Aug
11
2010
The fur is flying… or soon will be.
Author: BoompoetRemember when comic book nerds (that’s me) went to conventions and people thought it was weird? Now it’s a slice of Americana and an accepted subculture. Remember the sci-fi or anime conventions and the SCA and remember when these groups were looked on with some distain? I remember my mom saying the SCA was a cult when I was 15 but when I joined in college, it was fine. Tech geeks (me again) were once ridiculed but now we’re revered and why? What has changed about the world? What is it that has molded the universal American conservative view and squished the misconceptions of days gone by?
I was watching an episode of CSI several years ago about “Furries” and found the psychology 
interesting and the concept baffling as it was portrayed. I did some research and found that CSI got it wrong. “Furries” are not inherently sexual. Yiff doesn’t mean what they said it meant. A “furpile” is not a orgy. Nonetheless I bought into the misinformation machine. Through my research I have found that they’re not all that different from SCA members… many of them are less intense individuals. There isn’t really a psychology behind it all but rather, just a good natured and expensive hobby.
Don’t get me wrong… there are some weirdos out there. Plushies are people who like plush animals but the word “plushie” also refers to people who like to have “sex” with stuffed 
animals. Yes…. You read that right. Furry or anthropomorphic porn is also fairly prevalent though bestiality is not really part of it. See, these are not seen as animals in the strictest sense. At least they’re no more animals than Mickey mouse or Bugs bunny. The film industry coined a term, “Funny Animal” to separate upright walking, talking and clothes wearing animals from their lesser counterparts. It’s the difference between Dippy Dog (AKA Goofy) and Mickey’s pet Pluto. Both of them are dogs but Goofy is “funny” because he’s anthropomorphic. The sexual deviance is a discussion for another day and I’m just as guilty of getting hung up on the most bizarre aspects as every one else is. We’ll leave that for a later discussion as it’s not relevant here.
Alright, where am I going with all this? Well, aside from being a hobbiest writer and anthropologist and poet, and philosopher, psychologist, and etc. etc. I am also very crafty. I have looked at web sites about creating “Fursuits”, the full body costumes worn by some furries (most prefer partial suits or even just ears and tails) at furry conventions. Recently, Christina and I were discussing how best to make a realistic, person sized, self balancing cat tail for her Halloween costume and in researching that, I came again upon furry sites which proved very useful for our purposes. Anyway, I’ve decided to try my hand and make a bear head… mask… thing. I doubt I’ll ever make a full suit because they seem to be pretty difficult, but I’ve always wanted to try my hand at soft sculpture and I’ve never worked with fur so it seems like it might be an interesting project. I could do a whole series. And it all came from not understanding something, researching it, and finding it’s not as odd as I thought.
I guess the point of all of this is that you can’t believe everything you see on television, though I think we all knew that already. The problem is we do… at least a little. I believed these people were sex crazed bestiality fetishists at first and then I just thought maybe they were just a little off. Once I considered that I’d worn a kilt for a good portion of my career in the SCA and that I have been to a comic convention and I’ve considered cosplay at an anime convention… well, it’s not that strange now.
Don’t judge…. Even if the media say it’s alright.
