Furries are cool

Same. Y'all do you, but I've blocked every mention of "yiffy" around here. Not my jam.

Funny story! Went to a Halloween charity ball where you either dressed formal or wore a costume. Went in the men's room and this dude is grunting like he's seriously jacking himself. It was alarming, like, bro, you OK?

Giant fat man stumbles out of the stall. He'd been wrestling with his spandex to take a piss.

Friends and neighbors, that's dedication!

I also don't have to completely understand their ins and outs and complexities to know they're people who are worthy of respect for being other living people.

💜 Big true.

If we want to talk theory, I think there's 3 major aspects of the human psyche represented in furries: our unconscious desire to apply human attributes to non-human things (anthropomorphization), human creativity and the creation of representations of the self, and, of course, the sexual aspect of being creatures that enjoy sex.

People unfortunately hone in almost exclusively on the last one (as evidenced by the other comments in this very post), but as the joke goes, the world's biggest collection of Disney porn is locked up in the Disney Vault. Artists get horny too, and if you could create porn with the power of your mind and a pen and piece of paper, wouldn't you? Years ago, there was a story about how the daughter of the man who created Astro Boy, one of the foundational pieces of anime and manga, had managed to open a locked drawer in her father's work desk long after his death. And what did she find inside? Porn he had drawn of sexy cat women.

We've been adding animal attributes to the human form (and vice versa) since the dawn of mankind. The vast majority of world religions are based on it in some fashion, from the gods of Egypt to the snake in the Garden of Eden to Zeus having sex with anyone and everyone as anything you can imagine, from a bull to a swan to a fucking beam of light if my memory is right.

And the one thing most people forget about furries is that the characters aren't some corporate mascots or media characters - they're often personal. A fursuit is often a representation of the suiter's self in some aspect, not a cosplay of their favorite character from a show or game. The fandom is a place that allows people to explore their own identities, whether that be exploring concepts of gender and sexuality, or styles of fashion and other things that they might be afraid to try in real life.

I don't get them either.

What I do know, however, is that most of the ones I've met seen like great people. The community seems extremely friendly and welcoming. They also seem to be intelligent and willing to step up to help.

Ultimately, if it makes them happy, and doesn't hurt anyone, have fun! I'm sure others look at me similarly, for my weird hobbies.

I’m cool with roleplaying as an animal person, wearing a costume, the fetish aspect, whatever. Live your life.

I just don’t understand why they’ve all standardized to using the same terrible art style. It doesn’t look like a human, an animal, or even a sonic character (which I assume is the root), but a fourth thing. You can tell a furry by how they draw a normal human because of how deep set the habits are. Is there any other group as exclusively committed to an art style?

If I spent that kind of money on a wolf costume I’d at least want it to vaguely look like a wolf.

Edit: If you think these don’t heavily share a style (as compared to anthropomorphic characters from non-furry animated series, for example) then I don’t know what to tell you.

The one bit I’ve recognized is that character designs with tails end up leading the eyes to the ass.

I’m no furry, but I recognize I’m an ass man.

Simply put: It's a fetish.

It's pretty common to not understand why some people like the things they do in fetishes. Most people don't find feet attractive, but some people become just as aroused seeing feet as others do seeing breasts.

(Some furries will insist up and down that it's not a fetish, and those people are lying. They'll claim it's about a ton of different things, but it's pretty easy to tell. Because the ones who deny it are the ones who like to push their fetish onto others.)

The furry community is one of the most accepting and open minded communities because they understand what it's like to be treated as outcasts and to be chastised for liking something that's completely harmless just because it's out of the norm. Most of the time it's not even a sexual thing for them, it's just something they like or something that makes them feel more comfortable out in public. It's a way to make their exterior to be exactly what they want it to be. So in that way I think they're pretty cool as a whole.

Honestly, it's the exact opposite. Furries are pretty hot.

Yanno, because of all the fur.

I'm perfectly comfortable with taking it as far as "so long as it's all consenting adults, it's none of my fucking business, and I wish them all well."

If it's not my thing, no big deal. Some people like feet, and it's not my thing, so no big deal.

Even if I find it personally gross, again, consenting adults, no big deal. Some people are into watersports, but hey, so long as they're not leaving a mess or hurting each other, no big deal.

We've got enough trouble in the world without also trying to police what adults are doing in their goddamn personal lives. I yearn for a day in which more people could accept the "it's none of my fucking business" ethos.

Huh?

Yeah those fursuits look really hot to wear

why? i think they're cool, is there smth i don't know?

Yeah, I think it should be really warm in such costumes

Look, you want the guy I know to fix your computer? Maybe deal with the wolf costume?

Gross? What's gross about it?

Same I’ve been to so many furcons and it’s a fandom full of geeks and nerds. The creativity of the community is awesome and it’s something you don’t see in any other fandoms. Them fursuits do be crazy expensive too and it’s really just a form of cosplay which is what people don’t understand.

Did meet disgusting furries too that painted my view in a not-so bright light. Oh well, I'm now just more cautious all-around.

I've blocked every furry community that hits my screen - not my cup of tea - but I also see quality posts from you all the time in the corners of Lemmy that I do frequent. You 100% belong here, to Lemmy at large and not just the furry subsets of it. 👊

Idk, I can enjoy a good set of bunny ears or tail

I still have an old comment on my computer from Kongregate where I disliked a game just for having a wolf character.

I now hang out with furries more than other types of people.

Imagine refusing to play Tunic because of this.

That goes for all people

Have you met one? Truly curious.

Also turned on by system administrators doing sequential straight leg lifts while walking, can’t help it

So I agree with your result but not with the path you took to get there. If we find out tomorrow that there's some other part of gender or sexuality and people start identifying as that because now their life makes sense with this new label then they should be allowed in even though they didn't fight or struggle.

But furries aren't a sexuality or gender, they're a hobby. It's just a fun suit and roleplay. That can be enough to base a life around, but it's a learned hobby like video games or d&d. Not something they're born with that would cause persecution along with gay and trans rights

I do not want to see this as a lever to justify excluding / persecuting LGBTQ folk

You are the one pushing the lever of exclusion by arguing to remove 'just a bit' of the Q from LGBTQ.

Re-read this thread replacing 'furry' with any other form of queer and tell me that there's no struggle, fighting, persecution, etc. An equivalent of what you just said would be:

The way they put it was that 'stonewall' was for drag rights as much as LGBTQ rights and my mind said: yeah but they did the fighting, they've been in the struggle, you just showed up in clown makeup wearing a dress.... my dawg...

Went to pride march recently. We obviously saw some absolutely wild costumes, lots of skin on show etc, but the furries took it to an extreme level. Like couldn't you just tone it down a little bit in public so you're not traumatising children.

https://www.addictionhelp.com/porn/statistics/

Online use: Approximately 69% of American men and 40% of American women view online porn each year.

Other people view porn too. Do you now find everyone disgusting? Also, what's the source of you claim that over 70% of furries view furry porn? And how does it matter? They're individuals, and can make choices on their own.

I may be wrong in my judgements

The issue is that you're conflating "furry sexuality" with beastiality when they come from very different places with very different outcomes and moral implications.

The short story is that humans at ~10yrs old start learning and coding for what features they find sexually attractive which happens to co-incide with the target audience for many anthropomorphic films/cartoons/etc. and so some small percentage start developing an aesthetic and/or sexual preference for animorphism which then creates a subculture that feeds back onto itself.

It's not "beastiality" it's "mickey mouse-iality". It's not a sexual attraction to animals, it does not result in harm to animals, it does not result in rape or consent violations from those unable to give consent. It's as close to beastiality as anime girls are.

I have literally never seen anyone claim being a furry is just a hobby lmao. Yes, it's sexual. Who gives a shit?

Personally, I find that disgusting and I feel that the furry community's constant need for validation detracts from the seriousness of LGBT issues at large.

And the overt sexual displays in public places at Pride events don't? That is objectively much more damaging to the attempts by the queer population to not be seen as deviant sex freaks by the general population.

The irony is that most people who wear fursuits don't perform sex acts with them, while you won't be able to find a single person at pride wearing bondage gear who will tell you that what they're wearing is never 'utilized' in their bedroom.

Singling out furries in this way makes no sense, you're just personally squicked by it and trying to rationalize that feeling.

P.S. Is a Star Trek fan not a 'legitimate' fan if they lust over Seven of Nine or any of the other characters?

You mean they're hot?