The furry problem

[bladespark]

WTF am I supposed to do about this?

The media says that furry is a sexuality. An orientation issue, like homosexuality, but directed at the non-human.

And a fair number of furries either agree with this, or go along with it without bothering to correct it.

But WTF is somebody who is in the fandom, has a fursona, loves anthropomorphics, and is a furry in every way except in having sexual interest in it supposed to do? The technical definiton of furry is a fandom not a sexuality, but I just can't fight this! For every person I explain it to there are thousands more who think of it in sexual terms. Every time I say "I'm furry" now I have to stop and explain "no, not like that." But I haven't got anything better to call it! All of the other !furry movements are basically otherkin, which I really am not.

Maybe I'll just have to start always prefacing "I'm furry" with "I'm a clean fur" or something.

Meh. Stupid media. Stupid fandom.

Comments

[catwoman69y2k.livejournal.com]

You know...I know that it can be annoying if for every one person that gets it, there are 100 others that assume the sexual aspect of the fandom based on what is said on TV. However, I think that if you went ahead and appended "I'm a clean fur" on the end of your "I am furry" statement, it would look more like you have something to hide.

Kat

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

Yep. It is stupid.

Furry use to be a fandom and then for some unknown reason became a "lifestyle" so of an alternative type like S/M or gay. I didn't get the memo as to why but I do find it kind of sad that this was so embrassed by the furry community. Part of it came from the fact that furry was low man on the totem pole when it came to fandom but calling it a life style meant that they could say,"You don't understand because you don't live my lifestyle."

Then there were the TV portrails both on MTV and CSI which just added to the myth that all furries want is group sex. Which of course brought the media attention to those weird people who dress up as animals and like to screw anything that moves. Which screwed it for anyone who liked the fandom before it became a sextual designation.

[silveradept]

Give it time? Anime fans still have to deal with the "Ah, so you're watching Japanese porno cartoons" on occasion, but it's much less now, thanks to some of the acceptance and saturation of the market. If there's a way that furry can become more mainstream, then there will probably be less who think of it in sexual ways. At the moment, though, it doesn't seem like there's a particularly easy way to pull the fandom more toward the mainstream.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

The thing is that the trend I'm seeing runs just exactly the other way. When I started out with furry, ten years or so ago, nobody knew what it was, and nobody inside the fandom really defined it as sexual. But the more publicity we get, the more it becomes sexualized. I guess I can hope the pendulum will swing back the other way, eventually.

[silveradept]

The longer it stays around, the more likely that will happen, actually - anime/manga went from being an unknown thing to a highly suspicious thing to a more mainstream thing. Furry may follow that. It just may take longer, because you can't exactly just flood the market with furry-type media so that everyone can find some furry they like.

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

The same happens to disabilities.
"Huh?" "Oh, I heard about that on TV, where there was that crazy kid... so you're retarded then?" "OMG U R CRAZY" "...Eh, everyone has that..." "Dude, that whole thing was just a sham by the Prozac manufacturers, everyone knows it doesn't really exist!" And a few years later "Oh, that. Carry on, then."

It's a different trend for fandoms, but it just seems to be the way the media works: Obscurity => Sensationalist => Saturation => Acceptance.

[streakthetiger.livejournal.com]

Eh. It`s a fandom to me. :D

[realis-kat.livejournal.com]

I agree with the fandom comments, i maybe sexual in my life, and stuff, but for me, its not why i am a fur, the sexualy part of my life is because i am 20, male, and young.

[graydown.livejournal.com]

It is obnoxious. When people ask "are you a furry?" I have to answer "That depends on what you mean by 'furry,'" which sounds like a huge copout.

It seems like a particularly aggravating example of Sjöberg's Law of Lexical Drift (http://www.brunching.com/mylaws.html).

[jfoxfire.livejournal.com]

i have never heard anyone ask or tell me "are you a furry?" to me at all.

i just love the furydom alot.

[lin-chan.livejournal.com]

I usually end up explaining "furry" to people. Only on the rare occasion have they even heard of it before.

[dcherrycoke.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm from the ChristianLeft community, and I just wanted to apologize on behalf of all of the ignorant comments you've been getting about furries. I was actually really, really shocked by what I was reading.

I wouldn't consider myself a furry, per se, but I have RPed on furry mucks before and I have many furry friends (really, at what point should you consider yourself a "furry"? It's all confusing). So I understand, to some extent, the assumptions that come with refering to one's self as furry.


So, no point to this, really, other than to say that people are really ignorant sometimes

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks! I know most people aren't ignorant, but it's really annoying when I run into those who are. And a bit shocking in this case, to get told off for discrimination, and then discriminated against for being furry in the same post!

I always figure the point at which you're furry is a self-definition one. If you want to be furry, then you're furry. Well, and if you own a fursuit, write stories about furries, draw furries, an have "fursonas" then you're probably furry even if you don't call yourself one.

[dcherrycoke.livejournal.com]

And a bit shocking in this case, to get told off for discrimination, and then discriminated against for being furry in the same post!


I know! That's what surprised me so much! Seriously, the irony...

Really, I think a lot of people are just reluctant to identify themselves as furries because of the assumptions that are made. I mean, I personally never identified myself that way just because I never had a "fursona" or did any fursuiting. But if I had, and decided that I wanted to identify that way...it would be kind of scary for me.

But I will say, I had a friend invite me to a furry con a couple of year ago, and I met some of the best people ever. Seriously.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! Furcons are awesome. I wish I could afford to go to more of them.

[starkruzr.livejournal.com]

I hate to tell you, Steph, but I think the language is being redefined right out from underneath you. It sucks and it's stupid, but it's happening anyway.

[endymion-v1.livejournal.com]

In the end, it's the more extreme personalities who are going to get most of the attention. And since they're the ones the media will set their sights on, they're end up being the ones who 'define' what furry gets seen as, for better or for much, much, much worse.

You'll hear so many people say "but we're not like that!" and then you run into that vocal/stand-out minority that DOES act that way, and it's hard to convince someone that you're not like that. It sucks, but it seems to be the way things go. I'm not really sure what can be done to change perceptions.

And maybe that's the problem. The more the rest of us want to change the way people see things, the more and more that stand-out minority is going to ratchet up their attention-seeking behavior and undermine any efforts on anyone else's part.

I don't know why any furries would want the media attention so badly, honestly.

[kyoshyu.livejournal.com]

There are people who would kill, quite literally, to get attention. That says it all right there.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

This is why I usually say that I like anthropomorphic art, rather than that I'm furry. I do whip out the "furry isn't a sexuality" lecture whenever I see someone making the assumption and Ihave time, but it just makes me so very tired.

[reiko-sazanami.livejournal.com]

Ah, the eternal argument of having to defend furrydom.

It is aggrivating how the fandom is perceived as perverts in animal costumes having group sex, or being into bestiality due to association, when that comprises what..1, 2 percent of the fandom? But as usual, the media wants to focus on the extremes. Think about how it always does this. You never see reports on religious groups doing kind acts for others, you instead get the crazies that chase people with pamphlets, screeching their beliefs. You never hear about regular gamers at all, you hear about the kid that shot his friend because he played Grand Theft Auto. And again with gamers, you never see the comradery common among roleplayers, you get the very few who are lost within their fantasy world, insisting that they ARE their character.

In short, extremisim fuels the media/entertainment.

Is there a way to dispel the 'stigma' of furry without seeming elitist? Not really. I was under fire when I made my clean furs group from others who claimed I was being 'exclusionory'. I simply retorted that I would not join yiff groups because I had no interest, so no one was forced to join a clean group. I wouldn't join a yiff community and loudly complain about every topic, so I only ask the same of them.

As for myself, I just act like myself. I am not a raging pervert, nor am I the image of a 40 year old, overweight bearded man in a ratty skunk tail, barely containing myself over an image of Minerva Mink being screwed by Yakko Warner (hay thar fchan lol). In reality, I'm a 20-something college student, female (not slutty in the least) of average build who has an interest in art and costuming in many fields, not just furry. I have had friends wary of me because of the furrydom, but they quickly got over it when they realized that I wasn't totally batshit. So furry is only ONE small facet of myself as a whole person, not one defining feature.

Whew, that got a bit wordy, but I was feeling ranty. In short, if you want to prove that all furries are not the same, be yourself! Don't cry fursecution or rub it in other's faces, just go with wha you're comfortable with. Share other interests, make friends from all walks of life, and don't let one little stigma define you. In time, hell, who knows. Maybe the general public will see furry as another lil geeky fandom, like Trekkies, otaku, Star Wars fans, fantasy readers and others.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

He he he. Yeah, I was myself a little dubious about the clean furs community, I was afraid it would be somehow jugemental or discriminatory, or elitist, but I finally decided that I was just sick of the yiff, and it would be nice to be part of a furry group where that just wasn't present at all.

And I hear you on the defining feature thing. My "animal" or "furry" nature is important to me, my fursonas mean something personal and pretty intense, but that's just part, it's not my entire definition of self.

A good number of my friends aren't furry, and I hope I'm a decent example of the good things about the fandom to them, but it really does get depressing to have to endlessly defend myself, and explain that no, I don't yiff.

[reiko-sazanami.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is tough to make a community that is sort of the reverse of what people are used to, but it's been up for almost two years, and things have calmed down. It's not meant as a judgemental place where we all sit around and put down people that DO like yiff and other aspects of the fandom (hell, if that happens, I break out the mod bat for reminders), but more of just a place to discuss or plan events that will be clean. I do my best to keep it friendly for everyone, not just the clean furs.

And yeah, for some people, I completely understand about their animal nature being close to them. If you are able to express something near and dear to your heart through an anthro, go for it! The only thing that I just see TOO often in the fandom is that a fursona is a person's ONLY feature. They never open up to others beyond this character, so we really only learn one side of them. It's a good springboard to becoming interested in someone, but I would rather know the person BEHIND their creation. It's wonderful that someone is an 8 foot tall wolf with a chiseled body, but that is just ONE character and ONE aspect of a person, not everything about them. I suppose it's just a general shyness of self that is common in most geeky things, the thought of 'Well, if they REALLY saw me, they'd hate me...', which I've always found sort of depressing. If someone is a good enough friend, they aren't going to ditch you for NOT being Mr. Statuesque Wolfie. :3

I would personally say that you ARE a good conveyor of the fandom for others. You're dedicated to your costumework and avidly help out in the communities. And honestly, I can't say that I've seen nearly any drama with or about you that has ever reached the 'public' of the fandom. Granted, I only know you through your website and this blog, but that's just what I've picked up. And it can't be flattery if I really don't know you well!

But yeah, in the end, I think it just comes down to people being able to be themselves, and if they can, helping out with things. Over the past 5 years of different fandoms and conventions, I have honestly seen an upswing of acceptence with furry. It's not as huge of a deal anymore from what I can see, because everyone has had their laughs from CSI and MTV and gone onto something else. The three fursuiters at Ohayocon (an anime convention) had NO opposition from what I could tell, and that boosted my spirits a bit. I think the big 'dirty furries' controversy has run its streak, and we're at the point now where we can show people how much good there IS in the fandom, and hopefully show that we aren't as crazy as they think.

Well, not BAD crazy...

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

I actually spent about half an hour defending furridom (or however we're supposed to refer to it) around Christmas (at the staff Christmas party, in fact). To give people credit, they'd heard about furries purely from watching that CSI episode, and were reasonably open to correction based on someone who actually knew actual furries.

However, it does seem impossible to break the effect the mainstream media has on technical or niche words - look at, for example, the now-standard misuse of the word "hacker", propagated by non-technical writers who misunderstood the original use, or thousands of other cases. Personally, I'd just use the word as it's supposed to be used, but I'm bloody-minded like that (and, obviously, it causes misunderstandings, but they're opportunities for correcting people's use of words!).

[privatepony.livejournal.com]

I posted about this a few days ago -- For me, yes, there are sexual aspects to furry -- but that's not ALL it's about. I tend to think of my furry persona as, well, an actual person or creature, and any living, breathing thing has a basic need for sex (To paraphrase Freud, the only bad sexual obsession is to have none at all). Of course, my head was also warped at a very young age by exposure to erotic furry art, so it's sort of an inescapable thing for me.

However! I am fully against the fandom being seen as nothing more than a fetish. It demeans and debases everyone who's art and stories are NOT sexual in nature, and those that do have just a passing interest in "animal-like people" are pushed away. Like I said in that post, it creates a sort of exponential or fractal degeneration - Those that are in it for sex grow larger and larger in number, while those that aren't become frustrated and either keep quiet about their furry personas, or altogether denounce the fandom entirely. The problem, as I see it, is in controlling all the completely psycho freaks (The guy on MTV would be #1) and, as Uncle Kage puts it, all of the creepy uncles that no one talks to at family reunions, and keeping their freaking mouths shut around the press. Instead of following the press around at cons, I submit that con organizers should identify those that are most likely to say/do something stupid near the press, and keep watch on /them/. Of course, that wouldn't be nice or fair or politically correct, would it? Especially for a fandom as tolerant as ours is -- I do believe that's the strong point about us, that no one ever seems to notice. It doesn't matter who you are, what skintone, political affiliation, religion - Everyone's welcome. Hmm. I seem to have hijacked your journal. Sorry, SPark!

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

I think you're going to get this with any word that lumps together a disparate group, like "Korean" or "loner". Or even "virologist" ("so you're trying to kill us all, then?") or even "I have friends I met on the internet" ("Dork"). It happens, there's little you can do about it.

Maybe it's best to pick your battles. To people you think won't understand at all you're just someone with an animal persona and the skill to actually show it off. To others, you can call yourself a furry.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

To some people being a furry is a sexuality or sexual issue

But it's like looking at a painting down a long narrow tube - you only see part of the picture. They need to spread their viewpoint and see there is more there than they assume.

I wouldn't change the terms. It's annoying but I'd stick to saying "I'm a furry" and then debunk unwarrented assumptions - it's pissing off, certainly - but sadly every less-than-mainstream group has to put up with a double handful of inaccurate assumptions. The only way to fight them is to stay with the group and constantly debunk.


Hells, black people still have to put up with all kinds of vile stereotyping and the civil rights movement has been working on it for decades. I'm sure as an LDS you have met more than your fair share of stereotyping yourself

[wolfmare.livejournal.com]

...I really can't think of a way to reply without repeating what others have already said.

Though... An orientation issue? Peh. At what, what is nonhuman? Ink on a piece of paper? It's non-living, not 'nonhuman'! Because from the artists, to the stuffed animals (non-living), to the fursuiters (humans roleplaying), there really aren't any living 'nonhuman' aspects to it. Yeah, you get the fringe where some pretty weird stuff happens, but same thing could be happening in any group of people. It's stereotyping, plain and simple.

All fandoms are subject to some of the same issues, but we suffer more for it because what we're revolving around is not strictly human, but instead falls somewhere between human and animal. People have trouble accepting that concept, because it means admitting humans are just another species of animal. As we don't produce chlorophyll and we can move on our own free will, therefore we are animals. Deal with it, folks.



*gives ya a hug* Sorry if I ranted a little! :)