An internal perspective and rant about furry fandom
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An internal perspective and rant about furry fandom by Praxonomist, June 2008.
Furry fandom consists of people who like the idea of things that combine human and animal features. And to be blunt, it's become a huge fucked-up mess.
Where'd it come from?
Anthropomorphism goes as far back as prehistoric cave paintings, Egyptian gods and Indian totems, but this has fuck-all to do with furry fandom except as inspiration. None of the ancient societies created an interest group around the subject. Granted, talking animals have been used in story-telling for ages, but mainly for religion, allegory, satire or moralizing - at least until recently. Furry fandom is mostly a side-effect of 20th-century media, when cartoony animals became a fairly common element in animation, comics and ads.
How'd the fandom start?
Furry fandom began to form in the mid-1970s from several directions at once, through social networks, science-fiction conventions, zines, and comics/animation groups. There were three major boosts in particular. One was a Minneapolis-based publication called Vootie, which brought together several funny-animal underground cartoonists. A second boost was a Californian social circle who were interested in animation, science-fiction and role-playing games. A third boost came from discussions of anthropomorphism at science-fiction conventions.
As the early members of the fandom began to find each other and organize themselves, newbies stumbled onto it by accident. It was common into the early 1990s to hear, "I didn't think anyone else was interested in this kind of stuff." Most furry fans had enjoyed anthropomorphism as kids and had never outgrown the interest. Certain movies and cartoons had a particularly strong influence, especially from Disney, and over the years this created waves and generations of new fans: Robin Hood (1973), Disney Afternoon (1990+), The Lion king (1994), Pokemon (1998), etc.
For others, comic books were a starting point. In the mid-1980s there was a sudden interest in small-press alternative comics. The market experimented with all sorts of genres, including several anthropomorphic titles that slowly developed a fanbase, such as Albedo, Usagi Yojimbo, and Critters. Interest in these kinds of comics was strong enough to continue after the market collapsed in 1987, but sold progressively less well as the entire market slumped in general.
By the mid- to late 1980s, Vootie had ended and its furry cartoonists moved into a new publication called Rowrbrazzle. There were several furry zines being published at this point. Furry room parties popped up at science-fiction conventions. Fans began to communicate more easily through home computers and BBS networks; discussion boards circulated across FidoNet, GEnie and Usenet. A significant percentage of furry fans emerged during this time who were computer programmers. Over the years, some migrated to the west coast to take advantage of the growing computer industry, which increased the San Francisco Bay area's influence on the fandom's growth. Confurence, the first furry convention, was held in 1989 in California.
At the start of the 1990s, furry comics and zines were becoming easier to acquire through Ed Zolna's Mailbox Books catalog. Furries on the Internet congregated on sites such as FurryMuck. In 1993, Confurence 4 attracted 500 people; the Internet was definitely a major factor in attendance. After 1993, the fandom began to grow very quickly, and from this point forward, fans increasingly referred to themselves using online handles or "fursona" character names.
As the 1990s progressed, the growth of furry fandom across North America caused more conventions to be created, mainly because cash-strapped fans wanted to travel shorter distances, and growing dissatisfaction with Confurence. The first new con was Confurence East in 1995, followed by several others, eventually spreading into Europe and Australia. A parallel to furry fandom also emerged in Japan ("Kemono") but has remained largely separate due to language differences.
In the late 1990s, furry fandom began to split into many sub-interest groups, some of them openly sexual. Costuming grew in popularity, and most people in the fandom communicated through the Internet. Homo- and bisexuals began to dominate the fandom, and the average age of the fans began to drop. (As of 2008, two-thirds are under 25.) Making fun of the fandom became a popular meme on the Web in the early 2000s, and the mass media began to publicize the fandom's worst elements.
Sexual aspects of the fandom
Sexual crap is widespread across furry fandom, to the point that it's been argued that furry is not a fandom, but a fetish. Things started nose-diving in the mid- to late 1990s when a number of furry fans (some of whom are now con staff) became increasingly open about sexual interests such as micro/macrophilia, zoophilia, and plushophilia. In the case of the latter, it took less than a year for the fandom's benign discussion of collecting stuffed animal toys to become dominated by people focusing on sex.
While sexual elements are present in all fandoms (Star Trek/Anime/Harry Potter slash fiction, hentai etc.) furry is particularly vocal about it, much to the consternation of many of its fans and ex-fans. Several things caused this situation, and they've reinforced one another through mutual feedback mechanisms:
1) Many adults like porn. (Hey guys, using the word "yiff" makes you sound like idiots.)
2) Economics. Despite the growth of the fandom, its members represent a limited market, and pornographic art sells more reliably than anything else.
3) Mature artwork was present in earliest days of the fandom, mostly in the form of pin-up cheesecake (due to the underground comics influence, like Fritz the Cat) and later as outright erotica (like Omaha the Cat Dancer). This wasn't heavily frowned upon at first, since the people in the fandom mostly knew one another and stayed out of the public eye. But as the fandom grew, there was no social pressure nor obvious hierarchy present, so few behavioral norms were enforced. The accepted presence of mature art gradually led to increasingly sexual and fetishistic content as fans tested the boundaries and encountered no resistance.
As time went on, the failure to limit the definition of "furry" in any concrete sense allowed completely irrelevant interests to be introduced (e.g., infantilism). The alt.lifestyle.furry newsgroup encouraged individuals to interpret the meaning of "furry" in whatever way they wanted to, and the "Furry Peace" philosophy promoted inclusion and equal tolerance towards any aspects of the fandom. Thanks guys.
4) Sexual social networks. The early 1990s were a period when coming out as a homosexual gained more acceptance. In the SF Bay area and other cities, core furry social groups developed that were predominantly gay, which attracted more of the same. Coupled with a perceived sense of anonymity in the early days of the Web and already openly sexual artwork in the fandom, this encouraged some furry fans to define their interest in the fandom primarily in terms of their sexuality. Others realized the fandom could serve as a vector through which to meet people with vaguely-related fetishes. A 2008 online survey suggests that heterosexuals are outnumbered in the fandom by 7-to-3. ("By and large, furry fans are bi and large.")
5) Self-interest, immaturity and/or irresponsibility. Some fans don't mind that their actions might effect the perception of other fans negatively, or can't agree on where to draw the line. The usual arguments against moderating one's behavior involve accusations of close-mindedness, homophobia, censorship, persecution, "If other people don't like what I'm doing, that's their problem," and "If we don't tell other people about it, how else are they supposed to find out?"
To the loudmouths: Backward attitudes still run rampant towards women, ethnicities and religious groups. The world is not ready to accept whatever part of furry fandom you find sexually stimulating. Do everyone a favor and shut up about your fantasies, like the other fandoms do. Find some other, less conspicuous way of finding like-minded people. Slow and inefficient? Aw shucks, life's tough. Live in it.
Furry fandom is not a sexual liberation movement. If you think it should be - Do you volunteer on a monthly basis for a LGBT group? No? (Annual pride parades don't count.) Then you're primarily in the fandom for your personal sexual gratification and the "furry" part is just a convenience. If this is inconvenient for other people and you don't care, then you're selfish. If there was no porn in the fandom, and no possibility of having a sexual relationship because of the fandom, would you still participate in the fandom with the same amount of interest and enthusiasm?
6) The accepting and desperate elements of the fandom are loathe to turn anyone away who claims they're furry. This allows anyone with a complete lack of social skills to be welcomed with open arms, regardless of whether they're interested in anthropomorphism or not. It's easy for them to pretend to be interested, and in return, hey! Instant social life! And the fandom becomes dominated by misfits.
7) Furry fandom has become highly factional. It's next to impossible to ostracize anyone for bad or stupid behavior because there's always a subset of people willing to still have them around.
Losing the wheat and keeping the chaff
There's only so many Disney movies furries can watch, only so many mainstream books and comics they can read, before they go looking for more anthropomorphic stuff. So furry fans have had to write and draw their own material to keep the fandom going. Go to the dealer's room at any furry convention, and almost everything for sale is fan-made. 90 percent of it is crud, but you have to give them credit for the amount of output involved. Very few fandoms produce such a high percentage of their own stuff.
Unfortunately a lot of furry fans willingly purchase any piece of anthropomorphic junk if it appeals to their sense of whatever. The average buyer's standards are incredibly low. Questionable anatomy, clichéd story plots, unrealistic situations, repetitive styles and poses... it doesn't matter. If a creative work is passable on only one level ("It's got a dragon in it!"), yet fails on several others, that's still good enough.
For furry artists, it's possible to eke out a living by selling artwork to fans, but most folks don't give up their day jobs. When aspiring artists go looking for more professional work, the moment they circulate their portfolio outside the fandom, they know that anthropomorphism is a drop in the bucket, and carries a certain stigma. People want professional artists to draw, well, pretty much anything under the sun. So drawing furry stuff takes a major backseat to their professional work. The furry fans no longer flock to them for art, and the artist doesn't rely on the fans for money anymore, and they essentially leave the fandom. True, some artists keep a foot in both the professional and furry marketplaces, but this is an uncomfortable relationship at best.
So when an amazing new talent emerges in the fandom, it doesn't take long for them to realize their prospects, and they move on. This repeating cycle makes it difficult for the fandom to improve, and over time, the fandom loses its best contributors. Some leave because they outright hate what the fandom has become. Others are trying to build a professional reputation. This leaves the fandom with mostly second- and third-rate contributors. The first-rate artists who stay are usually ones who aren't concerned with professionalism.
And then a new problem emerges, not just among artists - any fursuiters, social butterflies or 'names' in the fandom develop their own personal fanclubs and tend to grow huge egos, which is really lame when you look at their individual fans. Becoming famous in the fandom usually means your creativity reaches a plateau; you don't evolve or change. Artists will draw the same stuff over and over again because they know it'll sell. Excessive flattery means they don't feel compelled to improve their formula.
Many artists who stay in the fandom get the most out of their customers by appealing to the lowest common denominator. (That's over-generalizing, but basically true.) And art is a hot item, in part because in the early 1990s a lot of the furry Californian IT professionals had money to burn. Most of what's drawn now are character commissions and porn.
Another factor that helped create the furry marketplace was how the artist-to-fan ratio has changed. In the late 1980s, a good chunk of the people in the fandom were active contributors to it, drawing, writing, etc. The non-contributors (consumer fans) were there too, but weren't overwhelmingly annoying. Artwork was often freely exchanged. Things changed in the early 1990s when fan demands began to get stressful, and a BBS ripped off art from so many furry artists that it created an atmosphere of copyright paranoia that remains to this day.
At Confurence, artists found themselves faced with huge piles of sketchbooks that fans wanted them to draw in. It was possible to spend the entire con drawing, and not actually enjoy the con. And since some artists had to recoup what it cost them to fly all the way to California, they'd scribble away like mad with barely any time to relax. Nowadays, with furry conventions scattered all over the country, recouping one's costs isn't too difficult if you're a good artist, but you're still stressed out by an overwhelming number of fans. Plus, most artists tend to travel to cons that are local to them. If you're on the east coast, you're unlikely to meet a west coast artist unless you fly out to a west coast convention.
Here's some advice to furry artists: Learn how to draw humans, then adapt it. You don't have to copy Disney or anime. Vary your style. Don't use the same poses and species over and over again. Don't make your fur look like skin with paint slapped on top of it. Try different artistic media and materials. When discussing other artists, use positive criticism. Make pictures that evoke a story. Draw backgrounds.
For furry writers: Write stories for the story. Anthropomorphism is a means, not an end - the story should be the important thing, to which anthropomorphism simply adds an extra flavor. Have other, more important things adding depth and flavor, too. Stay out of shared universes. Enough with the ex-bio-engineered soldier/slave trope, or the sexually promiscuous alien species trope. Aim for an audience outside the fandom. They're more critical and you'll produce better stories.
To people who buy stuff: Discriminate. If you're going to buy porn at a con, here's something to do. For each piece of porn you buy, find a completely different artist, preferably one you don't know, who's got some potential. Go through their stuff and find a piece that's non-sexual, not a pin-up, and shows some quality. Buy it; encourage them.
Comics
It's next to impossible to get rich making comics, so they're more a labor of love than anything else. After the alternative comics market collapsed in the late 1980s, furry comics were still being produced, but the quality generally sucked or were exercises in ego. And furries bought them anyway. If you were really lucky, you could find one with a good story. More often than not the art was decent but the story was shit. Or the whole comic would be an awful mess. For writers who had trouble organizing a long-term narrative and publishing schedule, there was the random slice-of-life vignette technique. Or there'd be an anthology title with maybe one good comic, and the other contributions would make you wince.
Publishing furry comics on paper basically died by the mid-1990s, mainly because the quality sucked so much, and to a lesser extent because the distribution market became monopolized by Diamond Comic Distributors. And so began webcomics: now any aspiring comics artist could do their own thing, write at their own pace and build up a personal Internet fanclub. If they were really successful and hi-res enough, they could publish a paper copy and sell it. The downsides to success were having to draw with a consistent schedule and dealing with heavy server traffic.
In general, there's a certain reluctance in furry webcomics to try full-page formats, sticking instead to three- or four-panel gag structures. But the big problem is that there are so many webcomics now (furry or otherwise), that it's hard to stand out and grab the attention of new online readers.
The Internet
Furry fandom really spread through the Internet, although it's hardly unique in this respect - look at any recent fandom built around a TV series. There is a lot that could be said about furries and the Internet, and that's the problem: there's too much that could be said, and it's too unfocused and scatterbrained to easily discuss.
One thing the Internet killed was local BBS networks, which used to allow computer geeks in the same city to find each other. These networks were eventually rebuilt on the Internet through local mailing lists. Yet with furries located all over the world, with so many divergent interests, there's no easy way to find out what's going on. A couple of times, the fandom came close to having a central news hub (early a.f.f., Flayrah), but these have either fallen into disrepair or turned into crap.
So now there's dozens of forums, livejournal/myspace/facebook accounts, chat channels, virtual realities... too much to dig through, too interest-specific, or are little mutual-admiration societies. And wherever you go, the crap elements of the fandom are present. Try finding a furry art website that doesn't make you want to gouge your eyeballs out at some point. Rare attempts at controlling for content and quality (like Artspots) can suffer from elitism, but I'm glad they're at least trying. (Hint to beginning artists: You don't have to post everything you draw on the Web as if it was your mom's fridge.)
To me the most discouraging element is that many furries will openly admit to personal details on the Web that are way beyond what the general public wants to know, which has caused such a rocky relationship with non-furs, other fandoms and the media. I wonder if the same furries would be willing to slap on a mask, leave their wallet at home, go to a football game, and shout out their interests to the crowd. Because posting the same stuff on the Internet isn't any less stupid. Overall there's a lack of objectivity. Look at Wikifur - a nice idea, but I have no trust that furries can look at themselves with a sense of perspective. They can't tell when details are unnecessary, sounding self-important when making wiki pages about themselves. (Hint: Don't make one in the first place.)
Furry conventions
Science-fiction fandom and furry fandom have different backgrounds. SF fandom evolved much more slowly, starting in the 1930s with a strong literary influence, and then struggled with science-fantasy post-Star-Wars crap in the late 1970s. Furry fandom, in comparison, is a younger, more visually-based fandom, and has dealt (badly) with a much sharper growth curve, thanks to the Internet.
Still, when it comes down to conventions, furry cons aren't all that different from anime and SF conventions. And however much you might want to rag on the fandom, furry cons at least manage to raise a good amount of money for charities. That being said, I'm going to complain anyway.
That the con books have to explain how people should behave in public - is really sad. Unfortunately a lot of furries think they live in an invisible bubble and that cons don't require following the rules of the real world or the hotel. Please get some con security who are willing to be assholes. Ideally, get the people who work local SF cons who aren't furries. They'll enforce the rules and won't care if they're hurting someone's feelings. Better yet, equip them with portable ultraviolet lights. And we all know that despite PG-13 appearances, anyone who walks around wearing rubber, a harness or rocking-horse equipment is putting out a very obvious message. Tell them to put it back in their room.
I would like to thank (most) con staff for abandoning strip shows and slave auctions. Now please hold auditions for the variety/talent shows, so we actually see some variety/talent. Enforce a rule that if you don't have a sketch, and want to move around on stage artistically to music, that you only get 60 seconds, not the length of the entire damn song.
Kage and 2 can entertain a crowd, but do they always have to be main stage acts? Move on, guys. Let's give other people the chance to practice their showman and auctioneering skills.
Can we drop the animal SIG panels? Nothing's more disorganized and boring than a bunch of people sitting in a room who say, "Yes, we all like foxes," and then agree with each other for 45 minutes.
At the dances: Please get DJs who'll play something more than trance/rave/house stuff. Throw in some 80s tunes. Things that people can dance to. Let nothing play longer than 5 minutes.
To fursuiters: If the hotel is being shared by non-furries, stay away from them. Yeah, you like spreading happiness around, but they paid to use the hotel, and didn't hire you. You don't know what their boundaries are, so make it a wide one. The same applies to wandering into the hotel's restaurant and bar. If people want to avoid you, that's where they'll go, so give them a break.
Fursuits
Furry fandom is not all about costuming, but every media piece about the fandom gives that impression. Why? Because it's visually interesting. Go on the Web and find a gallery of photos taken at a convention (anime, SF, furry, doesn't matter). What's more interesting to look at? The faces of people you don't know, or someone wearing a costume? There you go.
The number of people who bring costumes to furry cons seems to hover around 15%. Why not more? Wearing a full-body costume makes you sweat like a pig. You can barely see. And after paying a lot of money for one, a costume's lifetime is fairly limited: it either wears out, can't be cleaned, or becomes yesterday's news.
Fursuits were relatively rare in the fandom in the late 1980s. Their presence increased gradually until interest really took off in the late 1990s. As with all aspects of the fandom, there are factions and politics. The earliest split was between people who wanted to discuss how to build costumes versus people who were more interested in putting on a good performance.
As of 2008, fans have developed several motivations for wearing costumes: performing professionally (parties, parades, charities, etc.), performing non-professionally (at cons and social events), to "become" another character, to experience something spiritual, sexual fetishism, and/or to get attention.
This latter motivation has become increasingly prevalent in the fandom. Wearing a costume looks cool and is seen as a way for social wannabes to be popular. This has had two side-effects. First, more people are walking around in costumes without trying to act out a character; it's having the suit that's important, which pisses off the costumers who have a sense of professionalism.
Second, a sub-industry has emerged to build commissioned fursuits. And because the average quality of the costumes has risen, less and less people feel confident enough to try making their own. Paying someone else to make you look good in costume is seen as less risky than trying to make it yourself and looking crappy. And the problem is, the more people want to jump on the fursuiting bandwagon, the more difficult it is for anyone to stand out, especially if they buy their costumes from people who use the same basic designs over and over.
Pawpets
Pawpets are furry puppets, and are a relatively recent addition to the fandom. While most of its practitioners are amateurs, lip-synching techniques are well-practiced, and some use high-tech audio and video equipment for presentations. On the negative side, few pawpeteers do long, fully scripted shows (Eurofurence excepted), choosing instead to do songs or simply talking. On the positive side, pawpets are one of the few parts of the fandom still relatively untarnished by fetishistic behavior.
Several pawpet groups are scattered across the United States and Europe. A weekly broadcast out of Florida known as the Funday Pawpet Show used to showcase frequent musical performances, until the music industry demanded royalties. Now the show mostly revolves around ad-libbing, strained humor, guest submissions, interviews, games, and sometimes getting drunk. (Hey guys, fuck tradition, change the format. Make it short, tight and snappy. No more than a half-hour.)
Anti-fur
Mocking of the fandom is hardly surprising since the fandom has produced some really messed-up shit and attracted some really messed-up people. And also because fans have shown huge lapses in judgment. (Who in their right mind would wear the Confurence 3 t-shirt in public?) One of the earliest insults towards the fandom was "skunkfuckers", to the more recent "Yiff in Hell, furfags". We've come a long way!
Generally, mocking has produced very little positive change in the fandom. It's usually been aimed at people whose emotional stability and concept of reality is poor at best, resulting in entertaining emotional explosions and then watching the victim scurry off for group hugs, further entrenching their behavior as an act of defiance towards their critics.
This begs the question of whether many anti-furs actually want to see the fandom improve, and the answer is no. (See the fandom go away? Yes.) Mocking hasn't improved anything - in fact, it's advertised the most negative stereotypes of the fandom to a wider and wider audience, and made things worse. True, the furries are mostly responsible for digging their own hole, but the negativity from outside the fandom has only exacerbated the situation. Thanks guys.
Many young, aspiring Internet trolls jumped on the anti-fur bandwagon in the early 2000s because it was the in thing to do, and, let's face it, so darn easy. Most trolls don't have the messed-up fetishes that the worst furries do, but personally I think people on both sides of the fence are being immature and lame.
A troll begins by defining their variables: "Furries are equal to zero." This is coupled with an assumption like, "I am equal to ten." From this, the troll is able to determine: "Ten is greater than zero, therefore I am better than furries. Yay me!" Do the same trolls walk down the street, find crazy homeless people, and laugh at them? Who is this supposed to impress? Exercise number one: Walk along the street with a girlfriend or significant other. Find a crazy homeless person. Insult them. Then ask your partner if they feel like having sex with you.
A furry troll's primary motive is not to improve the fandom they're complaining about; they instead want to feel superior, and experience the rush that comes from making another human being feel like shit. (Whether the victim deserves it or not. If the victim does deserve it, less guilt is required.) But you know... it's lazy. There's no risk, no difficulty involved if you're going to compare yourself to the dregs of society, and if other people are entertained, they have really low standards. How desperate for self-affirmation are you, if you make yourself feel good by saying, "Well, at least I'm not a human failure"? Exercise number two: Challenge yourself, add risk. Find a cop. Walk up to them and call them a fuckin' pig.
Better yet, notice how furry trolls like to complain about the behavior of other people because it means they can feel good effortlessly, without having to make any changes to themselves? Exercise number three: Find someone who's a better human being than you are. Try to improve yourself, using them as an inspiring role model. Put some work into it. Sure, most of us aren't going to be amazing athletes, writers, artists, thinkers, diplomats, chefs, or whatever, but we can at least aspire to try.
I'd like to end this section by saying that I actually agree that furry fandom is quite worthy of mockery. I'm simply questioning the methodology, motivations and effectiveness of the people doing most of the mocking. I think that furries themselves need to take over the job and be more critical of their own fandom. The lack of self-criticism annoys me. Furry fandom should not be about "tolerance", especially when the people using that term really mean, "everything is allowed, be irresponsible, no questions asked, look the other way, don't hurt anyone's feelings." You are mocked because you are unwilling to mock yourselves.
In conclusion
Obviously I don't like a whole lot of things in furry fandom, but I doubt the people behind them will leave or switch interests. What I'd like to see them do is shut up about their weird fantasies and keep it in their rooms. If they're going to talk about their fetishes on the Web, it should be put someplace private. If it's an art site, it should enforce some standards, have filters that work, and reject more artwork. Better yet, make sites invitation-only, and only allow in people who are known and trusted, with admins who won't shirk at kicking people out. Reduce the number of fucked-up social retards in the fandom by not letting them into your little club. I'm sure they'll go and make their own clubs anyway, but at least once they're all gathered in one place, it'll be easier to laugh at them. Furry fandom needs more people in it willing to be assholes towards people exhibiting less desirable behavior. And I don't say that lightly - I'm a person who fucking hates assholes.
The problem boils down to stupid, disturbed, immature or selfish people. People who place their personal interests above that of the fandom in which they claim to participate. I see very little sense of responsibility, consideration, discretion, or tact. I mean, if furry fandom is like a swimming pool, and you're too selfish or lazy to go into a bathroom stall when you want to take a shit, why should the rest of us even bother to stay in the water?
And why do we even have to argue the point with some of these defensive idiots, about basic, reasonable rules that most geeks in all other fandoms intuitively understand? How does applying the word "furry" make your reality distinct and ungovernable by the rest of society? Thanks to the "anything goes" attitude in the fandom, people seem to think that as long as there's an imaginary-animal spin on things, that it gives them carte blanche to do whatever the hell they like and ignore the ways of the world. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. If this keeps up, we might as well call it "Fetish fandom" and invite in the vampire, cyborg and Rocky Horror Picture Show fanatics.
And furries try to defend themselves with worthless semantic arguments. Going back to the swimming pool analogy, a babyfur would say, "Hey, I'm not shitting in the pool, I'm not a pedophile, I'm a responsible infantilist! This poo-poo is pretend, it's plastic!" Yo dude, appearances count, and you're being an ass. Lifeguards and other swimmers are not sympathetic to having diaper-wearing fetishists playing pretend in their pool.
Understand the concept of sharing. It doesn't mean "Tell us everything about yourself", it means you're sharing a pool with other people who really don't want to see your naked, inner self, so put on a bathing suit and swim. Can you not understand why the fandom, and the rest of the world, has issues with overly open behavior, whatever you claim your motivations are? Like people who draw ambiguous teens or cub art and their "It's not real" bullshit excuse. It still makes us look bad. Seriously, why are you in this fandom? I'll bet it has more to do with "Because they let me get away with it" than anything else, y'know, actually *furry*.
Most furries are nerds and geeks, and we can be expected to act somewhat nerdy and geeky - but it's the attitude of ignoring the most basic, reasonable societal limits that makes the fandom suck. Anyone who thinks "anything goes" is a positive thing for the fandom is doing more harm than good. I know that slippery-slope arguments aren't really valid, but frankly I think that furry fandom is a perfect example of all the possible slips on the slope actually coming to pass. How we progressed from funny animals to irrelevant fetishes is both astounding and sad.
Here's another way to judge whether you're helping the fandom or not: Ask yourself, "What does my interest in (X) have to do with anthropomorphism?" If your answer is along the lines of, "Not much, but I like imagining them together," then that's a fail. And unfortunately that covers most of what's in the fandom these days. (Bonus game: apply this technique to the programming schedule of a furry convention.)
You probably don't want to hear this, but technically, sex has nothing to do with anthropomorphism. Neither does non-sex. Nor does spirituality, music, RPGs, or your lifestyle. This doesn't mean we can't combine them - the problem is that people elevate the wrong combinations to "what the fandom is about" status, confusing it with "what I personally enjoy".
And to the people who want to argue the relevance of sex thing: you're wrong. It's like... oh, take for example, meteorologists. Meteorlogists have sex from time to time. It's possible to view meteorologists as sexy. You can sexualize their symbolism. ("Warm front... coming... in.") But you don't see meteorologists suddenly leaping to the conclusion that meteorology is really about being open about their sexual desires, tolerating anything that has a "weather" theme worked into it, and having porn for sale at meteorology conventions. That would be a misapplication of the idea.
In science-fiction fandom, there's a philosophical dichotomy referred to as FIAWOL/FIJAGH: "Fandom is a way of life" versus "Fandom is just a goddamned hobby." Either extreme is bad, and most people fall in any one of several gray areas in between. Furry fandom is currently way too biased at the "way of life" end of things, and whatever the hell a furry lifestyle *is*, I don't know. Of course, if we go too far in the other direction, we'll be back in our parents' basements wearing fake ears and tails, discussing continuity errors in episodes of Animaniacs.
I've come to believe that furry fandom is now an unrecoverable cesspool filled with immature youth, social misfits and self-absorbed pervs. I can't claim to be a paragon of humanity myself or being immune to temptation, but at least I'm aware of the bigger picture. As much as I'd like to use the term "furry" for myself, it carries too many negative connotations, too much baggage that doesn't represent my interests.
And even though the fandom has grown, the degrees-of-separation within it is still pretty small, so the idiots will rise to protest at the slightest threat to their idiocy. No one wants to insult their friends by telling them to shape up, and so on down the line of friends. And the more reasonable furs will never get an honest break; whatever they might try to do or call themselves, the taint is there, the blood won't wash off, and outsiders will always assume the worst - and the worst is really, really bad. Putting your best foot forward doesn't cut it anymore. The fandom had potential, but the folks in the most socially influential positions have pandered to too many of their fetishistic friends, or have been too afraid of offending others by not putting their foot down. To the rest of the world: I'm sorry.
Even if I can't comfortably call myself a furry, cool folks with lots of diverse interests exist in the fandom, some of whom I'm proud to call my friends. And if some of them have a kink, they've at least been considerate enough to not shove it in my face, and have responsible heads on their shoulders by not bringing it up; it's not the be-all and end-all of the fandom for them. They've got standards, jobs, and lives. And regardless of what happens with the rest of the fandom, I'm going to hang out with the cool folks and talk anthropomorphism with them, 'cause I like the concept.
If you've read this far, for other (shorter) takes on the fandom, I also recommend:
(Link added June 24, 2008) Clawcast episode 25 - Wow, this podcast has a lot of intelligent things to say about furry behavior, great ideas on improving the fandom, and states them in a lot more of a positive way than my rant! Geez, now I feel like a heel. Skip the first half of the show, start listening around minute 31 or 32.
What is Furry? by Doodles (http://www.crushyiffdestroy.com/show/furry1)
A brief history of anthropomorphics, by M. Estrugo (http://www.crushyiffdestroy.com/show/history2)
Mommy, why does that fat man have a Tail? by RaccoonWithLips (http://www.crushyiffdestroy.com/show/coonlips)
The bitter ex-furry's guide to fursuiting, by Subversive (http://www.crushyiffdestroy.com/show/fs1)
A Furry 'What If', by M. Estrugo (http://www.crushyiffdestroy.com/show/whatif)
The fandom's report card, by Lamar (2007) (http://www.flayrah.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2381)
Closing quotes
"In my mind, [furry characters] live and breathe. They can build empires that will last forever. They can fight wars neverending on worlds innumerable. They can embody our fears, our loves, our laughter. They can be me, they can be you. They can toy with magic, and defy our imaginations with infinite possibilities. And the best thing -you- can think of... is to draw them without any clothing?" - Spot-on, Mister Blumrich.
"Here be anthropomorphic dragons" - xkcd.
