| The beanie-wearing science-fiction loving nerds of the 1930s were the spiritual grandfathers of many a bohemian subculture. "Fandoms" have emerged, split, fractured, shimmied and stormed the gates of various consumer culture heavens for most of this century. One branch of the fandom tree, "furry fandom" has found itself with an increasingly extreme and odd set of ideals and practices, ideals and practices far removed from the attachment of a human-seeming posture and limbs to cute little animals. Furry fandom, at its most fundamental, is an appreciation of furry creatures, anthropomorphic animals, and the media surrounding them. Furry fans may enjoy Mickey Mouse, centaurs, art and comics, and may even make furry costumes for furry conventions and parties. However, furry fandom - helpfully pushed along by the Internet - has also developed into a lifestyle choice. The furry lifestyle can consist of, among other things, insisting that one is an animal. The most extreme furry fans don't just like wolves or dragons or duck-billed platypuses, they are wolves, dragons or duck-billed platypuses. Their souls are anyway, and these souls are trapped in tedious human bodies. Often (mis)appropriating animist religious principles to explain their dysmorphia, some of these furries engage in "fursuit sex" (dry humping in costume), "plushie sex" (take that, you carny-won stuffed giraffe!) or simply wait around for biotechnology to advance to such a point where they could really be a fox (with wings! And a ten inch penis! And magical powers!). Others are satisfied with plain ol' coitus, which they call "yiffing" after the mythical noise two (or more) anthropomorphic animals would make if they were real and would have sex with one another. Not all furries are lifestylers, of course. Flame wars have been raging over the introduction of religions and sexual techniques to furry fandom since the early 1990s at least, when FurryMUCK (a long-standing and popular MUD concentrating on Furry roleplaying) emerged as a pole of attraction for furries of all stripes. One group, calling itself "Burned Furs" even attempted to eject lifestylers from furry fandom altogether; the Burned Furs claimed that the lifestylers - especially the zoophiliacs - were ruining their wholesome comic book fun. This group, which is pretty obviously authoritarian and prudish as well as anti-zoophilic, quickly found itself countered by the lifestyle-oriented Freezing Furs, and by Furry Peace, a wishy-washy group which hopes to create a general environment of tolerance within fandom. Given the vicious infighting that infects nearly every fandom (the old beanie-wearers have taken to hashing out their problems with court cases as well as stinging fanzine letters), one can only wish them good luck. The cultural detritus of furry fandom is stunning in both its quantity and vapidity. Furry porn (drawn and written), furry conventions, furry exegeses on the nature of Being and Furriness, manifestos and rules for conduct multiply across the web like rabbits. Like science fiction, furry artifacts and ephemera is prone to Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud. But what crud it is! Not only can you find someone who also likes to have sex with stuffed toys, you can learn how to avoid getting syphilis from a Babs Bunny that was passed around too often. Hey boys, like giant breasts? We got six-melon sized hooters on our skunks that walk like women! Need a freshmen philosophy paper? How about an essay on whether animals should be given the right to consent to sexual activity with human beings? Furry fandom truly has something for everyone...to stare at with a peculiar mixture of horror and intrigue. |
|
|
FoxMagik's Desc
Furrydom is not just weird, it is downright purple in its prose. Here we have a description of a fox (don't ever call him a human being) named FoxMagick. As you can see, his "thingy" is four inches in length. Even more interesting, the rules for associating with this fellow, which include: "Deny not my being vulpine. I am a fox. Anyone who is close to me must accept that, or I will remove their presence from mine, by force if required." He also adds, "Do not attempt to spar with me unless you intend to be killed or you intend to kill me." Oh-kay, pal.
Furnation
A poorly-designed portal for Furry websites designed by one Jurann Foxtail. There are lots of member sites off this link though, and some of them are worth spending all night looking for. Jurann's own Web site includes furry poetry and artwork, par for the course. He also wrote a "glossary" which gives a number of inaccurate etymologies for MUD/MUCK based words.
Furry Inflation Page
You know, furry inflation. You mean you haven't heard of it? Well, here is a page all about it. Not just about furries, it is also about balloons, and latex, and even crazier art than usual. Actually a pretty fun page with a cute little section on inflatable anthropomorphic animal sex dolls, but poor linkage to the main page makes this site lose a pyramid. Story topics include "consensual exploding."
Burned Fur: The Official Home Page
Shrieking bonehead nerds. They dislike lifestylers, furry religionists, "spooge" (pornographic furry art) and oddly, veganism. The Burned Fur manifesto's demands for furry "perverts" to go back into the closet are reminiscent of the Religious Right, and its rhetoric is clearly hate-filled. Par for the course for fandom, this conflict brings back memories of the conflict science fiction fandom had over excluding a potential pedophile from science fiction conventions.
The Freezing Furs Homepage
This is the page that is working to defend furry fandom from the Puritan creeps of the Burned Fur faction. Well-organized page, but full of half-baked accusations. For example, the Freezers claim that the Burned Furs support, among other things: "dictatorial communism, Marxism, violence, Nazi influence and propaganda, and much more sinisterial ideologies." Do the Marxist furs and the Nazi furs ever yiff, or do they just pee on one another to determine supremacy?
FurPeace
A group designed to heal the rifts in the furry community, presented with all the earnestness and righteousness of a classroom of Long Island high schoolers writing to Slobodan Milosevic to ask him to please, please, please, stop killing all those people they heard were being killed somewhere. Good links though!
YifFurries
A listing, with contact information, of furries who enjoy "yiffy" (sexual) activities. Click here to meet folks like FurryNutz, "a cute zebra with a nice ass," or Soaranth, "a broad black dragon, with a deep dark red underside that is also on his wings." Yeah, I can't picture a dragon with an underside on his wings either. I admire this groups of people for getting right to the point with their desires, rather than closeting themselves or being obnoxiously coy about it though. Rock on, zebra boy!
Creature Comforts
A reprint of a Marie Claire article (1997) on furries, with photos. Concentrating on fursuiters, I was amused to see the author claim that furriness is something Americans do. Don't feel left out Europe, there are plenty of people who think they are winged foxes in your cities and towns as well. Now all I need to do is find a "hot kangaroo costume" and we will be able to cancel the "Win A Dream Date With A Disinfo Writer" contest I've been planning.
Snuggle Time
This Salon magazine article (June 19th, 2000) by David Hill is the usual Salon stuff: interesting topic, but chock fill of bourgeois boredom masking as reportage. No analysis of note, but plenty of juicy quotes. Tedium. And of course they ripped me off: is it just a coincidence that the article appeared after the Furry Fandom dossier had gotten a ton of attention the week before?
Fluff Productions
The Web site of the lucky fur who managed to snag the magic word, "yiff" as the domain. This site is, unlike a lot of other furry sites, well-produced and quick loading. And it has pictures of otters using dildos on one another. Who can ask for anything more?
FoxWolfie Galen's Furry Plushie Page
First and most importantly, find a stuffed animal that appeals to you in a very personal way. It may take time, but eventually you'll find one that's irresistible. If you currently have a stuffed animal that you've got special feelings for, chances are you've already expressed those emotions in some intimate manner. A lot of good info, if you're into this sort of thing!
|
|
