You Know What Fetish a Furry Artist Has
Contents
What Exactly Is a Hirsuite?
Coming Up With a Hirsuite Fandom Fursona
The Connection Between Furry Fandom and Community
Shannon Burgess's alter ego is a velociraptor named Ralph. Discussing her involvement in furry fandom, she explains how fine art, customs and dressing up have shaped her life.
I call back Shannon the fashion she looked in high school, the type of Goth girl who seemed too real for movies like "The Craft." She wasn't interested in short schoolgirl skirts or low-cutting shirts. Instead she wore a gray trench coat and heavy eyeliner, the long hair flowing downward her back a sharp contrast to the closely-cropped hair at her temples. Before that she was the daughter who befriended me when I was the new kid in junior high, the 1 whose dad would requite me a ride to school when I occasionally missed the jitney. We drifted apart soon after, finding our niche in dissimilar groups of friends and rarely interacting during our subsequent years of schoolhouse together.
More than than fifteen years later on, she walks into a Starbucks on Long Island, her warmth as apparent now equally information technology was when we were 11. Nosotros've seen each other just once since high school, but we've kept in touch through social media, developing a tentative but sincere friendship. She's however a visual creative person, just equally she was when nosotros were teenagers, and her art has led her to become part of a customs at in one case vibrant and marginalized.
What Exactly Is a Furry?
I'grand talking about the grouping known as "furries," a term that has made its manner into the pop-culture lexicon but often serves more as a dial line. Information technology refers to a subculture of people who dress up as anthropomorphic animals, using the costumes as a way of reinventing themselves by adopting "fursonas," personality traits linked to the species they embody. Although the animals represented in the fandom are as varied as the members themselves, wolves, cats and foxes seem to exist especially popular.
Furry fandom is a subject that I discover both fascinating and woefully misrepresented by most media portrayals. Coverage is commonly salacious and intended to scandalize. But that's non the image painted past Shannon, whose Facebook posts about being a hirsuite are light-hearted, funny and affectionate. She takes a lot of pride in representing the customs, often posting links to dinosaur-themed stories as a tribute to her adopted fursona, a velociraptor named Ralph.
"Every fandom has its grouping that takes it to a sexual level, but that's not the master reason that people become involved," Shannon explains. "That's why furries are and then afraid of the media, because that's just how information technology's been portrayed."
Realizing there is a lot more to the furry community than the mainstream news lets on, I asked Shannon if she would talk to me well-nigh her involvement in the fandom. It started most ten years ago on a social network devoted to fine art and art enthusiasts. "I was on DeviantArt and came across a couple of artists who were cartoon anthropomorphics and furry characters," she explains. "I was similar, 'This is really cool, how do I get into this?' I ended up cartoon my own little characters." Her drawings quickly institute an audience on DeviantArt, and that audition turned into a community.
After chatting with a fellow member of the fandom online, Shannon attended a local meetup where she was introduced to other furries. An afternoon spent eating barbecue, socializing and watching cartoons turned out to be a keen way of dipping her toes in the water, and she felt an immediate connectedness to the group. That feeling was mirrored by subsequent hirsuite meetups, her positive feel reinforced through increased exposure to their civilisation. "I didn't know the whole fandom was like that—it'south just a huge group of really friendly, welcoming people who all share an interest in drawing animals, basically."
If that's the true nature of hirsuite fandom, why isn't that the side we ordinarily come across? When furries are represented in the media, in stories such as the 2003 Vanity Fair piece "Pleasures of the Fur" or the at present infamous episode of CSI where a murder investigation uncovers a series of furry orgies, the focus is virtually exclusively on sexual activity, and the costuming aspect is played up as a fetish. Is at that place whatsoever accuracy to that portrayal?
"The minute they put on a mask they don't have to worry anymore because nobody can run across them, and they tin human action upward and they can do whatever they want, because nobody can meet who they really are.
"Every fandom has its group that takes it to a sexual level, but that'south not the main reason that people become involved," Shannon explains. "That's why furries are so agape of the media, considering that'south merely how it'south been portrayed." According to her, if fetishes are a part of furry life, they are so minor as to be inconsequential. "That'south such a pocket-size segment of the population that it'south a non-result. If that is happening, I haven't seen it and I've been going to cons for years."
Far more important to Shannon and her friends is the artistry involved in furry fandom. Many furries design fursuits for themselves and others, while some take commissions for anthropomorphic art pieces. In both cases, there is a high level of creativity and skill required. Fursuits are crafted to reflect not only the animals they represent, but too the individual personalities of those who wear them. Accordingly they are often detailed and elaborate. As an artist, this aspect is specially of import for Shannon.
Coming Up With a Hirsuite Fandom Fursona
Developing friendships and finding acceptance within the furry customs are also key parts of the fandom's culture. "The majority of us, we're just there to have a good time, party, hang out, dress up equally animals and be silly," she explains. That silliness fosters strong bonds, specially among those who have felt like outsiders at some point in their lives. According to Shannon, that accounts for the vast bulk of furries.
"The fandom being as it is, very open, very welcoming, nosotros accept a large population of people who are very shy. They want to make friends, but they're very guarded," Shannon says. "The minute they put on a mask they don't have to worry anymore because nobody can see them, and they can human action upward and they can practice whatever they want, because nobody can come across who they actually are. And information technology's corking to see some people come out of their shells like that."
I need to be me. Fifty-fifty if me has a giant dinosaur caput. Especially if I have a behemothic dinosaur head."
The appeal of being a furry, then, is somewhat paradoxical. The anonymity of the costume frees people to be more outgoing, but the fact that they are wearing a fursuit makes them more visible, drawing the attention of those outside the fandom. For many furries, the onetime outweighs the latter and anonymity provides a way of becoming comfortable with parts of themselves that they may have suppressed.
"I'yard a lot more outgoing and silly when I put on the behemothic dinosaur head—I can act like a lilliputian kid in a Halloween costume again and nobody'southward going to estimate me," Shannon says. "And fifty-fifty if they practice, they don't know who I am."
While friends and family unit often misunderstand the furry customs, Shannon'south been lucky in that respect. "My parents thought information technology was hilarious," she says, remembering the first time they saw her in a fursuit. "They were like: 'We don't intendance.'" In fact, she occasionally wears her fursuit to events she attends with her family, particularly music concerts with a laid-back atmosphere. The costume has become a source of fun and amusement for all of them.
The Connection Between Furry Fandom and Community
For other new furries, revealing interest in the fandom tin can be more fraught. I ask if there are whatever parallels between coming out as a furry and coming out about 1's sexuality. This turns out to be a disputed subject area within the customs.
"At that place'due south a divide virtually the thought of coming out as a furry," Shannon explains. "There are some people who are simply like, 'This is just a hobby, this isn't a lifestyle. You don't need to come out of the closet about information technology like you're gay.' And and then there are other people who are similar, 'No, this totally is a thing that you should be coming out of the closet about, that y'all should worry about telling people.'"
Although reactions vary co-ordinate to the private circumstances of each furry, Shannon emphasizes that geography also has a lot to do with it. In New York, fursuits are less likely to raise eyebrows, and her experiences interacting with people while in costume have been predominantly positive. For those furries who don't experience the same level of acceptance, the fandom is there to offer support and, maybe even more than chiefly, customs.
That sense of support reminds Shannon to continue living life boldly. "I'one thousand only going to practice what makes me happy. I need to be comfortable in my ain pare and if I'm doing what other people want me to practise, or looking how other people want me to look, I'thou not happy. I need to be me. Even if me has a behemothic dinosaur caput. Peculiarly if I take a giant dinosaur head." That'due south the Shannon I remember—and I'm profoundly glad that she'southward still here.
Source: https://awomensthing.org/blog/furry-fandom/
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