Are Furries Bad???

[Coby Cat]

I'm a bit on the outskirts of the furry fandom, I suppose. I strongly identify with the label of "funny animal fan", which is either a precursor or subset of the furry fandom, depending on who you ask. I'm also still figuring out for myself how strongly I've come to identify with this Coby Cat character that originally started as a lame pun (a Mickey Mouse copycat). I suppose he could be seen as my fursona.

Generally, my interactions with people who consider themselves furries has been overwhelmingly positive, and I admire the massive creative output of the fandom. The more sexual focus of some subgroups within the fandom aren't my personal cup of tea, but I feel the same about more sex-oriented media in general as well. I've encountered such subgroups in other unrelated fandoms too, so I don't really consider it a big deal.

[Cele]

Nothing wrong with the general concept. Of course, there are bad communities. It's good to be open about the community issues as well and speak up.

Personally I have no connection to the furry community and even in cartoons always preferred human characters over the animals. On a local level, furry community activity is something that young people can healthily bond over like any hobby. I support that. I guess there are places where gatherings have a different kind of culture to them.

[Icey!]

i think your definition of a furry is a little off. the furry subculture isn't really about identifying as an animal (that's therian/otherkin, i think) but more about identifying with anthro animals/"just thinking that they're neat," like the meme says. there's likely an overlap between the two communities, but there is a difference.

I agree with this, while I was away I started to think about possible errors in my topic. Glad to see that I am not the only one that thought of the definition being off. Truth is that it's really hard to define what a "furry" actually is, I chose that definition because I knew that there where many people interested but don't like calling themselves "furries" and just simply wanted to help people get by with the topic in hand but it might have been better to simply just not have a definition at all.

[devils]

I was thinking more about this topic, and I'd like to say it really depends on which circles you surround yourself with within the furry subculture (subsubcultures, if you will).

For example, furcons are an extremely different environment from curating your feed on a site like FurAffinity. Unfortunately, furcons are rampant with sexual harassers, just as Frost Sheridan said. Why is this, I wonder... I think it's a variety of factors. I'd say that since a large majority of furries is kind of socially awkward, they mostly rely on online interactions in a space where sex is an incredibly common subject, and perhaps they end up transferring that kind of behavior IRL. That's just me theorizing though.

The funny animal fandom (the OG furries) was actually really based on sexual content, mostly in the form of indie comics and zines. It really was a statement against purity culture more than it was meant as appealing art, which I find to be pretty neat.

I wonder what future anthropologists will say of this phenomenon.

[Icey!]

@devils Could you please rephrase your thoughts? I feel off about what you said, are you saying that furries are infact overly appealed towards sex in conversations? Are you also saying that furries where created because of the lack of sexual content? What is with the sex talk?

[devils]

@Icelogist I might've worded that incorrectly (it was about 3 AM when I wrote that), so I apologize if I wasn't clear.

While furries aren't inherently drawn to sexual content, most of them are. This isn't to say it's all they talk about, heck, I'd be calling myself out if that were the case XD The problem stems from socially awkward and overly perverted furries who normalize that kind of behavior to other socially awkward furries who then proceed to do the same.

It's a bit hard for me to explain this, but the more you hang around a certain person or group the more likely it is that you'll adopt their behaviors, good or bad. That's called mirroring, and it's something that happens to all of us.

Anthropomorphic animals predate furries as a whole, but the OG funny animal fandom was largely about taking mascot-like characters and making them perverse. Eroticism in art isn't always meant to be seen as pornographic, and in this context it largely wasn't. It was more of a statement against purity culture from my point of view.

I hope I'm making sense. I'm always a bit self-conscious about organizing my thoughts...

[Icey!]

@devils Thanks for replying, I get that these types of replies aren't easy to deal with but it's important to remember that some viewers can be weirded out when using the wrong type of message. Considering that you are a furry and I am not, you do have at least some more knowledge to put onto the table that I can not.

...

Can you start to see why some people hate furries? While I totally get that "it's the internet" and non-furries are also by nature a little horny. But is it kinda weird that openly [edited] sexual people are common in the fandom? I do still have to clarify that again, I am not hating on you or anyone involved. It's just that not everyone will be able to get by with this type of behavior and causing them to feel disgusted.

Am I supposed to accept that this is a good thing to be open about perhaps?

[question removed]

-Admins note: this post has been edited.

[devils]

Can you start to see why some people hate furries? While I totally get that "it's the internet" and non-furries are also by nature a little horny. But is it kinda weird that openly [edited] sexual people are common in the fandom? I do still have to clarify that again, I am not hating on you or anyone involved. It's just that not everyone will be able to get by with this type of behavior and causing them to feel disgusted.

Am I supposed to accept that this is a good thing to be open about perhaps?

I can see someone with personal experience within the furry fandom having legitimate issues with the community, just like the user I mentioned. It's far from being a perfect subculture.

As for anyone who hates all furries just because they're weird or cringe? Yeah, I think they should take some time to analyze why they feel that way. Most of the time it's based on discriminatory or overly conservative beliefs, some they might not even have realize they had, usually this ranges from queerphobia (especially homophobia) to ableism.

The fandom has roots in the underground comix community, which was ripe with sexual content even before furries were a thing. Weirdos would exist even if the furry fandom didn't exist. Underground comix were always meant to be shocking and provocative, why is that bad when the characters have animal features?

Being weird isn't bad as long as no one is getting hurt. And yes, it is a good thing to be open about such things as long as it's in an appropriate setting- this goes for anyone, furry or not. For someone who claims to not hate furries, it sure seems like you veer that way.

[Icey!]

I will be locking this topic for now, it's clear to me that I am not the right person to be talking about a controversial topic like furries considering my age and how poorly I handled it. I was just warned by melonking for asking fairly out of bounds questions. I would puffer if someone else made a topic like this.

I would like to also apologize to @devils for being negative and inappropriate while keeping up with it publicly, I think it would have been better if I put that converstation in a private dm? I don't know, just understand that I never intended to be that way when writing like that.

[Melooon]

A lil editors note, since this has been a popular topic; I think this was a really brave topic to start; it's hard to talk about difficult subjects - particularly when there are a lot of mixed messages on the web about that subject.

Most of the replies here seem to have been great; generally, both answering the question, but also stepping into difficult areas while keeping on point and providing a lot of positive info.

It's totally fine to want to put a pause on a thread and lock it! Particularly when you're the threads creator and feel responsible for it. @Icelogist no question is out of bounds, but some topics can be unconstructive (and outside the scope of this forum), and I didn't want this thread to go that way. However, I do wanna say well done 

[Icey!]

I will be locking this topic for now, it's clear to me that I am not the right person to be talking about a controversial topic like furries considering my age and how poorly I handled it. I was just warned by melonking for asking fairly out of bounds questions. I would puffer if someone else made a topic like this.

Looking back I kinda feel that this statement I made was a little pessimistic at myself. The more sexual replies don't actually bother me that much tbh, I just got a little carried away with my part with the last few replies which showed off my negative view and I wish to not do that again.

The replies were great at helping me guide threw the fandom, during a time when I just got done seeing many anti-furry statements but still felt that the things that I saw were a bit harsh. This is why I created this topic. I wanted input from people who understood me but also understood the idea of furries better to pull me in a more "fair" mindset.

This topic has been reopened. Please continue the discussion.

[arcus]

The furry fandom originates from the United States, and is intertwined with the morality culture of it. To understand why it's adult, you will need to know the history behind it and the history of the moral values of the United States. An abridged summary:

• Puritanism exists. It's an offshoot of Christianity with many issues. It has a strict stance against anything that could be remotely sexual that isn't related to procreation. People are murdered because of these beliefs.
  
• The United States was formed with Puritan values.
• Puritan values effected everything in the United States, and still do to this day. This includes what is shown on television and comics.
• "Funny animals" is used as a term for anthropomorphic animals. This includes talking animals and and mascot characters such as Mickey Mouse. People who liked these characters called themselves funny animal fans.
• Geek culture ended up popular with people who are against Puritan values.
• Funny animal fans make comics to parody and critise Puritan values.
• The furry fandom slowly formed out from the funny animal fandom. Some funny animal fans do not like the implications that come with the label furry, and don't use it.
• Due to the history of furry culture going against Puritan values, this made the fandom a space to be more openly sexual and accepted, especially with LGBTQ furries. Because of this, a lot of furry hate is based in queerphobia.

I don't know any good, safe for work explanation of the history of the fandom to post for a clearer explaination, since the roots of the fandom are adult. It's a good idea to read up on the history of Puritism sometime, or at least gloss over the beliefs, to understand how it has shaped the culture of the United States and by extension other countries.

Now for the question, I wouldn't say furries are bad in particular. I've had bad experiences with furries crossing my boundaries, but not specifically furries. Going from my experiences, plenty of people don't understand personal boundaries, and when it comes to sex positive spaces, they see that as an excuse to completely disregard them.

[HunnyBon]

Furries are a rather interesting subject for me, I've come int oexperiencing one that used to be my friend, maybe another, but, those times are past me. They are, to quite frankly put it, not good people...

BUT! I must say, they are outliers! Furries are honest-to-god the backbone of internet culture and technology as we have it. IF you were to snap every furry out of existence, our infrastructure would collapse, not gonna lie as hyperbolic as that sounds, it feels like that'd be the most probable outcome.

I feel like most of the extreme examples of the furry community being "bad" is just that-- extreme examples, and you sure as heck could see dissenters flaunting those examples to be like, "Oh lordy lord! Look at these furries, so sillay!", or insert derogatory term here, if you're not into my rather silly flanderization.

Am I a furry? No. Do I respect furries? Yeah! They can be honest people, honest people who don't really think that different than us, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone's got some inner beast of some kind-- hell, we're all literally just intelligent, less hairy apes.

[CableCat]

I actually think anthro is pretty neat and they have a vibrant art community, but I'll admit my opinion of furries (I'm talking specifically in-person with the fursuits) isn't exactly stellar.

I attended multiple cons in Florida from 2010-2013. Not furry conventions, just regular comic and anime conventions. The handful of furries I met and was around during that time all had one thing in common: The fur suits STANK to high heaven.

Now, we were in a hot state. Like HOT. And MOIST. Tropical. In SUMMER. But even still, my old school mascots cleaned out their costumes. There are ways to deep clean and febreeze those suits, or dry clean so they don't stink that badly. And I get that the fur suits cost thousands, but even then your sweat remaining on it is gonna be bad for it too! And when I say it stank, I don't mean, "oh they smelled really sweaty and kinda grimey" because that's just a normal sweaty summer day in Florida. I mean stank like mixes of dook and vinegar. That was not just from walking from the parking lot to the convention center and outdoor photoshoots, no. If I'm more than 5ft away from you, I should not be able to smell you.

Gonna caveat here and say that I only met a handful. And as an adult now, I understand that the way we thought furries were awkward and weird as teens, like... I understand the neurodivergence overlap now. So that part is all moot now.

Also I heard about how Rainfurrest went. As someone who went to cons and had friends who went to various cons... We all heard about Rainfurrest. Just... unnacceptable.

But again, this was only a portion of furries in the united states in-person. I'm sure the online community is very different.