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Hello Everyone!

This week we lead off with a clip of our Second Opinion segment from Episode 495 of the Savage Lovecast, "Furries and Cheeseheads." Thanks again to Dan Savage and his producer Nancy Hartunian for the gracious invitation as well as granting permission to share the clip in full. 

Our main topic is about trust, which is all too often misunderstood. Trust is the other side of Integrity, and both serve as the foundation on which a relationship either stands firm or crumbles. We discuss what exactly trust is as well as how to develop and maintain trust in yourself and others. We also discuss how to handle breaches of trust and what you can do to recover trust once it has been broken. Spoiler: sometimes that just isn't possible. 

We also take a listener question about how to handle feelings of jealousy in an open relationship that you realized, after the fact, you wished was a closed relationship. 

For more information, including a list of topics by timestamp, see our Show Notes for this episode.

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 015 Lovecast Appearance and Trust - On tonight's episode we discuss our appearance on the Savage Lovecast as well as Trust.

This year 2016 is, what some call in the fandom, the Year of the Furry. Disney aims, covertly, their film Zootopia / Zootropolis to the furries demographic (link⇒). And why not? After about eighty years of what is almost a monopoly in the world of Western animation on the big screen (until computer animation revolutionized the sector), they have the sales from children and families assured. So, without leaving them aside, making an attempt to increase its audience is an economically sound idea. Not to say, an awesome one!

Disney’s creative staff is familiar with furry, or even furries themselves (link⇒), although that’s probably not something they want to discuss openly, at least not using the word “furry”. Byron Howard (co-director of Zootopia) is an unconditional fan of Robin Hood (1973), a character in which he based Nick Wilde (fox co-star of Zootopia). When he pitched the idea of the film in 2013 to Disney’s chief of creative staff John Lasseter, John was so excited, he enthusiastically hugged him, and lifted him into the air Simba-style (link 01 ⇒) (link 02 ⇒). It has also shown to be immensely loved by furries, who organized events to watch it together in groups in movie theaters around the world. Up to this day, Zootopia is the third film with more submissions on FurAffinity, above Balto (1995), How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and Kung Fu Panda (2008).
 

But the list goes on. The Jungle Book, released April 15th, receives overwhelmingly good reviews. Critics and fans call it “The best adaptation of the book that has been done to date” (link⇒). Dreamwork’s Kung Fu Panda 3 also gets good reviews, which is unusual for a sequel. And there are still more: Finding Dory; a sequel to the recent adaptation of the Ninja Turtles; another Ice Age film; The Secret Life of Pets; another adaptation of Disney similar to the Mowgli one called Pete’s Dragon (remake of the animated original from 1977); Storks, produced by Warner Bros.; and more (link⇒).
 

It’s also worth mentioning, this same year, what for many Spanish furries is a major event. The first Spanish fully-fledged furry convention is announced, Furrnion (link⇒), to be held in Madrid in January 2017. Attendee registration / ticket sales are estimated to begin next month (May). There will be international attendees, and the official languages of the convention will be both English and Spanish. The board of the convention is headed by greymuzzle Salmy, the technophile Tronchy, and artist Sierra the Cheetah (which Google’s search leads inexplicably to aircraft models (link⇒)) (hint: he’s a pilot).
 

On another subject, the group of furries from Vermont, USA (VermontFurs), protest in fursuit against a local law imposed in the 60s forbidding being masked on the streets. The law originally was intended to deter demonstrations from the masked racist organization KKK. After discussions with the media and local councilors, they managed to change the law to forbid only being masked with criminal intent, thus allowing fursuiting. They announced their victory on FA (link⇒) and Twitter (link⇒), and they celebrated with a furmeet.
 

Meanwhile, last March, Canadians celebrate their VancouFur convention. At the same time, a group of Syrian refugees were staying in their same hotel. Although, initially, the organizers suggested being cautious and distant, Syrian children and families loved the cultural exchange, and the hotel was filled with hugs from children and fursuiters, news that filled newspapers around the world (link 01 ⇒) (link 02 ⇒).
 

In February, Sarah Dee, fursuit creator from Menagerie Workshops (link⇒), is interviewed in the British national newspaper The Guardian (link⇒). In the interview she explains she’s been working on the craft for years, having created more than 300 fursuits.
 

And we receive a movie from the fandom itself. The furry filmmaker Dominic Rodriguez, whose nickname is Video, directs a very special documentary called Fursonas, which focuses on the personal lives of some members of the fandom in his hometown, Pittsburgh. The documentary is projected at the Sundance Film Festival (Salt Lake City, Utah, US). It will be distributed later, on video-on-demand (movie streaming services) (link 01 ⇒) (link 02 ⇒).
 

With all these good news, we celebrate our website is finally 100% Spanish-English bilingual, and will remain so in the foreseeable future, to ease cultural exchange with the furry fandom world wide. We have juicy articles scheduled! Stay tuned to the first Spanish furry news website!
 

The entry News from the World (April 2016) appears first in FurryFandom.es.

Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag.  Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.

Fursonas Documentary gets great press.

“Fursonas Takes On the Secretive World of Furries—and the Movement’s Furrious Fuhrer”. It’s sensational sounding, but some of the best furry news I’ve read!  The article’s thoroughly on point and the movie is the best kind of documentary. Don’t miss it on Video On Demand this summer.

Dandy Warhols and a bunch of furries featured in film noir music video, with a counterculture icon.

The Dandy Warhols and Joe Dallesandro – “You Are Killing Me” Video.  Joe Dallesandro is “Little Joe” named in Lou Reed’s song “Walk on the Wild Side,” about Andy Warhol’s Factory of the 1960’s.  He’s been in tons of movies.  His crotch is featured on the cover of the Rolling Stones album “Sticky Fingers”.

Now he’s made a video with the Dandy Warhols.  If you watch to the halfway point, you’ll see furries from the SF Bay Area.  This seems to be the work of Zantal, who was previously featured inside their album.  He’s a huge fan and got attention of the band by going to their shows in suit.

That’s a natural meeting.  I love that he got to be friends with the band by being so enthusiastic… and they’re putting some spirit of Warhol into their approach to celebrating furries in kind. (Tip: Spottacus.)

Retrospective news cameo with Spottacus, “Furry performance artist”.

5 Common Misconceptions People Have About Furries.  You probably saw this if people share furry articles any place you read.  Enough with studiously defending about “it’s not a fetish” with good intentions to the point of stifling. I’d rather see people speak for themselves.

Award winning documentary “Dolphin Lover” now free to see, NSFW.

Here’s a 180-degree swerve.  Yikes… I might be asking for drama by linking a documentary about interspecies romance. My hobbyist “journalism” typically leaves that completely separate from furries. (Except one investigation of a rumor.)  I hesitated about putting it here, but did because it’s something that Furries can be unfairly mocked about and occasionally linked with in sensational media attacks.

Speaking of attacks, here’s this week’s nasty furry crime story that associates one guy’s failures with a whole community.  (OMG he broke laws and he’s FAT and has a HOBBY too!)

“Dolphin Lover” provokes thoughts about relativity of viewpoint.  In contrast to attacking, the makers just let the subject speak with complete honesty for you to judge.  That honesty is worth seeing in the making of any documentary.

Tom Broadbent’s “At Home With The Furries” documentary photo project gets official gallery representation.

A guy with talent takes a step up. “Laura Noble, the photography gallery owner and curator has taken me on as one of her represented photographers at L A Noble Gallery. This is wonderful news for the furry project. “

From the series” At Home With The Furries”. tom@tombroadbent.com for licensing rights.

Huffington Post: Step Into This Feminist Artist’s X-Rated Zootopia.

Opinion: this article is pandering hype about a gallery exhibit that has little to do with its clickbaity title.  The amateurishly rendered art seems to expect it’s own hype to carry the weight.  The rest is just flimsy “critique” as cliched as the stuff it’s about:

“Subverting the visual trope of portraying females as eroticized subjects for the male spectator’s gaze her cat women are instead active participants.”

“Subverting”, like any artist-made porn that shows what artists want?  Real Furry porn (and furries in general) at least use talents honestly, without pretension.  From this gallery show, I’d much rather see more of the sculptural/found object art from the other non-headlined artist.  I see substance in the arrangement of it’s textures.  The people-with-cat-heads just look like decorative noodling that took “40 hours per drawing”.  If it’s fit for a gallery, why not draw a dick well?

Khloé Kardashian has bad opinion about furries. Last and least Newsdump item. Here’s a link, but you have better stuff to read, right?

Kyell and Fuzz talk about Furry Fiesta, fandom history, and of course Zootopia. Lots of Zootopia. Knotsheathed at Furry Fiesta 2016 - Kyell and Fuzzwolf sit down for a special Knotsheathed podcast.

Imagine a world with no domesticated dogs — only were-dogs. That’s what the artist known as Kez thought up for his largely monochrome on-line comic Until The Last Dog Dies. “Port Jude is a utopia… if you’re human. In a world split down the middle between humans and dog shapeshifters, there is little justice to be had when domesticated dogs have no rights, no citizenship and no life to call their own. Cage is a wild dog who has always seen himself as free, until he strikes a bargain with the devil in the form of a wealthy businessman named Dmitri Molokov. Now, he must risk his life with the cruelties of the illustrious dog fighting rings for his one shot at a better life for himself and his family.” The official web site has the continuing comic, as well as backstory and a link to an introduction video on YouTube.

image c. 2016 by Kez

Beware of costumed bandits.

I’d like to see a lurid midnight movie that crosses a criminal heist plot with a furry convention.  The bandits use fursuits to go under cover.  But their plans get messed up when they become accidental popufurs.

There would be unexpected coming-outs, geek tests and rave drugs, awkward costume switches, and a gauntlet of hugs and dance comps.

Is that an SPH, or is that how you keep a gun in a fursuit?  Who switched the bulletproof vest with the EZ-cooldown? Is that an undercover cop, or just an extremely amorous admirer?  What happened to the gold and why is the briefcase full of Bad Dragon toys?  There might be reluctant yiffing to avoid blowing their cover.

What would you put in the movie?

It would be key to have good research and references.  The lives of the criminal protagonists (who stand in for the normal viewer) should be more unhinged than their absurd surroundings.  It should laugh with us, not at us, and ask “what is normal?” That could avoid the heap of cheap parody attempts that aren’t funny, because they just look down on people.

Not that there’s anything wrong with good trash.

Good trash often has artfully twisted titles.  One awesome no-budget moviemaker I know is calling his movie “Death Hearse on Satan’s Titty Highway”. That’s a string of magical power words.  It’s been in the works for years, but I already think the world is a better place because that title exists.

I’ll toss out “Take The Bunny and Run”.  What would you call it?  What else would you put in the story?

artist

All of these make inspiration…

• Furry Force, my pick for good “fursploitation”.
• The “Furry Film Festival” idea.
• The chlorine attack at Midwest Furfest and national news stories about furries that followed.
• FBI investigation of threats to furry cons.
• A rumor I heard about a federal building beefing up security because there was a furry con across the street.
• This bear suit bank robbery.
• This Santa Claus bank robbery and the movie Bad Santa.
• The Teddy Bear bandit and “Bad Furries: FBI Seeks Help Locating the ‘Teddy Bear Bandit'”.
• This clever bank robber. He used a job ad for construction workers to put decoys on the scene, and escaped down a river in a getaway inner tube. (A furry heist could use a decoy ad on Pounced.)
• Saints Row 3 Furry mayhem.
• Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks.  They plan a robbery and open a bakery to cover it, but their cookies get unexpectedly popular.

Furry secret identities.

A “furry gang” is a silly idea.  But it’s already a subculture, and there are secret ways for insiders.  When Furry friends talk in code among regular people, I call it “Furry fight club” (except it’s for hugs not fights.)

The difference is, anyone can be an insider if they want.  It’s a famously warm and welcoming group.  It has small dramas and scandals like communities everywhere, but it’s hard to send someone to the doghouse for being bad.  They’re already in it.

Being close knit helps to keep people getting along.  Even when they have unresolvable differences (like yes or no to yiff?) people don’t bring their claws out until outsiders get nosy. That’s when furries become protective.

Outsiders don’t know it, but everyone keeps secret identities.  That’s what makes the idea fun.

Okay, this is decidedly adult-oriented! There’s this comic called The Corporeals, “a web-comic featuring the pre-historical, often homosexual, always science-fictional citizens of Bakersfield, Earth”. Really. Here’s how creator Dave Quantic and artist Bill Ferenc describe it: “Howdy! My name’s Manny! I live with my husbear in prehistoric times. We’re members of an alien race from Jupiter called The Corporeals. Our leader, Kaa’laa brought us to Earth and created bodies for us so that we could experience physical pleasures like sex and cheese fries. Yummy! Bear and I live together in our cave. We have a great group of friends I can’t wait to introduce you to.  Like Jane and Eve, our lesbirific neighbors and Uni the Unicorn. He’s so silly.” So, check out their web site if you’re curious.

image c. 2016 by Quantic & Ferenc

​Dear Papabear,

Good day! I'm writing this letter to let out all my worries and anxieties to you:
 
(2015) When I was 13, I revealed to my parents that I am a furry, they were okay. But they are totally weirded out about the fursuit part, and they told my brother ( who is 17 now ). I'm not very close to my brother but it leaked to him and I was really uncomfortable. Having a sibling sure does suck.

(2015) There was once I bought upholstery foam to make a fursuit secretly in my bedroom, I always hide the head in my drawer and when my parents were away I would usually work on it. But then after a month or two my dad found out and told my mother about it. This is when I decided to throw out my head because I felt like I lost all my dignity from my parents. 

(2016) Since this year, I haven't been talking about furries with my families lately, so I was still quite secretive about it..(I don’t know why) I made hand paws and a small tail for my furry needs, and also kept it somewhere that nobody would care to see. But wow, my brother found out and told my mother about it, and they are now chatting amongst themselves about how weird I am. I am really stressed and worried that my parents and my brother would think of me differently and negatively, what should I do, Papabear?

Lots of love,
Anonymous (age 14)
 
* * *
 
Dear Young Cub,
 
One of the great difficulties of the human condition is that we are all biologically programmed to desire love and acceptance from our families, friends, and colleagues. We want this, especially, from our families because it is they who have nurtured us and who, ideally, offer us protection from the hazards of life. Therefore, when we feel rejected by them, we become frightened and insecure.
 
As you might imagine, Papabear’s inbox is full of emails from furries who are terrified of this sort of rejection. The main reasons why this comes about are: 1) parents want their kids to conform to society; 2) parents want their kids to be successful, and they define success as dependent upon money; or 3) parents want their kids to fulfill the dreams that they themselves failed to accomplish in their own lives.
 
I think you might agree that all three of these reasons are not very good ones. A gifted parent realizes that success is not defined by money but, rather, by happiness, and happiness comes from surrounding oneself with those who accept you for who you are and also from being allowed to be yourself and pursue those things in life that truly interest you, regardless of what society thinks. I, personally, reject the measuring stick society has created; if it were so great, the world would not be in the mess it’s in right now. A big reason furries make me smile is that we are iconoclasts (people who break the mold and follow their own paths).
 
You can see for yourself what happens when family members don’t support you for you: the result is you become secretive, distrustful, rejected, and unhappy. A wall is thus built between you and your parents and siblings, and this is never a good thing.
 
The first thing you must do, therefore, is rise above the idea that your mom and brother are right and that you are somehow a “bad person” who is indulging in something that is wrong and bad. Quite the opposite is true: your mother and brother are the ones being negative people who are hurting you. Do not be ashamed of yourself. The only bad people are those who deliberately hurt others. If you are doing no harm, do what you will.
 
If you are not ashamed, this alone will help your situation because when people feel ashamed about what they are doing, those around them pick that up, and they assume you are feeling ashamed because you know you are doing something immoral or sinful (when in actuality it is because you feel rejected). But! If you are unashamed and happy about being a furry, they might actually see it as a positive thing for you.
 
It is, admittedly, very difficult to overcome other people’s prejudices. Too often, parents and siblings buy into the negative hype about furries and immediately assume all furries are sick in the head. The lazy parent then forbids everything wholesale, and, as mentioned above, drives a wedge between parent and child that is harmful to the relationship.
 
All of this will be explained in my upcoming The Furry Book, which will be a guide to both furries and the families who love them (or misunderstand them).
 
Cubby, Papabear can’t force your family to change their minds, and you can try to change them (check out the “Coming Out Furry” category on my website for more advice), but don’t be surprised if you fail. In the end, what is important is that you understand that learning who you are and what is important in life to achieve happiness is more important than anything else in the world, and that includes the approval of parents and brothers and sisters. If they can’t accept you, that is their problem and reflects badly on them, not you. I’m not saying this to mean you should be angry with them; rather, turn a sympathetic eye toward them and understand they are trapped in a mindset in which they are paralyzed by the fear that society will reject them (or you). Once you realize, though, that society is the thing that is broken and that fearing the opinion of a delusional and ignorant judge is irrational, you will have set your spirit free.
 
This is all a lot, I understand, for a 14 year old to understand. It’s pretty mature stuff, really, and philosophical, I suppose. So, take some time to try and digest what Papabear has written here and write me again sometime.
 
Hugs,
Papabear

Anthropomorphism is loaded with symbolism.  Foxes and lions from Aesop’s fables, and fauns and centaurs from old myths represent personalities, emotions and urges.  This influenced modern concepts of the subconscious by Freud and Jung.  In dream symbols, animals are very prevalent, appearing in as much as 50% of dreams of children.  It relates to the way animal symbols spread throughout prehistoric cave art, until today when media is full of animal cartoons.  Anthropomorphism has deep roots in the way people think.

You can read a lot more about this in Wikipedia’s page for Symbolic Culture and the study of symbolic language (semiotics.)  This broad background makes it interesting to look at symbols with very long traditions, perhaps as old as language.  Many furry articles could be written about different categories.

Fred Patten sent comments that lead to furry thoughts about Heraldry (royal coats of arms), Vexillology (flags) and Numismatics (money) – all closely related symbols of nations.

– Patch

Heraldry and Vexillology – thoughts from Fred Patten.

In a sense, all animals in heraldry are mythical since real animals would never pose as they are shown on coats of arms. Example: the two oryx supporters of the arms of the Republic of Namibia, in southern Africa.

The left-hand supporter on the royal arms of Cambodia is a lion with an elephant’s trunk. This wasn’t created just for those royal arms. The figure is a gajasimha or gajasingha; a lion with either an elephant’s trunk or a whole elephant’s head. Wikipedia has pictures of statues of gajashingas hundreds of years old.

Singapore is noted for its Merlion, combining a lion’s upper body with a fish’s lower body. This isn’t ancient. Singapore became independent in 1965, and the Merlion was specifically designed by Alec Fraser-Brunner for the logo of the Singapore Tourism Board. It quickly became so popular that the Merlion has come to be recognized for Singapore the same way that the bald eagle stands for the U.S. or the brown bear stands for Russia. There is an older, more generic sea-lion.

There are many fantasy or hybrid animals in civic heraldry. The coat of arms of the city of Inari, northern Finland, shows a fish with a reindeer’s antlers. Medway, Sweden’s arms’ supporters are a pair of seahorses. Basel, Switzerland’s arms include a basilisk. (Now you know where the city gets its name from. Ha-ha; no, it’s from “basileus”, the ancient Greek for king or emperor. Many heraldic coats of arms incorporate puns.)

Flags: Laos used to have a three-headed elephant on its flag. Wikipedia says, “From 1952 until the fall of the royal government in 1975 the country had a red flag, with a white three-headed elephant (the god Erawan) in the middle. On top of the elephant is a nine-folded umbrella, while the elephant itself stands on a five-level pedestal. The white elephant is a common royal symbol in Southeast Asia, the three heads referred to the three former kingdoms Vientiane, Luangprabang, and Champasak which made up the country.” Erawan or Airavata is a god in the Hindu religion, supposed to have either three or thirty-three heads. There are statues of him in Thailand as a three-headed elephant. (Apparently no artist was brave enough to draw or carve a thirty-three-headed elephant.)

The flag of Vnukovo, an administrative district of Moscow, Russia (site of Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport), shows a rampant Pegasus above a key to the country.

Money: Symbolism of American money – not furry (unless you count eagles) but a useful introduction.

Many banknotes of nations that had ancient pasts have shown the mythological creatures of their pre-modern religions. The former Iraq 10-dinar bill featured a statue of an Assyrian “flying man-bull”, more properly a lamassu, on the back. According to Wikipedia, “The lamassu is a celestial being from ancient Mesopotamian religion bearing a human head, bull’s body, sometimes with the horns and the ears of a bull, and wings. It appears frequently in Mesopotamian art. The lamassu and shedu were household protective spirits of the common Babylonian people, becoming associated later as royal protectors, were placed as sentinels at the entrances.”

Most people today don’t know (this is one of those little facts of American history that they don’t teach in school today) that in the U.S. until 1866, individual states and banks as well as the federal government could print their own banknotes. Technically, only coins were “money”, and the federal government kept a monopoly on that. The paper currency were promissory notes redeemable in silver or gold. In 1866 Congress, which had started issuing its own paper currency in 1862 as legal tender, passed a law that only it could issue any money, coin or paper.

Here, from a rare paper money website, are a Michigan $3 bill and a New Jersey $10 bill.  Each were legal tender only in their own state. The reason that this may be pertinent is that it creates a fantasy of furry fandom printing its own paper money.  It wouldn’t be legal tender, but can you imagine paper money with a furry motif?  Bills designed by Roz Gibson, Kenket, Dark Natasha, Rukis, ShinigamiGirl, RedCoatCat, and the other top artists of furry fandom?

Maybe each artist could print their own, officially worthless but something to sell at their artists’ tables.  Fans could buy and collect sets of furry money from the artists drawing & printing them.  If they matched current real paper money, there are bills for $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100.  Seven denominations, and there used to be $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 bills.  And there’s nothing to keep a furry artist from making up a $3 bill, a $7 bill, a $25 bill, or a $1,000,000 bill.

There have been s-f conventions that had their own currency, redeemable in their dealers’ rooms and for convention merchandise. There are already furry “cryptocurrencies”.

– Fred Patten

Dogecoin and Yiffcoin: reinventing yesterday’s currency (but it’s only worth as much as people use it.)

YIFFCOIN JOINED INTERNET CRYPTOCURRENCIES in 2014 – Announced  at Furcast subreddit by Techwolf (maybe it’s a non-“fixed” version of Dogecoin, “most-traded crypto-currency  in the world”.)  More discussion: “Furry fandom can benefit from adopting Bitcoin more than any other community!”

Are there any furry examples of flags, heraldry or money personally interesting to you?

– Patch

Kendra Minadeo is a freelance illustrator based out of Southern California, and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. As one can see on her web site, her specialty is watercolor paintings — with more than a splash of cuteness thrown in. Her Etsy store features many of her paintings in print form and on buttons. What’s more, she’s even been working on a series of art how-to videos for YouTube.

image c. 2016 by Kendra Minadeo

Roo and Tugs are joined by Marci McAdam via the internet as they discuss the world of badges. What do badges mean to many? What kind of impressions do they leave on others? What should be on a badge? What shouldn't be on a badge? What are the rules of etiquette for badge commissioning? We dive into the how and why, then the psychology of the world of furry badge art. We also have some EXTRA SPECIAL space news, a new episode of Get Psyched! with Dr. Nuka, 50 Sheds of Grey (The Furry Edition), and more!


NOW LISTEN!

Show Notes

Special Thanks

Marci McAdam-Charland, our guest! Buy art from her at furries.frithcat.com
The Winnipeg, MB furries and Dronon, for the ident!
Syd
Kuthra and Max
Anonymouse
Enoji Kengura
Anonymous, who lent us part of the featured image cover for this episode. Check out the Marci Badges tumblr blog for more!

Music

Opening Theme: Husky In Denial – Cloud Fields (Century Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2015. ©2015 Fur What It’s Worth and Husky in Denial. Based on Fredrik Miller– Cloud Fields (Radio Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Space News Music: Fredrik Miller – Orbit. USA: Bandcamp, 2013. Used with permission. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Get Psyched Music: Fredrik Miller – Universe, USA: Bandcamp, 2013. Used with permission. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Some music was provided by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech.com. We used the following pieces: Spy Glass, Quirky Dog . Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
Closing Theme: Husky In Denial – Cloud Fields (Headnodic Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2015. ©2015 Fur What It’s Worth and Husky in Denial. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Chill Out Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)

Next episode: Are long distance relationships easy? Are they "real" compared to in-person relationships? What tips and tricks do you have for those in a long distance relationship? Send your comments by April 22, 2016. S5 Episode 13 – First Impressions, Much? - Roo and Tugs are joined by Marci McAdam via the internet as they discuss the world of badges. What do badges mean to many? What kind of impressions do they leave on others? What should be on a badge? What shouldn

This week.. we're all here! All 3 of us! We can still podcast together! This week we've got walls of text, make lots of tasteless jokes, Fuzz gets to talk a bit about how a NORMIE convention goes, and we get a whole lot of tumblr asks. And this weeks music break is 100% guaranteed to not scar you. Mega Man 8 - Aerobatics by Just Coffee - http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR03323 Like the show? Want to support us? We have a Patreon! www.patreon.com/knotcast Episode 311 - Beautiful Disaster

Hello Papabear,

I am a long time reader of your website but this is a first for writing. I hope I can get my issue across clear!

I have been an active member of the furry fandom for a huge chunk of my life, starting when I was 10, the fandom being constantly apart of my life since. Mostly my interactions with the fandom have been strictly online and I was fine with that because previously I have been in school and it wasn't a priority.
​
I have since graduated from school and managed to connect with a group of local furs in my area. I am quite young at 19 compared to the average age of furs who participate (youngest being 19 , average 25, oldest 42). At first I really enjoyed my new friends and they even went as far as to take me to my first convention. But this is where things just start to fall apart.

My friends are hardly interested in me anymore, and the only interactions I get include nothing but sexual advancements, or relationship propositions. I feel extremely left out, the majority (90%) of our locals are homosexual or bi and prefer men. As I am getting to know them more and more it seems to me that this whole fandom to them is based around sex and how many other furry men they can have relations with. Now their personal lives wouldn't be an issue to me but they consistently make it a public matter. In our group chat they constantly spam hardcore gay furporn. We've had one other who felt uncomfortable with the never ending hypersexuality of our fellow group members , but even this fur (having been friends and with the group YEARS before me) got kicked out. But not until after being called a bigot/prude/asshole. 

Being bi myself I don't have any problem with homosexuality (albeit the porn isn't my thing) but they have literally said that they can do what they please no matter what anyone else says because they are a minority- which is funny as i myself would be the biggest minority within the group being the only woman who has a preference to women. So this isn't even the case! They just have a male/male sexual fur hierarchy and it's BIZARRE! Not to mention many of these men are sexist as well, having said remarks straight to my face. But no one will say a thing unless it is directed towards the male gender.

I really want to just cry thinking about this, as this group is really the only "friend"s I have, and the whole "leaders" doing this are the people who also organize all our local meets. So it's not like I can find other furries in this sad small town. Several of my "friends" even went so far as to ditch me at my first convention because they'd rather (quite literally) go and participate in an orgy with each other while I am sent to the con floor to try and figure out what to do for a few hours. 

I just feel super alone,isolated and left out because of the fact that I don't fit in with them, I first thought it was because I'm a girl but even so, the women who are welcomed are only welcomed if they're as hypersexual and obsessed with penises as the men are. I'm stuck with my life , I really really REALLY love furry... But the older I get and the more I participate in the fandom the more sex based it really truly seems. I'm stuck papa bear, on one hand I do never want to leave the fandom or even distance myself, but I also don't want to be in a fandom where sex seems like the only thing anyone is interested in. I'm really losing faith as a furry.. It used to be so fun but the majority I come in contact with are completely and utterly ruining it for me. Help! 

Love, 
A sad and confused kitten 

* * *
 
Dear Sad and Confused,
 
I hear you. As much as Papabear defends the sexier side of the furry fandom, lately I’ve become increasingly disturbed by it to the point where I think we’ve become two fandoms: one that simply enjoys the fun and fantasy of anthro characters, and the other that is sex-obsessed.
 
Before I go any further (as I’ve had this done to me before), go ahead and look at my FA favorites and you will see a lot of furporn. Yes, I enjoy X-rated furry stuff. I am also all for making sex fun and indulging in sexual fantasy play, as it makes life more interesting and enjoyable. The difference is, I am mature about it, I don’t shove it in people’s faces, and I don’t make sexual advances on anything that moves. This is called “being an adult about sex,” and there are many “adults” out there, such as in your group, who are not at all adult about it.
​
Sexual addiction and immaturity is also why I have complaints from many furry artists that they can’t make money doing commissions unless they draw porn. It is, frankly, a sad state of affairs.
 
There is something going on, too, where furries are hypersensitized to sex to the point where everything becomes about sex in a very disturbing and humorless way. Example. I belong to a Google furry group (I don’t participate in it much because). Anyway, yesterday I decided to post something in jest. Here it is:
 
I notice many young furries seem to be bored. If anyone here is really bored and would like something to do, you are invited to my house where I will keep you busy with yard work and home improvement projects :-3 You can stay in the guest room. I promise, you will never be bored again LOL  [see, the joke here is that I want a free gardener and housekeeper and I’m being cheap—at least, that’s what I thought until I read the below…. Oh, and by the way, it’s quite common in wealthier homes for housekeeping and gardening staff to live on the premises, so the joke here was also that I was some kind of wealthy tycoon, but it went waaaay over their heads.]
 
POSTERS REACTED:
That sound creepy and very weird saying 
No going to a strangers home.
"You will never be bored again LOL"

That's threatening. 
It sound more like pedophili to me
Me:  
Good grief, how do you get pedophile out of that? Sheesh.
 
Cause no one really asks for young furries to come to their house and do chores.
 
i agree 
 
This is getting a little... rapy...
Don't be a pedo...
 
Well even if it a joke that was sound to strange it have kid that only have 10 fez thing before you write something. Also it the way you write it that was creepy. 

I REACTED:
Judging by the reaction to this post, you guys are reading waaaay more into this than there ever was or was intended. This was a joke. Wow. And even if it wasn't, it was never meant to be sexual in nature (I never once mention sex or suggest anything sexual), so interesting you all took it that way. Kind of shows you are the ones with sex on the brain, not me. Good God Almighty. Is it because I'm older that you assume I want to have sex with younger furs? I assure you, I have much more of a need for someone to do my yard work and fix up the house. Perhaps this is why furries have the reputation they do. Very interesting, indeed.
 
Back to the letter: Obviously, I joked with the wrong audience. They are too young, uninformed, and preoccupied with sex. My bad. I actually posted this conversation on the Greymuzzle Facebook page to get some input. Most agreed that the cubs were reading stuff into the original post that just wasn’t there, but the fellow greys made some keen observations, too: 1) there are furries with Aspergers who have a hard time understanding the humor behind a post like this and take things too literally; even those who don’t have Aspergers may have trouble with nuance because reading text is very different from telling a joke in person—you don’t get the body language or voice inflections that cue you that it is a joke; 2) there ARE actual sexual predators out there who have been known to try to lure kids in with offers of work or room and board and such, which is very disturbing and definitely not where I was going with this, but we live in an iffy world; plus such dangers as sexual predators are hyped and exaggerated by the media, making people very scared and causing them to be more paranoid than they should be. But, remember cubs, a little common sense goes a long way: don't be going to someone's house if you don't know them and have any reason to suspect their motives.
 
Anyway, all that aside, I will tell you, boldly and frankly, Kitten, you are right. There is a large part of the fandom that is hypersexed, obsessed to the point of stupidity, and unpleasant. Unfortunately, the group near you has created a culture of expectation where sex is the main topic. Sex and sexual innuendo should NEVER be forced upon people; this crime in lack of social graces is compounded by those who ostracize people like you as uncool or uptight if you don’t like it. Actually, they are the ones being buttmunches, not you. And I’m sorry you’ve experienced this.
 
The good news is this: not all furries, by any means, are like that. Many, in fact, actively shun the X-rated side of furry. In your case, it looks like you will have to do a little searching to find such people, maybe even start your own local furry group and invite people in with the understanding that you’re not about that scene. There are so many fun things you can do otherwise, such as going to movies, bowling, picnics…. I’ve done a lot of these both in Michigan and with the San Diego Furries (by the way, I want to say that San Diego furries are way cool). Another case: I have a friend who recently moved from L.A. to Phoenix for the very intense reason that the L.A. furries were driving him nuts with their sex talk. He reports that Phoenix is much cooler (ironically, given the weather—get it? Or am I being too subtle? No, this isn’t code for “I want to sex you up”).
 
What we see here is that microcultures develop in the fandom. A seed is planted (ouch, that could be misinterpreted, too, I suppose, but I'm not talking about semen) by alpha males or females in a group, and this seed can either be one where sex is the dominant feature, or it can be one that is much less intense, more friendly, and more accepting. I’ve seen both occur in the fandom. It is a terrible shame when the groups that can’t keep it in their pants drive away perfectly nice people like yourself, but please don’t give up on the fandom, and don’t give up on being furry (I’m like you in that I don’t relate to a lot that goes on in furry culture [a lot of this, admittedly, has to do with my age], yet I do have lots of furry individual friends). Be furry it because you enjoy it, and stick with it despite the creepy people (apparently, I’m one LOL) who populate it. Don’t worry, with a little effort, you will find friends :-3
 
Innocent and Furiendly Asexual Hugs,
Papabear

P.S. Note to all my readers. If I am talking about sex, I will explain very clearly in my column "this is about sex." Such columns will also appear in the Sexuality ans Sex category of this website. This bear is not shy about the topic and I don't hide behind obfuscating language to talk about sex. If I don't mention sex, it is because I'm not talking about sex. I truly hope that only a few of you out there need this explanation and most will see this postscript as stupidly unnecessary and annoying. Thank you.

From the web page of The Neenerbot Shop: “Jeannine Schafer is an SF-area based illustrator. As a child she was torn between being a zookeeper and an artist, but for reasons she can’t quite recall she eventually abandoned her dreams of opening the world’s first underwater zoo to pursue art. She continued to study and draw the animals she loved and discovered her focus as an artist in this passion. Today she strives to create stylish and fun illustrations that will also help raise awareness and interest in the animals she loves.” To that end Ms. Schafer creates and sells numerous “funny animal” prints, and some of her works are also available on T-shirts and even pillows.

image c. 2016 by Jeannine Schafer

Well wow, where do we even start? The four weeks we’ve been off have probably been the most eventful four weeks of our lives. Two different conventions, lots of traveling, the malicious FurCast syndication incident, ARP’s survey results and tons of news. In this extended episode with an interview, we do our best to cover it all. We missed you all so much. See you next week!

Download MP3

YouTube version is uncut, containing both the pre and post-show. Forgot to stop recording. Woops. Oh well, it’s a special episode anyway. Enjoy.

Watch Video The Incident

“The Incident.” Yeah, I guess that’s what we’ll call it. The meat of the story is discussed on the show and in our PRESS RELEASE.

Media links:

• Denver CBS: Expletives Abundant After Mountain Radio Station Signal Apparently Hacked
• Michigan Association of Broadcasters Barix Box Advisory
• TheLipTV: Radio Stations Hacked and Broadcast Furry Sex Podcast
• Distorted View: Radio stations across the country being hacked to broadcast audio from a furry podcast
• KHOU: FCC investigating cause of Livingston radio station hack
• Flayrah: Hacked repeater brings furry podcast FurCast to FM radio
• BBC News: Explicit ‘furry’ podcast airs on US radio after ‘hack’
• Ars Technica: Nation-wide radio station hack airs hours of vulgar “furry sex” ramblings
• … and many, many more.

Full discussion of the incident takes place in the show. Let’s hope this is over with.

Link Roundup:

• U87ai comparison video with barking
• What killed Rainfurrest?
• Deleted Zootopia scene involves Nick and Judy meeting parents
• Adjective Species tweet shows furries and religion
• Cracked.com’s “6 Things furry porn artists have learned on the job”
• Liana Kerzner’s “Why I love furries” on Escapist Magazine
• South East / Asian Furry Convention List
• Hotblood Comic Kickstarter
• MFF tweets infographic of their history
• FWA Ghosting Issue Busted by Revit

Interview:

Dr. Courtney “Nuka” Plante (he’s a kitty!) from the Anthropomorphic Research Project joins us on FurCast once again to discuss the project. After compiling several years of results we discuss some of the findings, psychology research ethics, and future plans of the project.

More info about Nuka and ARP:

• YouTube: TFF Furry Psychology Presentation by Nuka
• Anthropomorphic Research Project Homepage
• Anthropomorphic Research Project on Wikifur

News:

• Essential Pittsburgh (NPR syndicate) interviews Fursonas director
• Zoophilia / zoosexuality survey results
• Dolphinarium slammed over video showing keeper ‘performing sex act on dolphin’
• Don’t Worry, Ted Cruz Won’t Ban Dildos If He’s President
• The Verge Review of Animals: the coywolf
• Florida Man To Cops: Masturbating Makes Me Feel Like ‘Destroying Stuff’
• Man with knife hijacks bus, forces driver to take him to Tim Hortins
• Christian Author Mack Major Says Female Masturbation Is ‘Direct Path To Satan’

FC-231 Slow Motion Car Crash - Well wow, where do we even start? The four weeks we've been off have probably been the most eventful four weeks of our lives. Two different conventions, lots of traveling, the malicious FurCast syndication incident, ARP's survey results and tons of news.

Well wow, where do we even start? The four weeks we’ve been off have probably been the most eventful four weeks of our lives. Two different conventions, lots of traveling, the malicious FurCast syndication incident, ARP’s survey results and tons of news. In this extended episode with an interview, we do our best to cover it all. We missed you all so much. See you next week!

Download MP3

YouTube version is uncut, containing both the pre and post-show. Forgot to stop recording. Woops. Oh well, it’s a special episode anyway. Enjoy.

Watch Video The Incident

“The Incident.” Yeah, I guess that’s what we’ll call it. The meat of the story is discussed on the show and in our PRESS RELEASE.

Media links:

• Denver CBS: Expletives Abundant After Mountain Radio Station Signal Apparently Hacked
• Michigan Association of Broadcasters Barix Box Advisory
• TheLipTV: Radio Stations Hacked and Broadcast Furry Sex Podcast
• Distorted View: Radio stations across the country being hacked to broadcast audio from a furry podcast
• KHOU: FCC investigating cause of Livingston radio station hack
• Flayrah: Hacked repeater brings furry podcast FurCast to FM radio
• BBC News: Explicit ‘furry’ podcast airs on US radio after ‘hack’
• Ars Technica: Nation-wide radio station hack airs hours of vulgar “furry sex” ramblings
• … and many, many more.

Full discussion of the incident takes place in the show. Let’s hope this is over with.

Link Roundup:

• U87ai comparison video with barking
• What killed Rainfurrest?
• Deleted Zootopia scene involves Nick and Judy meeting parents
• Adjective Species tweet shows furries and religion
• Cracked.com’s “6 Things furry porn artists have learned on the job”
• Liana Kerzner’s “Why I love furries” on Escapist Magazine
• South East / Asian Furry Convention List
• Hotblood Comic Kickstarter
• MFF tweets infographic of their history
• FWA Ghosting Issue Busted by Revit

Interview:

Dr. Courtney “Nuka” Plante (he’s a kitty!) from the Anthropomorphic Research Project joins us on FurCast once again to discuss the project. After compiling several years of results we discuss some of the findings, psychology research ethics, and future plans of the project.

More info about Nuka and ARP:

• YouTube: TFF Furry Psychology Presentation by Nuka
• Anthropomorphic Research Project Homepage
• Anthropomorphic Research Project on Wikifur

News:

• Essential Pittsburgh (NPR syndicate) interviews Fursonas director
• Zoophilia / zoosexuality survey results
• Dolphinarium slammed over video showing keeper ‘performing sex act on dolphin’
• Don’t Worry, Ted Cruz Won’t Ban Dildos If He’s President
• The Verge Review of Animals: the coywolf
• Florida Man To Cops: Masturbating Makes Me Feel Like ‘Destroying Stuff’
• Man with knife hijacks bus, forces driver to take him to Tim Hortins
• Christian Author Mack Major Says Female Masturbation Is ‘Direct Path To Satan’

FC-231 Slow Motion Car Crash - Well wow, where do we even start? The four weeks we've been off have probably been the most eventful four weeks of our lives. Two different conventions, lots of traveling, the malicious FurCast syndication incident, ARP's survey results and tons of news.

Well wow, where do we even start? The four weeks we’ve been off have probably been the most eventful four weeks of our lives. Two different conventions, lots of traveling, the malicious FurCast syndication incident, ARP’s survey results and tons of news. In this extended episode with an interview, we do our best to cover it all. We missed you all so much. See you next week!

Download MP3

YouTube version is uncut, containing both the pre and post-show. Forgot to stop recording. Woops. Oh well, it’s a special episode anyway. Enjoy.

Watch Video The Incident

“The Incident.” Yeah, I guess that’s what we’ll call it. The meat of the story is discussed on the show and in our PRESS RELEASE.

Media links:

• Denver CBS: Expletives Abundant After Mountain Radio Station Signal Apparently Hacked
• Michigan Association of Broadcasters Barix Box Advisory
• TheLipTV: Radio Stations Hacked and Broadcast Furry Sex Podcast
• Distorted View: Radio stations across the country being hacked to broadcast audio from a furry podcast
• KHOU: FCC investigating cause of Livingston radio station hack
• Flayrah: Hacked repeater brings furry podcast FurCast to FM radio
• BBC News: Explicit ‘furry’ podcast airs on US radio after ‘hack’
• Ars Technica: Nation-wide radio station hack airs hours of vulgar “furry sex” ramblings
• … and many, many more.

Full discussion of the incident takes place in the show. Let’s hope this is over with.

Link Roundup:

• U87ai comparison video with barking
• What killed Rainfurrest?
• Deleted Zootopia scene involves Nick and Judy meeting parents
• Adjective Species tweet shows furries and religion
• Cracked.com’s “6 Things furry porn artists have learned on the job”
• Liana Kerzner’s “Why I love furries” on Escapist Magazine
• South East / Asian Furry Convention List
• Hotblood Comic Kickstarter
• MFF tweets infographic of their history
• FWA Ghosting Issue Busted by Revit

Interview:

Dr. Courtney “Nuka” Plante (he’s a kitty!) from the Anthropomorphic Research Project joins us on FurCast once again to discuss the project. After compiling several years of results we discuss some of the findings, psychology research ethics, and future plans of the project.

More info about Nuka and ARP:

• YouTube: TFF Furry Psychology Presentation by Nuka
• Anthropomorphic Research Project Homepage
• Anthropomorphic Research Project on Wikifur

News:

• Essential Pittsburgh (NPR syndicate) interviews Fursonas director
• Zoophilia / zoosexuality survey results
• Dolphinarium slammed over video showing keeper ‘performing sex act on dolphin’
• Don’t Worry, Ted Cruz Won’t Ban Dildos If He’s President
• The Verge Review of Animals: the coywolf
• Florida Man To Cops: Masturbating Makes Me Feel Like ‘Destroying Stuff’
• Man with knife hijacks bus, forces driver to take him to Tim Hortins
• Christian Author Mack Major Says Female Masturbation Is ‘Direct Path To Satan’

[Live] Slow Motion Car Crash - Well wow, where do we even start? The four weeks we've been off have probably been the most eventful four weeks of our lives. Two different conventions, lots of traveling, the malicious FurCast syndication incident, ARP's survey results and tons of news.

Frequent guest Path Hyena joins the Wagz crew to talk about the problem of ghosting at cons and what conventions–and attendees–can do to keep it from becoming a problem. You don’t want to miss this one!

Metadata and Credits The Phantom of the Con

Runtime: 34:44m

Cast: Wolfin, Levi, Path, Pami

Editor: Levi

Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3 Copyright: © 2016 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. Podcast thumbnail by gabriel77 under the RGBStock license.

The Phantom of the Con - Frequent guest Path Hyena joins the Wagz crew to talk about the problem of ghosting at cons and what conventions--and attendees--can do to keep it from becoming a problem. You don't want to miss this one!