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Hi, Papa bear, 

I’m a 35 year old in a relationship with my mate and she is 23. Here is my question.... How do I control my feelings and my jealousy when my fiancée talks to other men when I have been hurt so many times? I don’t know what to do or think. Please help me with this situation.

Juggalo Wolf

* * *

Hi, Juggalo,

Good question. Though it’s too late now, Papabear has always thought it was rather ill-advised for an older man to date or marry a woman in her early twenties for just this reason. I have a friend who is my age and, for the longest time, he kept dating women in their twenties when he himself was middle aged. He had several relationships like this and they all failed. Eventually, he found a lovely woman his own age and they are now happily married. Why the lack of success with younger girls? Well, mostly because I believe couples with this big an age gap have trouble relating to each other. Secondly, there is this jealousy thing. I’m not saying this is necessarily true with you, but most men your age or older who get involved with young ladies do so for one reason: they are pretty, vivacious, and energetic in bed. Shallow? You betcha. Because the man knows that he is involved with his young woman because he wants her for sex, he naturally translates this motive to all other men who are potential competitors and emotions are stirred in ugly ways.

So, the first thing you do is examine your own motivations for being in this relationship. Are you in it for the sex and because she’s good looking (aka she’s a “trophy”), or do you have deeper, nobler reasons for being her partner? If the reason is the former, then I explained why you are jealous and you kind of deserve it. If the reason is the latter, then more advice follows.

If your love for her is genuine and deep, then you have to understand that the essence of any good relationship is trust. You also have to remind yourself that this woman is not the person who hurt you in your other relationships. If she has done nothing to cause you to be suspicious other than have a friendly chat with people of the opposite sex, you need to cut her some slack because half the population is male and there’s no way you can isolate her from interaction with other males. Realize that that would be an unrealistic goal, and you’re half way to getting over your jealousy.

The next thing to do is to give her every reason to love and adore you so she has no reason to stray. This is actually easier to do with women than with men, as women are naturally more monogamous than men (not to say some women don’t stray, but they tend to be more faithful). Treat your mate well. Spend time with her, care about her interests, listen when she talks to you (I mean LISTEN, don’t just nod your head), don’t ignore her by spending long nights out “with the guys,” and value her as an equal partner and you will help solidify your bond, making it much less likely she will look somewhere else.

Lastly, have confidence in yourself. A big part of jealousy is not the suspicion that one’s mate is unfaithful but, rather, that you are not good enough for her and because you think you are undeserving you fear she will want to find another guy. Your ego has been bruised by past relationships, so you need to give your ego a boost. This might sound a bit shallow, but one way to boost your ego is to take care of yourself: good grooming, wearing nice clothes that show you care about your appearance, taking care of your health, eating well and exercising all go a long way to making one more confident. Even little things like improving your posture and walking with more confidence can help. In addition, play positive music when you listen to tunes and do fun, active things like dancing with your mate.

When you do all this, you will be having so much fun and having such a good time with your mate that jealous thoughts won’t keep plaguing your mind.

Good luck!

Papabear

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It’s a new hardcover book called Animals with Sharpies, created by two of the founding members of the world-renowned collective The Royal Art Lodge. Again, we’re going to defer to their description, since we really can’t top it: “Animals with Sharpies is a collection of paintings with hand-lettered texts. In each painting, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber have depicted an animal holding a Sharpie, ostensibly writing a message. These messages are varied in nature: Political and religious tracts, confessions, recipes, arithmetic problems, and more. Above all, these paintings are funny, but they are also startlingly poignant and jarring for the humanness of the suffering and longing depicted in these animals’ simple words.” Check it out at Amazon. It’s coming to shelves this June.

image c. 2013 Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber

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I don't intend to speak for the fur fandom, and I don't, but every now and again, I find something, so horrible wrong, that I just have to tell them how wrong they are. but... /cringe is just full of horrible bastards. You try to state that the opinions of 1 facebook user isn't the opinion of the rest of the fandom, and they take the opposite.

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Ok, so my BF and I are interested in possible @home fursuitting and getting use to it... Where does one go to get into this or buy one?

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TigerTails Radio Season 7 Episode 27
Another week, another minor equipment failure -- or rather some human error to start with, followed by some equipment failure which forced us to mute the microphones for a moment and yank cables around. For some reason the live YouTube stream was playing up, but the TubeCast seems to have been unaffected. Even without Role Play Talk (due there being no RP since the host was away on a work trip), the show managed to overrun by half an hour thanks to Xavier ranting about the final episode of Doctor Who. Plus, there was a little talk about the game Ingress, which is taking over our lives at the moment. Starring TK, Xavier, and Felis. Backing music by Sanxion7. From: TigerTails Radio Views: 0 2 ratings Time: 02:36:15 More in Entertainment

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Hey Redditfurs! I'm Potoroo, the dude who does 'Fuzzy Notes' every week, a podcast about the music made by furs that has over 10,000 downloads and on average 500-800 listeners per ep.

I'm looking to expand into a furry music 'hub' online with a Fuzzy Notes blog, and would like to have a group of interested furs write for it. The basic idea is to collect music, videos, show dates, album release dates, artist showcase/feature information and whatever else we can to have an active blog with daily posts. I hope to go live mid to late June.

The podcast is on iTunes as Fuzzy Notes, and can be found on Podomatic at http://fuzzynotes.podomatic.com.

If you're interested, please contact me at fuzzynotespodcast@gmail.com. Please note: there will be a LOT of writing, I'm expecting 2-3 posts per week from each writer, and we'll have a schedule of info we're looking for to keep the site interesting.

I'm not very much into 'my way or the highway' so ideas, suggestions and collaboration will be the overall plan. The only thing I ask is that you stay positive (negative posts aren't wanted) and you are willing to have a multi-genre approach to seeking out new furry music (though obviously having some genre-specific writers won't hurt)

Again, please get in touch and we can talk more! :) Thanks, guys!

TL:DR - Looking for writers and fans of furry music to help me with a furry music hub blog :)

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The first notable academic study on furries is six years old. Completed in 2007 (published 2008), Gerbasi et al’s Furries from A to Z (Anthropomorphism to Zoomorphism) provides a review of furries based on 246 responses (including 217 furries) to surveys distributed at Anthrocon, plus an ad hoc ‘control group’ of 65 psychology students.

The study had two main goals: to test the validity of the usual furry stereotypes, and to investigate whether furries exhibit signs of personality disorder.

Gerbasi presented data to show that furries are an unusual demographic (anthropomorphic & zoomorphic interests; male dominated; wide range of sexual orientation), and that the group doesn’t exhibit any special tendency for known personality disorders. Beyond that, there was one strong conclusion: that up to 46% of furries ‘may possibly represent a condition we have tentatively dubbed “Species Identity Disorder”‘.

The diagnosis of Species Identity Disorder, a term invented by Gerbasi, is defined by her as ‘…considering the self as less than 100% human and wanting to be 0% human [and] is often accompanied by discomfort with their human body and feeling that they are another species trapped in a human body‘. Gerbasi makes a direct comparison to Gender Identity Disorder.

There are some problems with this.

The most obvious problem is the use of the word ‘disorder’. This implies that there is some sort of problem. Gerbasi seems to be pathologizing furry, or at least a large subset of furry.

Psychologists understand that people have all sorts of different perspectives on the world, and a wide range of personality traits. An unusual trait is not a problem in itself. The word ‘disorder’ generally means that a condition is bad enough to be disabling.

Gerbasi’s sample of 217 furries are all people who could manage the cost, transport, and social effort required to attend a large convention like Anthrocon. A large subset of these people cannot be mentally disabled: if they were, they simply wouldn’t have been there.

For comparison, the 2011 Furrypoll, which was completed online by over 4000 furries, showed that about 11% of furries consider themselves either non-human or part-human. This is a long way from Gerbasi’s 46%.

Gerbasi’s unreasonably large number is probably an issue related to the slight unreality of a convention environment. This argument is made rather pithily in a paper by Dr Fiona Probyn-Rapsey, who disagrees with Gerbasi: ‘There are a myriad of reasons why furry participants at a furry conference might identify as “less than 100% human,” not the least having a hangover from furry drinks the night before.‘

Probyn-Rapsey’s argument is laid out in her counterpoint, Furries and the Limits of Species Identity Disorder: A Response to Gerbasi et al, published in 2011 in the same journal as Gerbasi’s original paper (ref). Dr Probyn-Rapsey challenges Gerbasi’s tentative diagnosis of ‘Species Identity Disorder’ directly: ‘What might be the “treatment” for such a condition?‘

Probyn-Raspey’s biggest problem is Gerbasi’s link between ‘Species Identity Disorder’ and Gender Identity Disorder. Probyn-Rapsey points out that a diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder is a controversial and politicized one, and that many people regard it a misrepresentation of people on the transgender spectrum (much in the way that homosexuality was formally considered to be a mental disorder in mainstream psychology up until the late 20th century). Gerbasi avoids any such discussion, simply referring to Gender Identity Disorder as if it were objectively diagnosable.

It’s ironic that the mental health of furries is defended Dr Probyn-Rapsey, a feminism theorist. Furry is not a progressive environment for women nor for feminist ideas. We remain significantly informed by moronic (if well-meaning) advocates for ‘men’s rights’, probably because of our crossover with the echo chamber of male-dominated online spaces such as Reddit. It’s a pity, because feminism and queer theory provides a useful foundation for analysis of our community. However this is all a larger topic, perhaps worthy of a dedicated [adjective][species] article or three.

Gerbasi, for her part, doesn’t actually question the mental health of furries or suggest that there a significant subset of us that require treatment. This is a criticism drawn only from her use of the word ‘disorder’ and her link between so-called ‘Species Identity Disorder’ and Gender Identity Disorder.

It feels to me that Gerbasi has chosen to introduce ‘Species Identity Disorder’ because she was hoping to be the first to identify a new psychological phenomenon. It’s a professional coup to be a leader in any field, and I suspect that Gerbasi simply over-reached in her language. She is certainly a leading furry researcher and her instinct—that something special is going on inside our community—is, I think, spot on.

Her article was the first, and to date only, publication of the International Anthropomorphic Research Project, which Gerbasi heads. The IARP is a grand title for three researchers operating from a small community college. And calling it ‘International’ is bit bullish seeing as it’s based on the fact that they have scientists from the United States and Canada (it feels equivalent to a collaboration between people from Brighton and Cardiff). However, ornate naming aside, their research is of great value to the furry community.

The IARP are continually collecting data during regular forays to American furry conventions and online. They are strongly engaged with, and legitimized by, the furry community: their research is touched by the gilded hand of Anthrocon’s Sam Conway (he appears as a co-author in their paper), and they include Laurence Parry (Flayrah head honcho and founder of Wikifur) on an advisory board.

Perhaps most significantly, the IARP include a furry in the their research team: Courtney Plante, otherwise known as Nuka. Plante joined their group in 2011 and is presumably on the way to earning the first ever PhD in furry studies. (We are lucky to have another prospective furry PhD here at [adjective][species], Quentin Julien, who joined us as an occasional contributor earlier this year.)

The IARP regularly publishes data from their surveys, some of which I have discussed in previous articles here at [adjective][species] (link). Their methodology is intelligent and elegant. Most recently they have kicked off a longitudinal study, where they will be following furries over a significant period of time. I expect their study will dig up some interesting data, showing how we mature as members of the furry community.

You can visit the IARP homepage, browse their results, and see the full text of their paper at https://sites.google.com/site/anthropomorphicresearch/home.

Gerbasi has tilled the ground upon which a field of furry research is starting to grow. I’ve spent the past few days at the British Library reading up on the latest furry research and much of it is fascinating. It’s difficult to imagine this research existing without Gerbasi’s willingness to engage with the attendees of Anthrocon, and her direct exploration of furry psychology and popularly-held stereotypes.

The IARP dataset from 2007 is no longer considered to be particularly large or useful. Of all the available datasets, today’s researchers are most likely to use Klisoura’s Furrypoll (hosted here on [adjective][species]), for example in this Spanish study from 2013. However the focus of the IARP in recent years is more focussed: geared towards understanding furry psychology, rather than simply furry demographics. I’m fascinated to see what they will learn next.

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Do you ever feel… old… or are you young-at-heart? Today we talk about the types of maturity levels we see in the fandom. Are you one of the young, happy-go-lucky ones? Perhaps you are reserved but know how to let loose when the situation calls for it. Maybe you’re like the coyote and are almost a curmudgeon.

Hear our take on it, and leave your comments below!

Metadata and Credits WagzTail Podcast 2.0 Episode 77
Runtime: 30m
Cast: Crimson, JWingy, Levi, Wolfin
Editor: Wolfin
Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3
Copyright: © 2013 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. If distributed with a facility that has an existing agreement in place with a Professional Rights Organisation (PRO), file a cue sheet for 26:00 to Fabien Renoult (BMI) 1.67%, Josquin des Pres (BMI) 1.67%, WagzTail.com 96.67%. Rights have been acquired to all content for national and international broadcast and web release with no royalties due. Podcast image belongs to Michael & Christa Richert, used with permission. Episode 77 – Maturity in the Fandom - Do you ever feel... old... or are you young-at-heart? Today we talk about the types of maturity levels we see in the fandom. Are you one of the young, happy-go-lucky ones? Perhaps you are reserved but know how to let loose when the situation calls for ...

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