#furry discourse

[voices-in-dark-violets-head]

"Be Yourself", says the Furry Fandom.

And yet, as with many things in life, it's far easier said than done.

I've found that 'being myself' can take a lot of bravery, but I want to tell you why it's so, so important.

Storytime!

At Eurofurence this year, I ran the e621 Gameshow for the third year in a row. And for the third year in a row, we were over capacity. As in, security-comes-in-to-tell-people-to-leave levels of over capacity (Which, my dear sympathies once again with those who had to go!)

We had a crowd that was there for an hour and a half of weird furry porn. Who cheered for horsecock. Who delighted in Falco Lombardi macro art. A hundred people - a quarter of the room - gleefully admitted to being into vore.

The atmosphere was electric, and I hadn't even needed my e-stim kit. This was a crowd who rejoiced in the adult side of the fandom!

And then I asked them - how many people had a fetish they'd be nervous admitting to?

A third of the room raised their hands.

In a room that had been laughing moments earlier about the amount of Mufasa/Simba porn, or getting a 100% success rate on guessing popular cock shapes, 1/3 of them weren't confident in revealing those same parts of themselves.

I don't think this is rare.

I've had folks ask me if I get hate for the kind of art I draw (not really much at all, by the way). But worse, I get people telling me - they wish they could draw what they want, write the characters they love… but they fear what others might say.

I've had commissioners remain anonymous, for fear of people knowing what they're into. Known artists start up alt accounts, so that they can draw a kink without their friends knowing. Writers wringing their hands over possible reactions to their stories.

And I would love to tell you it's all just fear - but truth is, it isn't.

Because it ain't just the big patron sites that are swinging the axe on the 'too weird'. Our own sites - our communities - sharpen their restrictions. Whole kinks, loving and accepted, are now 'too far'.

We're fearing the gaze from the outside. We're hearing their derision. And that can scare us, cause us to hide not just ourselves, but those around us. "What if they think that I'm into that? What would they say? I need to prove I'm not!"

We all crave love and acceptance. And in a fandom formed in rejection from society, don't we just hold such ideals even more tightly? So much so that the very idea of this same community throwing us out - for being ourselves? Of course it's terrifying.

But it turns out, even us outcasts, outsiders… we can all hold prejudices. We all have the ability to draw lines, and give too little thought to what that means. We can so easily turn our own opinions, our fear of what others think of us, into rules that hurt and exclude.

And therein lies the issue. "Be yourself", says the fandom, without stopping to consider how treacherous, how thorned that path can be. To be yourself, sometimes, is to suffer the disgust of those who would tell you to do it in the first place.

But… I'm missing something.

Thing is, this fandom isn't based on any one thing. We're not just here because Zootopia was a kinda cool movie, or Twokinds is pretty sexy, or StarFox looks good when he's fifteen stories tall.

We follow no one IP, no webcomic, no TV show. We follow only one thing:

Ourselves.

WE make the fandom we live in. We're dozens of sexualities, a hundred meetups and conventions, a thousand discord servers and Telegram channels, a million pictures and stories and alt-accounts and roleplays…

We decide what we are.

Aren't we the haven of the weird? The questioning of sexualities? The taboo, even incomprehensible kinks? We joke about vore, knots, gratuitous foot fetishists, but isn't that what makes this place home? Isn't every artist drawing obvious kink art following a beautiful legacy?

We are the monsterfuckers. The maw-obsessed, the paw-sluts, the musk-lovers (er, not that one). With every fetish we draw, every kink we commission, every smut-filled story and problematic character and taboo-laden roleplay…

We're the fandom, making ourselves.

Through being myself, through art and stories and chats and servers, I've found new communities. New friends. New ways to think, new art to enjoy. I've found love, deeper than I ever thought possible.

I've found myself.

And I've been told that through my artwork, stories, friend groups, I've helped people do the same. They've found the words to describe what's been inside them this whole time.

They've found they're not alone.

It's one of the sweetest and most delightful things I've heard.

Yes, it takes bravery to be yourself. You risk being misperceived, either accidentally or wilfully. You risk hurt. You risk confusion. But it's nothing you haven't done before. And in its wake, you will find yourself.

Do not let other people dictate who you are.

Do not let other people dictate who you are.

So when I say to keep furry weird, this is what I mean. Find that part of yourself that yearns to be free, and make this fandom the place for it.

Be yourself. Be so amazingly yourself that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

And Keep. Furry. Weird.

[xx-slug-xx]

Instead of people making call-out posts on an actually horrible person and focusing on the fiction they enjoy, I really wish they would just focus on the actual bad things they have done/said

"OH furry#890893 is a zoophile because they like FERAL! Disgusting! They are not a part of the community because they draw FERAL PORN on their private account! What a degenerate! oh but they also don't believe that trans women are women, that's bad too I guess"

That's how these people sound to me. It's crazy. Like, maybe DON'T save the fact that they are violently bigoted for last and only talk about it a little? I get these types of people are addicted to the engagement they get, and people's weird porn gives them engagement, but it's really not a good look? How can people claim to be the bigger person and know right from wrong when they really don't care about actual harmful things?

[malwarewolf404]

Not to rude but if I hear one more person say Hyena furries are basic or boring or not good I’m actually going to eat my phone. I’m sorry we can’t all be Binturoung-Beaver-Hyrax Hybrids, but Hyenas are some of the most unloved animals in nature and I’ll be damned if saying I imagine myself one is boring just because it has a niche popularity with punks like me. Go rub one out to Fnaf art.

[sir-dyke-genderpunk]

person on tumblr: *had a perfectly balanced and nuanced, down to earth take*

Someone in the replies: You are objectively wrong and you must have a radical black and white view about everything

[scientistservant]

I hate Twitter lol

[thefluffybennett]

why does it feel so *right* to call batman a furry but then it feels fucking awful to do it to the robins....its not like an insult or anything but like... it just fits bruce so much fucking better idk

[monarch-of-weird-girlboy-nation]

The way ppl treat furries is a litmus test for how they treat neurodivergent and/or mentally people

[rockets-capris]

I'm curious (not really) and I'm super hoping this reaches the right audience but like Okay, I keep seeing this argument get passed around that the Harkness test is "outdated" and therefore unusable.

And like. How. Because "outdated" usually means "well, new formulas, data, theories, etc. were discovered and so this one no longer is the most efficient way of determining this thing" and if that's the case, I would love to be cited those.

But I get the feeling that what actually happened is all these anti-furry teenagers from Twitter saw that the test was just "old" and were like "Well, I still think you're a degenerate, so it's wrong because I said so".

I'm sorry, it's just that if there's one thing that will fucking send me over the edge, it's this purity bullshit, and I don't WANT to keep debating the ethics of furry porn in the 2020s but they keep MAKING me!

[transgendermutt]

tbh I’ve literally never understood the hatred directed towards anthropromorphized pokemon smut in the furry community. They’re way less animalistic than like. Actual animals lmao

[mintaikk]

Okay, I've been wrapped up in omegaverse discourse with the whole Alpha and Omega thing, and its so entertaining, so you know what we need?

We need furry discourse like the omegaverse has. I wanna see roleplays with calico cat furries explaining that just bcuz they're a Trans man, doesn't mean they have to die their fur because being a calico isn't gendered. I wanna see discourse about skunks having to demand themselves, and there's protests talking about how bad that can be for their health. I wanna see people argue like the omegaverse does!

[wolfnanaki]

As a furry, what do you think about the recent discourse on NSFW materials featuring quadrupedal talking animal characters?

It's not "discourse", it's puritan teenagers whining on Twitter. Kids who don't know the furry fandom's history or content, who are so desperate to appeal to our oppressors (the same "Pick Me!" bullshit you see from right-wing queer people) that they try to whitewash the weirdest parts of this openly queer fandom. Eliminating "talking animal quadruped" art is like banning leather at Pride.

Personally, it's not something I'm into, but as long as the characters are adults, sapient/self-aware (able to think and speak for themselves), and consenting, it's nothing to get upset about. And those elements are what make it different from "zoo" because non-sapient animals cannot give consent, making depiction of it animal abuse, which is horrible.

You're not going to learn this stuff from some kid screaming on Twitter. You learn this by being in the fandom for a long time, seeing things for yourself, making friends, and cultivating the kind of content you want to see. Twitter is a platform that inherently promotes seeing things you don't like with no context, leading to misunderstandings and confrontations, because it creates site engagement, which makes more money for Elon.

Learn from furry elders! Learn from queer elders! They know what they're talking about! I'm still learning and growing too; I've been looking through vintage queer and furry zines lately and studying the history. If we don't preserve and share our history, our oppressors will rewrite it.

[dsauwishfulfillment]

So high I'm googling, "are mascots appropriating furry culture?"

[kuromibatwings]

sick of the furry tags being filled up with ai """art""" instead of actual talented artists

i keep getting recommended @/agronian specifically and it irritates me. tumblr isn't the place for your ai generated slop, take your rass right back to twitter.

[secret-song]

Someone saying “so you’re into beastiality” in response to “I’m a furry” seems to me to be in the same line of thinking as saying “so you’re a nazi” in response to “I’m German”

[scientistservant]

Also, who cares if the animal character doesn't have a human brain and can't meaningfully consent? It's fiction, no character can meaningfully consent. I'm puppeting them around to do that.

Even as someone who doesn't personally like non-anthro nsfw art, I understand that. This whole thing is so stupid. If someone is hurting a real animal, go after them, not furries who draw their silly little characters.