats, gun nuts, and/or big talkers who are always a step away from that big art deal or that amazing job or being able to finish all the commissions they’ve already been paid for but aren’t able to deliver. It is a field rich in amusement for the veteran fan observer.

What I’m saying is, they aren’t all super freaks. The super freaks are a minority. But the super freaks are super freaky in an irresistible train-wreck sort of way that makes them unavoidable whenever the fandom is discussed.

Anyway, it’s 2015, making fun of furries was old hat when this thread was started, I don’t know if My Little Pony or Homestuck or Steven Universe has replaced Furry in the fandom whipping boy slot, I don’t know what’s next on the horizon for the low end of fandom’s totem pole. Hateful gamers, maybe.

[Chihuahua]

@Sage_Rat

That this sexuality only came into being subsequent with the popularity of Saturday morning cartoons would strongly imply that it’s a learned (and thereby changeable) behavior.

I’m not sure this is true at all, for two reasons:

(A) There are reliefs of ancient Egyptian goddesses with cat heads and bare boobies. Not something I’d fap to, but they’re out there. Absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence, and I think it’s pretty clear that the Internet has enabled a variety of subcultures that would not otherwise exist. Before the internet age, if someone had these kind of ideas they probably would just keep them to themselves.

(B) Nobody really understands what causes fetishism to arise. Scientists have not been able to demonstrate that fetishism can be instilled through conditioning or imprinted during childhood. Is furry fetishism something that is learned from pop culture? Are furry fetishists predisposed towards the furry part, or were they already pre-disposed to accept any fetish and it just happened to be furry-ism? Or is furry fetishism something that has always existed but didn’t become recognized as a subculture until the internet age? We don’t know for sure.

FWIW, I can dig the art part. Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse have been famous for generations. I read “Usagi Yojimbo” and “Bucky O’Hare” in the 80’s. I think the Egyptian animal gods are metal as hell. And, in all seriousness, “Bojack Horseman” is the best TV show of the year.

I don’t get why someone would fetishize dressing up in an animal costume, but it’s also not my job to care, so, yeah, whatever makes them happy.

[Bering]

You can be a fan of anthro art without there being a sexual component though. There are plenty of people who just think it looks kind of neat…myself being one of them.

[Guinastasia]

@Rogersnow

Well, as a little nibbly sample, for one thing you have to love the implication above that if gays and blacks and so on could change their orientation/race/whathaveyou that it would then be totally okay to hate them. That their acceptance is merely a grudging concession of something people can’t change.

I think it’s more trying to point out the absurdity of comparing being persecuted for being gay/black vs. being made fun of for pretending to be a human/fox hybrid. The whole “fursecution” thing is pretty pathetic. It’s not at all like racism or homophobia, and quite frankly, the comparison is insulting.

[Rogersnow]

@Guinastasia

I think it’s more trying to point out the absurdity of comparing being persecuted for being gay/black vs. being made fun of for pretending to be a human/fox hybrid. The whole “fursecution” thing is pretty pathetic. It’s not at all like racism or homophobia, and quite frankly, the comparison is insulting.

No it’s not, if you go read the chain of argument. Nobody made the claim that they were as persecuted as those groups. It was an argument about logical consistency of being anti homophobia but turning around and bashing another group purely because you think they’re weird or icky.

It is of course possible to have a logically consistent worldview where you do that; one in which you either think it would be okay to bash gays and blacks, etc. if they could change and/or you think it would be okay to bash those groups if they hadn’t already had so many horrible things done to them, which essentially reduces society down to a big frat where you have to be properly hazed before you’re accepted.

Don’t rush to this ridiculous argument without having read the preceding argument first.

[BigT]

@Rogersnow

No it’s not, if you go read the chain of argument. Nobody made the claim that they were as persecuted as those groups. It was an argument about logical consistency of being anti homophobia but turning around and bashing another group purely because you think they’re weird or icky.

It is of course possible to have a logically consistent worldview where you do that; one in which you either think it would be okay to bash gays and blacks, etc. if they could change and/or you think it would be okay to bash those groups if they hadn’t already had so many horrible things done to them, which essentially reduces society down to a big frat where you have to be properly hazed before you’re accepted.

Don’t rush to this ridiculous argument without having read the preceding argument first.

You can have that worldview, but it’s also a worldview that is commonly decried on this board. We’ve said all along that it wouldn’t matter if homosexuality was a choice or not. What makes it allowable is that homosexuality causes no harm to you.

By citing frat hazing, you describe it quite well. It’s just a form of bullying. Some people can’t be happy without making fun of others.

Furrydom is a choice by consenting adults. It harms no one. There is thus no call for ridicule. That is the same argument for homosexuality and the same argument for transgenderism.

It really is that simple. And I’m not remotely a furry. I just stand up for quirky people, as they are the best people.