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Of the Recent Drama
16 years ago
General
This was originally a response to a string of journals by 
turbinedivinity, but I realized it stood almost well enough on its own. It's a bit involved, but it also explains in pretty good depth the whole problem I have with furry in general getting painted as a kink, and also with people pushing the "furry's a kink! Just ACCEPT IT!" viewpoint. I figured it might be worth a posting here.
Call me crazy, but I just can't work up all that much ire over the attacks. In a sense, I even have to admit it's a relief to see the fandom actually show itself capable of ostracising someone, but it's the same sense in which it's a relief to see a bloody revolution in an oppressed country - it's horrific, but there's an odd sort of comfort that comes with knowing a society is still at least healthy enough to excise its own cancers. So. I don't condone the rabid attacks, and I'm not about to say ChewFox was a cancer on the fandom - small harmless cyst, perhaps - but I had started to believe it couldn't happen.
But I also don't find it particularly hypocritical to bag on ChewFox. Wait, wait, I have reasons for this.
Yes, everyone - EVERYONE - in furry gets a little crazy when it can has be sexy tiems, but that's hardly surprising because everyone at all - AT ALL - gets a little crazy when it can has be sexy tiems, and furry kinks - here's a radical assertion - are not unique to furry. With possibly the sole exception of 'suit sex, macro, latex, BDSM, TG, TF, castration, tickling, sneezing, WHATEVER, are also found in perfectly human circles. But extrapolate from that in two directions.
First, that furry is not about having better or more frequent sexy tiems. If it were, the fur would be pretty damn extraneous; we're all (other than the tiny fraction that's really into 'suit sex) into things that you can get way more into (or at least into a larger practising community) as a normal human being. Yes, there's some pretty heavy interest there, but there's some pretty heavy interest in normal society. We're not unique that way, and given that, one could as easily say that being an Anime fan was about the sex, or that being a truck driver was about the sex, or a cowboy, or a sci-fi nut, or...I mean, pick a subset of humanity, and the label will stick, at least a little bit. Biologically, being HUMAN is about the sex.
But that doesn't ring entirely true, does it? Obviously if you go to a plumber's convention and assert that plumbing is all about the sex, you'll be laughed out of the room. Even though the attendants may be proportionally no less interested in boning things than an equally sized group of furries, nobody in their right mind would make that assertion. Why? Because - and this is the second bit - being a plumber isn't about the sex, and they keep the two separated.
What furry is about is escapism. Life gets annoying or you get aggravated or you're just plain not having enough fun, and it becomes much more interesting to say fuck it, I'm going off to be a bipedal fox for a while. And while you're off being a bipedal fox, what else might be fun? Oh, right, boning things. Hey look! Consenting adults!
So there is a separation there. If you'd rather go off and do something else - say, be a bipedal fox in space - that's just fine, too. But it's the bipedal fox part that people have trouble with, really. People just don't GET that. It's not really something that follows logically. If it were just textual intercourse, that'd be fine, but being a fox is weird. But as soon as someone leans over to another person whose head is exploding with the concept of going off and being a fox for a while and says "it's a sex thing," a little light comes on, they go "ahh," and you can see revulsion slide across their face, because this is just weird and wrong.
So basically here's the problem. Furry has sex IN it, like every other group of people on the face of the planet does, but that doesn't mean that's what it's about. It should be okay (if quirky) to be furry. It should be okay, furry or otherwise, to like sex, even weird sex. But you should be able to separate the two. Since we're a little more open, and increasingly explained as a perversion, that's getting really hard to do, and most of furry is externally visible. Oh shit, suddenly, that makes us those strange people who can't keep it in the bedroom (whether we actually are or not)
And I say all that basically to say this. People who can keep the bedroom bits in the bedroom and the normal bits in the open making fun of someone who cannot keep the bedroom bits in the bedroom, and therefore gets furry interpreted as a bedroom thing with no normal bits at all, are not hypocrites. They are people being angry that their genuinely awesome passtime is getting painted as a kink, so that it is impossible for them to be seen as part of it without also being seen as a bizarre deviant (even though, relative to larger society, they ain't). They may have a closet full of every product Zeta Creations or Bad Dragon has ever offered, but as long as they're not proudly on display in the living room or worn about town as a necklace, and as long as that's not all the fandom is to them - basically, as long as they're keeping the bedroom bits in the bedroom - there's no hypocrisy there.
turbinedivinity, but I realized it stood almost well enough on its own. It's a bit involved, but it also explains in pretty good depth the whole problem I have with furry in general getting painted as a kink, and also with people pushing the "furry's a kink! Just ACCEPT IT!" viewpoint. I figured it might be worth a posting here.Call me crazy, but I just can't work up all that much ire over the attacks. In a sense, I even have to admit it's a relief to see the fandom actually show itself capable of ostracising someone, but it's the same sense in which it's a relief to see a bloody revolution in an oppressed country - it's horrific, but there's an odd sort of comfort that comes with knowing a society is still at least healthy enough to excise its own cancers. So. I don't condone the rabid attacks, and I'm not about to say ChewFox was a cancer on the fandom - small harmless cyst, perhaps - but I had started to believe it couldn't happen.
But I also don't find it particularly hypocritical to bag on ChewFox. Wait, wait, I have reasons for this.
Yes, everyone - EVERYONE - in furry gets a little crazy when it can has be sexy tiems, but that's hardly surprising because everyone at all - AT ALL - gets a little crazy when it can has be sexy tiems, and furry kinks - here's a radical assertion - are not unique to furry. With possibly the sole exception of 'suit sex, macro, latex, BDSM, TG, TF, castration, tickling, sneezing, WHATEVER, are also found in perfectly human circles. But extrapolate from that in two directions.
First, that furry is not about having better or more frequent sexy tiems. If it were, the fur would be pretty damn extraneous; we're all (other than the tiny fraction that's really into 'suit sex) into things that you can get way more into (or at least into a larger practising community) as a normal human being. Yes, there's some pretty heavy interest there, but there's some pretty heavy interest in normal society. We're not unique that way, and given that, one could as easily say that being an Anime fan was about the sex, or that being a truck driver was about the sex, or a cowboy, or a sci-fi nut, or...I mean, pick a subset of humanity, and the label will stick, at least a little bit. Biologically, being HUMAN is about the sex.
But that doesn't ring entirely true, does it? Obviously if you go to a plumber's convention and assert that plumbing is all about the sex, you'll be laughed out of the room. Even though the attendants may be proportionally no less interested in boning things than an equally sized group of furries, nobody in their right mind would make that assertion. Why? Because - and this is the second bit - being a plumber isn't about the sex, and they keep the two separated.
What furry is about is escapism. Life gets annoying or you get aggravated or you're just plain not having enough fun, and it becomes much more interesting to say fuck it, I'm going off to be a bipedal fox for a while. And while you're off being a bipedal fox, what else might be fun? Oh, right, boning things. Hey look! Consenting adults!
So there is a separation there. If you'd rather go off and do something else - say, be a bipedal fox in space - that's just fine, too. But it's the bipedal fox part that people have trouble with, really. People just don't GET that. It's not really something that follows logically. If it were just textual intercourse, that'd be fine, but being a fox is weird. But as soon as someone leans over to another person whose head is exploding with the concept of going off and being a fox for a while and says "it's a sex thing," a little light comes on, they go "ahh," and you can see revulsion slide across their face, because this is just weird and wrong.
So basically here's the problem. Furry has sex IN it, like every other group of people on the face of the planet does, but that doesn't mean that's what it's about. It should be okay (if quirky) to be furry. It should be okay, furry or otherwise, to like sex, even weird sex. But you should be able to separate the two. Since we're a little more open, and increasingly explained as a perversion, that's getting really hard to do, and most of furry is externally visible. Oh shit, suddenly, that makes us those strange people who can't keep it in the bedroom (whether we actually are or not)
And I say all that basically to say this. People who can keep the bedroom bits in the bedroom and the normal bits in the open making fun of someone who cannot keep the bedroom bits in the bedroom, and therefore gets furry interpreted as a bedroom thing with no normal bits at all, are not hypocrites. They are people being angry that their genuinely awesome passtime is getting painted as a kink, so that it is impossible for them to be seen as part of it without also being seen as a bizarre deviant (even though, relative to larger society, they ain't). They may have a closet full of every product Zeta Creations or Bad Dragon has ever offered, but as long as they're not proudly on display in the living room or worn about town as a necklace, and as long as that's not all the fandom is to them - basically, as long as they're keeping the bedroom bits in the bedroom - there's no hypocrisy there.
