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socially co-opted unattributed bias, and you
11 years ago
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If you grew up in the 90's you may remember this Gem of a saying, "anything but country, or rap"..
Hell, I know I said it.. to be honest I have not heard this phrase in quite some time. Through the years such a mentality withered away. I assume partially do to the connectivity of the internet. I am going to completely ignore that, as it is not conducive to the point I am belaboring to make.
Let's assume for a second that this phrase is still as prolific as it once was.
From a completely superficial standpoint one could easilly attribute merit to the statement. My parents where not huge N.W.A. fans, so my exposure to rap was the following.
Pickeld beets? More like Pickeled beats....
Sorry, dad humor...
Then we have the other side of this sonic dichotomy, country.
Now, how exactly is this defacto worse than
Yikes...
So, why am I bringing this up?
Rap and country are huge blanketed generalizations that are adequately represent by Care Bears, or white jeans and mullets.
More to the point, people did not listen to enough of either to come to their own conclusions, they parroted sentiment, and used the examples above to further their confirmation bias.
Eventually we started to see a culturally reinforced bias proliferate the hierarchy of 90's, suburban, elementary school students.
It took years, but eventually I found out that rap, and country can be awesome. Turns out music is just music, and you as an individual can like anything you like.. Crazy, huh?
To tie this with my main point, when people say "Furry is not about sex", or something along those lines, I feel it's a paralleled cultural bias problem. I am talking about the prudish image we try to project.. a squeaky clean image to the outside world. That somehow sex is wrong, or sullies an otherwise innocent thing, and furry has nothing to do with sex.
BULLSHIT!
I would argue that it is more unnatural to not sexualize anthropomorphous anything.
Humans are sexual creatures. We sexualize EVERYTHING.
Here is an exercise for you, try not to imagine any of the following.
Sexy..
-Nurse
-Plumber
-Scarecrow
-Witch
-Fireman
-Refrigerator repair technician
-Nerd/Librarian
-Obama
-Taxi driver
-Used care salesman
-Used car..
How did you do? Your dirty little brain can imagine a sexual situation for all of the above..How cool is that!
Hell, say it's 3AM, you can just go to the store and buy this..
http://fairvilla.costumesupermart.c.....LAMP85258.html
Or this...
http://fairvilla.costumesupermart.c.....-FW121304.html
You can even buy your kids costumes at the same store you buy your sex toys
http://fairvilla.costumesupermart.com/
Is this really so taboo?
Every time we bow to the co-opted bias thrust upon us we in turn look less normal, not more normal. I have no intention of feeling ashamed for something I did not do wrong. Every time you bend the truth, or even lie, you are empowering that bias to continue.
Humans are odd, sexually frustrated, imagination machines, and that is 100% natural.
When you are apologetic, aren't you just admitting what you think you are doing is wrong. I ask you, what is actually wrong?
Does that mean that you as an individual should enjoy sexualized anthropomorphic art, stories, or whatever? Of course not, but to deny the true scope of how sexual this little subculture of ours happens to be is downright unnatural.
In the end is this not just another echoed sentiment of individualism I have droned on about before? Your're damn right it is.
Be yourself, live for yourself, and see for yourself. Do you..
If you grew up in the 90's you may remember this Gem of a saying, "anything but country, or rap"..
Hell, I know I said it.. to be honest I have not heard this phrase in quite some time. Through the years such a mentality withered away. I assume partially do to the connectivity of the internet. I am going to completely ignore that, as it is not conducive to the point I am belaboring to make.
Let's assume for a second that this phrase is still as prolific as it once was.
From a completely superficial standpoint one could easilly attribute merit to the statement. My parents where not huge N.W.A. fans, so my exposure to rap was the following.
Pickeld beets? More like Pickeled beats....
Sorry, dad humor...
Then we have the other side of this sonic dichotomy, country.
Now, how exactly is this defacto worse than
Yikes...
So, why am I bringing this up?
Rap and country are huge blanketed generalizations that are adequately represent by Care Bears, or white jeans and mullets.
More to the point, people did not listen to enough of either to come to their own conclusions, they parroted sentiment, and used the examples above to further their confirmation bias.
Eventually we started to see a culturally reinforced bias proliferate the hierarchy of 90's, suburban, elementary school students.
It took years, but eventually I found out that rap, and country can be awesome. Turns out music is just music, and you as an individual can like anything you like.. Crazy, huh?
To tie this with my main point, when people say "Furry is not about sex", or something along those lines, I feel it's a paralleled cultural bias problem. I am talking about the prudish image we try to project.. a squeaky clean image to the outside world. That somehow sex is wrong, or sullies an otherwise innocent thing, and furry has nothing to do with sex.
BULLSHIT!
I would argue that it is more unnatural to not sexualize anthropomorphous anything.
Humans are sexual creatures. We sexualize EVERYTHING.
Here is an exercise for you, try not to imagine any of the following.
Sexy..
-Nurse
-Plumber
-Scarecrow
-Witch
-Fireman
-Refrigerator repair technician
-Nerd/Librarian
-Obama
-Taxi driver
-Used care salesman
-Used car..
How did you do? Your dirty little brain can imagine a sexual situation for all of the above..How cool is that!
Hell, say it's 3AM, you can just go to the store and buy this..
http://fairvilla.costumesupermart.c.....LAMP85258.html
Or this...
http://fairvilla.costumesupermart.c.....-FW121304.html
You can even buy your kids costumes at the same store you buy your sex toys
http://fairvilla.costumesupermart.com/
Is this really so taboo?
Every time we bow to the co-opted bias thrust upon us we in turn look less normal, not more normal. I have no intention of feeling ashamed for something I did not do wrong. Every time you bend the truth, or even lie, you are empowering that bias to continue.
Humans are odd, sexually frustrated, imagination machines, and that is 100% natural.
When you are apologetic, aren't you just admitting what you think you are doing is wrong. I ask you, what is actually wrong?
Does that mean that you as an individual should enjoy sexualized anthropomorphic art, stories, or whatever? Of course not, but to deny the true scope of how sexual this little subculture of ours happens to be is downright unnatural.
In the end is this not just another echoed sentiment of individualism I have droned on about before? Your're damn right it is.
Be yourself, live for yourself, and see for yourself. Do you..
Ambiguously phrased.
No, it should be fine to enjoy our sexualized culture too. Enjoyment and participation is not mandatory.
People generally associate furries with fursuits, although a majority probably don't have them it is one of the more 'extreme,' interesting and noted parts of the fandom to outsiders.
So when 'sex' is associated with furries it is usually automatically considered as people having sex in fursuits, that is also what all the 'bad' publicity we've gotten is about. (CSI, Tyra, 1000 ways to die, etc)
SO when people have that image of fursuits being used as sexual objects the idea of fursuits interacting with and having physical contact with children is what I think really makes it a big issue.
Being a meetup admin and setting up charity events having a fursuit that I know could be seen on xtube is very concerning to say the least, and I will avoid this if I am able.
Hopefully I'm making sense, just trying to look at it from that perspective!
http://fairvilla.costumesupermart.c.....-FW123764.html
When you are dong charities and the like, you are most likely unofficial. what are you a mascot of, or for? So, really, you are no different than any costumed individual that is wearing a costume for your own reasons. Nothing wrong with helping people, but you are essentially a random cute character that is not attached to any common character that kids, or whoever would know about.
You have to deal with the fact that people will take you for what you are..a person in a non-specific animal costume.. It comes across the same way an unlicensed "batguy", or "Rock monster" (if you watch season 4 of Arrested development you will get that). Your credentials are not established.
Whether its a known character or not people still don't want a 'sex toy' around their children. That sort of thing can get you banned from places, asked not to come back for events, I'm not sure if its against the law or not but I imagine it could be if there's enough proof.
My point is that a 'sex suit' is what the average person is thinking about when furries associated with sex comes up and that most do not want to be associated with that if they enjoy wearing their suits in public. ;w;
Humans are sexual but generally its looked down upon to be so around children and I think that's where people get the most upset about it, not so much the art or even 'private' murrsuits.
+1 for the care bears reference.
It's sort of like what Bougainville argued about the Tahitians. You couldn't judge their culture based on the received wisdom of European society. You had to approach it with a sort of cultivated naivete to really appreciate it.
So it the main drive force in our fandom sex? No, I will say, but there is a whole lot of it in there. That is a big difference, I would say.
The great thing about sex in furry culture is...SEX...IN FURRY CULTURE!
I'm not sure how Rap and "Care Bears" are similar, but then, I'm not a "gangsta'," so what do I know? As to "anything but country, or rap"...yeah, I have said it in the past. Now, I have found certain songs in both genres that I do enjoy, but in my overall consumption of music, their contributions remain significantly low.
"...when people say 'Furry is not about sex', or something along those lines...I am talking about the prudish image we try to project.. a squeaky clean image to the outside world.
...
We sexualize EVERYTHING."
Well now, here, I am very much in agreement. What a great way to start 2015! But seriously, I don't know if all the denial is less about a "cultural bias problem," and more about not wanting to divulge about sordid particulars; those furries would just rather be left alone to their own (de)vices.
Oh, and there's always some news story each year about popular/notable sexy costumes...although, I do hope no one thought of these costumes in your "test": http://www.cbc.ca/1.2805428
(Hilarious piecemeal quoting is hilarious!)