At 10 years old I was an artist and I was in love with “anime kitties” – kitten representations of my favorite cartoon characters, usually in a very simplistic style, with hair, clothing, or other traits that made them look like the character they represented. I was so fascinated by them that for several years I drew everyone I knew exclusively as a cat. Sometimes they would be more human with slightly feline faces, sometimes they would be mostly feline but wearing clothes or having hair. In 5th and 6th grade, no one questioned my strange fascination with this style of art. In fact, most of my friends thought it was “awesome” and “super cool!” Many of my friends were thrilled to see their kitty representations on paper.
Although I eventually stopped drawing “anime kitties,” they never lost their appeal for me. I had done a few furry role-plays online without knowing it and I had always flirted with the idea of ears and a tail. It wasn’t until my junior year in high school that someone said the word “furry” to me for the first time though.
So what is a furry, anyways?
Maybe you’ve heard the term before, maybe you haven’t. Maybe you saw the episode of CSI with the sexual deviants in fursuits getting arrested and, well, just generally being creepy. Maybe you think it’s all about sex—or maybe you “know better” because a hundred furries have insisted to you that they’re not in it for the porn.
The trouble with the furry fandom is that no one can really give you a straight definition of what makes someone (or something) “furry.” In the broadest sense of the term, the “furry fandom” represents a large group of men, women, and everything in between who appreciate anthropomorphic animal characters. Wikipedia, in turn, defines anthropomorphism as “any attribution of human characteristics (or characteristics assumed to belong only to humans) to other animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities.”
Well, that’s delightfully vague, isn’t it? You can begin to see where the problem comes in. To complicate matters even further, society in general has a pretty low view of furries, so there are many people who are active participants in the furry community that swear up and down that they’re not furry. Likewise, for every furry you ask “what makes someone a furry?” you’ll get a different answer. Unlike most fandoms, you’re not necessarily a furry just because you like furries. In the end, the only thing that really makes a person a furry is rather or not they choose to apply that title to themselves.
Wait, so isn’t that just bestiality?
Yes and no. The truth is, despite what many furries will tell you, there are some people in the furry fandom that are in to bestiality. However, most furries have NO interest in molesting their neighbor’s dogs. The easiest way to think about it is that there are different “levels” of furry—they range from full-on bestiality to people who just really like cat tails. Keep in mind that these levels are not the end-all-be-all definition of furry. Not all furries will fall into just one (or any) of these categories and some people who aren’t furries may fall into some. They are also, by no means, official. These “categories” are just a convenient way to explain the furry fandom in a bit more detail.
This is a playful but mostly accurate representation of some different "levels" of furry. ]
- Bestiality: These are people who want to be human and have sex with animals.
- Feral (natural): These are people who want to be and act like an animal and interact with other animals.
- Feral (human): These are people who want to be an animal but have the intelligence of a human and interact with other animals who have the intelligence of humans.
- Anthro: These are people who are interested in having a half human, half animal body and interacting with other people who have half human, half animal bodies. These “anthropomorphic” bodies may have fur, animal faces, paws, tails, ears, horns, wings, or any combination of the above. Usually they at least have fur and have a combination of animal and human faces.
- Neko: Neko is the Japanese word for cat. Typically, people who call themselves “nekos” are people who are perfectly content being 100% human...but would also kind of like ears and tail. Sometimes these people wear ears and tail for costuming purposes or just for fun—sometimes they don’t dress up as a neko at all, but represent themselves as one online.
Each of these levels has a sexual and non-sexual aspect and they all have quite a bit of grey space in between them. Many furries fall into multiple categories and many “nekos” do not consider themselves furry—and that’s okay! “Furry” is a fluid word that, as I mentioned earlier, only applies to people who want it to apply to them.
Don’t all furries want to have sex in those creepy costumes?
Ordering a Fursuit
An example of a "duct tape dummy"--required by many fursuit artists.
Thankfully, there’s a fast and sweet answer to this question: No. When a furry dresses up in a “mascot” costume, it is referred to as “fursuiting." The costume itself is a “fursuit.” Fursuiting is popular, but the sexual aspect of it is a lot less popular than people tend to think. Many people pay thousands of dollars to have their fursuits custom made by incredibly talented artists. It is a process that has very precise specifications (most creators will not create a fursuit for you unless you mail them a full size “dummy” of your body and have a commissioned reference sheet of your design) and the process can take months, if not years. Beyond this, while fursuiting can be a lot of fun for those who enjoy it, fursuits are hot and uncomfortable. Trying to have sex in them not only runs the risk of ruining them, but it also verges on being a health hazard!
Like most aspects of the furry fandom, there are some people who enjoy fursuiting in a sexual way. More often than not, however, fursuits are just a way for furries to express themselves. Many furries feel that their “fursona,” or furry persona, is how they “should” look in a perfect world. They feel very connected to this image of themselves and fursuiting is the closet they’ll ever get to looking how they really feel they should look. Fursuits also offer a level of anonymity and security that “being yourself” can’t really offer. Many furries also tend to be shy in a number of ways and fursuiting can aid furries in being more social and comfortable around other people.
Fursona? What’s that?
Most, but not all, furries have a fursona. To put it simply, a fursona is a furry (anthro, animal, or neko) representation of the person. This is, in essence, the “character” that they play online. This is how they represent themselves in art and refer to themselves when speaking. Sometimes a fursona may have its own name or sometimes the fursona creator will have a specific character design and use their given/legal name. Often, when people have fursuits made, they have them made based off of their fursona designs.
Each fursona can be as unique or plain as an individual person. A quick search through the typical furry website will reveal hundreds of black cats, white wolves, and red foxes—but a fursona is only limited by its owner’s creativity. Fursonas can be any type of animal or combination of animal, mythical or real. Furries may have fursonas that are birds, fish, otters, elephants, snakes, dragons, chinchillas, squirrels, phoenixes, or even Pokémon. Fursonas are also not limited to “just animals” or “just anthros.” They can be both, either, or neither.
Furry: Kink vs. Lifestyle
One of the most common misconceptions about the furry fandom is that it’s all about sex. The typical furry’s knee-jerk is to immediately jump to the defense of the fandom by saying something like: “It’s not all about porn! Lots of people are in it just because they like the art! You can be a furry without liking furry porn. I just like the art—I swear I’m not in it for the porn at all!” I’m going to be frank here: people that tell you this probably either A) Don’t like any porn or B) Are lying.
That’s not to say that it isn’t possible to be a furry without liking furry porn. It’s actually completely feasible and lots of people do it every day. But most people that claim not to be in it for the porn are likely ashamed of what you’ll think of them or worried that they have to single-handedly redeem the furry fandom in the eyes of society by erasing the part that tends to weird people out: the sex. The reality is that a lot of people are in to the furry fandom for the porn. Many people are sexually attracted to anthropomorphic characters and art. If they weren’t, there wouldn’t be so damn much of it.
People often feel the need to “justify” the furry fandom and hide its sexual aspect, but in the end, I don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed of. Having a furry fetish isn’t any stranger than any other fetish out there and I tend to hold it to the same standards that I hold every other fetish to: “If you’re into it and it doesn’t hurt anyone else...By all means, have at it. More power to you.”