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Are we scaring away potential furry fans? Google says yes.
How do I figure out my fursona?
I have been thinking about a lot. I was thinking of kind of a black and white arctic wolf but I'm not sure. P.s I would love any pictures of that if you can find them thanks guys!
submitted by ShadowrageZz[link] [20 comments]
![A Kiss in Pittsburgh [Story and Hi-res version in the comments]](http://d.thumbs.redditmedia.com/n0_-Lacb0LS6qjV-.jpg "A Kiss in Pittsburgh [Story and Hi-res version in the comments]")
Excuse me, I only talk to REAL dogs
“Welcome to the Internet. Where the men are men, the women are men, and —”
Wait, what?
Hang out in the chatrooms that dot the furry landscape, and you’ll find this sentiment expressed not infrequently. Boiled down, it encapsulates the belief that you can’t trust what you see, which is simple enough — but I’ll suggest that this line of thinking is both inaccurate and also slightly troublesome.
If you’re not a roleplayer, this line of discussion is all somewhat irrelevant to you. But according to the 2012 Furry Survey, more than half of furries do engage in roleplaying to some degree, and at some time. This probably isn’t surprising; roleplaying offers a safe space to explore our identities, and it probably goes without saying that furries would gravitate towards this exploration.
It seems to be self-evident that people are willing to accept interacting with people who present themselves as a different species than they really are, and in my experience it’s generally accepted that one’s online sexual orientation can legitimately differ from one’s real-world orientation. So why is gender so problematic?
Well, first of all, what do I mean by “problematic”?
Quantitatively, we notice a strong aversion to changing one’s sex online: 82% of people say that they do not do so, with a strong majority (58.5%) saying they would not do so. Even amongst active roleplayers, 74% hew strictly to the biological sex they were born with — that is, the remaining 18% (26% amongst roleplayers) also encapsulates the (admittedly small) number of transgendered persons who are electing to accurately represent their gender.
Qualitatively, we see statements like, “I’m not a fan of people who are [girls online but] guys in real life” — the backronymic pejorative “GIRL” (Guy In Real Life) applies here — and it is here that we start to see one of the interesting dimensions of the issue, which is that it is expressly gendered and generally heteronormative: far fewer people seem as troubled by the idea that the male winged magic-using bipedal talking sapient fox-wolf mix they’re talking to is actually being operated by a female puppeteer.
We understand, at least to some degree, that furry chatrooms are not accurate representations of reality, as my last description indicates. In my sojourns through the fandom I’ve seen people who claimed to be Russian when they were really American, people who claimed to be lawyers, people who claimed to be thin, people who claimed to have master’s degrees in esoteric subjects…
It’s pretty much par for the course.
So why’s it gender that sets people off? Why not other areas of body image? Why wouldn’t you put in your profile, “I only want to talk to people who are physically fit in real life”? Possibly because it would seem shallow, and slightly irrelevant for the purposes of light conversation, nondirected roleplay, and typefucking?
Let’s examine some possible answers.
The first is that it’s an inherent dishonesty that is fair to judge people on. That is: if I can’t trust that you’re honest about such a fundamental aspect of your personality, then what can I trust you on? Is it supposed to not matter because we’re talking as two avatars? If we’re only interacting mask-on-mask, then what does anything really matter, anyway?
This seems like a logical statement, until you unpack it a bit. After all, someone’s real-world physical attributes are only actually relevant if you enter every conversation expecting the possibility that your interaction on FurryMUCK could logically lead to a real-world romantic or sexual encounter. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a weird, overbearing, and even slightly offputting mindset to start from.
We are, after all, expressly entering into an abstracted, idealized world when we engage with avatars. Even chatroom sexuality is transgressive: we gain the ability to interact free of many of the restrictions and repercussions imposed by the real world. Make the phrasing honest: “I would like to pretend to be a dog, and for you to pretend to be a red panda-lynx hybrid, and I would like to put some of my pretend bipedal clothes-wearing ambient-music-appreciating dog parts inside your pretend red-panda lynx body but only if I’d be cool doing that in real life, too.”
As pickup lines go, it’s a little awkward.
A more interesting objection, though it’s not often phrased explicitly, is the one that boils it down to the unseemliness of straight men pretending to be women so that they can have straight sex, or to otherwise benefit from the attention they would otherwise lack.
So, then. Fetch me the numbers, Igor!
On the Furry Survey, I ask about presenting yourself in the fandom as a gender different from your biological sex. Five options are presented:
- No, and I would not do so
- No, but I might do so
- Yes, sometimes
- Yes, often
- My primary furry avatar fits this description
As said, 58.5% of respondents gave the first answer — that is, that they “would not” do so. When we limit the response to only straight men, that number jumps to 71.6%. A further 21.4% of straight men say they don’t, but they might consider it. Straight men are a third as likely to say they do it “often” (<1% compared to 3% in the general population), and around a quarter as likely to say their primary avatar differs from their own biological sex (1.5% compared to 5.6% in the general population).
It is here that we pause to note a couple more things about the prevalence of gender fluidity. Firstly, in a proportional sense it’s substantially more common amongst women; women are 2.5 times as likely to have a male primary avatar than men are to have a female one, and 2.7 times as likely to say they “often” represent themselves as a different gender. Only 37.2% of women say they “would not” use a male avatar; 64.3% of men say they “would not” use a female one.
Secondly, it would seem that since straight people are substantially less likely to do, then the slack is made up by those in other portions of the sexuality spectrum. It was suggested that partly this might be because changing genders allows you to explore your own notional homo- or bi-sexuality in interesting — and safe — new ways.
But this is an interesting concept, and we’re going to come back to it in a bit.
If we compare those who say they would not and those who say they always present themselves as a different gender, it’s true that there are certain evident differences. For one, as stated, people who always do so are less likely to be straight (22% vs 43%), and far more likely to be pansexual (24% vs 4%). They’re also three times as likely to be asexual, though — 11.3% vs 3.7%. In real number terms, they make up 5.6% of the fandom, but 22% of the fandom’s asexual people and more than a third of the pansexual members.
Outside of sexual orientation terms, they are also, as stated, more likely to be female. They are older, though by less than a year, and have a higher degree of education. They are 19% less likely to be single and 45% more likely to be in a long-term relationship.
Their positions on an attitudinal survey tend to be more extreme. People with gender-transgressive primary identities are 46% more likely to strongly disagree that what other people think of them is important (14.2% to 9.7%). They are 50% more likely to strongly disagree with the statement “creativity is one of my strongest attributes” (43.4% to 28.4%). They are 88% more likely to “strongly agree” that they are more talented than most of their peers (10.9% to 5.8%) — but also 55% more likely to “strongly disagree” with that statement (18% to 11.6%).
They are not appreciably likely to say that sex is more important to their furry identity (average score on 10-point scale is 4.6 vs 4.3), which circles us back to an earlier point. It may seem like I am, to a degree, harping on this, but I think it’s important to note that, from the evidence, people who change their gender online aren’t doing so for sexual reasons.
So what does it tell us if we think they are?
What first drew me to this topic was how closely the discussion recalls classic and unfortunate interactions transgendered individuals are familiar with. As I said to start with, because the question discusses presenting an avatar different from your biological sex, a small number of those people are transgendered persons — but most of them are not, and I am certainly not going to suggest that gender dysphoria is the primary motivation.
But, in furry chatrooms and roleplaying environments, you see the same classic scripts playing out. You see the same troubling, parochial belief in “traps” — people who are disingenuously trying to mislead straight men into a life of… well, certainly a life of something, anyway, and evidently something more problematic than simply pretending to be a tiger. You see the same stigma attached to gender transgressiveness, particularly in the notion that people make the choices they do because they would be relationship-unsuccessful otherwise (a statement that is demonstrably incorrect).
You even see hints of “trans panic,” with people discovering “the truth” about their conversational partners attacking them, belittling them, and engaging in other behaviors that are designed to reinforce a gender-normative worldview. I ran a roleplaying chatroom for nine years, and I cannot count the number of times, as a moderator, I had someone breathlessly “out” someone to me.
“Oh, bloody hell,” you are sighing into your scotch. You wave the waiter over to bring you your check, shaking your head and muttering: “Here they go on about transphobia again.”
Well.
Yeah.
I’m willing to call this out because, as I said, it seems to be equally parts silly and troubling. I have yet to see a clear articulation of why it should be acceptable to change your species but not your sex that doesn’t boil down to balky circumlocutions around the fundamental issue that people still see gender as immutable and transgenderism as the slightly skeevy hallmark of second-class persons.
That is to say, I don’t see a clear articulation that doesn’t either hem and haw around that issue or reveal a hell of a lot more about the speaker than you’d initially suspect. As I said, your conversational partner’s real-world gender is dubiously crucial if you enter into conversations expecting the possibility that you intend to engage with them in real-life sexual contexts, but that’s a can of worms all on its own.
As the New Yorker‘s Peter Steiner once famously quipped: “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Anonymous communication involves striking a careful balance between respecting the freedom that comes from constructed identity, and being aware of the assumptions we make in our interactions with others.
It’s clearly something that we’re uncomfortable with: anonymity invites its own destruction, and the Internet takes a singular pride in denying of others the right to be anonymous, or to choose on their own terms what they present. And when gender roles come into play, we run headlong into traditional discomfort with people who don’t play by the rules. Hence the invention of new stereotypes, irrespective of whether they are actually accurate — and I have no doubt that some of you who have gotten this far are thinking: yeah, but I know people like that.
Perhaps.
But these seem to be edge cases, and the thing that strikes me about the dim eye turned on those with gender-transgressive identities is that casual chauvinism is still chauvinism, and bears reflection. The fandom has an established and positive legacy of being supportive of all types of self-exploration. How peculiar — and slightly sad — it would be if this is one of the last to enjoy the legitimacy of existing unexamined and uncriticized.
Because in all probability, insisting you will only talk to real dogs is a losing game, of dubious reward.
Started drawing, remembered I am terrible at drawing knees, stop just above them. I can't be the only person who does this. I need to just draw knees, pages of them.... In any case, crit please, you guys are actually pretty spot on with aiding skillbuildi
New Boyfriend Is Pressuring Him to Have Unprotected Sex
I've read a lot of your letters but haven't seen this one.
I need some advice from an older gay furry. I've met a guy (we are both furry and in our 20s) online and we have really hit it off and we are planning our first visit. He wants to be intimate when we meet and that's not a problem for me even though I don't have much experience. The problem is he doesn't want to use protection. He said he was tested a while ago and hasn't done anything risky since then. I've been tested a couple of times for medical things so I know I'm clean.
If anything happened I can hear people saying, "You had unprotected sex with somebody you just met, what did you expect?"
Does our online time count for building trust? Is it ever possible for two guys to have unprotected sex? I really like him and want to please him but all those horror stories I've heard keep playing in my head.
Thank you for taking my question, I don't know who to ask about this.
Nervous Raccoon
* * *
Dear Nervous,
An outstanding question; thank you for asking. It’s not only relevant to gay people, but also to heterosexuals because, of course, STDs are a concern to everyone because anyone can get one.
It is unfortunate we live in a world filled with nasty diseases that put a crimp in our longing to be freely intimate with another person. You are very wise to be extra cautious about having unprotected sex, even if it is someone you are really starting to care about.
So, is there a time when unprotected sex is fine? Yes, when both partners only have unprotected sex with each other. If either partner is having unsafe sex outside the relationship, then condoms are a must.
It is important to understand the technicalities of testing, especially when it comes to HIV. Infections from other diseases, such as syphilis, show up right away on a test, but HIV is very sneaky and nefarious. Did you know that you can be infected with HIV and be tested as negative for many months afterwards? Some doctors even recommend you wait a year before being fully confident that you are negative.
Therefore, before you have sex with your new boyfriend, you need to have a sit-down with him. Ask to see his test results, and make sure he has had the full spectrum of tests, including syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, and chlamydia. To be fair, you should do the same for yourself. Even if you are a virgin, the point of the test is to show him that you are willing to do the same thing that you are asking of him. So, apparently, you already had this done and can show him your results, so that’s good. Next, explain to him the nature of HIV and that you should each get a test every six months (from the date of your previous test) for one year. When all those are negative, then you have a clean bill of health.
I know this sounds like a pain in the ass, and it is, but if you wish to be 100% certain then that is the way to do it. The good news is that once you have shown each other you are completely healthy, the sex can be amazing because there is absolutely no nervousness, no voice in the back of your head wondering if your partner might be giving you a lethal disease.
In the meantime, sex can still be wonderful. Condoms have improved greatly over the years to the point that sensitivity is greatly enhanced. Also, there are many ways to explore each other’s bodies without penetration that can be very exciting and satisfying (too, as long as you do not have any open cuts or sores, oral sex is safe when it comes to HIV transmission, though not to some other diseases, like gonorrhea). Note, too, that if you indulge in any “fingering” that you should make certain your hands are free of cuts and scrapes (use latex gloves if you are uncertain). For further safety, you can also get vaccinated for some sexually transmittable diseases, including hepatitis.
The next big question is how will your partner respond to this information and your desire that you both have further testing to do before you have sex without condoms. He might drag out the line, “You don’t trust me” as a way to pressure you. If that is the case, you can reply, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but it is possible that you have HIV and don’t know it, even though you were so great and had a test. I really appreciate that you got tested, but we need to be as careful as possible.” If he doesn’t respect your wishes and starts saying things like, “If you don’t trust me, then we should break up,” then that is emotional extortion in my book, and it tells you a lot about this guy and his motives.
If he’s a good guy, however, and genuinely loves you and wants to build a solid relationship, then he will respect your wishes and understand that a relationship is more than just about sex. You can continue by having protected sex for a time, or remain abstinent until all the tests are in and you can go hog wild on each other.
For your sake, I hope your partner is a good guy. Don’t give in to any pressure and you will be fine. Remember, your comfort in this relationship is just as important as his.
Let me know how it goes! Good luck!
Papabear
Antisocial Artist Worries about Interacting with People to Sell Her Art
GaymerX convention a hit for furries, gamers, gay and “geek culture”
Cappuccino/Kure pic I drew up~
http://31.media.tumblr.com/f5cba95ac4421bab1e5142e272ce170b/tumblr_mrfzwhcByj1soxd48o1_1280.jpg
Her character is cute (like her) and it was fun working with bright, cheery colors ^ I wish I could make more things like this.
[edit: I really shouldn't post here late at night. Especially with me not knowing the formatting stuff AND clicking the wrong submission post DURF.]
submitted by Mardi_Grawl[link] [comment]
Question for this sub-reddit.
Whats the average age of people browsing this sub? I'm no good with this stuff but if someone could set up like a pole or something for us to see that would be real cool. Or just post your age in comments, I'm really just asking this out of curiosity.
submitted by R3ddFox[link] [34 comments]
Gaming With a Fellow Fur
Steam ID: derpittyderp112
We can play games like Garry's Mod, CS:S, L4D2, or TF2. (thats all I have installed right now) Comment or PM if you want to play some games with a fellow fur!
submitted by herpittyderpitty[link] [10 comments]
Episode 229 - Fuzzy Books
E621 download tool
I don't know if you guys like or care for the site e621.net or if this is the right place to post this but...
I've created a executable jar file that I can customize for use on your computer. It's written in Java and implements the Jsoup Html parser. It's sort of like a bot or web-crawler (I guess?).
It can download all images associated with a tag, So artist, character, or something else, and a single image (if needed). However It is not perfect, so I wouldn't try to download a tag with 1000 pages associated with it.It can download, with fast enough internet speed, ~200 images associated with a tag in 3-4 minutes.
It has the ability to back-list tags, so you don't have to have save unwanted images to your computer. It also will write the image name, artist of image, and character tags to a txt file, for all images saved to your drive, that can be converted to a CSV file that you can store in a database or even run in Excel/libre. It won't (can't or I don't know how) download flash games/movies. It works fine with Windows and if needed I can get it to work with Ubuntu.
I have downloaded all of the files that I want right now and will spend most of my time sifting through Images I want and don't want. So I am willing to share my tool so you too can download images more quickly off of e621.
Send me a message if youre interested so I can hard code some stuff (for your convenience) into the program and send it to you.
Edit: I'm going to sleep, I'll get back to all of you tomorrow. Feel free to message me still if you are intrested. The more the merrier.
Update: I've got to make some changes to my scripts so It doesn't bog down e621 and the admin can stop requests if something catastrophic happens. So You can still request one but It will take a bit for me to change my script. Sorry for dashing any hopes if any.
submitted by crimsonlancer[link] [31 comments]
![[link]](http://i.imgur.com/l8qy1p0.jpg){kind=link}
![[link]](http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/220/1/b/dlaczego_lugia_ma_mski_gos_by_blackscaled-d6h6zpn.jpg){kind=link}