Journals like this make me wish that FA allowed us to favorite journals

I liked that journal; it was fun participating in a research forum like that. I like your summation of the results. +1

good conclusion =3

Should have titled this... Sex:Cleanup... or Sex:Climax. :)

I think that should be the other way round!

interesting. though i have books of stuff from the late 1800s that have furry content. being that anthro animals especially cats were popular for kids books. the stuff i have has stuff from Louis Wain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Wain

Your point about animal images and animal personas being representative of human (reproductive) vitality is extremely well-founded, but though the tendency to adopt animal-totems is time-honored, I'm not entirely sure it applies here. Equating an animal with oneself and adopting certain qualities associated with that animal (strength of a bear, for instance, cleverness of a raven) is a personal decision and is not necessarily reflected in images created by someone else. The viewer might agree with that image, might even find spiritual sustenance in that image, but mostly he just likes it and doesn't really worry about the philosophical properties of the thing.

i was just saying that is a root of it. we like art cause we like it. but what roots that art is something deep inside almost all of humanity. most seem to suffer form the thought that even the art form for pleasures sake is recent as in the last few decades yest there are examples of this type of art for enjoyments sake from centuries back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%.....-jinbutsu-giga
http://images.calum33.multiply.com/image/QK8opXthXG0lKE4FxAxQcQ/photos/1M/300x300/43/CDocuments-and-SettingsMalcomMy-PicturesPicsEgyptologySennet-lion-and-antelope.JPG?et=ao4Tep6j9PsG%2BKQoIBs6TA&nmid=0

grrr just remove the space in the second link to see the pic from egypt

Dates back to the oldest cave art actually.
Japan was notorious for it in its animal scrolls.
I did a paper on Anthropomorphics through the ages.

Yeah i know. it is want i wanted to to go college for back in the day before i ever knew about furry. wanted to study anthropomorphic cultural stuff in art history. wanted to be a teacher someday. ahh those were the days.

The annual furry survey that's done at Anthrocon by a PhD researcher has some interesting data on the convention's demographics. It's not exactly a good sample of the fandom as a whole, as the survey is voluntary and only covers Anthrocon (though I think they're expanding to other conventions), but it's at least some kind of hard data.

Darn, I completely missed a chance to put in my 2-cents (browser ate my response).

But I totally dig the aesthetically pleasing part of it - although this has had friends giggling at my expense and bringing up "Nice Shading"....yes, we were looking at very hot furry erotica, but it WAS also nicely drawn! :D

was done in the name of SCIENCE!

With the gender ration, when you look at the fandom's beginnings (and thus the foundation of the POVs) the ratio of males was much higher too. I know when I started exploring the fandom in the mid 90's I was told, and it seemed to prove true, that while the artists were disproportionately female (at about 30%), the fandom was close to 90% male. I have no hard proof, but I know that there were almost no admitted females on line, and when I went to a gather, there would be 20-30 furries and I was the only female.

its much closer to 50-50 now though still titlted toward males. maybe 60% male? but it like all nerd fandoms was 90 plus % male at first from what I can gather. even my first Anthrocon in 2000 was much different then it was last year.

Back in the beginning, when Xanadu was new and dinosaurs walked the earth, the ratio was something like a hundred to one. The girl being the "one". This was because, at that time, there was no separate Funny Animal fandom. We were lumped in with all comics. It was about another 5 years before the term "Furry" was born and the Furries separated from the comic genre. (Not that we have ever really "separated". Furry is a visual existence, largely, and comics still figure prominently.) After that, the ratio began to level out some.

When I said that males outnumber females by 10%, I was being conservative. The ratio is probably closer to 25% +male. Which means we're still male-heavy. But it's hard to tell when people have user-names that are gender non-specific or appear as characters who are of the opposite gender.

If my last gather is anything to go by, there are about 12 males for every female, but I saw a higher ratio at cons, so it might be the local social population.

Speaking of Xanadu, was Ever-Changing Palace 9 and Across Diamond Seas the end of it, or was/is there more?

Just remember, this is the Internet, where women are men, men are men and children are FBI agents.

Personally I'd say that with Internet's ongoing assimilation of every sentient being on Earth, the furry fandom is becoming more evenly split between genders; even MUCKs and IRC are becoming less of a bastion of male nerdity.

Oh! And there is another aspect to the furry fandom: it appears to be the haven for people with various "gender issues", starting from mere "bi-curious" and ending with post-ops and self-declared neuters.

In fact, I actually know more post-op transgenders within the furry community than "normal" straight guys.

I don't know if this is peculiar to fur-dom, but yeah. Pretty much.

Ahhhh. *Nods*

I suspect males outnumber females in furry fandom by a great deal more than 10% -- though the numbers of female artists may be nearer parity. The impression I have is that furry fandom -- like every other kind -- attracts a lot of free lance women who only need to do something vaguely fantasy or counterculture oriented and they can sell it at about 2 dozen different kinds of con. So there are a lotof women artists. I don't think they come here to buy the sort of stuff they sell, though.

Could be wrong... I haven't been to a furry con since about 2001.

Firstly the ratio of male to female? As a 20 year vet on FurryMUCK, I tend to agree with you. There is probably about a 60/40 ratio of male vs female characters but my suspections are that it would come out to a 90/10 ratio, of males vs female players.

The sorts of images furries like to see are varied, although most have said that they like images that are as esthetically pleasing as they are erotic. And WHY they like these images, most furries are not entirely sure. They just know what they like when they see it.

I think here, that most of this is cultured basically. Just before I came upon the fur community, I believe Xanadu was my first example of a truly sensual fur - IE: Alicia. I know I had an enormous desire and lust for her. But I know I was also deeply intrigued by M'Ress of the Animated Star Trek when it first came on - which would me about 10 - just on the edge of puberty. I think partly it was because of Ms. Roddenberry's excellent rendering of her voice. (A good post is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjGhYexrJ0c) and as an audiophile, I'm intreegd by voices, and sounds. I also had a major crush for Jenny on 'Bucky O'Hare, even though I only saw a small number of the show.

It has only been in the last 10 years however that I've started really seeing the beauty of anthro cervines and bovines - especially the does - so now, they almost beat equines as my favorite of the fandom. Yours Vicki, as well as Heather Burton, and Dark Natasha has made some incredibly beautiful does.

But here's a twist, Notice the difference between two versions of my "Hindvalian" species. One done by E.C. Major for a deer (sorry :) friend of mine, Kantuck Nadie - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/7819334/ and a photomorph of a Hindvalian doe. - https://www.furaffinity.net/view/7856633/

I hate to say it, but I was honestly shocked at first when I saw the first version. Although it is a logical, and probable version. It still was a shock, but it helped add weight and realism on what I've been seeing with my TerraFUR framework project.

Excellent journal!

I say the male to female ratio is closer to 7 males to every female, and of the seven males, 1 is hetero, whereas on the female side, pushing closer to 60% hetero.

Now among the artists, the female to male ratio is alot closer to 50/50.

And yer still a sexy ole broad!!

I once took the two images you did for me to a Stilyagi Air Corps meeting. Tom Barber on seeing Sharla. "I might not know art, but I know what I like."

I heartily agree.

Like a Variety Pack: Mature stuff...gag panels and strips...cute posing...dramatic events...quiet personal moments....character development.

It has been done in furry art....with the potential for even more creative moments.

wish I could get that kind of turn out when I ask a question

That sounds more or less plausible to me.

Off-hand, I think your conclusions are fairly close to  nuka-kitty's, except his estimates of female-to-male is more like 1:10, I believe.

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3248549/

Nice summary! Thanks for presenting it.