fchan

Copypasta from an earlier post in /faq/ which really belonged here anyway...

"Furry" comes from comic fandom originally. "Funny animal" or "Furry animal" comics have been around as long as comics have, and eventually "Furry animal" got shortened to "Furry"...

 Then Omaha the Cat Dancer was released, and the idea of taking furries and adding some ay-dult con-tent spread out into the minds of the lonely, and a sad, geeky subgenre was born.

 Thus, Fchan. :)

>>2
Calling us lonely, sad, and geeky is quite unnecessary.

Trust me. This site is addictive.

>>2

Whoa whoa whoa... Time out. I may be lonely, sad, geeky, but I am NOT a porn star. >:/

>>9

There is actually some truth in your words, at least it's my opinion.

"Furry" in general could be described as a kind of subculture.

I think you have to draw a line between "fursuiters" and "furries". Those people who actually wear fursuits are following a pattern I described in the memphis-thread. It's like an orgy in ancient greece or rome or france in the rennaisance, where many nobles came together to just have sex without thinking about morality and consequences. Many of them also tried out their sexuality, meaning men engaging with other men and women with women. To avoid suffering a loss of reputation, many people taking part in such an event wore masks. They enjoyed the anonymity their costume provided to statisfy their lust. With fursuits, I think, it's all about that, a modern version of an ancient orgy. Another point is that nearly all fursuiters and furries are men from which not all stating to be homosexual but at least very curious about that. As already mentioned, most of them are men and they are mostly in mid-age and are looking for a way of orientation or they are very young (grown-up teens) who use this subculture as a ground for experiments.

"Furries" seem to use their "fursona" on a level of roleplaying which does not necessarilly need a costume. On a "fur-meet" they just know that the people they're engaging with aren't the people they're in all day's life in this particular moment. I think many "furries" would like to become "fursuiters" but due to a lack of resources (craftsmanship, money, material, time) they have to stay the way they are, more or less.

There are further people who just like the drawings of anthromorphic characters for sure. When we take a look at the artists, besides these are fond of animal charcters, there are also many who use the anthromorphic-animal-art to express their "weird" fantasy without taking the risk of being legally sued. No one can't deny that many "fetishes" you can also find here at fchan clearly cross the border of legality. For example, if you take a look around you can find explicit material of pedophilia, scat, gore, necrophilia, rape, racistic or nationalsocialistic art etc. - all of them (in some countries, but some of them in all) would be illegal and would cause the artist being sued for spreading such material, IF the material showed humans. But anthros aren't humans, so there's no law here which could "threaten" these artist and so many people with such preferences "flee" to the furry-fandom, where they are tolerated and accepted for the reason that many furries have a total tolerance  policy since they feel their hobby being mocked or even hated in public, and in order to get respect you have to respect others. My personal opinion is that most of the elements "furries" have come to accept are responsible for the negative image the "fandom" acquired.

Last but not least you actually find some people with spiritual belives concerning an inner animal soul or reincarnated animals who have some loose relations to the furry fandom, most of them use their artistic talent to express their deepest feelings and wishes through pictures and poetry. But you can't count these people as "furries" and I highly doubt that anyone of them would call themselves "furry".

Again, just my 2 cents ^^

>>11
Never been to a con or talked with a large group of hardcore Fans, have you?

Sorry, but the vast majority of people answering to the nomenclature "furry" aren't rushing out to suit up or planning to get fitted out in a fursuit anytime soon. At best, they consider fursuiters an entertaining sideshow to the experience and an offshoot of the Fandom.

Fursuiting may be an integral part of the fandom, with a number of people considering it the highpoint to their experience within its hallowed precincts, but it is certainly not the essence or man thrust of it. It's not even a major part.

Change that "many" to "some" and you'd be right.

Wow guys, way to just make shit up.