#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

[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!

[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

[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!

[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

[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.

[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.

[6knotty6thotty6]

Non-Furry (Normie) Friends

There’s a tweet that’s been circling around that’s caused some interesting discourse. 

Here’s the tweet (along with the sub-tweets due to the character limit):

“Every furry should have at least a couple of boring normie friends to keep themselves grounded in reality tbh. 

Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s wise to surround yourself ONLY with people that exist within your niche. Diverse friends is good, I like my boring friends :)

This was meant to be interpreted as “sometimes hang out with people who like boring stuff like sports and cars”

This doesn’t mean you should try to be friends with conservatives and bigots, thas a completely different discussion

aight i see now. my biggest mistake was using the word "boring". obviously these normie friends should still have common interests you guys share. i mainly meant people who arent all about anthro animals/do not associate with the furry fandom. thats all. muting this now.”

This tweet is a mixed bag for me. Obviously, I don’t blame the writer of this tweet. Character limits make any intelligent discussion borderline impossible without just copying and pasting a twitlonger. Some of the comments though show me that some people just fail to realize why some people joined the fandom in the first place. 

At the risk of sounding cheeky, the answer is most of us joined the fandom BECAUSE we couldn’t make “normie” friends. Here are some reasons why:

1. Some people live in small towns where public transportation and sidewalks either don’t exist or are only available in cities. Gas is more expensive than ever, so driving to see friends isn’t a sustainable option. Befriending co-workers is an option, but certain workspaces are so hostel and competitive, it makes friendships more of a liability. It's even harder if you're a different age, race, gender, sexuality, etc from the majority of your co-workers. This is an example of how even "normies" don't like making friends out of their comfort zone. These are especially true with jobs in Corporate America when bosses will hold promotions over people’s heads and force them to see their co-workers as enemies to gain superiority over. Social spaces that don’t require spending money, in general, are almost nonexistent. So if you’re too poor to afford to hang out at bars, coffee shops, or gyms, then there really aren’t that many good options for adults to just hang out and meet people. There are clubs for adults, but almost of them require money for entry, and again the ability to transport yourself there. Volunteering is also an option, but some people's jobs are so time-consuming and stressful, that people are too exhausted to spend energy anywhere else.

2. Many furries were traumatized by non-furries from being bullied in school. Even now in 2023, kids are still being bullied for being furries. School can be a real social nightmare for children who aren’t considered “normal.” Any iota of difference can be grounds for bullying. I’m sure a lot of people had that one “weird kid” in their school that everyone was told to say away from. I doubt that “weird kid” was gonna grow up to be a social butterfly. Cliques are also a big deal. If you weren't in a clique, you didn't have friends. I didn’t fit into any cliques in my high school. I wasn’t smart enough to hang around the AP kids. I was rejected by several sports teams for not being able to keep up, so hanging out with the sporty kids was out. I was in band, but the teachers discouraged socializing as it was a distraction from practice, and I was too much of a teacher’s pet to disobey the rules. I was also an introvert. People in general don’t have much sympathy for introverts, especially if they’re not neurodivergent. People often tell us “Just stop being shy” or “just walk up and talk to people, it’s not that hard” when we lament how hard it is to make friends. Some real bootstrap mentality and victim-blaming rhetoric. When you add having niche interest, or god forbid interests outside of your assigned race/gender, then it's no wonder many teenagers end up feeling lonely. 

3. On that topic, being disabled and neurodivergent also makes finding nonfurry friends extremely challenging. We sadly still live in an ableist society where the vast majority of people think you can just buy some magic pills that’ll make you feel normal. If people either chose not to do that, or can’t due to lack of money, then they’re seen as selfish/lazy and deserving of being alone. Even though I’m neurotypical, it doesn’t take a genius to do some basic research to see why it’s not easy for neurodivergents people to just “act normal.” Even when neurodivergent try explain themselves, people either don’t listen or still treat them as lesser because they’re “too difficult to deal with.” For neurotypicals, “acting normal” is as second nature as breathing. So meeting other people who can’t do it, causes a lot of judgment and even resentment. "Acting normal" for some people can feel like playing 5d chess with quantum physics. This is the same struggles that cause some people to become hikikomoris. Hikikomoris are seen as losers who are too lazy or selfish to fix themselves. In reality, a lot of them are just mentally ill and/or neurodivergent people whom no one made any effort to understand. Instead of receiving help, they got left behind with nowhere to go but the internet. 

Reminds me of another tweet I saw months before the current one (written by an autistic furry):

“i get so comfortable and caught up in the "normalcy" of my social groups and my every day lifestyle and get violently snapped back to the reality that i am fundamentally Different. trying to have any kind of conversation with a neurotypical feels so very alienating. I spend so much time holed up in my little cave talking to my friends and the comfort of it lulls me into a false sense of "...maybe i am fine and okay? my brain works perfectly and i can function well" but any deviation from that is so disastrous to my self and my routine. It just feels like nothing i do or say is the right thing to do or say. and suddenly they're getting mad at me for things i couldn't anticipate. what am i missing? i apparently missed every single warning sign.”

4. It’s no secret that the vast majority of furries are queer. It’s also no secret how queer folks often get treated in the real world. Especially if people are unlucky enough to be queer in the South. For queer people who grew up away from any major cities in conservative households with no access to any transportation, finding anyone who treats you like a human, let alone a friend, can be a real needle in the haystack situation. I'm aromantic asexual and an AFAB non-binary. I have “normie” friends, but all of them are allosexual cis women because they were the only ones who tolerated me. They were nice, but I had little to nothing in common with them outside of caring about our grades. Sexuality is a big deal in high school due to that being the time when everyone is going through puberty. I never cared about dating. So engaging in “who’s the hottest?” “who’s more marriage material?” or “who are you taking to the prom?” banter was impossible. I had to lie about who I was crushing on so people wouldn’t spread roomers that I was a lesbian. I tried being friends with boys, but cis straight teenage boys don’t exactly treat female-presenting people the best, or at least in a non-sexual way.

5. The furry fandom has a level of communal support that "normies" just don’t really provide. Every day I see so many furries promote their friends on their social media pages to help them pay for debt, medical procedures, or just to keep up with bills. Nonfurries don’t really do that. Not to say people's nonfurries have never helped them. It's just that we sadly live in a very individualistic sociality where we’re encouraged to only look out for ourselves. People may make exceptions for their best friends, but it’s unlikely that a community of nonfurries would donate to a random stranger’s GoFundMed compared to furries, especially outside of the internet. People don't open up their doors for official charity associations, let alone strangers asking for donations. The closest you’ll see nonfurries showing any kind of communal support is a church, even then that type of support is only reserved for Christians. It’s also doubtful that they’d pool their money to help a trans person receive gender-affirming surgery. This goes into a bigger discussion about how the concept of communities doesn’t really exist anymore. We live in a very individualistic society where asking for help is a sign of moral failure or weakness, especially if you’re a man. Neighborhoods, especially in the suburbs, are built so it's easy for people to only look out for wherever lives in their home. Everyone else doesn’t matter, or at the very least is second nature. Unless you’re lucky enough to live in a “safe” neighborhood that hosts community events like house parties and BBQs, most people’s neighbors are basically strangers. This is why suburban housewives are prone to feeling isolated and alone. The furry fandom fulfills that need for community that a lot of people were lacking in their personal lives. 

For clarity, I have absolutely nothing against non-furries, or befriending them. I still try to keep up with my "boring normie" friends by sending birthday shoutouts on social media and mailing them Christmas cards. The harsh truth is I’ll never be as close with them as I was in high school since we’re just too different at this point in our lives. They’re all in separate states, have time-consuming career paths, and as previously stated are all allosexual cis women who are either already married with children or dating. It’s just not possible for me to make friends outside of the fandom, at least in my current state. I’ve moved 8 times throughout my life, so I have no childhood friends. I went to college during the peak of the pandemic and took mostly online classes, so I didn’t make any college friends. I live with my mom and have all solitary hobbies. I’ve also mentioned that I’m introverted, so hanging around people irl physically and mentally exhausts me. 

So with all this in mind, I hope it’s easier to understand why most furries aren’t exactly interested in having “normie” friends. The fandom was originally created as a safe haven for people who were rejected by the outside world and had nowhere to go. This sentiment grew even more with social media where people outside of America were able to find a home. I wasn’t able to socialize with anyone my age or have people to call my best friends until I joined the fandom. Also, it’s not fair to think of all furries as the same. Yes, some furries are extremely infantilized, self-centered, and only speak in “uwu” and “owo.” However, in my personal experience, furries are just normal people who happen to indulge in the same hobby. I have furry friends who are STEM majors, work in music, are married with children, and have vastly different queer experiences. I think the fact that all these vastly different people who never would’ve even spoken to each other in real life are united under the same common interest is kinda beautiful. As the world grows more and more hostile towards, well, anyone who’s not a cis het white middle-class man, people need the communal support of the fandom more than ever. Instead of shaming furries who are “terminally online,” we should instead address the larger issue of why our current society is built in a way that makes certain people heavily rely on online spaces for love and support in the first place. 

If “normies” treated each other with the same unjudgemental kindness and support as furries, then the fandom wouldn’t have been created in the first place.

[correspondingnerd]

honestly, I feel like a lot of people who dislike furries haven't learned to be comfortable with the fact that there are always going to be people you don't understand. So much bullshit discourse comes of people being offended about people they don't understand. I used to dislike furries until I learned to be comfortable with this.

Never trust a furry disliker

[transgendermutt]

Put ur clothes back on. We're going to talk about puritanism in the furry community and how certain sects of the fandom consider being into knots zoophilia while also engaging in petplay, the maws vs. paws debate, teratophilia, and The Six Nipples Thing