• Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 days ago

    So in recent weeks I’ve learned that furries are a lot more shunned than I thought, and it’s one of those things like Bronies where it’s not the subject of their obsession but the enthusiasm they have for the subject of their fandom.

    I grew up with Disney and Warner Brothers classics, read the Albedo comic anthology and a few others, but don’t see myself as a furry enthusiast (contrast my enthusiasm for late 20th century are we the real monsters? science fiction). Furry porn and furry-themed sex fantasies aren’t particularly my scene, but this is true for the majority of furries as well.

    But our society has gotten weird about furries and anthros, which I guess became evident when the US right-wing started spreading the litter-boxes in schools canard. Curiously, in the porn media community, animal genital shapes are a controversy, and mainstream media platforms that sell furry porn will not allow for anthros with canine or equine genitals. I think VISA specifically will not allow transactions for such works, which is stunning interventionism both in its overreach and specificity.

    And then some social media sites have special rules for furry content, that even SFW furry content can only appear inside furry-inclusive perimeters… unless it’s classical like Warner or Hanna Barbara. Wikipedia refuses to acknowledge Freefall (1998-present) one of the long-running fairly-hard-science-fiction webcomics (that gets into space-travel culture and robot culture), specifically because it has an anthro as a main character, more precisely, a genetically engineered wolf, next to a robot and a non-human trader.

    It’s not that furries are weird. It’s that society is weird about furries.

    I had an idea that the paws salute should become the official salute of the new resistance (since furries have been marked as a target for fascist enemy within rhetoric), but then trying to do some basic web searches, I couldn’t find a proper conventional name for the pose, nor easy-to-find art of it, even though I’ve seen the gesture made by catgirls often enough to know it’s a thing, and one of the salutes I might consider when standing before the firing squad.

    In the last few years, I went from being resignedly a man to being enby, having become disgusted with how dudes obsessed with manhood have conducted themselves in our society. Before, I didn’t care that much, and my own notions of what it was to be a man turned into adulting in the 2010s (take care of business; make sure rent and utilities are paid; don’t do violence, especially when nuclear weapons are involved). Now men look like Matt Walsh and Donald Trump.

    I’m not a furry or otherkin (yet), but considering how the furry community is among the untermenschen, I’m half-inclined to develop a fursona for sake of solidarity.

    And I still think the paws salute should be the sign of the resistance.

    • Atlas_@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      SFW furry? There’s kinda no such thing.

      If it’s identifiably furry then it tells me something about you and your sexual preferences that I didn’t want to know. The same if you had a Bad Dragon sticker or an Ahegao sweatshirt. Just because it doesn’t have explicit nudity doesn’t mean it’s not sexual and doesn’t mean it’s appropriate.

      Y’all want to do things anonymously on the internet, great. Y’all want to have conferences or get together in spaces that support that, also great. You should absolutely have those spaces. But so many furries that I’ve met overshare about it. Don’t use your fursona as your work profile pic. Don’t tell me you’re a furry when I didn’t ask anything remotely related. Don’t openly thirst over Judy Hopps. Ain’t nobody going around saying “I like tentacles and I’m proud of it” - take a note.

      • chaonaut@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Another day, another sensationalization of the sexual aspects of a queer subcultures. If it’s not the “inherent sexualization of discussing gay people”, or trans people as "autogynephillia and autoandrophillia’, it’s furries or kink at pride. It’s really disheartening hearing the same tools of oppression being deployed over and over again.

      • Dragonstaff@leminal.space
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        5 days ago

        SFW furry? There’s kinda no such thing.

        You realize that you’re the one sexualizing them, right?

        There absolutely are people who have a fursona or participate in the fandom in completely SFW ways. A fursona tells you exactly nothing about their sexual preferences. Honestly you sound exactly like homophobes insisting that two boys holding hands is obscene. Just because you equate a fursona with sex doesn’t mean that every furry thinks the same way.

      • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I know multiple furries personally who are asexual. You are speaking out your ass and fetishizing furries out of your own sexual repression.

        • Atlas_@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          Asexual people can and do still use porn for sexual gratification. Just like how some Asexual people still have sex.

          Hm, does that argument ring hollow to you? Maybe because you were trying to make a point about the group and not every individual in it?

          I’m speaking from my own experience which has been that in 6/6 cases when I’ve learned that someone was a furry the conversation quickly turned towards the topic of furry porn, which I did not want to discuss.

          • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            You know what they say about personal experiences pertaining to a group. It’s 100% translatable to the entire group. Yup. That’s what they say. Even so far to remove the asexual from a furry because I guess being a furry is so sexual that it must trump sexuality.

            Wild take. Bonkers even.

              • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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                4 days ago

                You are maliciously attacking a largely queer community with accusations of sexual deviancy in a way that has been historically used to demean queer folk in general. You are hyper focused on that sexual aspect to the point that you believe it to be all they are to the extent to claim asexual furries compromise their sexuality in the face of the pure sexyness of the furry community. I am not willfully misinterpreting you. I am interpreting you through a lense that you find unfavorable.

    • angrystego@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Yes, furries seem to be the new group everyone is ready to hate no matter the political inclination. Gays are accepted more and more, trans people are far from safe, but at least have allies, furries seem to be the easiest target now. I need to learn the paws salute.

        • Luccus@feddit.org
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          5 days ago

          Tbf, furries are ⅔ LGBT.

          There’s research on that. Thanks, Canadian goverment.

          Edit: ITT: Someone spends 10 fucking hours responding to every single reply thats even remotely empathetic towards furries, while being a wedge-issue little shit. This is so sad.

          Furry or not; we are stronger together.

            • angrystego@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              I see a huge potential for them to become an at risk minority. Why shouldn’t I defend a group that I think is innocent and under threat? I don’t want them to be next. Bullying of groups of people who do no harm, just want to express themselves in their own way, makes me sick.

              • trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                Because being a furry is a hobby, engaging in a hobby doesn’t make you a minority.

                No matter what happens, you can always stop looking at cartoon animals on the internet, can’t really stop being gay or trans.

                • angrystego@lemmy.world
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                  5 days ago

                  Let’s not tolerate narrowing the spectrum of ways people can enjoy their lives. That’s what totalitarian regimes do. They prohibit this and prohibit that, and in the end, you are only allowed to watch the approved movies, listen to the approved music and wear the approved clothes. You can stop expressing yourself, you can stop engaging in your hobbies, you can stop living the way you want to live, you can survive. But it sucks all happiness from your life.

                  • trashgirlfriend@lemmy.world
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                    5 days ago

                    I’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to do anything.

                    I’m just saying that equating a hobby to things people literally cannot change about these is absolutely horrible.

                    Going “well the transes have support but who is supporting furries” is stupid.

                    Yes, tons of furries are queer, this does not mean that to be a furry is to be queer, it’s a square and rectangle kinda thing.

                    Get your rocks off any fucking way you want but equating liking cartoon animals to being trans, while there is an active push for trans genocide world-wide is fucking disgusting.

                    There will never be wide persecution or institutional oppression against the tony the tiger fan club.