Crush...Yiff...Destroy!

Anonymous · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 767

Hi all. Hope you don't pile on the newbie here, as I'm not here to provoke anyone. I was honestly curious though, so thought I'd posit something.

Basically I stumbled onto this site last night, a link having been "posted" in a public channel on FurryMUCK. Yeah, I hang out there. ;)

On the one hand, I find the site an interesting place full of information you'd not likely find elsewhere on the fandom. It "pulls back the scab," as it were. Which I find nothing wrong with. Goodness knows the fandom could learn a little more shame from an unblinking and unhateful gaze at its underbelly.

...however, that's really the problem. I've read through the "about" section here, and it presents a not-entirely-unbiased, though concerned image to the reader.

Reading past articles however, finds material, turns of phrase, and opinions that seem to show a more bilious attitude. "Furfag," I found particularly unappealing, though it turns up quite a few times.

So, I guess I'm rather confused as to whether this site is a "hate site" or not. As a self-confessed furry fan, I'd like to believe it isn't... as I do think the fandom could do with a swift kick or twenty in the pants. Oh yes, I do. And I'd like to participate in any discussion or help in any other way possible to the furtherence of revealing and shaming the more sordid details of the fandom as it stands today.

However, I'm also definetely a "furvert," with my own host of oddities, fetishes, and whatever else I engage in gleefully (but privately). Ergo, I find it difficult to pick up stones in my glass house.

Much appreciation in advance for any replies or clarifications to this post.

m_estrugo · Coadjutor Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 160

Myself, I don't -hate- furries. I'm an artist who likes drawing funny animals, who has been in touch with furry fandom for many years, but thought that furry fandom was taking a course I didn't like.

Being so close to furry fandom, I realized about many of the problems it has got, and thus I tried to do my part to improve it. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough, as the problems are still there and apparently are getting worse.

I then decided to follow my own way, although, seeing how closely related this particular fandom is attached to the genre I like to draw, I tell which are the problems, from my point of view, and what could be made to solve them, even partially. Those who want to hear are welcome to do so.

But not everybody in this forum is like me. There are also those who viscerally hate furry fandom and wish it was erradicated from the face of earth. This forum is also plenty with people just full with irrational hate, and it's impossible to deal with them in any way.

You'll find on these forums a lot of people with a lot of motivations, that may differ radically.

Anonymous · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 767

You'll find on these forums a lot of people with a lot of motivations, that may differ radically.

Ahh, like humans everywhere. Even in the fandom. ;)

Aye, it was more the stuff I found in the articles I was refering to. If I had read more of the forum threads before posting, I probably would not have even bothered. (The atmosphere in these fora are far more hostile and biased than even the articles I had trouble with)

Thanks for being so forthcoming though.

Mitch · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 290

On the one hand, I find the site an interesting place full of information you'd not likely find elsewhere on the fandom. It "pulls back the scab," as it were. Which I find nothing wrong with. Goodness knows the fandom could learn a little more shame from an unblinking and unhateful gaze at its underbelly.

...however, that's really the problem. I've read through the "about" section here, and it presents a not-entirely-unbiased, though concerned image to the reader.

Reading past articles however, finds material, turns of phrase, and opinions that seem to show a more bilious attitude. "Furfag," I found particularly unappealing, though it turns up quite a few times.

So, I guess I'm rather confused as to whether this site is a "hate site" or not. As a self-confessed furry fan, I'd like to believe it isn't... as I do think the fandom could do with a swift kick or twenty in the pants. Oh yes, I do. And I'd like to participate in any discussion or help in any other way possible to the furtherence of revealing and shaming the more sordid details of the fandom as it stands today.

However, I'm also definetely a "furvert," with my own host of oddities, fetishes, and whatever else I engage in gleefully (but privately). Ergo, I find it difficult to pick up stones in my glass house.

Much appreciation in advance for any replies or clarifications to this post.

I should really add a disclaimer somewhere saying that "Views expressed by contributors and forum posters are not necessarily those of the webmaster (though they often overlap)". Or something.

Michael Hirtes · Coadjutor Joined: 04 Aug 2003 Posts: 519

Hi all. Hope you don't pile on the newbie here, as I'm not here to provoke anyone. I was honestly curious though, so thought I'd posit something.

Basically I stumbled onto this site last night, a link having been "posted" in a public channel on FurryMUCK. Yeah, I hang out there. ;)

On the one hand, I find the site an interesting place full of information you'd not likely find elsewhere on the fandom. It "pulls back the scab," as it were. Which I find nothing wrong with. Goodness knows the fandom could learn a little more shame from an unblinking and unhateful gaze at its underbelly.

...however, that's really the problem. I've read through the "about" section here, and it presents a not-entirely-unbiased, though concerned image to the reader.

Reading past articles however, finds material, turns of phrase, and opinions that seem to show a more bilious attitude. "Furfag," I found particularly unappealing, though it turns up quite a few times.

So, I guess I'm rather confused as to whether this site is a "hate site" or not. As a self-confessed furry fan, I'd like to believe it isn't... as I do think the fandom could do with a swift kick or twenty in the pants. Oh yes, I do. And I'd like to participate in any discussion or help in any other way possible to the furtherence of revealing and shaming the more sordid details of the fandom as it stands today.

However, I'm also definetely a "furvert," with my own host of oddities, fetishes, and whatever else I engage in gleefully (but privately). Ergo, I find it difficult to pick up stones in my glass house.

Much appreciation in advance for any replies or clarifications to this post.

I'd like to think of this site as an open rebellion against the "kultur politik" that furry fandom (as a mindless, geletaneous blob) tries to force everyone to think in, as well as it's GLARING contradictions (such as the demand that everyone have an "open mind", but if you dare to make an opinion that isn't lock-step with the herd? Oooooooh boy.)

As for the term "fag", it's pretty simple. There are those who are gay or lesbian. They have a preference for the same sex in the same caring, loving way that hetero couple feel for each other.

And then, there are those who are walking stereotypes that you think only existed int he deepest bowels of Rush Limbaugh's nightmares. The ones who are beyond militant, and so flaminging dreadful that they cannot see that their actions are the very reason why their homosexuality is not accepted.

--"Fag" acts like a froot.

--"Mundanes" are disgusted. Think all gays are like that.

-- "Fag" feels persecuted, feels the need to be even MORE of a froot to shore up his self esteem.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Through some manipulation, and just plain circumstance, furry fandom has managed to attract some of the most horrid sociopathic case studies ever known to man. Every genre in fandom has it's oddballs and wierdos, but never in such a high concentration as in the furry crowd.

It's still baffling that they are so entrenched in their fear of anyone trying to escape their furrydom straightjacket that they broaden their definition as to what a "furry" is (if you laughed at a Bugs Bunny cartoon, BAM! Yer now a furry! If you played with Ninja Turtle figures as a kid! FURRY! Gooba Gobbo! One of us!). They cannot comprehend in their narrow little minds that there are people who like the ART FORM, but are NOT going to tolerate idiocy like "yiffing" or "furpiles". What scares them the most is that those who like the art but hate the weirdness may eventually become the dominant species in the genre, thus forcing them back out into whatever rubber room they crawled out of.

I had a stack of VOOTIEs in my possession not too long ago, and looking through these ancient drawings from a time past has reminded me just what was lost in furry fandom when the Merlinos, "Wabbits", and Bondage Bobs started slithering in. It was a rare glimpse into a time when furry erotica (which was being drawn even back then) was just a cute little theme in the art, but not a religion. I would rate the 24 year old vintage VOOTIE material far above the fare of a typical issue of current drek like ASB.

Genghis · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 186

Do I hate furries? Far from it.
Do I hate unremitting imbeciles? Absolutely.

Admittedly, there is a lot of crossover, but personally I prefer to avoid disliking people because of their interests - after all, disliking them for their attitude is much more fun.
Take, for example, a recent discussion over at PoE. A particularly awful comic by the name of Boston and Shaun was the subject. I think everyone here will agree that this comic in particular is just plain bad, in many senses of the word. In any case, we got a visit from a furry crusader, who demanded to know why we all think all furry webcomics are evil, despite the topic of discussion quite plainly being about that comic alone.
This happens more often than we'd like.

So, yeah. this site isn't about bashing furry as a whole. It's about bashing the imbeciles within it. These are the "furfags" of which we speak, and as far as I can tell, you don't appear to be one of them.

Wayd Wolf · Coadjutor Joined: 06 Oct 2003 Posts: 456

Aimed at those who know who they are, you for whom it ain't can ignore it...

It's the reflex action of most of those in furry to refer to criticism as hate, tough love as mean spirited, etc. I've been involved in furry since 96 and tried to be open minded until my brains almost fell out. I tried to stand in the middle of the road and the furverts ran me over from one direction and the Burned Furs from the other. I tried to help people grow up and they only retrenched in their regressive self-defeating behaviours. I tried to avoid becoming an open critic, but finally reached a point where I couldn't anymore.

Wonderful healthy sex would be one thing. Furry sexuality is another. It's not healthy and it is ultimately unsatisfying and unfullfilling to its practitioners who in the end, usually wind up with no signifigant other, no kids, no legacy, no life. Nothing to show for the fursuit yiffing, the spooge wanking, the plush toy boinking, the animal humping, whatever it is they do.

Furries would be better off if they held a con strictly for bare naked no fake fur fucking. One large orgy. But most furries who bury themselves in nonstop thoughts of yiffing can't manage the interpersonal closeness of sex without furry to shield them. They are so deeply warped with fears and self-doubts, only pretending to be a "morph" while they boink will get them by and then just barely. If you can't openly give pleasure to others, and accept pleasure to yourself, without mind numbing fear created of insane funhouse comparisons of yourself to Adrian Paul, you have a problem and need to work on it. Furry sex isn't going to help. And news flash kids, most of society has body image problems. But they let their libidos overcome and they bop away and well, that's where kids and evolution come from. You don't see a very high birth rate among furries even accounting for the confirmed gays.

There's an area where furries will purposely obfuscate. We critics are not generally against sex in furry. We're mostly opposed to the total obsession with it at all times and in all areas. We're definitely opposed to the endless drug-abuse aspect of it where resistance is built and higher doses are necessary to titilate the abusers until they're drawing spooge of NIMH characters boinking the cast of Rescue Rangers

Gay furries tend to be far less tolerant than anyone else in furry and most I've found go around with a chip on their shoulder against the entirety of straights as if every straight they've never met had nothing better to do than devote their energies to persecuting them. Many treat bisexuals as traitors who can't stay away from females and make up their mind. I've met way too many who who make the most flouncing effeminate gay you've ever met outside of furry look like Sylvester Stallone. Wrapped totally in their victimhood, many think furry should be their private twink festival.

Yet another area furries obfuscate. Some critics are gay, some like me and my wife are bi, others are totally straight. Just because we have similar gender preferences does not mean we must automatically condone every excess. You don't see successful gay business professionals wandering around in leather bondage gear attired fursuits generally. Why? They ain't insecure about their own sexuality and don't need to shove it in everyones' faces constantly. I don't go to Provincetown to a gay bar and french-kiss my wife there. We simply do what we do and that's all. In furry, there's this idea that all things not forbidden are compulsory, especially if they get attention. So scare the straights, freak the mundanes, get up in the faces of all and sundry.

Then you've got the nonsexual maladies such as refusal to take any responsibility for the direction of their lives, inability to overcome simple laziness and hold a job, avoidance of acceptance of normal reality and doing what society demands to get around and get ahead.

Yet another area of furry obfuscation there. Those who constantly are without gainful employment, leeching off of everyone else around, and forever whining about how unfair the work world is are tragic victims in furry. We with jobs or with lives are savaged any time we mention them. How dare you pseduo-furry mundanes dare to bring the light of functionality into furry?! Getting places is soooo simple in life. But many furries would rather cut off their nose to spite their face, avoid meshing with non-furs, and be hopeless sacks of shiftless worthlessness. There's nothing special about what I do. Anyone could do the broadband and networking work I do. But fear and laziness overpower so many furs, they think it to be rocket science beyond their ken.

No one said life was fair or easy. My work is up and down along with my income. But I am far better off than the dipshit working on and off for minimum wage jobs part time who can't even afford a car and who has a record of being fired 7 out of every 10 times and quitting the other 3. You go to work, you do the work, you get paid. It's not that hard. You want hard? Cops have it hard. Firemen have it hard. We're not asking you problem furries to be a surgeon. Just apply your natural intelligence and squelch your self-doubts and fears.

On top of the above you have a much larger group of furs who in avoidance of looking at their own selves, defend the sadly dysfunctional to the death, throwing stones at the critics and often-times joining the furverts and losers in their behaviours in solidarity. How is going from working well in the big real world to hanging with people who can't get out of their own way in life a good thing? That's like a Fortune 50 CEO chucking it to spend all his time on a street corner drinking with the vagrants. Hello, Earth to functional furries, the high profile dipshits are not people who need defending and if you cared at all about them as people you'd treat them like family and kick their asses for embarassing you and drill some sense into them.

Then you've got those who are critics in their hearts but cannot bring themselves to be open about it and who carefully and quietly maintain their distance from it all, staying strictly to their little interests in anthropomorphics. They are male, female, gay, straight, what have you, and they are probably several times the size of those openly critical of furry. If they'd finally stop being afraid of alientating a bunch of people who are pro-am self-alienators, and join the crusade, there'd be much more progress.

Instead, we're left with furry slowly imploding under the weight of its own wrongness and hopefully, an afterimage of anthropomorphics will be left to rebuild a new furry from. It's a small and probably hopeless dream, but I'd rather go with that, than go along to get along.

BTW as an example, Primerica, a unit of Citigroup, is hiring all over the freaking place and insurance licensing is astoundingly easy stuff to master. What have you got to lose but another night of useless yiff chat and spooge downloading? Trust me, you'll look better in a suit and with a nice clean-up. You problem furs out there, you're not as ugly as you think, not as worthless as you keep trying to be, and could be the next big success. Or at least, happier than you really are. I know how unhappy they can be. Sooooo many have come to me on IM to let me know and ask old Uncle Wayd how I got out of depression and into happiness. I'll let you know when I figure out for myself. It's a work in progress like the rest of life, so... get to work.

Shmorky · Coadjutor Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 182

I hate furries on a sliding scale... from "slightly annoying" to "so outraged I hope he/she burns in hell."

If you're what I call a "slightly annoying" furry you shouldn't be offended. I am no more disgusted by you than I am by anime fans or comic collectors. I have quirks too. I'm obsessed with Super Mario. The thing is I KNOW it's stupid and I make no arguments about it.

Anonymous · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 767

Long post to reply to, so I apologize in advance for this.

Aimed at those who know who they are, you for whom it ain't can ignore it...

It's the reflex action of most of those in furry to refer to criticism as hate, tough love as mean spirited, etc. I've been involved in furry since 96 and tried to be open minded until my brains almost fell out. I tried to stand in the middle of the road and the furverts ran me over from one direction and the Burned Furs from the other. I tried to help people grow up and they only retrenched in their regressive self-defeating behaviours. I tried to avoid becoming an open critic, but finally reached a point where I couldn't anymore.

Wow, you came into it only a year later than I did. Don't get me wrong, I'm trying to not jump to conclusions here. It's just that from my POV, the articles and the forum posts here are overwhelmingly of the "hate" and "mean spirited" variety.

I suppose it's just the revulsion and cynicism of any group dissociating from the people making up an interest group like this one is. I think my tolerance level for the sort of invective launched here is just a wee bit lower than I'm comfortable with.

Now, I really do sincerely think that the fandom as a whole needs a sharp dose of criticism, "tough love", and well... good old fashioned shame. I just think people here seem to be going a wee bit overboard at times.

Wonderful healthy sex would be one thing. Furry sexuality is another. It's not healthy and it is ultimately unsatisfying and unfullfilling to its practitioners who in the end, usually wind up with no signifigant other, no kids, no legacy, no life. Nothing to show for the fursuit yiffing, the spooge wanking, the plush toy boinking, the animal humping, whatever it is they do.

Hmm, I'll agree to disagree here, in the void of any working definition of "furry sexuality" except what you posit that it is not, here.

There's an area where furries will purposely obfuscate. We critics are not generally against sex in furry. We're mostly opposed to the total obsession with it at all times and in all areas. We're definitely opposed to the endless drug-abuse aspect of it where resistance is built and higher doses are necessary to titilate the abusers until they're drawing spooge of NIMH characters boinking the cast of Rescue Rangers.

This I can tentatively get behind, though I think "drawing spooge of (whatever)" is essentially harmless. No worse than any other strange fetishistic kinks people get involved with. *shrug*

Like anything else though, it can easily go too far. Kink turns to obsession turns into the Monday night news special report.

It's not the spooge itself, but the desperate resolve and singleminded obsession with which people in the furry fandom latch onto it at times. It becomes their whole lives and they can't go anywhere without talking about it, wearing it on a t-shirt, or humping your goddamn leg in an elevator.

Obsession is *always* scary, no matter the object of that obsession. It's just made worse by the object being something that simply has no place in the public "thoughtspace." You just don't bring your sexual kinks on display into the bus terminal with you (well, okay... bus people are scary, so maybe.)

Gay furries tend to be far less tolerant than anyone else in furry and most I've found go around with a chip on their shoulder against the entirety of straights as if every straight they've never met had nothing better to do than devote their energies to persecuting them. Many treat bisexuals as traitors who can't stay away from females and make up their mind. I've met way too many who who make the most flouncing effeminate gay you've ever met outside of furry look like Sylvester Stallone. Wrapped totally in their victimhood, many think furry should be their private twink festival.

I haven't personally known this to be true in my personal experience, though I'll own up to being a "gay furry." But in any cross-section, I think YMMV, certainly. Especially with anecdotal stuff like this.

I won't say I haven't met / seen some of that self-righteous persecution-complex gayfurry posturing you mention. I have. But my social "radar" has had very few pings from them, thankfully.

Yet another area furries obfuscate. Some critics are gay, some like me and my wife are bi, others are totally straight. Just because we have similar gender preferences does not mean we must automatically condone every excess. You don't see successful gay business professionals wandering around in leather bondage gear attired fursuits generally. Why? They ain't insecure about their own sexuality and don't need to shove it in everyones' faces constantly. I don't go to Provincetown to a gay bar and french-kiss my wife there. We simply do what we do and that's all. In furry, there's this idea that all things not forbidden are compulsory, especially if they get attention. So scare the straights, freak the mundanes, get up in the faces of all and sundry.

Absolutely spot-on. If it's one thing I've learned to hate with any real zeal about the fandom, it's the cultlike fuckweird superiority complex some display. If I never hear the word "mundanes" again, it will be too soon.

Then you've got the nonsexual maladies such as refusal to take any responsibility for the direction of their lives, inability to overcome simple laziness and hold a job, avoidance of acceptance of normal reality and doing what society demands to get around and get ahead.

(lots more of this snipped)

While you're right about this to a degree, I think you find a high number of those people everywhere. Moreso in any geek fandom than without, where insecurities run rampant. This strikes me as something not really a "furry" thing. As much as I hate falling back on the anecdotal, I think we all "know that person" who's a bumfuck leech and won't make anything of themselves.

On top of the above you have a much larger group of furs who in avoidance of looking at their own selves, defend the sadly dysfunctional to the death, throwing stones at the critics and often-times joining the furverts and losers in their behaviours in solidarity. How is going from working well in the big real world to hanging with people who can't get out of their own way in life a good thing? That's like a Fortune 50 CEO chucking it to spend all his time on a street corner drinking with the vagrants. Hello, Earth to functional furries, the high profile dipshits are not people who need defending and if you cared at all about them as people you'd treat them like family and kick their asses for embarassing you and drill some sense into them.

I'll agree and disagree with this. I don't see anything wrong with "slumming," so long as people are personally worthwhile despite their drawbacks. The question is one of tolerance level. Where I agree with you is that there's lines that are crossed and like a family you need to be able to dress them down equally for being fuckwits before they're not worth your (or anybody else's) time.

Then you've got those who are critics in their hearts but cannot bring themselves to be open about it and who carefully and quietly maintain their distance from it all, staying strictly to their little interests in anthropomorphics. They are male, female, gay, straight, what have you, and they are probably several times the size of those openly critical of furry. If they'd finally stop being afraid of alientating a bunch of people who are pro-am self-alienators, and join the crusade, there'd be much more progress.

Or would there? I'm still unconvinced that the "crusade" is worthwhile. We're not psychologists and the furry fandom is rife with headcases. Moreso than any other fandom I've interacted with yet. One cannot shame the shameless and one cannot fix those who don't believe that they're broken. They have to at some point want help.

Wayd Wolf · Coadjutor Joined: 06 Oct 2003 Posts: 456

Long post to reply to, so I apologize in advance for this.

Aimed at those who know who they are, you for whom it ain't can ignore it...

It's the reflex action of most of those in furry to refer to criticism as hate, tough love as mean spirited, etc. I've been involved in furry since 96 and tried to be open minded until my brains almost fell out. I tried to stand in the middle of the road and the furverts ran me over from one direction and the Burned Furs from the other. I tried to help people grow up and they only retrenched in their regressive self-defeating behaviours. I tried to avoid becoming an open critic, but finally reached a point where I couldn't anymore.

Wow, you came into it only a year later than I did. Don't get me wrong, I'm trying to not jump to conclusions here. It's just that from my POV, the articles and the forum posts here are overwhelmingly of the "hate" and "mean spirited" variety.

I don't see them so much as hate as anger. Many if not most of us have been around a while. Mike Hirtes has been around forever it seems. We had an idea of what anthropomorphics should be, how socialization should be, friendship building, etc. We then began to see how seriously fucked up things really were. We tried to stifle our qualms, but that didn't work. We tried to air our concerns. We were laughed at. We grew louder about our displeasure. We were derided. We finally had enough. In most cases, that's the way it seems to have gone.

I suppose it's just the revulsion and cynicism of any group dissociating from the people making up an interest group like this one is. I think my tolerance level for the sort of invective launched here is just a wee bit lower than I'm comfortable with.

It's called a Clue By Four. It needs to be swung hard as their virtual heads are thick and not given to passing sense easily.

Now, I really do sincerely think that the fandom as a whole needs a sharp dose of criticism, "tough love", and well... good old fashioned shame. I just think people here seem to be going a wee bit overboard at times.

Illustrating absurdity by being absurd as Rush Limbaugh calls it, is not always pretty and comes in wide varieties. But the wretched excesses of furry bring to mind anger and makes it so much easier to slam furry around. I find no problem with it. Furries have no problem slamming mundanes and anyone who runs afoul of their million and one political cliques. Why should they have problems with being slammed back? Oh yeah, I remember... furries are righteous to slam but righteous in being slammed. IOW, victims forver and justified in any rotten thing they say or do.

Wonderful healthy sex would be one thing. Furry sexuality is another. It's not healthy and it is ultimately unsatisfying and unfullfilling to its practitioners who in the end, usually wind up with no signifigant other, no kids, no legacy, no life. Nothing to show for the fursuit yiffing, the spooge wanking, the plush toy boinking, the animal humping, whatever it is they do.

Hmm, I'll agree to disagree here, in the void of any working definition of "furry sexuality" except what you posit that it is not, here.

I've been exposed to exactly what I stated above. People with cum-encrusted plush toys, people who could not get hard without a fursuit by their own admission, people begging me to say that fucking their dog was okay with me. THIS is what I've observed of furry sexuality.

There's an area where furries will purposely obfuscate. We critics are not generally against sex in furry. We're mostly opposed to the total obsession with it at all times and in all areas. We're definitely opposed to the endless drug-abuse aspect of it where resistance is built and higher doses are necessary to titilate the abusers until they're drawing spooge of NIMH characters boinking the cast of Rescue Rangers.

This I can tentatively get behind, though I think "drawing spooge of (whatever)" is essentially harmless. No worse than any other strange fetishistic kinks people get involved with. *shrug*

The fetishes outside of furry are their own standalone things. Trekdom is NOT defined by beating the crap out of a woman while speaking an invented language with a greater chance of choking the speaker accidentally than French and then plowing her. Klingon sex is a sideline and no one I ever met in Trek and not wanted to immediately pummel with the nearest fire axe would ever claim it was part and parcel of Trek.

Not so in furry. Furry sex is widely defined as one and the same as furry by many of its practitioners.

Like anything else though, it can easily go too far. Kink turns to obsession turns into the Monday night news special report.

It's not the spooge itself, but the desperate resolve and singleminded obsession with which people in the furry fandom latch onto it at times. It becomes their whole lives and they can't go anywhere without talking about it, wearing it on a t-shirt, or humping your goddamn leg in an elevator.

So you've had that happen? Given that most furries are generally broke, you know those hard bulges bumping into you on the elevator mean "happy to see you". I just feel I need a long shower.

Obsession is *always* scary, no matter the object of that obsession. It's just made worse by the object being something that simply has no place in the public "thoughtspace." You just don't bring your sexual kinks on display into the bus terminal with you (well, okay... bus people are scary, so maybe.)

Gay furries tend to be far less tolerant than anyone else in furry and most I've found go around with a chip on their shoulder against the entirety of straights as if every straight they've never met had nothing better to do than devote their energies to persecuting them. Many treat bisexuals as traitors who can't stay away from females and make up their mind. I've met way too many who who make the most flouncing effeminate gay you've ever met outside of furry look like Sylvester Stallone. Wrapped totally in their victimhood, many think furry should be their private twink festival.

I haven't personally known this to be true in my personal experience, though I'll own up to being a "gay furry." But in any cross-section, I think YMMV, certainly. Especially with anecdotal stuff like this.

I won't say I haven't met / seen some of that self-righteous persecution-complex gayfurry posturing you mention. I have. But my social "radar" has had very few pings from them, thankfully.

Count your blessings. I've run into far far too many. Some of whom have tried to come between me and longtime friends. More of that Geek Myths thing. They don't believe friendship is transitive either and employ that belief as if they being friends of my friends mean my friends must not be allowed to remain my friends. Such sabotaging of relationships is one of their nonsensical pasttimes.

I don't have time for gay soap opera any more than I do straight. If you problem kids want to suck sausage, go for it. Have fun. Get yourself on seancody.com for all I care. Just because I don't run up and grab your crotch and exclaim loudly about the benefits of your choice doesn't mean I'm part of some straight white Christian male hegemony out to see you tied to a fence post. Calm down. Lack of rabid acceptance doesn't denote intent to persecute. Try decaf.

Yet another area furries obfuscate. Some critics are gay, some like me and my wife are bi, others are totally straight. Just because we have similar gender preferences does not mean we must automatically condone every excess. You don't see successful gay business professionals wandering around in leather bondage gear attired fursuits generally. Why? They ain't insecure about their own sexuality and don't need to shove it in everyones' faces constantly. I don't go to Provincetown to a gay bar and french-kiss my wife there. We simply do what we do and that's all. In furry, there's this idea that all things not forbidden are compulsory, especially if they get attention. So scare the straights, freak the mundanes, get up in the faces of all and sundry.

Absolutely spot-on. If it's one thing I've learned to hate with any real zeal about the fandom, it's the cultlike fuckweird superiority complex some display. If I never hear the word "mundanes" again, it will be too soon.

Get ready for "too soon". You could at one point set your watch by it on alt.fan.furry.

Then you've got the nonsexual maladies such as refusal to take any responsibility for the direction of their lives, inability to overcome simple laziness and hold a job, avoidance of acceptance of normal reality and doing what society demands to get around and get ahead.

(lots more of this snipped)

While you're right about this to a degree, I think you find a high number of those people everywhere. Moreso in any geek fandom than without, where insecurities run rampant. This strikes me as something not really a "furry" thing. As much as I hate falling back on the anecdotal, I think we all "know that person" who's a bumfuck leech and won't make anything of themselves.

Furry has too many for statistical chance to account for. Furry actively welcomes it. Yet have you noted how many of the supposedly destitute make every freaking convention every year? I can't make Plymouth, MA without gas money yet some of these cretins make a seven thousand mile total round trip.

On top of the above you have a much larger group of furs who in avoidance of looking at their own selves, defend the sadly dysfunctional to the death, throwing stones at the critics and often-times joining the furverts and losers in their behaviours in solidarity. How is going from working well in the big real world to hanging with people who can't get out of their own way in life a good thing? That's like a Fortune 50 CEO chucking it to spend all his time on a street corner drinking with the vagrants. Hello, Earth to functional furries, the high profile dipshits are not people who need defending and if you cared at all about them as people you'd treat them like family and kick their asses for embarassing you and drill some sense into them.

I'll agree and disagree with this. I don't see anything wrong with "slumming," so long as people are personally worthwhile despite their drawbacks. The question is one of tolerance level. Where I agree with you is that there's lines that are crossed and like a family you need to be able to dress them down equally for being fuckwits before they're not worth your (or anybody else's) time.

It's not slumming to them. It's a matter of them giving in to their self-doubts and avoiding their guilty consciences and indentifying with the clods. When people with college degrees and real careers ahead turn to spend their time with and defend people doing spooge of such astounding shocking nature that even Al Goldstein would toss his cookies, who can't hold a job due to severe laziness, and can't speak two sentences without saying the word "yiff", it's not right.

Then you've got those who are critics in their hearts but cannot bring themselves to be open about it and who carefully and quietly maintain their distance from it all, staying strictly to their little interests in anthropomorphics. They are male, female, gay, straight, what have you, and they are probably several times the size of those openly critical of furry. If they'd finally stop being afraid of alientating a bunch of people who are pro-am self-alienators, and join the crusade, there'd be much more progress.

Or would there? I'm still unconvinced that the "crusade" is worthwhile. We're not psychologists and the furry fandom is rife with headcases. Moreso than any other fandom I've interacted with yet. One cannot shame the shameless and one cannot fix those who don't believe that they're broken. They have to at some point want help.

There's no way they ever will think they need help as long as the majority shelter them and tell them that what they do is okay and fine. As long as they are given anyone in any real numbers who will give them that lifeline, who will give them absolution for their idiocy, they will cling to it and avoid their own stunted and withered consciences.

Not necessary? It is if we want to salvage anything that is good still in furry. Or face rebuilding from absolute scratch. Note how many very good artists abandoned furry in the wake of CF8 and then Burned Fur. Too many have been lost because too many have driven others away by their behaviours. Do we need to lose many more? Do we need to lose good authors? Do we need to lose the truly creative and altogether? Should we abandon it to a yiff pit?

Anonymous · Coadjutor Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 767

I'm new around here as well. I ran into this site a while ago, and I read nearly everything on it. I 'joined' the furry fandom a year ago, thinking it was all about cartoon animals. Sure, there was some porn, but I thought the majority of it was clean. I was so wrong.

Oh, Wayd Wolf, you are so right on with the vicious behavior of furries. The main problem is that they shield themselves away from reality, thinking that everyone else is just an object that gives them HUGGLES and SKRITCHIES to make them feel better when someone passes by and tells them that they aren't perfect. These are people so deluded that they somehow think that everyone else that says something contrary to their own opinion is a 'meanie' and a 'Nazi KKK hy00man', all the while flapping their ample jowls about 'niceness' and 'tolerance'.

And, GuestFur: As others have said here, not everyone hates the furry fandom. Some of them are entertained, some are disgusted, some are confused, some are jaded furries wanting to change it. When I looked around here, I didn't see any hate.

Ethan A. Stanger · Rasophore Joined: 23 Oct 2003 Posts: 53

I'm new around here as well. I ran into this site a while ago, and I read nearly everything on it. I 'joined' the furry fandom a year ago, thinking it was all about cartoon animals. Sure, there was some porn, but I thought the majority of it was clean. I was so wrong.

If you like something (cartoon animals) , what's the point of joining a fandom?

And, GuestFur: As others have said here, not everyone hates the furry fandom. Some of them are entertained, some are disgusted, some are confused, some are jaded furries wanting to change it. When I looked around here, I didn't see any hate.

I'm disgusted at it more so than others here (probably to the level that Mr. Hirtes is at). Not for the sexual deviants who run amock, but for it being a fandom and taking an unprofessional swing at the arts.