South African 'sexologist' turns to Jungian archetypes to interpret furry fandom
The Mail & Guardian, South Africa's news weekly aimed at the 'intelligentsia', has published a story about furries which spends much time trying to explain sexual aspects of the fandom:
Johannesburg sexologist JacoPhillip Crous opines that "fursonas can be understood as totem representations ... an animal that's believed by the person to have spiritual or some other, possibly sexual, subjective significance, so the person adopts it as a personal emblem to which [he or she] feels drawn psychologically."
Interpreting this in a way akin to Jungian archetypes, Crous says the fursona is a form of "empowerment" and "self-transcendence" for the individual – and, for the sexually invested, the fursona is the "idealised totemic form that drives the erotic charge for the yiff enthusiast".
The piece quotes Tumblr bloggers, WikiFur, and Internet-based surveys, but no furry fans appear to have been interviewed for it. South Africa has a small furry community, but it is not mentioned within the article.
About the author
GreenReaper (Laurence Parry) — read stories — contact (login required)a developer, editor and Kai Norn from London, United Kingdom, interested in wikis and computers
Small fuzzy creature who likes cheese & carrots. Founder of WikiFur, lead admin of Inkbunny, and Editor-in-Chief of Flayrah.
Comments
Whatever happened to representing yourself as an animal purely for fun?
I guess it's not accepted as a form of fun for others, so they try to think of some other reason to do it.
Unfortunately fantasy and imagination are not highly regarded in today's society, except in packaged commercial form.
Sadly I have to agree with you.
Seems kinda odd just taking one paragraph from the article and just mentioning it. I found it interested there were people here that knew about it and had, presumably, thought about it. It does seem to be a more detailed investigation than many other media reports but it still focuses too much on sex. We're considering whether ZAFur should release an official response to the story or not.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
The piece didn't seem to merit a deep analysis. If you want to read the whole thing, that's what the link is for. It was almost just a newsbyte, but I thought the fact that they bothered to consult someone about it (while not getting in contact with anyone actually in the fandom) was worth mentioning.
The whole article itself isn't too bad overall, I'd even agree with its analysis to a degree.
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