Why are you a furry?

Ive kinda always liked things related to it (spent my childhood reading warrior cats and redwall, would always choose humanoid animal characters in games over humans when available, because I found humans kinda ugly somehow, etc) but never really considered myself one until after high school because it was considered “cringy” and I had to grow out of worrying about that. Actually was unfortunately rather judgmental towards furries myself at a certain age just out of denial.

Kinda warmed up to it in college after growing a bit and getting away from my old classmates, but it’s difficult to say what the initial draw was because, well, Ive had some sort of a liking for characters designed as humanoid animal people as far as I can remember (or, given that those are pretty common in kids media, I guess I didn’t really stop preferring them because they somehow felt easier to look at and imagine interacting with than more realistic human characters. I do have social anxiety and autism, which I suspect might have something to do with that feeling but I cant say for sure).

I would consider furry generally a subculture. I can see why some people would consider it a kink, given that furry culture seems to have a weaker taboo about sexual stuff than wider society does and that the community makes a lot of porn, but I don’t think it really qualifies as one for a given person unless one is just there for that and doesn’t have some interest in the wider community or furry characters in other contexts. For my part, I tend to imagine or prefer furry characters in any context that would generally involve human characters. Ie, if I draw or write or just fantasize about something, I’m very likely to work furries in regardless of the content, so them popping up in horny stuff is less a matter of finding those characters an inheritly sexual thing, and more a matter of sexual stuff being included in “everything that normally has humans”.

As far as my participation goes, that social anxiety I mentioned does limit me a bit, Ive not been to any conventions for example despite hoping to eventually. It’s mostly limited to art and internet communities for me at the moment, though most of my current friend group are also furries just cause those places are where I went looking for them.

Don’t know if I’d call myself a furry, but I did go to a convention with some friends awhile back, for the experience.

My big takeaway can kinda be summed up with, “Punk’s not dead, they just all became furries”. It was a very radically inclusive space, there were tons of openly queer people, lots of very political accessories (Anarchy A or Hammer and Sickle patches, keffiyehs, one person had a hand painted tshirt that said “Death before Detransition”, etc.), and there was a very DIY, countercultural vibe to the whole thing. At one point I talked to a Skunk about his collection of old PC sound cards.

It was super cool! I’d go again

I have a happiness fetish and those drawings are often happy.

In contrast to porn in general, where participants often seem miserable.

I’m a furry because I think anthropomorphic animals are neat. It’s kind of just that simple. Participation as a furry to me is just a minimum of making an avatar (a fursona) and talking to or hanging out with other furries. Honestly, it’s hardly different than modern VTuber obsession – our community just happened to start with early western animation rather than more recent eastern animation.

Furry is a “lifestyle” and can be taken as far as you want it to take it. We are a community you can chill in, a hobby you can participate in as any kind of creative person from artist, to musician, to 3D modeling, to the person developing the extremely complicated sex stuff going on in VRChat, or a kink you can dress up and fuck in. You can either make everything yourself, buy your way in, or it’s honestly totally normal to just hang around artists enough that they end up making things for you when they’re bored – although it’s good manners to actually participate in that person’s area of the community rather than begging for art.

Furry being more of a lifestyle than a hobby means it’s very easy to just include it in your daily rituals. There are hundreds, if not over a thousand furries in the greater Seattle area. I can go to dinner with other furries, I participate in a furry Twitch community, I game online with furries, and I’m currently about to go on a camping trip out in the woods of Washington for an event called Furwood that takes place at an exclusively queer campsite called Triangle Recreation Camp with nearly a hundred people (though many are dropping out due to the expected rainy weather this weekend).

What furries are NOT is:

1. A collective of pedophiles/groomers/zoophiles. They do exist in the community (and basically every online community) but almost every site/app explicitly blacklists this content and good Lord you should see the anti-zoophile witchhunts on Twitter. The natural anonymity of furries and sheer scale of the fandom does result in these things coming up frequently though, and furries could definitely do a better job moderating their spaces.
2. Exclusively people dressing up in fursuits to bang. This is a minority of furries that shit costs thousands of dollars. There is, however, a lot of overlap with puppy play, a bdsm kink involving pups and handlers roleplaying as various animals, usually dogs. I know many people who own a partial fursuit (they wear a head and hands but the rest is normal clothes) and also a leather/neoprene pup mask that they switch to for the actual sex stuff.
3. People who believe they are actually animals. These are called “Therians” and many Therians are also furries but most furries are not Therians. It is pretty normal to ROLEPLAY your sona, but the depth of that roleplay is up to the individual. For example, I refer to myself as a polar bear on the internet but that’s about it. I do however know people in our community who have 10+ pages of lore, use the dreaded creepy asterisks, commissioned custom multi-hundred dollar VRC avatars, and never break character.

Finally someone asking a real question. Been a whole bunch of bots recently.