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Ponderings - Furry Indoctrination?
12 years ago
So, I was doing the dishes last night, and some things occurred to me...
I was bored during the day and reading TV Tropes, and I was surprised (I guess not that surprised, these days) to realize that the furfandom had its own Trope page. Reading through it, it was fairly well-balanced... they acknowledged, quite often and in great detail, that not everyone lives up to the stereotypical expectations, but it did feel the need to bring it up fairly often. One derogatory line which I had to admit was kind of funny was “By and large, furries are bi and large.”
Anyways, I got to thinking about why certain people do or do not “get” furries, with myself in particular. I didn’t get it, and in fact was guilty of mocking you guys, up until my... late 20’s? Around there sometime, I think I was 27. (Quick aside: sorry for mocking you guys.) But it’s undeniable, the propensity was already there, it just took the right input to discover it. The “wiring” in my brain was ready, willing and waiting.
So where did the wiring come from?
I thought about childhood. I’ve got a lot of Early Childhood Education training, and I’m enormously intrigued by psychology and sociology, and I remembered that a lot of growing up involves the creation and population of mental categories. That’s a lot of how brain and personality development occurs, in particular language: these things are good, these things are bad, these things are red, these things are tasty, these things are big... the population and cross-indexing of data creates these enormous, endlessly nested databases in our minds, and these shape a lot of how we take in and interpret stimuli later in life.
There were two instances in particular that made me wonder if the furry circuitry was being wired up early in life:
1.) In school, I learned about the Nazis killing Jews. I learned about the Spanish massacring most of South and Central America. I learned about the pilgrims and the later colonists wiping out entire civilizations of American Indian. I learned about the Canadian government responsible for human experimentation on First Nations people as recently as the 1970’s. I learned about the endless cycles of war, death, destruction, religion, intolerance... with very, very few examples EVER of humans being good people, and if they were, it was always rare individuals.
2.) Outside of school, every single morality lesson in every single book, comic and cartoon was presented by animals. The Bearenstein Bears learned life lessons, Bugs Bunny defeated his human tormenters, Fox McCloud fought against the human-ancestor simian maniac Andross... everything on television, commercials, video games, everything that was uplifting and inspirational and aimed at kids was presented by animals.
The cross-indexed categorization was stacked heavily against humans and for animals.
Obviously, I still love humans (as often as possible, when presented with the opportunity!) and it took me ages to find the right stimulus to make me think “Hmmmm, ok, that anthropomorphic fox is pretty hot...” A lot of people were probably wired more strongly than I was, or there was existing architecture there that was far more easily influenced, sort of like how some kids know EARLY that they’re the wrong gender, or gay. Google Coy Mathis. As much as her mom irritates me whenever we talk, because OH MY GOD LADY NOT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS PERSONALLY DESIGNED TO OFFEND YOU, Coy is an awesome kid and I can vouch for the fact that, yes, she knows.
I could be wrong about all this, but... eh, it’s just something I wanted to throw out there.
I was bored during the day and reading TV Tropes, and I was surprised (I guess not that surprised, these days) to realize that the furfandom had its own Trope page. Reading through it, it was fairly well-balanced... they acknowledged, quite often and in great detail, that not everyone lives up to the stereotypical expectations, but it did feel the need to bring it up fairly often. One derogatory line which I had to admit was kind of funny was “By and large, furries are bi and large.”
Anyways, I got to thinking about why certain people do or do not “get” furries, with myself in particular. I didn’t get it, and in fact was guilty of mocking you guys, up until my... late 20’s? Around there sometime, I think I was 27. (Quick aside: sorry for mocking you guys.) But it’s undeniable, the propensity was already there, it just took the right input to discover it. The “wiring” in my brain was ready, willing and waiting.
So where did the wiring come from?
I thought about childhood. I’ve got a lot of Early Childhood Education training, and I’m enormously intrigued by psychology and sociology, and I remembered that a lot of growing up involves the creation and population of mental categories. That’s a lot of how brain and personality development occurs, in particular language: these things are good, these things are bad, these things are red, these things are tasty, these things are big... the population and cross-indexing of data creates these enormous, endlessly nested databases in our minds, and these shape a lot of how we take in and interpret stimuli later in life.
There were two instances in particular that made me wonder if the furry circuitry was being wired up early in life:
1.) In school, I learned about the Nazis killing Jews. I learned about the Spanish massacring most of South and Central America. I learned about the pilgrims and the later colonists wiping out entire civilizations of American Indian. I learned about the Canadian government responsible for human experimentation on First Nations people as recently as the 1970’s. I learned about the endless cycles of war, death, destruction, religion, intolerance... with very, very few examples EVER of humans being good people, and if they were, it was always rare individuals.
2.) Outside of school, every single morality lesson in every single book, comic and cartoon was presented by animals. The Bearenstein Bears learned life lessons, Bugs Bunny defeated his human tormenters, Fox McCloud fought against the human-ancestor simian maniac Andross... everything on television, commercials, video games, everything that was uplifting and inspirational and aimed at kids was presented by animals.
The cross-indexed categorization was stacked heavily against humans and for animals.
Obviously, I still love humans (as often as possible, when presented with the opportunity!) and it took me ages to find the right stimulus to make me think “Hmmmm, ok, that anthropomorphic fox is pretty hot...” A lot of people were probably wired more strongly than I was, or there was existing architecture there that was far more easily influenced, sort of like how some kids know EARLY that they’re the wrong gender, or gay. Google Coy Mathis. As much as her mom irritates me whenever we talk, because OH MY GOD LADY NOT EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS PERSONALLY DESIGNED TO OFFEND YOU, Coy is an awesome kid and I can vouch for the fact that, yes, she knows.
I could be wrong about all this, but... eh, it’s just something I wanted to throw out there.
Self-representative. It was someone's fursona.
Normal/Serious. The character was depicted as having a normal life, not as something out of a cartoon.
This lead me onto a path where I started investigating furries, and why people would depict themselves that way. It sorta went downhill from there. I had always watched disney movies and the like, but I had no interest in them as a teenager, since they were kid material. But that idea was challenged, and that's all it took, really.
Sexual interest came later. I was pretty young and new to the internet when this happened. I did not know of any negative social stigma at the time, and that would have put me off of it, likely.
And then I found Renamon and the furry community... And that was that
At any rate, I think the draw of the furry community is that it lets peope leave the world they're used to and enter one that they have a hand in making--they get to reinvent themselves, society, even the laws of physics. And really, aren't we all wired to want an escape from reality sometimes? It's just a matter of what we end up finding to help us get out.
CS Lewis's Narnia tales had a lot to do with it. Talking animals! Eustace turned into a dragon! Fantastic!
Beatrix Potter, and then Fantastic Mr. Fox were my first introductions to furry children's literature. I had the Fantastic Mr. Fox book with the Donald Chaffin illustrations. I mean, just look at these! From 1970! http://myvintagebookcollectioninblo.....by-donald.html
My love of dragons, first of all -- they were often portrayed as clever, powerful, wise... Dragonlance had a good effect on me. Older intended audience than Narnia or Mr Fox, and they introduced the half-human half-dragon Draconians. Those fascinated me. Then there's Pern...
I still haven't seen the Dawn Treader movie, because I think it'd bring up the same painful feelings. Of course, that might be mitigated now that I have hope of someday getting to realize my TF-related dreams through virtual reality. Still, I'm not eager to find out.
I just realized that I've never told anyone about that stuff before. Hooray for (semi)anonymous confessions on the Internet!
I think my nonstandard sexuality finally crystalized for me when I saw the leopard woman on this pinball backglass, and it hit me right in the teenage libido. That was when I really realized that something was "off" about me, and I took it pretty hard, figuring I was "defective" somehow. I didn't know to call it "furry", though, until 1995, when I came across an art archive on the Web... I think it was an early form of VCL. Realizing that there were other people out there with tastes similar to mine helped a little, but tales of furry debauchery kept the self-castigation and lurking going until just last year, when I finally more or less got over it. People in our culture are way too quick to judge others, and they usually do it because of their own insecurities. Sexual preference is one of those things that gets judged extra-harshly, and even years ago I realized that Americans are way, way too prudish about things like that. If it doesn't hurt anyone, what the fuck does it matter?
As for the hyper and macro stuff, that's easy. "Big, bigger, biggest" shorts on late-70s Sesame Street. Yes, my wires were crossed that early.
My interest in dragons comes, I think, from a book series that started with "My Father's Dragon", which were the first stories I remember reading where dragons were depicted as friendly, intelligent creatures rather than villains or mindless beasts. And holy shit, i just discovered from reading that Wikipedia article that an anime was made of those books in 1997. Maybe it's on Youtube?
Hehe! I read a lot of Marvel Comics, and quickly found Tigra: http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/2505273.html
The first character trait about her that I liked in the West Coast Avengers was that she was a tigress who used an image enhancer to look human (shift human) but that was a disguise. She was tigra, even in disguise.
Hyper? Probably really started with Pern. And horses. But probably Pernese dragon fantasies. >_>
Marvel-wise, see also: Hepzibah. Mmmmm. Although, the artists seem to be making her look less and less skunk-like over time.
I think superhero comics are responsible for my fixation on huge muscles, too. Gee, thanks pop culture! If it weren't for you, I'd be totally normal!
"I think superhero comics are responsible for my fixation on huge muscles, too."
Or maybe you just realize huge muscles are beautiful and are naturally drawn to them?