JohnOfE

Revision October 13th 2010.
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The nuts, bolts and politically correct.
There are almost as many opinions and theories about what defines a furry fan as there are furries themselves. It's a never-ending debate among many people who know of or who are part of the furry fandom, usually furries themselves tying to find the line between being an ordinary person and being a furry.

The problem is the broad range of different types of furry fans out there who all share the furry label. It's increasingly difficult for others to know what makes someone a furry.

In my opinion, using the word furry to describe a cartoon character has become obsolete. In my experience as a furry, I have never once seen a cartoon character being referred to as a furry. That label is almost always reserved for the people who worship fictional animals with human characteristics. This includes the following:

Cartoon animals Anything that is more unique than typical animal forms but still animal based.

Realistic animals With human like intelligence such as the rabbits in the novel Watership Down.

Humanoid animals. Examples include Disney's Robin Hood.

Other, uncommon furry types include Animal-like aliens, Mythological creatures and Anime cat-girls.

The furry stereotype.
The view outsiders have of furries is generally correct: Furries are a bunch of sick zoophiles who yiff and fapp to their fake bestiality porn (art) and try to make out that being a furry has nothing to do with sex.

Likewise, the view furries have of themselves is generally incorrect: Outsiders don't really understand that their fandom is all about the cartoons and not about sex, which is only half true because that was the original meaning.




Reason.
There certainly are a lot of furries in the world who just really like cartoon characters in an innocently interested way without any sexual references. There are however a lot more furries who have another layer to their furry interest; a sexual fetish, often towards cartoon character(s) they are a fan of. These furries who have sexual interests likely had no idea there were others like themselves until getting on the net one day and finding sites for the very purpose of sharing sexual oriented furry arts. Upon seeing that this group of people who call themselves furries, this person identifies himself as one of them and there for a furry himself. 10 years of closit furs coming into contact with the furry world later and you have a shit load of furries with various sexual interests on the net dominating the furry fandom, redefining the very meaning of the word. There remain a still relatively huge population of furries who are still clean to some extent who refuse to give in to the fact that their fandom is now home to a mass of sick fetishists which persecution complexes. The downside for them is that if they identify themselves to a stranger who is familiar with furries as a furry, he or she will likely be viewed with prejudice and distaste.

Personally I do feel for those clean furries out there who have to deal with what has come as a result of the sexual fetish many other furies have, but you'll have to accept the reality sooner or later because this trend is set and I see no change ahead. Roll with it or don't call yourself a furry.




Mass furfaggotry.
There are a lot of furries in the world, the number of them is colossal. There is a portion of them who feel the need to share their great interest with the rest of the world in the way certain religious people like to spew their crap to people who don't care. These furries are annoying, I understand. But lucky for you, not ALL the furries in the world are like this because if there was the internet would stop working and come crashing down due to mass furfaggotry. If furries accepted that their fandom is in fact based on a massive sexual fetish and not try to fool people (and themselves) into thinking other wise, they would eventually end up being ignored by the masses. But the reality is that no matter what group you look at, there is always a few people in it who are compelled to tell everyone about it because to them it's the greatest thing that ever happened to them. That's life. The bigger the group, the more people who spew their crap about it. If the furry fandom was a religion, people would see the similarities between it and other religions. But it'd never work; no religion can be entirely based on a sexual fetish for cartoon animals!




The origin of furries.
There's no definite cause, but this furry suspects kids growing up on an unhealthy diet of mushy Disney movies about cute furry animals in love; and said child becoming addicted to it as a probably cause. However, like many sexual orientations (not relevant to clean furries) no one knows for sure where it started.

I believe that the sexual attraction to cartoons may be a type of sub sexual orientation. I'm pretty sure you lot didn't choose to be straight, nor did these furries or gays decide they were going lust for what they do now. Somewhere in young life it is written, to this day only speculation can explain sexual interests.

Despite opinion that it's the internet that creates furries, furries existed, and still exist, even without the internet. Through movies, cartoons, Halloween costumes, toys, games, and other things that parents innocently expose their children to, children develop an interest in fur. Although furries tend to develop before being exposed to the internet, once they are exposed to the internet they realize to their uttermost joy that there are others like them who accept them into their world. Thus the furry becomes stronger and more bold to the point they may even expose themselves to others about it, something they would never have thought of doing before realising others existed.

Furries can be either strait or gay, but from what I've seen most furries are male and gay. Some are female and a mixture of many sexual orientations. A number of theories exist about male homosexuals who are furries, such as the confusion of being gay resulting in the sexual attraction to cartoon characters as a way to cope. There are just too many things that can contribute to what causes a person to become sexually attracted to cartoons, so I cannot explain them all, I can only state this fact.




The furry fetish.
I believe there are two main types of furries who have sexual relations with cartoon characters.

The first type is more of a sexual deviant who's mainly interested in the of cartoon characters and how they resemble animals, a kind of border line zoophilia. They're comparable to people who greatly enjoy pornography; as in they lust for the image of sex but not the person. This furry will most likely be a producer of furry porn or/and a prolific consumer. He or she will have no emotionally binding relationship to any particular cartoon character, just a common fetish and sexual interest in multiple characters or species. There are other furries who may fall under this and other categories, one notable type is the baby-fur. The Baby-fur is a furry who is also an adult baby, and thus pretends to be an infant. They often have many other related fetishes that even normal furries find gross. Furries recognise that paedophilia is wrong and like anyone, is very much against it. To furries, the prospect of someone thinking that they're fandom supports kiddie porn is too much, bestiality it quite enough. So the baby-fur is shunned. Essentially it's a case of "You got your fake-paedophilia in my fake-bestiality!"

The second, less common type of furry is someone who takes the lust towards a character a few steps further by becoming emotionally attached, as if the character were real. To understand this, remember back, to when you last had a burning lustful crush on someone, feel the love that you felt. Imagine having that same feeling towards a particular cartoon character and never towards any human or living thing for that matter. There are furries out there who have this feeling towards certain characters, me being one of them. For these people, cartoon characters are their primary sexual attraction; human beings are of no or little interest. Cartoon characters will be looked at the same way a normal man should look at women, assessing how attractive they are, all the usual routine, the only difference being that they're cartoons, not real people. Because cartoons aren't real, there's no flirting, no dating, no messing around. So when he or she finds a carton character attractive, usually it takes a few programmes before a sexual attraction builds, involving finding the character very cute and beginning to love it. Next, sexual attraction sets in. The feeling of how great it would be to be able to grab that body once and for all, take it in and taste that first passionate kiss. This is about the point where the character becomes a lust object. Many characters can accumulate as lust objects, ones that are occasionally masturbated over with numerous fantasies, kind of like finding your favourite porn; it's not a love affair. The final point is when you form an emotional attachment with the character, no longer giving it lust object status. When all you want to do it look into the characters eyes, kiss long, gently and passionately, and just hold each other forever and ever. When the point of each Saturday morning is to lie in bed and just be with the character, to just look at, love and cuddle.

One of the other benefits of having this sort of relationship with a character, is there's no inconvenience of having a partner, not having to work your life around someone else. If you're able to get past being alone, and be able to not feel lonely, there's no real need to have a human companion in your life. Some may say that this is emotional laziness, maybe they're right, but they don't really know that perhaps this is just how this person is, it's something that cannot be controlled easily; like telling a gay man to be straight, he could force himself to make it with a woman and people would think he's doing the right thing, but he wont be happy with himself or his situation. So furries like me do what we want because we want to be happy, we're not going to change just to make you happy.

If you're still not happy with someone like me being a furry, even after what I've just explained, remember this: Norbert Beaver is no more than nicely arranged, two-dimensional colours on a flat surface. He's not real. When I do my thing with him there's no one other than myself involved, who am I actually hurting? No one. You may argue that some of us create pornographic images and put them ion the internet for anyone to find, thus harming your kids. True this may be, but honestly, furry porn is the least of your worries when it comes to harmful content on the net, be realistic. Besides, a lot of furry art sites like the one I use blocks public access to images marked over R13. If you still disagree, you're an ignorant idiot who refuses to be realistic about the internet like the following group...




The Burned Furs final solution to the negative stereotype.
Based on information found at www.furrydolphin.net
The burned furs group are an example of how Rule #19 of the internet always comes into play: The more you hate something, the stronger it gets. They set an unrealistic goal and failed before they even started, failed even more when they were running, and have been laid to rest in the museum of fail here:

The Burned Furs were founded in 1998 by Eric Blumrich and Charla Trotman, also known as Squee Rat. People of this group, in the words of Charla, "are furs who have spoken up against fandom perversion and been 'burned at the stake' for it." The Burned Furs started out on the basis that the anthropomorphic fandom is being overrun by sexually dysfunctional, socially stunted and creatively bankrupt hacks and perverts. There was much controversy over the exact nature of the Burned Furs beliefs, they were often accused of wanting to impose a kind of anti-sexual vision over the fandom. There were even certain members of the group that were intolerant of gays, furry life-stylers and even Christian furries. Burned Furs claimed that none of the above was a problem, as long as it was kept private, within the law and not displayed in an attention getting manner, especially through the media. Many critics considered the Burned Furs to be a hate group, due to the harsh in-your-face tactics, offensive shirts made by the group, and even physical threats made towards other furries. The Burned Furs were opposed by a peace group called the Freezing Furs who believed that the Burned Furs were a hate group. Two more groups; Non-aligned Furs and Furry Peace were formed around the factional conflicts which resulted from the formation of the Burned Furs. By 2001, the Burned Furs had almost completely vanished, having many of the members leaving the fandom. Along with them, the peace groups also faded out, no longer having any need to be around.




Conclusion.
Furries come in all forms and personalities; some are ignorant and some can't keep it to themselves. Some will infuriate you and some you probably don't even know exist. It all comes down to personal perception in the end, everyone has their own and that is their right. There are some real munters out there who look as sick as their fetishes but I'm lucky enough to be fairly normal compared to my inner layer of furry perversion. My advise to you: Trust no one.