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Never got it.
13 years ago
What always astonished me about furry subculture is it the fact how it started basically as a group of people interested into funny animals animation for became into a sexual themed subculture involving LGBT friendly politics and a whole artistic market focused on porn. How this happened? Is a hint something is wrong with western culture? The philosopher Herbert Marcuse exposed this question (the possibles ways western civilization could enter into decadence) very well in his Eros and civilization, saying sex could be used in social engineering for manipulate the social expectations of an collective or class for fulfill the agendas of another group in possession of the cultural agents, but is not the case with the furry "fandom". There is no conspiracy nor any social agent which is using the furry subculture for "stain" the mind of those members of our society which are susceptible to sex linked stimuli, I think the sexuality topics pouring inside the furry fandom are a symptom of how this contemporary culture focus into consumerism and monetary gain has stagnated more noble ideals and create a general frustration and need of escapism.
If we add to this the fact there are social groups who live outside of the "normal" society, then we have a powerful subcultural concoction which is being indirectly counter cultural.
That is one side of the coin, the other side says is just a group of people which have too much free time and enough money to invest in sexual role plays and pornographic art aimed to wish fulfillment: You had a shitty day at work because your boss pointed out how incompetent you are or tell you about a mistake in public? Play a scene where you are a dragon growing bigger in size, muscle and more endowed and literary fuck the world, You are tired of people who are illiterate and vulgar? Just be an apex predator and eat them, turning them into the shit they are...and so on, a behavior I must confess disgust me.
I don't know which side of the coin is the right one.
If we add to this the fact there are social groups who live outside of the "normal" society, then we have a powerful subcultural concoction which is being indirectly counter cultural.
That is one side of the coin, the other side says is just a group of people which have too much free time and enough money to invest in sexual role plays and pornographic art aimed to wish fulfillment: You had a shitty day at work because your boss pointed out how incompetent you are or tell you about a mistake in public? Play a scene where you are a dragon growing bigger in size, muscle and more endowed and literary fuck the world, You are tired of people who are illiterate and vulgar? Just be an apex predator and eat them, turning them into the shit they are...and so on, a behavior I must confess disgust me.
I don't know which side of the coin is the right one.
More generally, the furry subculture and the furry porn sub-subculture within it, are just a bunch of like-minded people getting together talking and arting about stuff they like. I haven't had a shitty day at work (or even a shitty day) in several years, yet I still draw furry porn and RP all the time. I don't do it because I want to get away from my mean boss. I do it because I like it. Your argument could be extended to almost anything. Why do some people play softball in their spare time? Because they had a bad day at work, and fantasize about smacking things around with a bat. Maybe someone does, but I think we can agree that overall this is a pretty silly line of reasoning. And I'd say the same is true for your example. People just RP because it's fun. There's not really anything deeper to it than that.
Finally, I think you also underestimate the extent to which the rest of "normal" society is sexual. Furry gets a lot of this criticism because the subculture wears it on their sleeve. Not everyone involved with furry is happy with this. But for better or worse, we advertise sexuality, and pretty perverted sexuality at that. But the thing a lot of people avoid talking about is, normal society is just as perverted. It's not out there overtly in mass media the way it is in the furry fandom, so I think the tendency is for everyone to assume that nobody is nearly as kinky as they are in bed. But on the whole, people are a lot kinkier than they publicly admit. There is no "normal" when it comes to sexuality, nor should there be. Furthermore, sexuality is used for advertising far more in "normal" society than it is in the furry world, so your criticism that these things are a "symptom of how contemporary culture focus into consumerism and monetary gain..." etc applies far more to everyone else in western culture than it does to furries. And even then, I'm not sure this is a bad thing, or even a premeditated thing. It's just advertisers collectively using what works.
Tl;dr: Why has so much of furry culture become about porn? Because it's fun, and people like it.
Successful artist in the furry subculture may not experience the interaction with such individuals for a simple reason, they are an exclusive group which interaction with the others members of the fandom who doesn't share talent expectations with them is purely commercial (even if may be exceptions, this is the norm). This selectivity makes the talented artists have a social experience which scope is limited, they most likely doesn't have to deal like a standard rper in a chat with individuals which mental condition could be very questionable and most likely will interact with other individuals who are fulfilled (in a sense similar to Robert Maslow theories) or emotional stable. Being a fulfilled individual means a less imperious need to "wish fulfillment", explaining the lack of presence of artist and writers with a certain level of talent in the RP chats or even the active negative to RP.
I also must confess I consider myself part of said demographic of unstable individuals suffering of "social anxiety" which is translated into a quite frequent need of wish fulfillment. Some could say such subjective element could be a contamination of my objective criteria, however what I am trying to point here is a very objective worry about the status of western society and it's culture which seems to be more and more decadent with each passing decade since the second mid of the 20th century.
Porn can be fun but when it becomes the source of monothematic tendencies is hint something maybe is going wrong.