• Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    Fun fact: one of (if not the) oldest known piece of human figurative art is carving of a person with the head of a lion. AKA a furry.

    Imagining furries is more innate to the human condition than farming.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    I’ve never understood the furry hate. People treat it as a kink akin to someone being into taking a shit on your stomach. Except somehow worse.

    It’s not my thing, but I’ve known people who are into it and they’ve all been nice people. I hung out with a bunch of them one of the times I was working at a con and they were fun people to hang around when they were out of their fursuits. And yeah, I didn’t quite know how to react to them when they were in the fursuit, but I just stayed friendly. That seemed to be fine with them.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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      Furries are odd fellows, but I would never say anything against them for fear of all IT infrastructure spontaneously trying to kill for the rest of my life because it’s just odd, not harmful. De gustibus non disputandum est.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Right. They’re just into something weird. No big deal, lots of us are into weird things. The weird stuff I’m into doesn’t involve spending lots of money or wearing a costume that must be very hot after a short period of time, but if that’s what does it for you, cool. I’ll be over here watching hours of old public domain movies and industrial films.

        • RobotZap10000@feddit.nl
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          1 month ago

          I remember a story about the US Military taking notes for the cooling solution of a certain fursuit.

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      One of the most consistent themes with furries I have noticed is unapologetic sex positivity.

      That burns a lot of folks who insist sex is shameful and something to apologize for.

      • cadekat@pawb.social
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        1 month ago

        There’s a loud subculture of furries who insist sex is shameful and something to apologize for.

        • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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          Huh… I’ve been here a smidge under 20 years, and I’ve never met a fur who shares that sentiment. Awkward and quiet about it, sure, but nobody who is like “bad grrrr gross grrrr”. Almost exclusively in my circles it’s on the range of “I don’t mind at all, be weird with me” to (where I sit) “literally get freaky with me whenever and however, here are my kinks on f-list with all my sona details, also here is my 4K webcam and we can become content creators if you want too” levels of casual/open/positivity.

          ‘we are here for a good time, not a long time’. So, literally, fuck it. Do what/who makes you feel good.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        It certainly feels that way sometimes. “I can’t say the other F-word, so I’ll call you a furry.”

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          Not quite, I mean more in the way any pejorative they’d use against a furry, that person thinks about queer people.

      • cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 month ago

        phobia of neurodivergent people as well, I think. A lot of the things people find weird and offputting are just like… autism or something.

        • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
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          I’m autistic and an LGBT ally and I still find furries off-putting. I try not to judge, but in general I treat them like street proselytizers and the mentally unwell homeless: don’t make eye contact and keep out of smelling range.

          • cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            I’m gonna copy another comment I made on this post since it’s the best thing I think I can say about it. But just know I once felt as you do and probably still would if my sister wasn’t a furry.

            I think the kink and fursuit parts are what most people understand about furries because that’s the most signal boosted and bizarre parts about it. However, furries often have other things that really attach them to it, and the kink is a further expression of that.

            For a lot of people, neurodivergence is a core feature. I struggle with speech a lot. I’m learning ASL but few people speak it. The flexibility to communicate in howls, barks and yips on occasion is extremely helpful. The furry community is full of people who just get this and will treat me very normally when I’m nonverbal. The scared kid in me still expects to be hit for disobedience, so it’s incredibly healing.

            Some folks who like fursuits like them because they present a barrier and literal mask that helps them feel safe and protected from bad sensory experiences in public. Some attach themselves into a fursona character and find a way to express parts of themselves they couldn’t elsewhere. My sister describes her fursona as a manifestation of her inner child unburdened by abuse, and made the character female years before she worked out she was trans.

            When you consider how much kink and trauma go hand in hand, how much furries lean on their identity as a way to feel safe engaging with others, and how much genuine joy people find in their fursona, the kink makes a whole lot more sense. It’s less about being attracted to “rejected Disney mascots” specifically as it is about the comfort and safety a rejected Disney mascot persona can bring to people who need it. For as much as it’s helpful in the outside world, it would in fact be weirder for none of that to come into the bedroom too.

          • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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            1 month ago

            an LGBT ally

            That’s not how that works; someone can only be described as an ally while performing allyship.

    • pancakes@sh.itjust.works
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      It might be different for others but I’ve been around furries, have had furry friends, and it still on some deep level that I can’t control makes me a bit uncomfortable. Like I do not judge, and I fully support consenting adults doing whatever they want, but if someone in a fur suit sat next to me on a train, I would be a tad bit uneasy. For me, I think it’s the sexualizing animals that gets me. I’m not saying furries do anything bad to real animals, just that the way I view animals is something incompatible with any form of sexualization.

      That being said, I fully support furries doing whatever they want as long as it isn’t forced on me. All the furry friends I’ve had over the years have been wonderful and creative people, and have never made me feel uncomfortable.

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Also, being a “furry” is remarkably easy. Are you a fan of anthropomorphic animals? Congrats, you’re a furry. It doesn’t require you to wear a fursuit or anything else. That means that if you’re in the fandom of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc. You. Are. A. Furry.

    • RinseDrizzle@midwest.social
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      For me at least, I’m uncomfy with like, how close furry’s rejected Disney mascot kink is to a beastiality kink. Not to say they’re even that close! I’m surely oversensitive here! But I think that’s where my overall lack of pure acceptance comes from.

      It’s goofy to me that the people out here like “fuck yeah, that fox with anime eyes is sexy.”

      I try not to be a hater, but I have trouble with this scene so I let it be. “Consenting adults; none of my business.”

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        It’s okay to not understand something someone else is super into. The issue comes when you judge them to be lesser than you for it. And when you use them as an object of derision.

        There are plenty of people out there who will never understand homosexuality. Even find it disgusting. And if they just kept their mouths shut about it and treated gay people the same as they did anyone else, the world would be a better place.

      • cassie 🐺@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        I think the kink and fursuit parts are what most people understand about furries because that’s the most signal boosted and bizarre parts about it. However, furries often have other things that really attach them to it, and the kink is a further expression of that.

        For a lot of people, neurodivergence is a core feature. I struggle with speech a lot. I’m learning ASL but few people speak it. The flexibility to communicate in howls, barks and yips on occasion is extremely helpful. The furry community is full of people who just get this and will treat me very normally when I’m nonverbal. The scared kid in me still expects to be hit for disobedience, so it’s incredibly healing.

        Some folks who like fursuits like them because they present a barrier and literal mask that helps them feel safe and protected from bad sensory experiences in public. Some attach themselves into a fursona character and find a way to express parts of themselves they couldn’t elsewhere. My sister describes her fursona as a manifestation of her inner child unburdened by abuse, and made the character female years before she worked out she was trans.

        When you consider how much kink and trauma go hand in hand, how much furries lean on their identity as a way to feel safe engaging with others, and how much genuine joy people find in their fursona, the kink makes a whole lot more sense. It’s less about being attracted to “rejected Disney mascots” specifically as it is about the comfort and safety a rejected Disney mascot persona can bring to people who need it. For as much as it’s helpful in the outside world, it would in fact be weirder for none of that to come into the bedroom too.

  • Jimbo@yiffit.net
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    I know exactly how to feel about this…

    Those are some quality fursuits, mfer must be hecking rich

        • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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          I need to snag a couple of these at MFF, or similar ones. “please be patient with me”, “awkward but friendly”, and one for disabled non-suiters. E: and limited sight, I’m also partially blind yaaaaay.

          I mean I’d rather have a partial so I can be like howls and meows all properly, but baby steps, I’m poor af lol.

    • SteveXVII@pawb.social
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      It happens every time furries are mentoned in a post except for furry-centered spaces. :/

      I’m glad they’re getting downvoted though.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    As someone who hangs out with a lot of furries, and also only ever gets furries as art customers:

    Yes, I understand the discomfort around furries. I can blame people for going out of their way to troll furries, but I can’t blame people to want nothing to do with furries.

    The furry fandom is by and large filled with people who have massive insecurities. This doesn’t count for everyone, but you’re more likely to find an emotionally unstable furry than not. It’s the ultimate escapism; where people with personal issues create a character with none of those personal issues, and pretend to be said character in an environment where consequences don’t exist. It is not for nothing there is such a massive amount (compared to Earth’s overall average) of gay, bi, and trans people in the fandom.

    Yes, it’s also a sex thing. I’ve seen someone in the comments say “sex positive”, but I wouldn’t call it that. The furry fandom is a place where a gay or a bisexual person can express their sexuality without persecution, like often happens in places like the United States or Poland, but… It’s not really sex positivity, rather it’s debauchery. So much debauchery. Which harkens back to escaping into the ideal world without consequences; you can have copious amount of sex and/or sexualise as much as you want without any of the usual responsibilities or consequences that comes with sex.

    It is fun to occasionally partake in such debauchery. I’m no prude and I’m not afraid to admit I’m also a bit of a horny guy. So partaking in the occasional kinky, sexy fiction can be fun. Except for a furry it isn’t really fiction, which is where a lot of weirdness and unease comes from. And for those who can afford going to conventions or meetups regularly, this level of debauchery occasionally happens in real life… With real life consequences.

    A furry lives in a fictional comfort zone where they can pretend to be a character in a world without consequences. But even in exclusively online communities real life tends to catch up with people, so members inside of communities will get pushed outside of this comfort bubble and be reminded about reality. This is the cause for a lot of infamous furry drama.

    • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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      It is fun to occasionally partake in such debauchery. I’m no prude and I’m not afraid to admit I’m also a bit of a horny guy. So partaking in the occasional kinky, sexy fiction can be fun. Except for a furry it isn’t really fiction, which is where a lot of weirdness and unease comes from.

      I’m a furry and I’m unsure what you mean by this

      members inside of communities will get pushed outside of this comfort bubble and be reminded about reality. This is the cause for a lot of infamous furry drama.

      and I’m really not sure what you’re talking about here

        • kshade@lemmy.world
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          Funny how one event where the actions of a few people fucked everything up must imply something for the whole group, especially since there’s bigger, long-running conventions like Anthrocon that have become part of the city’s event culture like any other festival. But you don’t hear about that because it’s not scandalous.

        • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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          And I know you know that Rainfurrest happened in 2015 and nothing even remotely like it has been seen at the hundreds of much larger furry conventions that have happened since.

          • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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            But you were soooo unsure what they were talking about, now it did happen but it wasn’t a big deal.

            Next: it was a big deal but those poor bystanders deserved it.

            • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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              Neither of the parts of that comment I quoted could reasonably be talking about Rainfurrest, first of all. Second of all, nowhere did I say it wasn’t a big deal; I said the people who perpetrated that were quite severely punished and nothing even remotely similar to that has happened before or since. Lastly, I can’t help but notice you didn’t reply to the other person who replied to you asking why the entire furry fandom should be criticized because of the actions of a tiny handful of their members nearly a decade ago.

    • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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      Out of curiosity, do you have any art portfolio or website or anything (I assume no FA)? I checked your bio but it’s blank.

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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        Yeah, I don’t have anything on my profile because… Dunno really what to put on it. Didn’t really cross my mind to put anything on it either.

        But yeah, I got FA. All my customers are furries, so the majority of my art is furry. Wouldn’t make sense not to have an FA account. Anyway, here it is:

        https://www.furaffinity.net/user/tattorack

        What I am at my core, though, is a science fiction and Bionicle fan. Here’s one of the things I made on YouTube:

        https://youtu.be/JzFZr2V0SnM

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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        If this comment ends up near the top, the reply section will be… Interesting. It’ll no doubt start to attract furries who themselves have something to say about it, and they’ll generally fall into 4 categories:

        1. Those who aren’t the unstable kind, generally just think furry characters are cool, and agree with what I wrote.

        2. Those who fit my description of the fandom, and are self reflective enough to agree, but own it too.

        3. Those who fit my description of the fandom, and feel personally attacked. They’ll likely get very emotional and lash out.

        4. Those who disagree because they lack any sort of outside perspective, either because they’re too in the middle of everything or are part of a very niche group in the fandom.

        I’ve shared my take before and these are generally the responses.

        • kshade@lemmy.world
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          Since anecdotal evidence can only go so far here’s what a group of researchers say on the topic:

          Some seek psychological explanations, suggesting that furries may be people with developmental problems or psychological conditions. Others assume situational explanations such as a broken childhood or a tumultuous, friendless, socially awkward childhood. After all, most furries have experienced significant bullying, and abundant psychological evidence shows that bullying, stigma, and concealed stigmatized identities can be particularly damaging to a person’s well-being. One would therefore expect furries to show evidence of significantly compromised well-being.

          Data collected on the well-being of furries suggests otherwise, however. Across several samples, furries and non-furries did not significantly differ from one another on measures of life satisfaction and self-esteem.

          Furries did not differ with regard to their physical health, psychological health, or the quality of their relationships, and were actually more likely to have a stable and coherent sense of identity than non-furries.

          [Image]

          The well-being of furries was also compared across fandoms (see figures above and below.)

          Furries did not differ significantly from convention-going anime fans or fantasy sport fans, and were actually higher in life satisfaction and self-esteem than online anime fans, all groups which experience less stigma than furries do.

          [Image]

          Taken together, these data, in conjunction with the rest of the data in Section 117, demonstrate that furries, contrary to popular misconceptions, are surprisingly well-adjusted. It’s worth noting that this lack of difference in well-being occurs despite the fact that most furries have a history of significant bullying. One possible explanation for this is the ameliorating role of the fandom: given that belongingness and acceptance are both important values in the furry fandom, as is compassion, helping, and global citizenship, for many furries, the fandom is a source of social support. Social psychologists have long recognized the important role that social support plays in building resilience and fostering well-being, and future studies are planned to test whether this mechanism explains furries’ tendency to thrive despite often enduring significant hardship.

          https://furscience.com/research-findings/wellness-dysfunction/11-1-wellness/

            • kshade@lemmy.world
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              They have verifiable sources and are an international group of interdisciplinary scientists but their conclusions don’t mean that your subjective experiences aren’t real. Still, they are anecdotal, which is why I wanted to provide another source of information for people reading this thread.

              EDIT: To clarify, Furscience is a research group funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. They are actual, published scientists, some with doctorates. Even if some of them are part of the subculture they still apply proper methodology and are subject to peer review.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          As someone with adjacent experience with the fandom also, I concur with your assertions here and can safely say that the only way to win is to not play.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      Yes, it’s also a sex thing. I’ve seen someone in the comments say “sex positive”, but I wouldn’t call it that. The furry fandom is a place where a gay or a bisexual person can express their sexuality without persecution, like often happens in places like the United States or Poland, but… It’s not really sex positivity, rather it’s debauchery. So much debauchery. Which harkens back to escaping into the ideal world without consequences; you can have copious amount of sex and/or sexualise as much as you want without any of the usual responsibilities or consequences that comes with sex.

      Putting on a costume doesn’t eliminate the consequences of sex. 🤦‍♂️

      And I mean, it sounds like the most experience you have with furries is as customers for art. I can only imagine you specialize in some kind of kink art to only have furry customers and only see debauchery.

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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        You’re quite wrong about my art and missing the point with your first sentence.

        I don’t get much requests for kink related things as I have a list longer than my forearm of all the shit I’ll refuse to draw. The most nudity I draw is usually for reference materials. I certainly don’t specialise.

  • Lucy :3@feddit.org
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    1 month ago

    Except one wears a dirty and stinky pelt of a real animal and the other is cuddly and cute <3

      • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Synthetic materials are bad for the environment while real fur is natural and won’t shed micro plastics.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          I’m vegetarian, not vegan, and I don’t expect people to stop eating meat, but fur trapping and farming is incredibly cruel. Far more cruel than a lot of other types of animal farming. On top of that, it’s pretty wasteful. The pelt is used and the rest of the animal is disposed of.

          https://www.hsi.org/news-resources/fur-trade/

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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              It seems to me that in a case like this, averting cruelty would be the bigger thing. What kind of environmental impact can the fake fur industry have when contrasted with the environmental impact of, for example, the entire fossil fuel for generating electricity system? Because I’m guessing it’s a tiny drop in a giant bucket and we can be more concerned with averting unnecessary cruelty here.

              • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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                Unironically yes, we are far too populated. People need to stop breeding. Life is inherently a selfish act.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      Yeah, that guy on the left is pretty cuddly and cute! You’re right!

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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    I think we need to live sexually, morally, and politically repressed like in the good ol’ times. It made it easier to control and indoctrinate people during the growth of empires designed to serve themselves and their pyramid scheme like structures. It’s why we burned the satyr plays. I’m just going to say it, if we are going to shift as a subservient and servile class under our billionaire oligarchs, we need to be twice as repressed as we are now, not more “liberated”. Who made the best servants? Eunuchs, that’s who. Also, please make more babies, we need to feed the feedback loop we have going regarding population growth and our economy/wars. /swtf

  • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Go look up painted Greek statutes, it’s a nightmare of garish bullshit that makes the entire work look like utter dog shit. That’s how they’re ‘‘supposed’’ to look. All I’m saying is, people from the past seeing this might be down.

    • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Depends on which reconstruction you look at. For example, these two reconstructions of what the Augustus of Prima Porta (not Greek, but very close in style and the first one to come into my mind) might have looked are very different:

    • turmacar@lemmy.world
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      a nightmare of garish bullshit that makes the entire work look like utter dog shit

      Διαφωνῶ