There’s a lot of anti-furry sentiment here comparing it to beastiality and zoophilia which is nothing new, but it’s too early in the morning for this.
To all those arguing this: You do not understand what being a furry is.
The furry community is firmly against fucking real animals as they obviously cannot consent. Any sex that happens in the community is among consenting adults. It isn’t a “stepping stone” to fucking animals either. The community has worked hard to expel zoophiles (people actually fucking animals) and Nazis (different tangent but also interesting).
The sensory experience of fur (or scales or feathers) is nice, and wondering what having a tail or multiple appendages would be like is fun, but some people have a problem with it when adults want to enjoy that with other adults.
This video is the best explanation I’ve encountered on the topic and has way more information than what I can put in a comment. NSFW and there’s a lot of sex jokes strung throughout.
https://youtu.be/ws9g3igw51s?si=pcILDYodPTi-0ZuU
TL; DW: There is a common experience of being dehumanized which the LGBT+ community experiences as well as those who are autistic which is one of many reasons both groups are drawn to the community. Animal comparisons are a good way of contextualizing how you would like to be interacted with. Furry is nothing new, and we have plenty of depictions of gods seducing people as animals because of the juxtaposition of power dynamics, divinity, humanity, masc, and fem.
I credit the fediverse, specifically Mastodon with ahem “humanizing” furries for me. I never had any exposure to them outside of memes and jokes before that. Now they are just members of another harmless subculture to me. Furries (and trans peeps!) also seem to be overrepresented in the fediverse and infosec communities, so respect and thanks to all the rad furries out there!
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I combine them. Gimme a bright, rainbow colored dog suit.
I have friends in both panels. As a 6-foot goblin I am less fabulous than either, but love and regard you all as a point of principle.
In my experience people like on the left tend to be upper class so that’s probably why they’re marketed to. There’s a lot of jokes about furries all being engineers and aircraft technicians and stuff but there’s not really enough rich ones to be worth marketing to for massive corporations. No offense but that kind of “gay pride” stuff is bougie as fuck these days. I feel alienated by it but not by the furry fandom despite not being a furry.
fursuits apparently are extremely expensive so i guess only people with high enough salaries can own them, that might explain the stereotype
My friends look like the left panel.
Well, the comments of this thread show me that it’s time to leave this lemmy community
Trust me. No one is going to miss you.
Permanently banned for bigotry, hatred, and a failure to follow rule 1.
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Close minded how, exactly?
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the unfortunate reality is that animal fuckers are becoming more and more commonly accepted on the internet as a whole – and expressing any opinion to the contrary is likely to get angry dogfuckers ranting and raving in your inbox.
tis a disturbing future we live in.
Furries and animal-fuckers are different groups. And if you’re lumping them together, you’re bound to get criticized for it.
FYI: furries are people with an interest/love for anthropomorphic animals.
actually they’re not, but I forgive your mistake
Replying from an alt-account because the other instance doesn’t show your message.
Could you explain how and why I am wrong?
much like how pedophiles will excuse jerking it to loli by justifying it with “no no, bro, she’s actually a 10,000 year old dragon goddess, she just looks 12!”, furries justify wanting to fuck a dog by saying the dog talks.
It really is just that simple, sport. Fetishizing animals is not okay. And you can use all the mental gymnastics you want to bullshit yourself with so you can sleep at night, but at the end of the day, nobody else is obligated to indulge you in them.
Lets get something straight first before I disseminate your argument: I do not watch furry porn myself, I am a furry who enjoys sfw furry art and I’m trying to defend the community against false accusations like yours.
Furry porn is based on fictional characters with fictional properties. What doesn’t exist in real can exist in fiction, like an anthropomorphic animal. If you want to see the difference between an anthropomorphic animal and a non-anthropomorphic animal you can compare the following two subs: !furry@pawb.social and !aww@lemmy.ml. Also, morality can get messy in the realm of fiction, take pokémon for example, it depicts animalfights organized by humans for their pleasure. Would it then be wrong to watch pokémon?
And !furry@pawb.social proves that there is more to the furry community than furry porn, since the mahority of the posts are sfw, making your generalization false. Or take the exiatence of fursona’s, where people make an anthropomorphic version of themselves.
And one last thing: even IF it was all an excuse to watch bestialityporn, even then the idea that all furries are animalfuckers is false. Because there is still a difference between watching certain drawn content and actually indulging in it in real life.
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As far as I know being a furry isn’t about sexual attraction to animals, that’s a misunderstanding on your part I’m pretty sure.
Pretty much. Generally speaking furries are fans of anthropomorphic characters, which inherently require a human component.
A lot of the hate the furry fandom gets is carryover from it being a very LGBT positive space in the early days of the internet, when that was a significantly less popular opinion to have. This led to a lot of false rumors (and one really inaccurate csi episode) getting spread around.
This video does a decent dive into the history of the whole thing. Basically it started from larger animation studios wanting to censor artists, leading to a bunch of artists getting together and putting all their weird stuff in one place.
The anti-furry dogwhistle is overwhelmingly used for anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments. The furry community is almost fully LGBTQ+ (80%+), and the idea that the LGBTQ+ community would be at odds with them shows that you are really misunderstanding the point of the rainbow flag. As the OP meme notes, furries have part of the LGBTQ+ community for a very long time and if you think this is some new phenomenon I really wonder what you’re doing trying to speak for us.
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Ignoring everything else I could say about your comment: What’s wrong with RPing non-consensual situations?
Thank you! Someone finally said it
People who don’t think furrys are sexual haven’t accidentally been invited to a furry party in San Francisco like I have. Trust me, they are pretending to be dogs fucking, and it crosses the beastiality line.
Furrys are not a part of the LGBTQI+ community.
They may not be part of your LGBTQ+ community, but there’s a large percentage of furries that are LGBTQ+, so they’re mostly a part of the same overall communities, with, or without their fursuit on.
Honestly, I didn’t think there would be this much judgement from members of a community that should know how important inclusion is.
It’s fine to not be a furry, it’s fine to not want anything to do with furries. This is in the same way that has been yelled at the cisnormatives for a long time. It’s okay to be straight, gay, lesbian, queer, trans, bi, (etc), and it’s only to not be a part of that as well. Straight people are supporters of LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms, while not being LGBTQ+. I would think that someone who had to fight and struggle with being accepted by society, and in many ways is still shunned and ostracised by some communities, would understand that different isn’t bad, and you can support people in their freedom to express themselves, without feeling the need to express yourself in the same manner. That different isn’t bad, it’s just different.
I’m disappointed right now. Holy heck.
I’m not a furry, and I have no sexual interest in anything that looks like an animal or anthropomorphic animal looking things either, but if that’s what they like and enjoy, then fine. As long as they’re not going out and engaging in actual bestiality, who cares? (They’re not, btw)
Your judgmentalism is showing.
I’ve noticed the same thing. There are so many furries who are actually gay men (most of whom claim to be bisexual) - I’ve seen them actually having sex with other guys in costume to the point of orgasm(!) - who has to clean those things. Anyway - I like the costumes, I like the people involved, and at least they are out there and being proud.
BUT - and this is my own big BUTT showing - I do honestly think there’s something to the idea of these people costuming themselves in a way to hide their real orientation from themselves and others. I’ve just seen so much of these guys obvious attraction to each other but unwillingness to openly say they are gay without any costume, disguise, or other armor on.
Maybe furry is part of a stage in acceptance of themselves, and I’m all OK with it, I just think it’s kinda obvious that it’s a masquerade about their real sexual feelings in certain ways. (MY thoughts only - feel free to lob horse apples if you disagree). Not that there’s anything wrong with it!
You’re close but coming in from an odd angle. The furry fandom is foremost extremely accepting, especially of people considered minorities or “weird” by normal society (LGBTQ+/autism/anything “cringe”). Putting on a fursuit or a furry avatar online and being able to pseudo-anonymously show the true parts of yourself is very liberating to those that don’t feel safe being themselves IRL. As an example, I’ve seen many trans people first switch the gender of their fursona to see how it feels to present as their preferred gender, and how it feels to be acknowledged by others as the person they are inside. I won’t say having a fursona is a mandatory part of being in the furry fandom (there are basically no rules on being included), but for many people that have one a fursona is often an idealized version of themselves and who they wish they could be IRL. So yes the furry fandom is often pivotal in a person’s “stages of acceptance”, but it has nothing to do with any kind of internalized “masking” and everything to do with the fandom’s external supportive community helping them become more comfortable with who they’ve always been.
I’m with you here. For some it may be a transitional “phase” of getting to know yourself privately in the company of others.
I’m sure there’s plenty of other reasons to put on a fursuit or fursona, most of which we wouldn’t know about, and would vary on an individual basis. The fact remains that furries shouldn’t be excluded because of a minority having some inane thought that they’re somehow promoting bestiality. IMO, that’s as wrong as saying all trans women just want to get into the ladies washroom for reasons.
This community should well know what it’s like to be ostracised, so I would have a hard time believing that the LGBTQ+ community would reject furries because of a few people who have unfounded hangups about it.
I think that’s a good way of seeing it, as a “transitional” phase of getting more comfortable with your real self and building a community with others going through the same thing.
The furry suits are exaggeratedly cute, so there’s no argument that they help augment someone’s attractiveness, and maybe there’s a little animal-philia mixed in there also - in an anime sense of exaggerated animal power and sensuality.
I totally get that vibe, they seem ultra willing to be accepting and welcoming to anyone, and I love that. But like you said, a big reason for putting on a fursuit or avatar is liberating “to those that don’t feel safe being themselves.” That’s what I’m getting at - part of the furry thing is disguising your real self.
My thing is, I just wish the world itself was so accepting and welcoming that nobody had to feel unsafe for being who they really are. I’m willing to bet that if we lived in a society where religious bigotry and hate didn’t exist, you’d find that there was no furry community at all - no need for masks to hide who you really are or any need to go through “stages of acceptance.”
But I’m not slamming the furry community. I’ve seen a few documentaries about it, and it seems fun and also like a great way to build community with like-minded guys (I’d say girls also, but I’ve almost never seen women participate in it). I support anything people do that helps them become outgoing or more confident people.
In an accepting world I think the furry fandom would still be quite large. The accepting community is why a lot of people stick around, but there are many other reasons for it to exist which aren’t influenced by being persecuted. Some people feel like they’re inherently furry from birth, like a gay person would, and some pick it up during their life as something they want to be associated with aesthetically or otherwise. You’ve also got therians and various other subcultures that are heavily based around the furry/animalistic themes themselves without considering any sort of societal values.
I also personally think pseudo-anonymity is healthy even when all of society is accepting, and I suspect there’s a large draw in being to socialize and try out different versions of yourself while keeping the option to burn your account and start again if you make mistakes. Now more than ever in our surveillance state, it’s nice to leave your identity behind and say things without worrying about it coming back to you IRL. I personally find furry/animal avatars to be a fun way of achieving this without needing to pick something boring and impersonal.
As for gender disparity I don’t think this is any inherent aspect of the furry fandom but just how predominantly-online cultures are weighted in general. I’d expect this to change given enough time. You can see recent gender studies here, and I highly recommend checking out some of the other pages from their findings if you’re interested in some of the bizarre trends that furries have compared to the average person. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that being furry is heavily biased by specific genetic circumstances, and that the explosion of furry culture is a figurative opening of Pandora’s box.
Edit: Also I found this page and the graphs+text have a lot of overlap with this topic.
