Furry fandom

Some furry fans create and wear costumes of their characters, commonly known as fursuits

Furry fandom is a fandom distinguished by its enjoyment of anthropomorphic, often humanoid, animal characters. Examples of anthropomorphism in the furry fandom include the attribution of human intelligence, facial expressions, and often anatomy, speech, bipedalism, and the wearing of clothes. Members of this subculture are sometimes known as furry fans, furries, or simply furs.

Art and entertainment celebrated by furry fandom includes fictional work that employs the concept of animal characters with human characteristics, rather than any particular type of fiction. For this reason, any work, in any medium, may be considered of interest to furry fans simply by inclusion of a fantastic animal character, although such characters are most often seen in comics, cartoons, animated films, allegorical novels, and video games. The science fiction and fantasy genres make frequent use of anthropomorphism, and as a result, are especially popular in furry fandom.

Since the 1980s, the term furries has come to refer to anthropomorphic animal characters. Although mammals are the most common, anthropomorphized reptiles, birds or aquatic animals may also be known as furries (sometimes "scalies", "avians," or "aquatics," respectively).

History and inspiration

According to YARF!, a magazine run by members of the fandom, the concept of 'furry' originated at a science fiction convention in 1980, when a drawing of a character from Steve Gallacci’s Albedo Anthropomorphics initiated a discussion of anthropomorphic characters in science fiction novels, which in turn initiated a discussion group that met at science fiction and comics conventions.

However, fans consider the beginnings of furry fandom to be much earlier. Fictional works such as Kimba, The White Lion released in 1965, Richard Adams' novel Watership Down, published in 1972 (and its 1978 film adaptation), as well as Disney's Robin Hood are oft-cited examples of the beginnings of furry fandom. To distinguish them from seriously depicted animal characters, such as Lassie or Old Yeller, cartoon animals are referred to as funny animals, a term that came into use in the 1910s.

During the 1980s, furry fans began to publish fanzines, developing a diverse social group, that eventually began to schedule social gatherings. By 1987, there was sufficient interest to stage the first furry convention.

Throughout the next decade, the Internet became accessible to the general population, and became the most popular means for furry fans to socialize. The newsgroup alt.fan.furry was created in November of 1990, and virtual environments such as MUCKs also became popular places on the Internet for fans to meet and communicate. One of the oldest and largest MUCKs in existence is FurryMUCK.

Art and literature

Sculpture by Wicked Sairah at Further Confusion

Furry fans participate in the arts, including amateur and professional illustrators, comic strip authors, painters, sculptors, writers, musicians, and craftspeople. Furry fans are eager for more material than is available from mainstream publishers, and this demand is met by other fans, who range from amateur to professional. These artists, writers, and publishers produce a prolific amount of drawings, paintings, stories, comic books, fanzines, puppets, and small press books, as well as sculpture, textile art, fiction, music, and photography. Some artists also produce a wide variety of erotic artwork, which is a subject of controversy both inside and outside of the fandom.

While most fan-created art is distributed through nonprofessional media, such as personal websites, some is published in anthologies, by Amateur Press Associations, or in APAzines. A few works of furry art have been released in mainstream culture, and furry artwork has appeared on commercial apparel.

There are several webcomics featuring animal characters created by furry fans; as such, they may be referred to as "furry comics". One such comic, T.H.E. Fox, was first published on CompuServe in 1986, predating the World Wide Web by several years.

Some websites devoted entirely to furry artwork exist[1][2], while other sites contain furry artwork under the term "anthro."[3] Many artists maintain their own, independent websites as well.

Crafts

Fans with craft skills create their own plush toys, sometimes referred to as plushies; and also build elaborate costumes called fursuits, which are worn for fun or to participate in parades, convention masquerades, dances, or fund-raising charity events (as entertainers). Many fursuits feature simple construction and resemble sports mascots, and others feature more sophisticated construction that includes moving jaw mechanisms, animatronic parts, prosthetic makeup, and other features. Fursuits can cost upwards of $1,000. Some furry fans pursue puppetry, recording videos and performing live shows such as Rapid T. Rabbit and Friends and the Funday PawPet Show.

Role playing

Furry fans create anthropomorphic animal characters in order to engage in role-playing sessions on the Internet; these characters may be used in MUDs, on Internet forums, or on electronic mailing lists, and are known as fursonas. The longest-running online furry role-playing environment is FurryMUCK (although it was predated by the GE-run BBS called The Beastie Board in which conversation occasionally led to role-play). Another popular online furry social game is called Furcadia, created by Dragon's Eye Productions. There are also several furry-themed areas and communities in the virtual world Second Life. An online gaming community called Skotos currently offers a furry roleplaying game called Iron Claw Online and Right Brain Games is currently making a furry massively multiplayer online role-playing game titled Antilia. Iron Realms Entertainment is also currently developing an MMORPG, Earth Eternal, which will feature anthropomorphic animals as playable races. This will not be the first, as EverQuest II has anthropomorphic cats (Kerrans), frogs (Frogloks), lizards (Iksar), and rats (Ratonga). World of Warcraft also makes available the Tauren, which are a race of minotaurs.

Conventions

Furry fans prepare for a race at Midwest FurFest 2006

Main article: Furry convention

Sufficient interest and membership has enabled the creation of many furry conventions in North America and Europe. The largest of these is Anthrocon held annually in Pittsburgh in July. One convention, Further Confusion, held in San Jose each January, closely follows Anthrocon in scale and attendance. The total attendance for furry conventions exceeded 9130 in 2005, an increase of 13% since the previous year. In 2006, more than 25 such conventions took place around the world. The first known furry convention, ConFurence, is no longer held; Califur has replaced it, as both conventions were based in Southern California.

Such conventions feature auctions or fundraising events, with the proceeds often donated to an animal-related charity. For example, Further Confusion has raised more than $62,000 (USD) for various charitable beneficiaries throughout its eight-year history, and Anthrocon has donated more than $66,000 (USD) to animal-related charities since 1997. In September 2004, Mephit Furmeet raised more than $15,000 for an organization known as Tiger Haven.

Furry lifestylers

The phrases furry lifestyle and furry lifestyler first appeared in July 1996 on the newsgroup alt.fan.furry during an ongoing dispute within that online community. One group within furry fans believed that any peripheral interest not directly relating to furry art, literature and fantasy should not be directly associated with the fandom, while others believed that the definition of what constituted furry could only be decided by the individual. The dispute was resolved by the creation of the newsgroup alt.lifestyle.furry in August 1996, created to accommodate discussion beyond furry art and literature. Members of this newsgroup quickly adopted the term furry lifestylers, and still consider the fandom and the lifestyle to be separate social entities.

Subcultures such as the were or therian communities share similar beliefs with furry lifestylers, but wish to distance themselves from the term furry, as their beliefs are not necessarily connected to furry fandom. Furthermore, they perceive association with what they describe as a "cartoon fandom" as "trivializing" their beliefs.

Sex and furry fandom

Differing approaches to sexuality have been a source of controversy and conflict in furry fandom. Examples of mainstream sexual aspects within furry fandom include erotic art, a style known as yiffy art (from the subculture term "yiff" referring to sexual activity or arousal, supposedly derived from the sound Arctic foxes make when mating), and pornographic movies of sexual activities between participants wearing fur suits. According to The Pitch, examples of the word's present usage include "a yiffy fur", meaning a furry who is sexually aroused or active, "yiffy artwork", meaning sexually explicit furry artwork, "to yiff", meaning to have sex, etc. Such art often depicts humanoid animals in poses and outfits similar to those in standard erotic art.

The term is most commonly used to indicate sexual activity or material. This applies to sexual activity and interaction within the subculture whether online or offline; it is also applied to sexual arousal and to erotic material causing it. The explanation offered for the etymology of the term within the subculture is that it is an onomatopoeia for the sound foxes make when mating.

In cybersex, also known as "TinySex" and "TextSex", it is the act in which one or more players engage in the interactive writing of erotica, describing their "tinybodies" or fursonas engaged in sexual activities.

The term furvert (a portmanteau of "furry" and "pervert") specifically refers to the subgroup of the fandom that sexualizes anthropomorphic animal characters. Similar to the word queer in homosexual culture, the term furvert may be used pejoratively, as a self-referential joke, or merely as a descriptor.

Fandom survey

Furry artists drawing at a convention

A survey which examined social and sexual attitudes in furry fandom conducted by David J. Rust published as The Sociology of Furry Fandom, interviewed 360 respondents (325 in person, 35 online). Rust's results indicated that in regards to sex:

• Furries "report a rather non-judgmental attitude" to some aspects of sexuality.
• The fandom contains a large proportion of people reporting homosexuality, bisexuality, polyamory, or other non-traditional forms of relationship.
• 48% reported bisexuality, 25% reported heterosexuality, 19% were homosexual, and 8% were uncertain. Additionally, 2% stated an interest in zoophilia, and fewer than 1% stated an interest in plushophilia.
• Furries have "a higher tolerance for variety in sexual orientation and activity".
• Heterosexual furries "participate in mixed-gender social body language between members of the same sex without any apparent threat to their sexual identity".

He cited these findings as reasons why inaccurate perceptions of furries arise. However, the accuracy of such statistics is questionable for two reasons: as Rust's survey required respondents to submit their legal names and 90% of the respondents answered in person, the reluctance to answer some questions truthfully may have resulted in a statistical bias; furthermore, the constantly increasing size of furry fandom may render these statistics obsolete (the research was based on data compiled in 1997 and 1998, and published in 2002).

The University of California, Davis survey

In 2007, another survey by the University of California, Davis Department of Psychology was made. Over 600 people took part in the survey, although not everyone completed it. 81% of the people who took part were men and 19% were women. This survey not only looked into the sexual aspect of the fandom but also examined pastimes and political views.

Survey results included:

• 37.3% of respondents are bisexual, 32.7% are heterosexual, 25.5% are homosexual and 8% are uncertain.
• About half of the respondents were in a relationship and 76% of those in a relationship were having a relationship with another furry.

The survey also published some other results. 89% of the respondents are white, 83% were American, the most frequent occupation was student (38%), most do not own a fursuit (82%) and earned less than $50,000 per year (90%). Also, around half take part in furry-related internet friendships, chat rooms and blogging, whilst 42% attended conventions, a third attended parties and around a sixth took part in art auctions.

Politically, 40% of respondents described themselves as "Liberal" or "Very liberal", compared to the 7% who were "Conservative," "Very conservative". 35% were "Not political" or "Other", and 16% were "Moderate". Of the 35% who marked "Other," the dominant write-in was "Objectivist," which tallied 17%.

Media coverage

Early portrayal of the furry fandom by the media was considered unflattering and sensationalist by furry fans. Articles in Loaded, Vanity Fair, and the syndicated sex column "Savage Love" focused sharply on the sexual component of certain individuals, which inspired dramatized fiction on television shows such as ER, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Drew Carey Show, Sex2K on MTV, and Entourage. Furry fans claim that these media portrayals are misconceptions, and while some tabloids still focus on the sensationalist aspects, most recent coverage focuses on debunking the myths and stereotypes that have been perpetuated. A reporter attending Anthrocon 2006 noted that "despite their wild image from Vanity Fair, MTV and CSI, furry conventions aren't about kinky sex between weirdos gussied up in foxy costumes," and that they're "not having sex more than the rest of us." but about "people talking and drawing animals and comic-book characters in sketchbooks."

The Milwaukee Brewers had a run-in with a group of furries at Anthrocon 2007, claiming that they found the furries "creepy" and both "players and staff reported neighboring rooms generating loud animal noises, barking and other, deep into the night." Jim Powell stated "Going up the elevator is unsettling when you are packed in with a bunch of people who look like they hadn't left their mother's basements since the last convention". However, Pittsburgh has also welcomed furries, with local business owners creating special t-shirts and drawing pawprints in chalk outside their shops to attract attendees. The convention, which contributes $2.5 million to the Pittsburgh economy, plans to return to the city every year "for the foreseeable future".

Further reading

• Hilton, Craig. "Furry Fandom — An Insider's View from the Outside", parts 1 & 2. South Fur Lands #2 & #3, 1995, 1996.
• Mange: the need for criticism in furrydom by Watts Martin, 1994, 1998

External links

• Template:Dmoz
• WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia - furry fandom's community wiki