I've never understood the furry hate. People treat it as a kink akin to someone being into taking a shit on your stomach. Except somehow worse.
It's not my thing, but I've known people who are into it and they've all been nice people. I hung out with a bunch of them one of the times I was working at a con and they were fun people to hang around when they were out of their fursuits. And yeah, I didn't quite know how to react to them when they were in the fursuit, but I just stayed friendly. That seemed to be fine with them.
Furries are odd fellows, but I would never say anything against them for fear of all IT infrastructure spontaneously trying to kill for the rest of my life because it's just odd, not harmful. De gustibus non disputandum est.
Right. They're just into something weird. No big deal, lots of us are into weird things. The weird stuff I'm into doesn't involve spending lots of money or wearing a costume that must be very hot after a short period of time, but if that's what does it for you, cool. I'll be over here watching hours of old public domain movies and industrial films.
It might be different for others but I've been around furries, have had furry friends, and it still on some deep level that I can't control makes me a bit uncomfortable. Like I do not judge, and I fully support consenting adults doing whatever they want, but if someone in a fur suit sat next to me on a train, I would be a tad bit uneasy. For me, I think it's the sexualizing animals that gets me. I'm not saying furries do anything bad to real animals, just that the way I view animals is something incompatible with any form of sexualization.
That being said, I fully support furries doing whatever they want as long as it isn't forced on me. All the furry friends I've had over the years have been wonderful and creative people, and have never made me feel uncomfortable.
For me, I think it’s the sexualizing animals that gets me. I’m not saying furries do anything bad to real animals
if it makes you feel any better, it's not animals directly, it's animal attributes. There is a very very specific dividing line between "furry" and "animal"
Also, being a "furry" is remarkably easy. Are you a fan of anthropomorphic animals? Congrats, you're a furry. It doesn't require you to wear a fursuit or anything else. That means that if you're in the fandom of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. You. Are. A. Furry.
That means that if you’re in the fandom of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. You. Are. A. Furry.
technically, this isn't exclusively true since most of the time the specific fandom actually supersedes the anthro aspect of it. For example if ur a sonic fandom nerd, you're a sonic fandom nerd, but you may not have a general interest in anthropomorphic characters more broadly, in which case you wouldn't be a furry. These things are not directly related.
The more correct definition here would be "a fan of anthropomorphic characters more broadly, specifically those within the furry community, and the furry community itself more broadly" It's also worth noting that most of the time it's actually done via self admittance. There are fursuit makers who do not consider themselves to be furries. It's odd, but it's how works.
Otherwise we start to define people who drive cars as "car people" and that's just, wrong.
For example a lot of people have pets, dog/cat whatever, they talk to their pets, that's literally anthropomorphizing an animal. Or personification, it's the same shit at the end of the day though. Does that make those people furries? Because they speak to their dog in a language it doesn't understand? Or apply human concepts to their pets that don't really exist?
For me at least, I'm uncomfy with like, how close furry's rejected Disney mascot kink is to a beastiality kink. Not to say they're even that close! I'm surely oversensitive here! But I think that's where my overall lack of pure acceptance comes from.
It's goofy to me that the people out here like "fuck yeah, that fox with anime eyes is sexy."
I try not to be a hater, but I have trouble with this scene so I let it be. "Consenting adults; none of my business."
I think the kink and fursuit parts are what most people understand about furries because that's the most signal boosted and bizarre parts about it. However, furries often have other things that really attach them to it, and the kink is a further expression of that.
For a lot of people, neurodivergence is a core feature. I struggle with speech a lot. I'm learning ASL but few people speak it. The flexibility to communicate in howls, barks and yips on occasion is extremely helpful. The furry community is full of people who just get this and will treat me very normally when I'm nonverbal. The scared kid in me still expects to be hit for disobedience, so it's incredibly healing.
Some folks who like fursuits like them because they present a barrier and literal mask that helps them feel safe and protected from bad sensory experiences in public. Some attach themselves into a fursona character and find a way to express parts of themselves they couldn't elsewhere. My sister describes her fursona as a manifestation of her inner child unburdened by abuse, and made the character female years before she worked out she was trans.
When you consider how much kink and trauma go hand in hand, how much furries lean on their identity as a way to feel safe engaging with others, and how much genuine joy people find in their fursona, the kink makes a whole lot more sense. It's less about being attracted to "rejected Disney mascots" specifically as it is about the comfort and safety a rejected Disney mascot persona can bring to people who need it. For as much as it's helpful in the outside world, it would in fact be weirder for none of that to come into the bedroom too.
It's okay to not understand something someone else is super into. The issue comes when you judge them to be lesser than you for it. And when you use them as an object of derision.
There are plenty of people out there who will never understand homosexuality. Even find it disgusting. And if they just kept their mouths shut about it and treated gay people the same as they did anyone else, the world would be a better place.
As someone who hangs out with a lot of furries, and also only ever gets furries as art customers:
Yes, I understand the discomfort around furries. I can blame people for going out of their way to troll furries, but I can't blame people to want nothing to do with furries.
The furry fandom is by and large filled with people who have massive insecurities. This doesn't count for everyone, but you're more likely to find an emotionally unstable furry than not. It's the ultimate escapism; where people with personal issues create a character with none of those personal issues, and pretend to be said character in an environment where consequences don't exist. It is not for nothing there is such a massive amount (compared to Earth's overall average) of gay, bi, and trans people in the fandom.
Yes, it's also a sex thing. I've seen someone in the comments say "sex positive", but I wouldn't call it that. The furry fandom is a place where a gay or a bisexual person can express their sexuality without persecution, like often happens in places like the United States or Poland, but... It's not really sex positivity, rather it's debauchery. So much debauchery. Which harkens back to escaping into the ideal world without consequences; you can have copious amount of sex and/or sexualise as much as you want without any of the usual responsibilities or consequences that comes with sex.
It is fun to occasionally partake in such debauchery. I'm no prude and I'm not afraid to admit I'm also a bit of a horny guy. So partaking in the occasional kinky, sexy fiction can be fun. Except for a furry it isn't really fiction, which is where a lot of weirdness and unease comes from. And for those who can afford going to conventions or meetups regularly, this level of debauchery occasionally happens in real life... With real life consequences.
A furry lives in a fictional comfort zone where they can pretend to be a character in a world without consequences. But even in exclusively online communities real life tends to catch up with people, so members inside of communities will get pushed outside of this comfort bubble and be reminded about reality. This is the cause for a lot of infamous furry drama.
It is fun to occasionally partake in such debauchery. I’m no prude and I’m not afraid to admit I’m also a bit of a horny guy. So partaking in the occasional kinky, sexy fiction can be fun. Except for a furry it isn’t really fiction, which is where a lot of weirdness and unease comes from.
I'm a furry and I'm unsure what you mean by this
members inside of communities will get pushed outside of this comfort bubble and be reminded about reality. This is the cause for a lot of infamous furry drama.
and I'm really not sure what you're talking about here
Yeah, I don't have anything on my profile because... Dunno really what to put on it. Didn't really cross my mind to put anything on it either.
But yeah, I got FA. All my customers are furries, so the majority of my art is furry. Wouldn't make sense not to have an FA account. Anyway, here it is:
If this comment ends up near the top, the reply section will be... Interesting. It'll no doubt start to attract furries who themselves have something to say about it, and they'll generally fall into 4 categories:
Those who aren't the unstable kind, generally just think furry characters are cool, and agree with what I wrote.
Those who fit my description of the fandom, and are self reflective enough to agree, but own it too.
Those who fit my description of the fandom, and feel personally attacked. They'll likely get very emotional and lash out.
Those who disagree because they lack any sort of outside perspective, either because they're too in the middle of everything or are part of a very niche group in the fandom.
I've shared my take before and these are generally the responses.
Yes, it's also a sex thing. I've seen someone in the comments say "sex positive", but I wouldn't call it that. The furry fandom is a place where a gay or a bisexual person can express their sexuality without persecution, like often happens in places like the United States or Poland, but... It's not really sex positivity, rather it's debauchery. So much debauchery. Which harkens back to escaping into the ideal world without consequences; you can have copious amount of sex and/or sexualise as much as you want without any of the usual responsibilities or consequences that comes with sex.
Putting on a costume doesn't eliminate the consequences of sex. 🤦♂️
And I mean, it sounds like the most experience you have with furries is as customers for art. I can only imagine you specialize in some kind of kink art to only have furry customers and only see debauchery.
You're quite wrong about my art and missing the point with your first sentence.
I don't get much requests for kink related things as I have a list longer than my forearm of all the shit I'll refuse to draw. The most nudity I draw is usually for reference materials. I certainly don't specialise.
listen, it's true, since the beginning of human history anthropomorphic creatures have existed in the human lore.
Now we just need to find a way to convince future historians that furries were some sort of high class god like figures, and our troll will be complete.
While we're trolling future historians, let's rewrite the history books to say that the Great Depression was just a period where everyone was really sad for some reason. It was a mental health epidemic, not an economic crisis.
nah not even depression, just sad enough that we stopped working for a few years, and the eventually decided we should probably start working again lmao.
I think we need to live sexually, morally, and politically repressed like in the good ol' times. It made it easier to control and indoctrinate people during the growth of empires designed to serve themselves and their pyramid scheme like structures. It's why we burned the satyr plays. I'm just going to say it, if we are going to shift as a subservient and servile class under our billionaire oligarchs, we need to be twice as repressed as we are now, not more "liberated". Who made the best servants? Eunuchs, that's who. Also, please make more babies, we need to feed the feedback loop we have going regarding population growth and our economy/wars. /swtf
Go look up painted Greek statutes, it's a nightmare of garish bullshit that makes the entire work look like utter dog shit. That's how they're ''supposed'' to look. All I'm saying is, people from the past seeing this might be down.
Depends on which reconstruction you look at. For example, these two reconstructions of what the Augustus of Prima Porta (not Greek, but very close in style and the first one to come into my mind) might have looked are very different:
He's definitely the sort that would attack the family on the other side of the hill with a big rock because they weren't from his side of the hill. So in that sense, yes.
It's not just the sexual aspect that makes people uncomfortable.
Many people view it as childish. Children are really into their stuffed animals and love playing dress up. There is nothing inherently wrong with enjoying activities normally associated with children but other adults tend to look down on it.
Some furries like to talk about their fursona as a spiritual extension of themselves. Many people associate that kind of language with crazy old hippies.