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First journal entry wooooo
17 years ago
So I never actually use this feature of good ol' Fur Affinity, and that is largely because I keep an LJ. It is a locked LJ though, so don't bother looking. Regardless, I am somewhat tempted to migrate here, or at least update now and then, since many of my Fuzzy Friends aren't privy to the prior mentioned journal.
The problem is, when I start writing, I sometimes start writing about important things. And sometimes the point I started to make turns into something else entirely. It is like a form of stream-of-consciousness essay writing. So take it with a grain of salt. Let's give it a try!
HI GUYS
I AM GONNA RAMBLE NOW PLEASE DON'T TAKE THIS TOO SERIOUSLY ^.^
The Horrible Truth About Being a Furry
I have two confessions to make that may shock you.
First: I am a furry.
Second: I am proud of this. Sort of. Kind of.
The truth is, while I have a lot of love and respect for my dear fandom and the people in it, I make no presumptions regarding the normalcy of what it is that we do. The reasons I love the fandom are intangible, ideological principles that most people don't give a good gosh darn about.
In my heart, I just adore the simple, sweet, friendly atmosphere. I love cute and friendly things with minimal confrontation.
And in my head, I can justify my attraction in a myriad logical ways.
After all, here we have a group of people who can be stereotyped as being leagues more tolerant and accepting of differences than the vast majority of other groups of people. While the reasons for this tolerance go from the strange to the downright sad, the end result is absolutely a healthy and positive one. I am a transgendered girl, I like to prance about online as a cute little mouse girl, and I have sexual needs that might best be described as specific. In the fandom, this is okay.
That is why the fandom is a good place for damn near anyone who can lower their guard and not turn on the blinders just because someone is doing something we don't understand or think is, I dunno... socially appropriate. That's just the beauty of it, though. Where else can you possibly go, where practically no matter what you do, someone is going to say to you 'Oh that's nothing, you should see <insert fandom-specific fetish here>.'
How comforting to find out that all that sexual deviancy you thought was gonna wind you up in therapy is practically vanilla sex amongst the rest of your community.
When speaking to nonfurs, and given examples of how furries seem to be typically incoherent, immature, ignorant, and incomprehensible, I can only offer them the simple alternative; given the option between an entire internet of incoherent, immature, ignorant, and incomprehensible people, I would rather choose the ones who will at least treat me with decency and respect when I haven't given them adequate reason not to.
I cannot say so much for the average - as an example - youtube lurker.
Now, of course, these assumptions aren't always true. I have met furries who have been jerks, or just plain neurotic to the point of being disruptive. There are always exceptions. And it's certainly not that I think that nonfurs are bad. Many of my dearest friends are not furries. But there is a degree of consistency that I am comfortable with, and that is the important thing.
But none of this is important, you see. This is all well and good for me to decide, for us as furries to decide, but people just don't make these sorts of calculations. You cannot tell someone that you are a furry in the same way that you might inform them that you are gay. You can't unfold it like some big revelation. Informing someone you are gay is like informing them you have a sexually transmittable disease; at worst they fear you'll somehow pass it on to them, and at best they just accept it, you both have a good cry, and move on. But they don't look at you and go, 'Why the fuck do you have that?' (Well okay, some people do, but let's move on)
Telling someone you are a furry is a bit like telling them you are a scientologist(not to draw any other comparisons, because frankly that would be insulting to myself, but for the sake of argument here). You can come out and say it like it's this big thing and it's making you so happy, but people are going to at best ask why you even brought it up, and at worst, look at you and go, 'Why the fuck did you do that?' and then stop being your friend because you are a creepy cultist.
Because frankly, sort of like scientology, it's ridiculous and makes no sense whatsoever, but we have rationalized it anyway. It's not about whether or not we have valid rationalizations(and I think we do, which is just one of many wonderful things that separates us from those creepy cultists, just to play down the comparison), it's that it required rationalization to begin with.
Extreme differences in behaviour from the cultural norm is always viewed with various degrees of discord. Always. There has never been a cultural change movement which was not opposed as though by default, regardless of how benign or beneficial those movements have been.
The flaw in furry thinking is actually our biggest argument in defense; we are just people like you. We just think differently.
Of course we're just people like them. So were the abolitionists, the women's rights movement, the gay rights movement, the transgender rights movement. You don't have to be confrontational to find confrontation, and nor do you need to even aspire to grand cultural change to be perceived as abberant. It is highly difficult to persuade an entire cultural that you are completely different and yet utterly the same as they are(even if you really are).
It's unfortunate but it is true. While much of the curtain has been drawn from the once-secretive fandom, thanks to the popularity of the internet, all for the benefit of the public eye, we've found that if anything, it has only made it worse. I have read and watched all manner of furry media coverage, and I have come to realize some things.
First, I am nothing like the people in these articles and documentaries.
Secondly, the most accepting nonfurs seem to be the ones who knew the least about us before actually coming into contact with the fandom.
Thirdly, and most importantly, perhaps, is that despite the first statement, the media has never really given a depiction of the furry fandom that I would describe to be inaccurate in at least large part. I have seen so many people complain because some overweight woman who likes to wear bunny ears flopped on the ground and cuddled the journalist. Or because some airhead made a totally crazy comment about whatever. As if that is the worst we have to offer.
I hope to god that the journalists never get on a serious story about vore, or babyfurs. We'd never hear the end of it. But providing we can keep them away from the really bad subjects, yes it is too much to ask even an unbiased media to focus on the most boring furries of all; the ones who most resemble people who aren't furries at all.
Truth is, as a community we are exactly like these videos depict. These are people just trying to have fun and be silly and do their thing, and when you take something as silly and ridiculous as what we do, entirely from its context, even we tend to find it grating. Whether you do it online or go to meets, whether you care about the community or not, whether you're a vanilla fur or a PG fur or a nasty sexual deviant, we are all in it for the same basic reason; because it's the only place we can be ourselves comfortably enough to meet other people who share our perceptions of what it means to be a fur. And in that, we are all the same.
My answer to this? More power to them. This is the same sort of coverage the gay pride groups got. A bunch of flaming nellies in leather straps and feather boas. And how did they survive it?
They said 'fuck off, we're starting a parade.'
And as much as some people think gay pride parades are a dumb idea, the amount of good all that showboating did to acclimatize the population to the average homosexual individual was incredible. And don't even think that wasn't the point, because it was. When you're exposed to men in insane clothing and butchy, scary biker women, suddenly seeing the same people, completely unrecognizable at a store the next day, dressed relatively normally and speaking with a slight gay lisp or holding the hand of someone of the same gender, just isn't that shocking anymore.
So maybe we're not the victims of genetics or trapped in a position where the government won't allow us to be who we really are, but what the hell. Embrace it anyway. Yeah we're weird, but we're not weird all the time.
But what we are, all the time, is totally adorable.
Rar.
Mousie out. <3 <3
The problem is, when I start writing, I sometimes start writing about important things. And sometimes the point I started to make turns into something else entirely. It is like a form of stream-of-consciousness essay writing. So take it with a grain of salt. Let's give it a try!
HI GUYS
I AM GONNA RAMBLE NOW PLEASE DON'T TAKE THIS TOO SERIOUSLY ^.^
The Horrible Truth About Being a Furry
I have two confessions to make that may shock you.
First: I am a furry.
Second: I am proud of this. Sort of. Kind of.
The truth is, while I have a lot of love and respect for my dear fandom and the people in it, I make no presumptions regarding the normalcy of what it is that we do. The reasons I love the fandom are intangible, ideological principles that most people don't give a good gosh darn about.
In my heart, I just adore the simple, sweet, friendly atmosphere. I love cute and friendly things with minimal confrontation.
And in my head, I can justify my attraction in a myriad logical ways.
After all, here we have a group of people who can be stereotyped as being leagues more tolerant and accepting of differences than the vast majority of other groups of people. While the reasons for this tolerance go from the strange to the downright sad, the end result is absolutely a healthy and positive one. I am a transgendered girl, I like to prance about online as a cute little mouse girl, and I have sexual needs that might best be described as specific. In the fandom, this is okay.
That is why the fandom is a good place for damn near anyone who can lower their guard and not turn on the blinders just because someone is doing something we don't understand or think is, I dunno... socially appropriate. That's just the beauty of it, though. Where else can you possibly go, where practically no matter what you do, someone is going to say to you 'Oh that's nothing, you should see <insert fandom-specific fetish here>.'
How comforting to find out that all that sexual deviancy you thought was gonna wind you up in therapy is practically vanilla sex amongst the rest of your community.
When speaking to nonfurs, and given examples of how furries seem to be typically incoherent, immature, ignorant, and incomprehensible, I can only offer them the simple alternative; given the option between an entire internet of incoherent, immature, ignorant, and incomprehensible people, I would rather choose the ones who will at least treat me with decency and respect when I haven't given them adequate reason not to.
I cannot say so much for the average - as an example - youtube lurker.
Now, of course, these assumptions aren't always true. I have met furries who have been jerks, or just plain neurotic to the point of being disruptive. There are always exceptions. And it's certainly not that I think that nonfurs are bad. Many of my dearest friends are not furries. But there is a degree of consistency that I am comfortable with, and that is the important thing.
But none of this is important, you see. This is all well and good for me to decide, for us as furries to decide, but people just don't make these sorts of calculations. You cannot tell someone that you are a furry in the same way that you might inform them that you are gay. You can't unfold it like some big revelation. Informing someone you are gay is like informing them you have a sexually transmittable disease; at worst they fear you'll somehow pass it on to them, and at best they just accept it, you both have a good cry, and move on. But they don't look at you and go, 'Why the fuck do you have that?' (Well okay, some people do, but let's move on)
Telling someone you are a furry is a bit like telling them you are a scientologist(not to draw any other comparisons, because frankly that would be insulting to myself, but for the sake of argument here). You can come out and say it like it's this big thing and it's making you so happy, but people are going to at best ask why you even brought it up, and at worst, look at you and go, 'Why the fuck did you do that?' and then stop being your friend because you are a creepy cultist.
Because frankly, sort of like scientology, it's ridiculous and makes no sense whatsoever, but we have rationalized it anyway. It's not about whether or not we have valid rationalizations(and I think we do, which is just one of many wonderful things that separates us from those creepy cultists, just to play down the comparison), it's that it required rationalization to begin with.
Extreme differences in behaviour from the cultural norm is always viewed with various degrees of discord. Always. There has never been a cultural change movement which was not opposed as though by default, regardless of how benign or beneficial those movements have been.
The flaw in furry thinking is actually our biggest argument in defense; we are just people like you. We just think differently.
Of course we're just people like them. So were the abolitionists, the women's rights movement, the gay rights movement, the transgender rights movement. You don't have to be confrontational to find confrontation, and nor do you need to even aspire to grand cultural change to be perceived as abberant. It is highly difficult to persuade an entire cultural that you are completely different and yet utterly the same as they are(even if you really are).
It's unfortunate but it is true. While much of the curtain has been drawn from the once-secretive fandom, thanks to the popularity of the internet, all for the benefit of the public eye, we've found that if anything, it has only made it worse. I have read and watched all manner of furry media coverage, and I have come to realize some things.
First, I am nothing like the people in these articles and documentaries.
Secondly, the most accepting nonfurs seem to be the ones who knew the least about us before actually coming into contact with the fandom.
Thirdly, and most importantly, perhaps, is that despite the first statement, the media has never really given a depiction of the furry fandom that I would describe to be inaccurate in at least large part. I have seen so many people complain because some overweight woman who likes to wear bunny ears flopped on the ground and cuddled the journalist. Or because some airhead made a totally crazy comment about whatever. As if that is the worst we have to offer.
I hope to god that the journalists never get on a serious story about vore, or babyfurs. We'd never hear the end of it. But providing we can keep them away from the really bad subjects, yes it is too much to ask even an unbiased media to focus on the most boring furries of all; the ones who most resemble people who aren't furries at all.
Truth is, as a community we are exactly like these videos depict. These are people just trying to have fun and be silly and do their thing, and when you take something as silly and ridiculous as what we do, entirely from its context, even we tend to find it grating. Whether you do it online or go to meets, whether you care about the community or not, whether you're a vanilla fur or a PG fur or a nasty sexual deviant, we are all in it for the same basic reason; because it's the only place we can be ourselves comfortably enough to meet other people who share our perceptions of what it means to be a fur. And in that, we are all the same.
My answer to this? More power to them. This is the same sort of coverage the gay pride groups got. A bunch of flaming nellies in leather straps and feather boas. And how did they survive it?
They said 'fuck off, we're starting a parade.'
And as much as some people think gay pride parades are a dumb idea, the amount of good all that showboating did to acclimatize the population to the average homosexual individual was incredible. And don't even think that wasn't the point, because it was. When you're exposed to men in insane clothing and butchy, scary biker women, suddenly seeing the same people, completely unrecognizable at a store the next day, dressed relatively normally and speaking with a slight gay lisp or holding the hand of someone of the same gender, just isn't that shocking anymore.
So maybe we're not the victims of genetics or trapped in a position where the government won't allow us to be who we really are, but what the hell. Embrace it anyway. Yeah we're weird, but we're not weird all the time.
But what we are, all the time, is totally adorable.
Rar.
Mousie out. <3 <3
