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Traveling to The Furry Future
The Furry Future
Edited by Fred Patten
Cover Art by Teagan Gavet
446 pp., $19.95 (ebook, $9.95)
FurPlanet Productions, January 2015
The Furry Future collects nineteen short stories imagining how furries might come into being, whether created by humans, or discovered as aliens mankind must now learn to live with. Furries in science fiction settings offer a wide variety of ideas and approaches, and this anthology, edited by Fred Patten, does a good job mining different veins.
Fiction within the fandom that features a mixed population of anthropomorphic and human characters often centers on the idea that furries are a servant/minority class without equal rights. The protagonists are making their way through this world, either struggling to make sense of it, fighting for better treatment, or just trying to survive the abuses of the ruling class. The problem with these “fursecution” stories is they’ve been told many times before, and worse, they’re fairly easy to get wrong. Many of us reading these are minorities moving through a world where we aren’t treated equally—I’m a politically active black gay man, for instance—and too many fursecution stories show an insufficient grasp on the realities of this situation. It deeply matters to me, on a personal level, that these stories illuminate an understanding of what that’s like. While some of the stories in The Furry Future are stories featuring integrated societies, a fair number are stories about segregation and prejudice, and they work well only some of the time.
“Distant Shores” by Tony Greyfox features an astronaut forced into suspended animation to escape a catastrophe. She’s discovered by a terraforming crew of anthropomorphic animals, and learns the nature and consequences of all the scientific advancements that happened while she was under. The furries she meets are living, breathing people. Their temperaments are widely varied, and their past experiences push them toward extreme action when she arrives in their midst. In addition to being different species, a lot of the crew members come from different cultural backgrounds—their language is peppered with non-English terms. When the human protagonist discovers just why the members of the crew behave the way they do around her, it’s genuinely exciting to see how things play out—everyone, even the antagonists, come across as sympathetic and understandable. It’s a complicated situation that Greyfox navigates deftly.
Watts Martin’s “Tow,” about a woman who underwent a series of genetic modifications to make herself a human-animal hybrid called a totemic, is another story that deals with humanity’s reaction to the new and frightening head on. Martin uses a style that often creates a distance between the point-of-view character and the action around her, but the protagonist’s vulnerability (and investment) in her situation is palpable, making the stakes fairly high despite her physical advantages. And “The Analogue Cat,” by Alice Dryden, tells a tale of a brand-new creature who exists in the border between the old world and the new. It’s told in second-person perspective, in a way that works astonishingly well. Dryden uses the voice to create an immediacy and emotional impact that sneaks up on you.
Not all the stories serve the tension between humans and newer sapient animals as well. Michael Payne’s “Emergency Maintenance” features a pair of furry detectives, set in a world where their kind is chafing at the bonds set for them by their human creators. While they’re allowed independent lives and some autonomy, the setting calls to mind the Jim Crow South; certain citizens might be legally free, but there’s a long way to go before they’re considered “equal.” Yet the detectives spend much of the story trading thinly-veiled barbs about their human patron while he’s standing right there. Living in a world where being a second-class citizen is ground into you all your life shapes your psyche in distinct and fundamental ways, and the way Chelisse relates to her boss and the humans around her rings false. Even so, the closing sequence, where Chelisse speaks with her pastor about an existential crisis, is effective, and a few of the plot elements are intriguing.
In “Experiment Seventy” by J.F.R. Coates, a created furry hides with a human good samaritan from a supposedly sadistic creator. We spend most of the story engaging with the awkwardness of first contact and learning more about the brief and tormented existence of this experiment. When the final confrontation comes, though, it’s a letdown. The creator’s revealed attitude only provokes more questions. MikasiWolf’s “The Future is Yours” features a human threatening to blow up his personal life and career due to a vague hatred of people enhancing their physical features and/or becoming furries. His actions are so extreme that it points to a near psychotic aversion to the concept, but his reasoning is never satisfactorily explained. Worse yet, his girlfriend only exists in the narrative for the sake of catalyzing his behavior.
On the “new furry” side of the anthology, “A Bedsheet for a Cape” from Nathaniel Gass is a winner. It essentially serves as an endearing origin story for a furry superhero. Arf is a wonderful character, and the ramifications of his adoption by Tarla and her family are fascinating. The handling of these new creatures by their creators makes sense even though it’s horrifying, and Arf’s slow climb from “living instrument” to “free-thinking person” is a joy to read. I’d love to see a novel set in this world.
“Lunar Cavity” by Mary Lowd details a furry alien/human collaboration that significantly changes both parties. The concepts on display are a virtual buffet of neat science fiction ideas that would be well-served in a longer epic, but she roots the action firmly in the psychology of her two protagonists to give us solid ground with which to navigate the world. The imagination and sensitivity on display here are impressive. Likewise, “Evolver” by Ronald W. Klemp features furry aliens and humans working together to solve a mystery about their shared origin. It leans into the differences between humans and aliens through well-realized characters, thoughtfully-created settings and crisp writing.
The post-human or non-human stories are the most exciting in the anthology, though. For me the jewel of the collection was Dwale’s “The Darkness of Dead Stars.” It’s a nasty—in the best possible way—bit of existential horror that seeps under your skin and stays there long after the story ends. A bio-engineered race of naked mole rats are trapped inside a ship searching fruitlessly for a life-sustaining planet in a universe approaching its heat death. The ship is slowly but steadily succumbing to its advancing age, and an entire level has been abandoned to a malicious entity the crew picked up in its travels. The story is richly atmospheric, almost oppressive in the way of great horror, and there’s a lot going on in the subtext that makes it worth reading again and again.
“Thebe and the Angry Red Eye” by David Hopkins is another bleak tale, and a wonderful way to close out the collection. An astronaut crash-lands on a Jovian moon after a failed expedition; his life is built around the things he must do to survive, and the extremity of the situation is such that the strain might be driving him insane. Again, the writing is powerful here, drawing you in to the desperation of our nameless protagonist and immersing you in his loneliness and ever-present fear. At what point is the effort needed to keep living too great a price to pay for the quality of life you have? Like most great science fiction, Hopkins imagines a scenario that pushes that question to its extreme. It’s a brutal, but beautiful, story.
“Trinka and the Robot,” from Ocean Tigrox, is a story about what happens when a new society rises from the ashes of the old. The tone of the tale makes it feel like young adult fiction, but that’s not a handicap; Trinka is a wonderful protagonist whose bravery and optimism provides a nice balance against the (justifiable) fearful conservatism from the rest of her tribe. This short story reads like the prologue to a series of novels that I would totally buy; hopefully, there’ll be more coming in this setting.
There are a half-dozen excellent stories here, another half-dozen good ones, and only a few that don’t land well. Most of the problems with the stories that didn’t work were the same: humanity wasn’t illuminated well enough through the concept, especially in the cases where they shared (or dominated) a world featuring other sapient people. With real-world racial issues splashed across recent news cycles, it’s disappointing to see stories that miss the opportunity to explore the mentality and motivations of these prejudices carefully. It would be wonderful to see stories that try to deeply understand the people who perpetuate these abuses and/or the minority populations who must endure them.
However, the best stories in The Furry Future imagine a future where both humans and anthropomorphic animals grapple with the complications of their existence in meaningful ways, drawing the realities of their environment into their personal lives and reflecting them back through their actions. No matter how far we advance technologically, or how different we may be physically, we still have to deal with the same foibles and problems we always have. The stories that do this best are ones I’d recommend to non-furry science fiction fans—they’re that good.
(Disclosure: Watts Martin, one of the contributors to The Furry Future, is Claw & Quill’s head editor.)
Shady Hollow: A Murder Mystery, by Juneau Black – Book Review by Fred Patten.
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Shady Hollow: A Murder Mystery, by Juneau Black.
Philadelphia, PA, Hammer & Birch, October 2015, paperback $12.95 ([1] + 197 [+1] pages), Kindle $4.99.
This is a stereotypical murder mystery except for the funny animal cast. Shady Hollow is a small forest animal town where everybody knows everybody else. They’re all friendly, except maybe for grumpy toad Otto Stumpf. But he’s considered cranky but lovable – until the morning that he’s found floating face down in the mill pond with a knife in his back.
Almost all the reviews call Shady Hollow “a Murder, She Wrote with animals”. The book begins with a Cast of Characters:
“Otto Stumpf: The grouchy, taciturn toad of Shady Hollow. Not many folk admit to liking Otto. The better question is who hates him.
Vera Vixen: This cunning, foxy reporter has a nose for trouble and a desire to find out the truth. Can she trust anyone around her?
BW Stone: The cigar-chomping skunk of an editor of the Shady Hollow Herald. BW (“Everything in black and white!”) loves a good headline. Would he kill to create one?” (p. 1)
The Cast goes on to profile thirteen others such as the lazy bear police chief, his bear deputy who does all the work, the hummingbird town gossip, the moose coffee shop owner, the beaver industrialist, and the raccoon small-time thief. Each is described suspiciously. As the popular coffee-shop proprietor, “If gossip is spoken, Joe has heard it. Maybe he heard too much.” As Vera investigates, everyone turns out to have a secret that he or she would rather keep hidden. But are any of the secrets serious enough to lead to murder? And how would a recluse like Otto have learned them?
Shady Hollow is developed leisurely at first, as befits a small town where “nothing ever happens”.
“For instance, today’s headline profiles the spelling bee winner. Ashley Chitters (mouse, eight years of age), proudly wearing the bright bee-shaped medal on a long ribbon around her neck. She has triumphed for the running, spelling ‘c-o-n-t-u-m-a-c-i-o-u-s’ with no hesitation whatsoever, to great applause. Her rival – a stoat who ironically was somewhat contumacious – tried to put an ‘i’ in lachrymose, to his detriment. Next to the article on the spelling bee queen is a recipe for peach cobbler from the rabbits of Cold Clay Orchards. The accompanying illustration makes the mouth water.
Such is the news in Shady Hollow.
Other things happen, of course. There is love and hate, deceit and betrayal. There is loyalty and disappointment, heroism and villainy, all of a small order. But these things are for the most part private, and secret. They take place behind closed doors, or underground in dens, or among the branches that shade the town so well. You do not see them aired about in the peaceful world of Shady Hollow.
But very soon, you will.” (pgs. 5-6)
For most of the residents of Shady Hollow, the murder is shockingly impossible to believe. They treat it almost as though it was a fatal accident, just very bad luck for Otto. For a few, it’s an opportunity.
“If the deputy remembered that he worked under Chief Meade, he didn’t seem to care. He could collect evidence, take pictures, and contact the Peaceful Hollow Funeral Home on Yew Street to collect Otto’s body before the Chief even rolled out of bed. He liked his job, and knew that he was good at it. It bothered him that he did most of the work and his boss took most of the credit, but it seemed petty to complain. After all, who really cared which bear solved the case of the stolen ice sculpture?
But now, he felt differently. Perhaps this tragedy would also be a stepping stone. Despite the situation, he felt some excitement in the pit of his stomach: there had never been a murder in Shady Hollow before.” (p. 17)
Until a second, public murder attempt is made. Then all Shady Hollow panics. Is there a serial killer? Is anyone safe? Is there a connection between the toad and the would-be second victim? Will there be more attempts? Will the police resist pressure to throw somebody, anybody into jail to create a false illusion of having solved the crimes? Can Vera Vixen continue to investigate without making herself a target of the killer?
“Vera sniffed loudly, but then she recovered. ‘We have got to catch this killer,’ she declared, peering into the mirror. ‘Bandages are not a good look for me, and I am starting to take things personally.’” (p. 122)
The animal natures of the cast are used to a minor extent. Birds like Lenore Lee, the raven bookstore owner, and Prof. Ambrosius Heidegger, the owl philosopher, can fly above the ground-based animals and travel in birds-eye routes, taking less time than those who have to travel by roads.
In an About the Author, Juneau Black is admitted to be the pen name of two mystery fans, Jocelyn Koehler and Sharon Nagel. The two are a bookseller and a former bookseller who have taken pains to make Shady Hollow an especially attractive example of book design, such as the ornate cover by James T. Egan. They intend this to be the first of a series. The second book, Cold Clay: A Shady Hollow Mystery, is already under way.
Cartoon Critters All OVER You!
The artist known as Kira is the creator of artwork known as KiraKiraDoodles. (“Kirakira” is Japanese for “sparkle”, she happily tell you. She’ll also tell you she’s from Germany but recently moved to Southern California.) Taking a cue from popular Japanese art, she not only draws cute “chibi” characters (little doggies, little kitties, pokemon, and so forth) but she draws dozens of them together in exotic patterns that remind one of truly unusual wall paper. Then, she turns these patterns into not only art prints but lots of useful stuff like phone cases, purses, and even dresses — lots of dresses. (Look closely.) You can see lot of examples of her art pattern work at her web site, which includes links to her Etsy store, Redbubble store, and so forth.
image c. 2016 by KiraKiraDoodles
TigerTails Radio Season 9 Episode 32
Lifeless, by Graveyard Greg – Book Review by Fred Patten.
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Lifeless, by Graveyard Greg.
Dallas, TX, FurPlanet Productions, January 2014, trade paperback $9.95 (105 pages).
In the 2010 Deathless and this sequel novella Lifeless, the characters are all anthropomorphic animals, and species doesn’t matter. Ivan the Russian snow leopard (“‘You’re seven feet tall, weigh over three hundred pounds, and have a long, fluffy tail that I trip over too many times,’” complains his friend Tank the rabbit in a freezing Reno, Nevada winter) is an exchange student, living in a college apartment. He has a gay boyfriend, Tank the rabbit, who is a frequent visitor of his cousin Hopper and his roommate Darryl, a hyena. Tank lives with his nearby parents Nikki the rabbit, a martial-arts expert, and his father, a huge Greek bull of supernatural origins. Other friends are Scowl the cougar martial-arts trainer, Jolly the giant panda, and Brent and Brooks, the twin stallions. Everyone is easy with Ivan’s and Tank’s homosexual lifestyle.
Ivan has his own relationship with Russia’s mythology, and Deathless was about his pursuit to America by the Russian folkloric Koschei the Deathless with his undead monsters. All of Ivan’s new American friends rallied to save him. Now six months later in Lifeless, Ivan is again in supernatural danger after Tank and his parents have departed on an extended family vacation, and with the kidnapping of Brooks. Ivan is left to fight with the aid of Scowl, Brent, and new ‘morphs. New characters include … well, yarst! I can’t say much about Lifeless at all without giving away spoilers.
Let’s just say that Ivan and his friends now have a quest rather than a fight for their lives. New characters, good, neutral, and evil include anthro red foxes, a lion, and a monitor lizard. The hunt for an ancient mystic object leads them through Reno, Nevada’s glittery casinos. And what Ivan is holding on Donryu’s cover is not a cup of cappuccino.
Lifeless is complete in itself, but the booklet ends with a note that Ivan’s adventures will continue in Faithless, not yet published. Scowl, Tank, and the others will also have more adventures of their own in Graveyard Greg’s forthcoming Changes and Relationships.
Ground Control to Major Tom Cat…
We’re not sure exactly what to say about Kitty Jenkins: Purrvana, a new full-color comic created by Daniel De Sosa. Well, other than to say what he says: “Kitty Jenkins returns to guide you on an absurdly amusing odyssey through time and meowter space”. Gotcha. Mr. De Sosa also created the Animal Dreamers Art Therapy Coloring Book, so evidently imagination is not in short supply. It’s all published by Backwards Burd, a comic book publisher in the UK that specializes in diverse art styles and hand-printed zines. Not to mention 3-eyed space cats. Check out their web site for more interesting and unusual titles.
image c. 2016 Backwards Burd
Episode -48 - More missing birds
S5 Episode 10 – The Revenge of the Lost Episode - Roo and Tugs are in! It's the first Lost Episode we've done in a while and we...brought too much salt! Listen as Roo and Tugs debate everything from Tony the Tiger, to Zootopia overhype, to the passing of
NOW LISTEN!
Show Notes
Nuka has re-recorded his panel from FC! If you've ever wondered about the furry fandom, now is a good time to watch this video!
Special Thanks
Syd
D'Otter
Degen
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!)
Some music was provided by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech.com. We used the following pieces: Spy Glass, Also sprach Zarathustra . Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License.
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!)
worldsbestgrandpa - Pokémon - Polka Center OCRemix, USA: 2014. Based on Junichi Masuda - Pokémon Center Theme, USA: Pokémon Red Version and Blue Version, 1996. Used with permission. (Original here.)
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: There comes a time in life when many desire to give back to their community and help out those who need anything from just a hello and a hug to something far greater. Fur What It’s Worth will be joined in-person by Margaret Cho as we discuss how she gives back to her communities while laughing all the while. We’ll also read your questions (about ANYTHING) to her and get her responses! Your hard deadline is February 23, 2016 to send your voice clips and emails!
Special Request: This is a rare opportunity for our fandom to shine! If you have a friend or family member who appreciates Margaret’s work, please share the word! We’ll happily read their emails or play their voice clips on the air! S5 Episode 10 – The Revenge of the Lost Episode - Roo and Tugs are in! It's the first Lost Episode we've done in a while and we...brought too much salt! Listen as Roo and Tugs debate everything from Tony the Tiger, to Zootopia overhype, to the passing of
ROFL
Ultimatum··21/02/2016··New Slavic Front
As instructed by our minister of foreign affairs and with the approval of the head of the state,we send you a ultimatum that you, as the main in charge of the Anthropomorphic Animal Appreciation Community (aka, the furry fandom),you are to accept and approve of all our following demands:
·The AAAC is required to stop all military acts against the NSF immediately
·The AAAC is required to obliterate and subdue all current organs responsible for ostracism,discrimination and propaganda towards our faction
·The AAAC needs to stop supporting aggressive acts towards normal and Slavic societies
·AAAC has to dismantle and demilitarize FDF (Furry Defence Force), the one mainly responsible for the conflict
·The AAAC is required to choose a side, neutral is not an option
As a leader of the AAAC,you have time until 26/02/2016 to either accept or decline.Declining will ultimately result in conflict between AAAC and NSF.
We hope you answer well.
Taking Your Parents to a Furcon Is the Best Way to Convert Them :-)
I've just stumbled upon your website, and boy am I happy to find some advice about being a furry! So thank you for all this.
I'm 16, and would love to go to a Furcon. It would be most reasonable to wait until I'm 18, but I've been waiting for so long as it is, and I'm super eager to see some real life fursuits and talk to real life furries! I don't know any other furries, and I guess you have to have a guardian if you are a minor to attend a con.
My parents know that I'm a furry, but are not entirely supportive. They don't hate it, but they sure don't like it. As much as I attempt to educate them, they still think its weird, and my mom keeps trying to talk me out of it.
It might be putting my parents in a really weird position to be with me at a furcon. I'd hate to make other furries uncomfortable by the looks they'd get from my parents.
What do you think Papa Bear? Any possible solutions to this problem, or wait till 18?
Thanks a ton!
Ampersand
* * *
Hi, Ampersand,
Now, how cute is that name you picked? :) I think the solution to your problem IS to take your parents to a furcon. The reason many adults fear or dislike furries is because they are ignorant of who we really are or get misinformation. Many parents who actually get to know us change their minds and really think it is a fun thing to do.
Ninety-nine percent of a con is G-rated. In case you don't know, at the Dealers' Den and at the art show there IS some adult stuff, but the art shows always keep the adult stuff in a restricted area. Art books at the Dealers' Den are clearly marked and are kept in binders that are closed. Avoid them. Sometimes at some cons there is a booth for Bad Dragon. That is the one thing to keep well away from. That is a company that deals with sexual devices. That said, they are actually a very responsible company that always goes out of its way to talk about the importance of safe sex; however, you're too young for that. If you want to be extra cautious, just don't go into the Dealer's Den at all, but it would be a shame because there's a lot of neat stuff there.
Anyway, there are many MANY things to do at a furcon, including forums, activities, the fursuit parade, and so on. All of these are great fun and family friendly. Before going to a con, you can usually check out the website and see what activities and forums are available. Sit together with your parents and talk about the things you would like to do.
That's the best way to get over this hurdle with your parents: actually Experience a furcon!
Hope you do!
Hugs,
Papabear
The Brave and the Chicken
So we were introduced to Clucked, a new full-color on-line comic created by Joie Brown and Joel Foster. “When a chicken lands on Earth in search of kin, he discovers that not only is his kind considered the tastiest thing in the universe… he’s also the only one left. Can he survive the hungering hordes, cosmic chases, and the entirety of the Galactic Federation long enough to save his homeworld?” Well if you want to help the creators bring us more of the trials and tribulations of Major Sanders (yes…), they have a Patreon link on their web site at www.cluckedcomic.com.
image c. 2016 by Joie Brown & Joel Foster
FC-227 FurCast Prime - No CJ this week. Fayroe and Paradox dive into the world of science, culture, politics and religion in this strange episode filled with legitimate discussion. Or not.
No CJ this week. Fayroe and Paradox dive into the world of science, culture, politics and religion in this strange episode filled with legitimate discussion. Or not.
Watch Video Media Discovery:- Zootopia ad in germany
- Where’s the fair use?
- Katsucon damage
- Flickr album of Anthrocon 1997
- Patreon CEO’s video
- Eternal 5D Data Chip Can Record All Of Human History
- Wolves have different Dialects depending on Species
- Males Vs. Females and sexual conflict
- Scientists get ‘gene editing’ go-ahead
- Maverick – “Religion and the fandom”
- NethGooRat – “Furry In A Human In A Furry In A Human”
FC-227 FurCast Prime - No CJ this week. Fayroe and Paradox dive into the world of science, culture, politics and religion in this strange episode filled with legitimate discussion. Or not.
No CJ this week. Fayroe and Paradox dive into the world of science, culture, politics and religion in this strange episode filled with legitimate discussion. Or not.
Watch Video Media Discovery:- Zootopia ad in germany
- Where’s the fair use?
- Katsucon damage
- Flickr album of Anthrocon 1997
- Patreon CEO’s video
- Eternal 5D Data Chip Can Record All Of Human History
- Wolves have different Dialects depending on Species
- Males Vs. Females and sexual conflict
- Scientists get ‘gene editing’ go-ahead
- Maverick – “Religion and the fandom”
- NethGooRat – “Furry In A Human In A Furry In A Human”
[Live] FurCast Prime - No CJ this week. Fayroe and Paradox dive into the world of science, culture, politics and religion in this strange episode filled with legitimate discussion. Or not.
No CJ this week. Fayroe and Paradox dive into the world of science, culture, politics and religion in this strange episode filled with legitimate discussion. Or not.
Watch Video Media Discovery:- Zootopia ad in germany
- Where’s the fair use?
- Katsucon damage
- Flickr album of Anthrocon 1997
- Patreon CEO’s video
- Eternal 5D Data Chip Can Record All Of Human History
- Wolves have different Dialects depending on Species
- Males Vs. Females and sexual conflict
- Scientists get ‘gene editing’ go-ahead
- Maverick – “Religion and the fandom”
- NethGooRat – “Furry In A Human In A Furry In A Human”
FC-227 FurCast Prime - No CJ this week. Fayroe and Paradox dive into the world of science, culture, politics and religion in this strange episode filled with legitimate discussion. Or not.
No CJ this week. Fayroe and Paradox dive into the world of science, culture, politics and religion in this strange episode filled with legitimate discussion. Or not.
Watch Video Media Discovery:- Zootopia ad in germany
- Where’s the fair use?
- Katsucon damage
- Flickr album of Anthrocon 1997
- Patreon CEO’s video
- Eternal 5D Data Chip Can Record All Of Human History
- Wolves have different Dialects depending on Species
- Males Vs. Females and sexual conflict
- Scientists get ‘gene editing’ go-ahead
- Maverick – “Religion and the fandom”
- NethGooRat – “Furry In A Human In A Furry In A Human”
Confessing Sexual Kinks Could Improve the Relationship
I would love it if you could help me understand my biology and why I'm feeling so bleh about it. I've been with my boyfriend for over a year and a half and as far as emotional support, romantic interest, and communication go we are doing pretty swell. The part that's been driving me crazy is the sex ... or lack thereof. Everyone saw that line coming.
Though there's a snag that I'm having trouble finding info on. We are an open couple online. We allow each other sexually interact through role play, under a few rules. I know he still gets aroused but he seems content to idly tease himself online than come seek me out. I asked him if I can be a part of that and he said he didn't want our relationship to be brought down to trivial levels like that. It was almost as if he were embarrassed by it but he does it a majority of evenings.
Then on the other side is my own biology. I have never been so pent up in my entire life. We have been open online since the beginning. only when we moved in together did it start being a problem. I feel starved for intimacy. I'm the one who goes to him for 80% of sexual interaction. I'm the one whose always complementing him and flirting. And it's starting hurt more when he rejects and satisfy less when we do do the nasty. What the heck is wrong with my brain chemistry?
I love this man. I haven't connected with someone like this before. And I'm too stubborn to let something like this ruin what I have that's wonderful. You are the wise guru of furries. Any advice?
Anonymous (age 24)
* * *
Dear Furiend,
Why “do emotions gotta be so stupid?” Well, because they are not connected to the brain, but to the heart, which contains no grey matter. But to the point: this is another case of online porn getting in the way of real-life sex. I had a letter similar to yours last year in which the couple had a loving relationship, but the man was having some difficulties. In that case, it helped the woman a lot to change her strategy by approaching her husband in a low-pressure way. Sometimes, believe it or not, a guy feels a bit intimidated by a mate who aggressively approaches him for sex (other men love that, but it varies). That might be the case here.
The other thing you mentioned was how he wouldn’t let you participate in his online role playing. He said he felt it would trivialize your relationship; you said it seemed more like he was embarassed. My sense is that you are probably correct. He’s somehow ashamed of whatever fantasy(ies) he’s indulging in online. What you need to do in this case is get him to open up about his fantasies to you in a frank discussion of your sexual preferences. You might need to be the one to break the ice here by “confessing” to him some of your kinkier preferences (works best if he doesn’t know one or two of them), and then invite him to do the same, telling him that you accept him and love him for who he is and that everyone has a kink or two that might be considered outrageous in “normal” society. Jim and I had this frank discussion years back, and the result was he had a much happier time in bed (no, I won’t tell you what his kink was, but it was “unconventional,” though hardly rare).
There is nothing wrong with your brain chemistry. You’re fine and you deserve a satisfying sexual relationship. (Oh, and just a note: sex is not “nasty”; it’s a beautfiul thing, a bonding thing, a natural thing. Remember, language is powerful, and the subtleties of using negative language in any discussion can lead to someone misinterpreting your attitudes and opinions). If you can afford it, you might try some sex counseling. So many people go it alone and end up not being able to communicate their needs properly, and the result can be the breakdown of the relationship. I know it’s hard to do at times, and it might seem trite, but talking is the best thing the two of you can do. If you want to someday take this relationship to the next level, you’ll need to resolve your sexual complications, obviously.
Hope that helps, at least a little. Write again any time if you need more input or have more information to offer.
Hugs,
Papabear
Guest post: “The Critique Masochist” by Frances Pauli
As an art school veteran, I am no stranger to criticism. When I create something, I not only expect critique, I immediately crave it. Critique is necessary, it’s useful, it is required. And the more brutal the better. In essence, I have become a critique masochist. How could this have happened? Let me explain.
Art majors at the college level spend their week something like this… Monday through Thursday are filled with studio classes–three hour sessions of drawing and/or painting in the classroom. Sometimes, it’s a clever arrangement of old knickknacks, vases, and Styrofoam balls and sometimes an assortment of nude models which is not nearly as exciting as you might imagine when you’re trying to get the lines right.
Friday, however, is critique day. On Friday, you gather your week’s work, tack it to a wall, and wait for the guns to start firing at you. You learn to love Fridays or you aren’t going to be in art school very long. Freshmen feared the week’s end. Those with tenuous egos invented reasons to be ill on Friday. You could try to dodge, but no matter how clever you were, eventually, it was your work on the wall.
There were only two rules in a peer critique and they are very good ones. First, you must remain absolutely silent while your work is being trashed–er, examined. Second, a critic may not say “I like it” or “I don’t like it” unless the statement is immediately followed by a detailed explanation of “WHY”.
Fridays were fun days in the school of art. If someone wasn’t crying in the halls between classes, it wasn’t Friday. I’m serious. People fled critique day, people sobbed. Some stomped straight to administration and switched majors. But, no matter how you look at it, Friday was a good day. It was Friday that turned me into a critique masochist.
So, back to writing…and critique. Critique is a good thing. It is the single most vital tool to becoming the best at any creative endeavor. We cannot be our own critic. We can try, and please do try. It’s required, you HAVE to learn to look at your work objectively. On the flip side, you will never, ever be as objective as your reader in Connecticut who’s never met you. Seek out the guns. Please. As you do, remember a few things to nurse a happy relationship with criticism. It will find you eventually anyway. If not before publication, then after.
DETACH: Your work may be your baby, but it’s not your baby. Any discussion of your work is not a personal attack. It is not your job to protect it. It is your job to let it be ripped to shreds and reassembled into something better, and golden, and closer to perfect.
EGO AWAY: Put it in a box, lock it in its room, whatever. Your ego will be needed later (when the rejections roll in and make you want to quit) but while receiving and giving criticism, it’s dead weight and will only botch up the whole process.
LISTEN: With both ears and the whole mind. Listen and consider the slim possibility that the critic may be right. Don’t waste time disagreeing or mentally arguing, listen. Listen and pretend they’re a genius–just for now.
SALT: When you have listened, considered and absorbed, THEN remember the grain of salt. This is an opinion–one person’s opinion or a whole class’ opinion, but still an opinion. Do you agree with it? Try. If not, stick to your guns and trust that you know your own goals. Don’t ever think that a suggestion is a rule, that you must change and adapt to every criticism or you will never stop fixing and changing things back and forth. Do change what you agree with. Do give serious thought to any suggestion that comes up more than once, or over and over again from different sources. But in the end, you decide.
Remember the two rules–they are good ones. Don’t interrupt. Never argue during the critique. If anyone ever says, “I like it” or “I don’t like it” insist on a detailed “why.” Embrace the horror–that is, the process– and learn to love it. Laugh at your mistakes and yourself often. Eventually, you might find yourself craving it, needing it. Personally, I’m suspicious of anyone who reads my work and doesn’t pick it apart, at least a little. Don’t trust the “I loved it” or the “It’s great” without further discussion! With a little practice, you too can be a critique masochist.
This post first appeared on Speculative Friction.
Shadow Walkers – Book Review by Fred Patten
Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.
Shadow Walkers, by Russ Chenoweth.
NYC, Charles Scribner’s Sons, April 1993, hardcover $13.95 (153 pages).
Shadow Walkers is one of those unillustrated novels that make it very difficult for the reader to decide whether the talking animals are supposed to be natural, unclothed quadrupedal animals or bipedal, clothes-wearing funny animals. Set on Cape Cod during winter, and featuring two rat children, Sara and her brother Peter, the different scenes imply both situations. Cover artist Gregory Manchess has prudently avoided depicting any of the characters.
“Rats are good climbers, but rats are good at many things that they are ordinarily too sensible to do. If Sara had told her parents what she planned, they would have asked her not to do it because it was dangerous and unnecessary. So she hadn’t told them, and that troubled her. […]
The trunk rose above her like a wall for thirty feet before the first great limb jutted out, as large itself as a good-sized tree. […] Sara climbed, carefully and surely, stopping every few feet to listen. She was exposed here and nearly defenseless, but still nothing moved in the woods. She felt safer when she had reached the limb and could stretch out for a moment on the rough bark and look and listen. […]
Two feet below the highest leaf, she had to stop. The branch had shrunk to less than half an inch and bowed slightly with her weight. It was high enough. […]
She never knew what made her glance down in time to see the shadow glide among the dim trunks with the silence of a moth and settle on a limb below her. It was an owl, a very big one, and he had decided for some idiotic reason to change his daytime perch and come to join her in her tree. […]
He couldn’t see her against the light – he or she. It didn’t matter – she’d get no concession either way. Owls had little sense of smell, but they could hear a seed drop on the forest floor. She’d better not shake off any acorns. He would hear her move or cough. […] He might wait all day, knowing she was there, and then in darkness come and pick her off the branch like a ripened peach.” (pgs. 2 and 4)
That certainly sounds like a natural rat and owl in a tree. But then:
“Peter watched from an opening in the tall grass as the large tiger cat progressed down the back steps of the library building and stood at the top of the path, only its whiskers showing any interest in the scene below. […]
‘Melvil,’ Peter called softly.
‘Peter? I thought I smelled a rat.’
Peter laughed politely and came up the path to where the big cat waited.
‘It’s good to see you, Peter. Will you come in for coffee?’
‘Thank you. I’d like that.’ The pleasure in the old animal’s voice had startled him. He hadn’t realized that his visits were important to the library cat. He followed Melvil up the stairs and through the flap into the workroom and then down the dark corridor to the kitchenette. […]
‘Is this a social visit, Peter, or would you like to use the collection?’
‘A bit of both,’ Peter answered with a twinge of guilt. ‘I did mean for us to have a talk.’
‘Well then,’ said the cat, ‘it had best be over coffee.’ He flipped on the light and bustled about the pots and pans while they talked of the small doings of the mid-Cape.” (pgs. 8-9)
So: natural animals or funny animals? Or a bit of both? Chenoweth plays it both ways. Cape Cod has its housepet and its wildlife communities, which despise each other.
“The rats, by contrast, were admired and feared, though equally avoided. The fear was unjustified, but fully understandable. Most animals made do. Rats had made their own society. Its outlines were flexible but strong, and their culture was very old and deep. Peter’s own species, the Norway rat, was the largest and most widespread, and they were familiar to their human neighbors by many names: the house rat, the sewer or wharf rat, and, locally, the water rats. The local phrase had stuck and had long ago become a family name.” (pgs. 9-10)
The rats have taken on a social responsibility to both animal communities:
“French’s old hound had an accident, I heard?’ It was clearly a request for information.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Peter answered. ‘An assisted accident, I gather, though I know little of it. They say he’d become a menace.’ To put it mildly.
‘Oh dear,’ was all that Melvil said.” (p. 10)
Peter’s and Sara’s rat home sounds very like the rats’ home in Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH:
“The rough plaster walls of Peter’s room were painted white and hung with drawings, bits of driftwood, and other objects that once had caught his fancy: a barrel stave, a piece of fishing net with colored floats, and Appleton the rattlesnake, the grisly gift of a playmate who’d been ordered to dispose of it. In a place of honor, where he could see it from his bed, was a watercolor of the marsh and dunes and sea and sky as seen from their own porch. His mother had painted it at his innocent request when he was young, and it served him better than a window on the world above.” (p. 18)
“And they talked. What rats do best, Sara thought: talk and eat. They talked about her studies, what all grown-ups asked about, in desperation, perhaps, and hope of some common ground or, as Luc said, genuine interest in her. Luc and Lasa were really interested, it seemed. Sara was learning French this year, from prim old Mademoiselle. She had a name, but she was known to three generations of adoring students as simply Miss. For how long and when the old rat had actually lived in Paris was unclear, but she recreated the experience convincingly for dozens of rat children who dreamed of romantic strolls along the Seine. Sara hoped someday to study Greek literature with Lasa, but not yet. She didn’t dare to mention this.” (p. 51)
“Their music was a shameless and nearly total borrowing from European classical traditions. There was music by Rattish composers, of course. It was interesting and favored the abilities and limitations of rats, but it was rarely adventurous. As with the other arts of life, rats were fine performers and sometimes brilliant in adaptation, but they lacked the demons that drove men to creativity.” (p. 56)
The rats wear backpacks, dig with shovels, have electricity in their burrows, smoke cigars, read humans’ books and write their own in Rattish about rat history, and Peter and his friend Tom are trying to scrounge or build the components to make a radio; but the novel does not contain any descriptions to let the reader know whether they wear clothing or go on two legs or four.
After 68 leisurely pages of building a picture of the peaceful and cultured rat community of Cape Cod, Peter and Tom complete their amateur radio and get into communication with the distant rat community of North Cape. The latter have just had a fire that has destroyed their insulin supply. “There were only about a dozen cases of diabetes at Cape End, Peter remembered. Human insulin would do them no good, of course. The rodent product was made in Bayport, a hundred miles away, but there were supplies here and at several places on the upper Cape.” (p. 69) Peter, Sara, and Tom offer to take the resupply; a journey of a week or more.
It should be safe enough, but the three rats are adventurous adolescents who lose no opportunity to get involved in human affairs. They bring aid to a man having a heart attack; they foil a bank robbery; they discover illegal dumping of prohibited waste. During these mini-adventures, the three young rats debate whether they should follow the age-old rat custom of never getting involved in human affairs, or act for the greater moral good of both species when they discover a crime that should be exposed. The ending leaves their decision still unformed.
Shadow Walkers is a bit frustrating in that there is very little drama. There is no big adventure; the characters are seldom in real danger; and what they decide to make of their adult lives is only implied. But a detailed picture of a peaceful rat society living in the shadow of human civilization is painted. Should this society risk calling itself to the attention of the humans by offering its cooperation for the potential benefit of both? You decide.
The Good, The Bad, and the Bunny
Writer Carlo San Juan and Eisner-Award nominated artist Rod Espinosa have combined their talents to bring us a new 4-issue full-color steam-punk fantasy comic mini-series, Immortal Wings. “Deep in the wild wastelands of the cosmic frontier, bounty hunter Blaze and her draconic partner, Gruffyd, combining fighting prowess and magical might to stay alive as they make a living. Now they dodge the forces of the Galactic Shogunate, as they have partnered with the greatest threat to the empire’s reign…a bunny named Mortimer. ” We think it makes more sense if you read it. Regardless, it’s on the shelves now from Antarctic Press. There’s an interview with the creators over at Two Geeks Talking.
image c. 2016 Antarctic Press