Porn-sonas
by Reindeer Roger

Part 2 - Political Considerations in Furry Porn
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Many people look at and appreciate furry porn. It is rarely considered art, it does not transcend porn, and it does not transcend the economies or politics of sexuality. If anything, it is an exaggeration, and stylization of sexual economies and politics, but in a manner very loosely connected to reality. Likewise, its interconnectedness with sexual-political and sexual-economic reality is indirect, and largely psychological. It is a projection of ideals and desires contained within our understanding of reality. Its fictional, exaggerated properties are what it is sought out for, and contain features with real, psychological origins.

When I say psychological, I mean this in a more literary, rather than scientific/institutional way. I'm unaware and uneducated concerning the conventions of 'real' psychology, but nonetheless I wish to reclaim the ability to scrutinize, guess at the motivations of myself and others. Any attempt to otherwise approach the topic would be useless. People can take in my personal psychology/subjectivity to criticize what I write, but I do not believe this invalidates or devalues the content of my ideas. Regarding the particulars of my experience and subjectivity, there is no better informed or experienced authority than myself.

Smut generally has a particular detachment from reality. Susan Sontag's idea, in The Pornographic Imagination, is that porn operates as a world-building exercise, and as a site of personal transcendence/ transformation. Porn is defined by fantasy, but also adheres to logic of its own, confirming and organizing itself through pleasure. And much of this pleasure is of coming into new knowledge; learning the sexual nature of something we already know, or seeing ideas, objects, contradictions demonstrated in new combinations.

The information confirms itself, being recreated in photos, in videos, in reality. And it's confirmed whenever individuals negotiate to bring hypothetical sexual scenarios into being. So though smut stretches, and exists independently of, real life, it offers more than a hypothetical model to help us interpret it . . . it can also serve as a template for the extension of it.

Anyways, I will take a look at the many sexual-economic and sexual-political issues that manifest in furry porn, as they do in other porn and other sexual realms.

Firstly, there is the matter of the racist, ableist, anglocentric, hetero-centric, gendered, culturally created, multi-faceted mesh of oppressive systems that have created the stratified means by which we exchange sexual services, organize society through the influence of these sexual factors, evaluate personal worth based-on sexual factors, and use as a lens through which we learn how to treat, understand, and desire each other. I refer to this as sexual currency, or the sexual economy, and this appears in a crystallized form in furry porn, its dynamics heightened and exaggerated rather than averted through the use of anthropomorphism.

I see this manifested in the long list of value-charged, meaningful distinctions through which attractiveness is determined, which also appear as the attributes that are preferred in the construction of a porn-sona or in the characters used in furry porn.

Regarding appearance, athletic, slender, muscular, strong, lean, or fit body types are preferred, whereas bodies that are merely average, or overweight, are uncommon. Long, uncut dicks are preferred over small, cut ones.

I also see these dynamics in the way animals tend to stratify themselves into sexual roles, in a similar manner to how value and attributes tend to become associated with particular social groups, genders, attributes, races, sexualities etc.

There tend to be distinctions between larger, dominant tops, and weaker, more submissive bottoms. Between a male and a female, the female is generally submissive; between a straight-acting, masculine man, and a gay, effeminate man, the more masculine man tends to top; larger furs tend to top smaller furs; athletic, fit furs tend to top un-athletic, overweight furs; normal, ordinary animals tend to top unusual, exotic animals.

This manifests as dogs topping cats, as dogs are seen as more masculine and stronger; carnivores top herbivores; larger animals, such as lions, tigers, wolves, or dogs, tend to top smaller animals, such as deer, foxes, pandas, or cats; lions, tigers, or wolves, tend to top other lions, tigers, or wolves, perceived as less masculine.

Moreover, in anthropomorphic, humanized characteristics, personality-wise, tops tend to be douche-y, unemotional, fun-loving, professional, mature, stable, and strong, whereas bottoms have less dominant or 'feminized' personalities, being silly, emotional, sexually-charged, slutty, immature, consumable, and even danger-seeking.

Perhaps this can be explained by an inherent attraction to sexual dynamics that are polarized, and in a tendency of furs to create porn-sonas related to sexual roles existing, or rather idealized, in real life, and taking pleasure in selecting, negotiating, experiencing, and demonstrating the attractiveness of a particular sexual and social role.

I have also seen instances in which attempts are made to carve-out, manifest, or create subversive roles within these systems, drawing energy from this subversion. But subversion ultimately highlights and reinforces the fatality and danger of crossing the boundaries they cross. A dominant bottom is as much the fantasy of those who exploit them for greater excesses of consumption, and often exist within fatal and destructive narratives. Apart from this, subversive roles are exoticized as rare exceptions to otherwise irrevocable realities. It is pleasurable to transgress boundaries, but those systems in which the transgressions occur, and the sexual energy is derived from, continue un-interrupted.

The values of this sexual economy are also exemplified in the aspects of furry porn that escape reality, exaggerate it, despite having a looser connection to it.

As one example, fetishes and paraphilias represented within the fandom also draw energy from sexual difference and stratification, similar to that created by oppressive social, political, or sexual systems in reality.

In cases where genetalia is enlarged; where muscles are exaggerated; where size difference is fetishized; where the carnivore/herbivore dynamic is fetishized; with S/M, Bondage and restraint situations; or just generally in the fixation on genetalia, it is primarily polarized, dominant and submissive dynamics that are exaggerated and fetishized.

It is not that fetishizing sexual difference, sexual roles, pr sexual dynamics of domination and submission are intrinsically problematic or harmful, or that they are unlike reality. Merely, I just mean to emphasize that the sexual economies and fixations in operation in reality are not transcended in furry porn, despite the elements of it that make it unrestrained, and unreal. Likewise, I think that the dynamics of sexual-politics are still present, and not averted, within furry porn. They are encoded, and omnipresent through the thoughts, sexual interests, imaginations, and personalities of the people who create the fandom and its content, which project themselves into similar virtual forms.

Nonetheless I still believe there is a certain amount of value, and potential for self-discovery and self-transformation in the process of inventing and enjoying sexual characters/representations with a looser connection to reality, under circumstances in which we are in complete control of their form. Furry porn is very interesting, entertaining, meaningful, cool, good, as well as terrible and bad as other sexual realms. It is its own unique thing, but also a manifestation and exaggeration of the attributes of other things.