[adjective][species]

[adjective][species] turns 4 today!  Art by the fantastic Redacteur, whom we have featured here before! You can find more of his work at his tumblr. Here’s to another year, thanks for sticking with us!

Rotary phones work well with claws.

At Home With The Furries is an ongoing photography project by Tom Broadbent, a UK-based photographer.

From the series “At Home With The Furries”, reproduced here courtesy of Tom Broadbent.

The idea behind the photos is simple and effective. He photographs suiters in their homes, performing mundane personal activities. It’s day-to-day stuff: cooking, cleaning, relaxing. All pretty boring yet obviously impractical while wearing a fursuit.

From the series “At Home With The Furries”, reproduced here courtesy of Tom Broadbent.

The concept is an ironic one; juxtaposition of a mundane activity with the ludicrousness of doing so in suit. It places the character of each suit front and centre, in a way that celebrates the identity aspects of the furry experience. Yet it’s the humour that make the pictures special.

From the series “At Home With The Furries”, reproduced here courtesy of Tom Broadbent.

Broadbent’s use of colour and contrast is particularly striking. Photographing fursuits in a natural way is challenging because of garish colours and the general cartoonishness of a giant fuzzy animal-person. Broadbent keeps the furries connected with their environment by putting them around vivid, sharp colours and contrasts.

There is obviously a lot of care in the framing of Broadbent’s pictures despite their ‘slice of life’ quality. There is a diorama quality to them, that encourages the viewer to explore the environment for artefacts that surround and inform the furry character in the centre.

Broadbent’s method has similarities to the cinematography of some of Wes Anderson’s more character-driven work, such as The Royal Tenenbaums.

A still from Wes Anderson’s The Royal “Tenenbaums”

Broadbent chose furries as a subject after coming across the community while working as a photo editor. He has spent several years photographing furries and enjoys a good relationship with the community, including attending the occasional Londonfurs meet.

His furry photos are a win-win for those furries happy to be shot. The furry gets a series of professional photos of themselves in suit; Broadbent owns the copyright. At Home With The Furries has appeared in print several times, most notably in a Sunday Times Magazine feature back in 2013. Broadbent is careful about how his photos are used, and will refuse to sell them unless they are presented in a positive context. (Example: he has outright refused an offer from The Daily Mail.)

At Home With The Furries shares some similarities with a series of photo-manipulations by Christoph Meyer. Meyer’s work is a lot simpler than Broadbent’s, but he creates a similar effect using sepia-toned snapshots, replacing human faces with animals.

Photo manipulation by Christoph Meyer

Meyer’s work similarly draws animal-people out of the fantastical and into the mundane world. Like Broadbent’s work, the works reply on the juxtaposition of the real and unreal. (Unlike Broadbent’s work, Meyer spent “3 days” to complete his series “for fun”, and has no further aspirations, commercial or otherwise.)

Photo manipulation by Christoph Meyer

Sadly, Broadbent’s work is notable for its respect shown towards furries. We are all very familiar with publications who hold furries up for ridicule.

The publications largely define the way furries are presented of course, but the photographers hold some responsibility as well. And there are photographers working with furry, albeit less closely and less personally than Broadbent, who fail to treat the community with a reasonable amount of respect.

One of those is Arthur Drooker, who is due to publish a book titled Conventional Wisdom sometime next year.

From “Conventional Wisdom”, reproduced here courtesy of Arthur Drooker.

Drooker’s photos come from Anthrocon 2014. He worked with the full knowledge of the convention organizers, and the consent of his subjects. However pretty obviously his goal is to show up the furries as “outsiders”, a curiosity to be observed. His work at other conventions—including Bronycon and Fetish Con—has a similar vibe.

Drooker’s work isn’t dishonest but it wilfully fails to put furries into any sort of humanizing context. His photographs furries as if they were like exhibits at a zoo, to be gawked at, shocking for being unexpected and different. He makes no attempt to respect or understand the furry community.

From “Conventional Wisdom”, reproduced here courtesy of Arthur Drooker.

Tom Broadbent is one of those people who helps present furry for what it is, rather than what is most salacious. His interest in our community was driven by his desire to find interesting subjects to photograph, but his obvious care means that he is working for the furry community, rather than merely with the furry community.

In a recent talk, Broadbent noted that several people had their interest piqued by his published work, ultimately leading them to discover the furry community and identify as furries themselves. It’s hard to imagine a better introduction to furry. We should be thankful for the Tom Broadbents of the world.

Tom is currently looking for more fursuiter subjects in the UK South East/London area. He can be contacted via his Twitter (@broadbentius) or at his website (www.tombroadbent.com).

You can see more from At Home With The Furries here.

Aside: The Lobster

In an alternate version of our world, singledom is outlawed. Single people are transported to a hotel and must find their soulmate in 45 days or be transformed into a wild animal of their choice.

This is the premise behind The Lobster, a film starring Colin Farrell, just released in the UK. Farrell’s unnamed character chooses to be transformed into a lobster should he fail to find a partner, because lobsters live for over 100 years and are sexually active the entire time (also, he likes the sea).

I saw The Lobster last Saturday with every intention of writing about it for [adjective][species]. That I’m writing this aside, rather than a full article, should tell you that something went wrong.

I enjoyed The Lobster, however the animal transformation aspects are so minor as to be irrelevant. The film is really about the social pressures on the single, and the selfish, self-destructive ways we approach relationships with other people. It’s a truly absurd film, but also sad and funny and pessimistic.

The only animal character of note is the (post-transformation) brother of Farrell’s character. He is a border collie, and he dies in an unpleasant fashion about halfway through the film. There is also a horse who gets shot to death in the opening seconds, the victim of an apparently calculated jealous act. And that’s pretty much it, although various exotic animals pop up in the background as a recurring sight gag.

It’d be a stretch, even for me, to write 1000-plus words on a film that’s largely irrelevant to the [adjective][species] mission. This is really just a PSA for those thinking of seeing The Lobster: it’s bonkers, but not furry.

George Squares was faced with a dilemma last New Year’s Eve. He was enjoying the company of friends when someone made a disparaging comment about furries. He decided to step out of the furry closet and speak up, to correct his friend.

It caused a minor kerfuffle but ultimately things went well. He found himself, a few months later, as a guest speaker at a BDSM club, introducing furries to an interested audience. He then wrote about that experience for [adjective][species].

George is a good ambassador. He was able to correct some negative furry stereotypes, and give a good impression of furry to a wider audience. It’s better for him because he doesn’t need to hide his furry identity among his friends, and better for furry in general.

Outing one’s self as a furry, as George did, comes with some risk. You risk being associated with negative stereotypes about furry, and you risk being targeted by people who are anti-furry. Both happened to George, although happily those problems blew over fairly quickly.

These risks mean that many furs choose to keep their identity private*. Rather than stick their head above the parapet and risk outcast or ridicule, people tend to edit out furry elements of their lives. They might say to coworkers: “I’m taking a short holiday to Pittsburgh this summer.”

*Another reason to not be openly furry: it’s not relevant in many situations.

There is nothing wrong with this choice. It’s just a question of the balance between risk and reward. Personally, I work in one of those super-conservative old-white-men industries, and so I stay in the furry closet in that environment. (Being gay is controversial enough. I’ve had coworkers refuse to talk to me once they found out.) On the other hand, I’m open about my furriness to a few close friends.

There is a tendency for people of any minority to stay closeted if they can manage it, simply because of the unknown personal risks involved. And of course people are free to decide what is best for themselves. However there is an unfortunate outcome, one that applies to many minorities, not just furry. It’s JM’s Law:

The most visible members of a minority are rarely the best ambassadors.

 

There are several reasons why someone might be more open about their status as a minority. These include:

• They are deeply involved with a subculture, so hiding it isn’t really tenable.
• They are less concerned about the reaction of others.
• They are less self-aware, and so may not realize they have outed themselves.

None of these are bad reasons. Many of my favourite people probably fit into one or more of those categories.

An example of someone who fits into all three of these categories is Furboy Zero, a fur profiled in the Houston Press back in 2003. Furboy’s profile is not a negative one, but it’s telling that the journalist chooses to open the story with anti-social behaviour (howling at the moon) and a mention of antipsychotic drugs. The story is ostensibly about the inclusiveness and value of the furry community, but the theme is the usual “look at these weirdos who don’t fit in”.

Furboy, at 17 years old, comes across as a kid who is doing a pretty good job of dealing with a series of horrific bullying incidents at school. He would be about 30 years old now—I wasn’t able to find him leading up this article—but I would guess that furry has continued to be a safe haven and positive influence on his life. Furboy (at 17) probably couldn’t choose to hide his furriness, and unfortunately his Houston Press profile reinforces the stereotype that furries are unsocial. The masses of furries who aren’t howling at the moon, aren’t threatening to urinate on bullies, or aren’t suffering Tourette’s-like symptoms aren’t the most visible. And so Furboy becomes an unwitting furry ambassador.

There are good reasons to celebrate openness, furry or not. The choice to be open is fundamentally a personal freedom, and the expectation or social pressure to stay closeted is negative. Yet those open, visible members of a minority—like Furboy—do not always make good ambassadors. In an ideal world, nobody would choose to hide furriness, or anything else outside the mainstream. But we don’t live in an ideal world.

Minority groups tend to be invisible. Every person is assumed to be “normal”, unless proven otherwise. When a new person joins a group, that person is assumed to adhere to the norms of the group, and so their mere presence reinforces those norms even though they may be yet to share any information. It’s a perfectly natural process, but an insidious one that reinforces the marginalization of minority groups.

Consider the example of my friend visiting a new doctor, “I saw Dr Smith today”. I might naturally ask “how was he?”, making the assumption that the doctor is male, because most doctors are male. I have, unwittingly, reinforced the idea that women aren’t doctors, because my friend won’t necessarily correct me. Sometimes they will simply ignore my assumption, leaving me with the mental image of (another) male doctor. (It’s not only women that can be marginalized this way—consider the example of a male nurse—but it is usually women.)

It’s not just gender of course. I have lost track of the number of people at work who have asked me about my “wife”. This leaves me with a choice. I will usually correct a peer or underling, and usually say nothing to a superior or a client (because I don’t want to potentially introduce tension to the relationship). By failing to correct people, I am reinforcing the idea that gay people aren’t present in [super-conservative old-white-man industry].

For another example, imagine a typical furry. He will be male, because male is the most common furry gender. But what is the most common furry sexual orientation? Most people would probably say “gay” or “bi”, however that’s wrong – furries are most likely to be heterosexual. The preponderance of men means that most furry relationships are gay, which makes gay furries more visible. The effect is that straight furries are often invisible.

Homosexuality was a largely invisible minority in the late 20th century, becoming more visible (give or take, at least in the western world) in the years and decades following the Stonewall riots. The existence of visible gay bars and pride parades helped erase the perception that homosexuality was a mental illness. However the overtly sexual nature of these events meant that homosexuality became associated with sexual deviance, acceptable but not “normal”.

There has been a seachange in attitudes towards homosexuality since then. Research has shown this has been largely due to “cohort replacement“, meaning that people started to see homosexuals as part of their day-to-day social groups. People with homosexual friends or colleagues are much more likely, for example, to support equal marriage.

Essentially, people discovered that they knew (previously invisible) homosexuals. Those homosexuals who took the risk to be open about their sexuality acted as ambassadors, and the risks associated with being open became smaller as homosexuality became more visible, and more normal. Homosexuality nowadays is relatively uncontroversial, and a similar seachange seems to be underway for trans people. Ambassadors such as Caitlyn Jenner provide a non-confrontational mainstream counterexample to the stereotype that to be trans is to something other than “normal”.

(Not everyone agrees with this. Many people disagree with my suggestion that Jenner is a positive example, or that the admittance of homosexual relationships into the mainstream is a good thing.

A simple version of the argument is that normalization of LGBTQ people comes at the cost of the radical aspects of queer culture:

“Minimizing gayness has been the linchpin of assimilation, the central tactic in obtaining access to conservative institutions like military service and marriage.”
– from Slate

 

The full argument is more nuanced that I give credit for here. Read the article.)

The seachange in public attitudes towards homosexuality is an example of “in-group favouritism”. In-group favouritism is a human social phenomenon where members of one’s social network receive preferential treatment compared to outsiders. Put simply, people discovered that some of their friends are gay.

(For those interested in reading more about in-group favouritsm, there is a terrific essay by Dr Stephen Reysen in Furries Among Us that looks at the social psychology behind the furry in-group. You can read the [adjective][species] review of Furries Among Us here.)

The trick to being a good ambassador then, is to present a conservative version of yourself, something firmly within the mainstream. This will help you be accepted as part of the “in-group”, and therefore you will be treated with kindness and respect. That will probably mean withholding aspects that are less “normal”.

I am aware that this suggestion can sound a bit two-faced and self-negating. Ideally we would all express ourselves in whatever way works for us, in all circumstances. Rather than looking at it those negative terms, I prefer to think of it more as “gaming” the psychology of human society. Benevolent manipulation, if you like.

As an example of this, I’d like to compare two of my favourite authors, Karl Ove Knausgaard and Christopher Isherwood. Both write from a personal, observational perspective. Knausgaard is straight; Isherwood is gay.

Knausgaard feels there is a masculinity crisis in modern society. He feels that men are less able to be free about their interests, and are being forced into genderless collaborative roles that don’t allow for full masculine expression. Knausgaard has no real interest in child-rearing and would prefer to be an old-school isolated breadwinner, but feels that he must engage with gender equality norms for fear of being considered misogynistic. As he explores this idea, he writes vividly, and very personally, about his emotional, romantic, and sex life.

Knausgaard makes a good argument, and My Struggle is a terrific read, should you have the stomach for six volumes of Scandinavian navel-gazing. But he doesn’t know how good he has it: on one hand he is complaining about how gender norms constrain his self-expression, on the other hand he is able to explore gender and sex with a freedom that is only available to heterosexual men.

In the literary world, being male is “normal”, and so Knausgaard’s works are considered mainstream. A female version of the same book, with the same honesty, would be branded “feminist”, and would be marketed to a niche audience, if at all. Knausgaard’s success, the success that allows him to observe the limits of his gender in the 21st century, is ironically predicated on the fact that he is male. He should, as the kids say, check his privilege.

Isherwood is similarly observational. (“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.”) His status as a gay man in the mid-20th century means that he cannot be open or direct about his romantic or sex life. So he weakly implies gay relationships in his books, and obvious as they are in hindsight they were not recognised at the time. He was accepted into the mainstream and hailed as one of the great writers of his generation.

Isherwood’s approach is self-limiting, but necessary. If he had gone the full Knausgaard, his works would either never have been published, or marginalized as a curiosity. He would have been best known for the sexual content of his work. His decision to present his work such that it was seen as mainstream (or “normal”), was a compromise. In my opinion that compromise was a worthy one.

Isherwood is a good ambassador for gay men. His books provided a non-confrontational introduction to the emotional life of a gay man, something that was in short supply in the mid 20th century.

Similarly, George Squares is a good ambassador to furry. He outed himself as a furry in a moderate way, and downplayed any controversial or radical aspects of our community. Once he was accepted into the in-group as a furry, he was able to give a fuller picture. (This included a good-natured discussion on the relative merits of human versus animal penises in furry pornography.)

Like George, a good furry ambassador is one who—initially at least—presents a counterpoint to negative stereotypes. This will create non-furry advocates who will go on to correct and inform others, as undoubtedly those who attended George’s talk have done. Even better, those advocates will come across as unusually trustworthy, because they cannot be assumed to be acting in their own self-interest.

A non-confrontational image for furry has a cumulative effect. Good ambassadors are role models for other furries who may be considering being open, which may reduce some of the fear associated with outing one’s self. They can also show new furries that our community is not something to be feared, and that they can identify as a furry without having to identify with some of the more extreme stereotypes.

Coming out as a furry does hold some personal risk, in at least some situations. That risk should always inform the decision to be open or closeted. But the benefits to the furry community should be considered as well. Open furries are our ambassadors: they help define who we are.

Guest post by C.W.Euwyn. Euwyn is a relatively young member of the fandom, writer, and is currently studying for a degree in philosophy. He enjoys writing anthropomorphic fiction, reading it, and has a passion for philosophical debate. Currently, he is most influenced by the likes of the Stoics, Hegel, Hiedegger, and Kierkegaard, though he enjoys reading everything in between. He can be found on twitter as @CWEuwyn.

Furries want to be happy.

“Surely that’s not unique to furries, all humans want to be happy”, you might reply. To an extent I would agree, happiness is largely what people appear to be aiming for in life. Yet few groups of people seem to embrace it more than furries. At almost any convention you will find hundreds of permanently smiling fursuits; costumes specifically designed to make the wearer feel good, and deliver a sense of joy to those around them. Online, thousands of dollars pass from commissioners to artists, in exchange for illustrations of the buyer’s fursona. Sex is an undeniably large part of the fandom, and that is partly, in my mind, because of it’s association with pleasure. On the surface there does not seem to be anything intrinsically wrong with these things; fursuits, pictures, sex, and porn, all provide a great sense of joy, ideally without harming anyone. It would seem that one of the key tenets to furry is hedonism; pleasure equals good.

Now, let’s go back to an earlier form of hedonism and imagine what Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher, would do if he wanted to be a furry. Like most furries, Epicurus would agree that what is pleasurable is good and what is painful is bad. So why would his opinion of the community matter? Well, if we could sit him down, he would probably laugh, and call the entire community a contradiction to happiness.

There is a lot to Epicureanism, but the position can be broadly summed up as follows: the more you have, the more you’ve got to lose. One can live a good life by learning to be happy with the bare minimum. In practice, Epicurus and his friends all pitched together, bought a big house, did their own gardening, and lived from only what they grew themselves (a rather boring diet, especially by our modern standards). Epicurus also distinguished between what he called “static pleasures” and “moving pleasures”. The former is something that we can always access and experience, things such as resting after a long day, feeling at peace with oneself when laying down, etc… The latter are transient things, which occur one moment and are gone in the next, activities such as eating good food, drinking wine, and even having sex.  A “static pleasure” is the joy that comes with the removal of one’s needs (the need to eat, drink, or sleep, for example), whilst a “moving pleasure” involves the excitement of the senses, beyond what is needed to survive. Of the two, Epicurus argues that the former it superior, whilst the latter will inevitably lead to pain.

To bring it back to furry, I should first say that I’m not an Epicurean, and I won’t argue that anybody should live in the way that Epicurus advised. But that does not mean that what he has to say is useless. Let’s imagine that Epicurus came to the twenty-first century and wanted to be a furry. For a start, would he want a fursuit? Probably not, they cost a lot of money, drink could be spilled on him, and he would inevitably have to remove it. Would he commission art? I imagine he wouldn’t want that either, he’d say that any pleasure he could get from it would only be fleeting. Would he indulge any fetishes he had, or lust after sex? No, he would see the pleasure as temporary, and would think that later it would cause him pain.

With these gone, one might ask “what would he do then? How could he possibly be a furry?” Indeed, hitherto, the Epicurean view of the community seems rather critical and pessimistic, there would be no fursuits, commissioned art, or the sexual freedom that many furries prize. But there are positive things that Epicurus would focus on.

For a start, he would say that friendship must come first. The Epicureans prized friendship above all else, and this would be what they most respected in the community. Furries like to make friends. A convention is described as a “large family” by some, and this is something that Epicurus would say should be the community’s focus. It’s very easy to only think about popularity, money, or having a good time, but the most long-term happiness a person can get from the community is, to me at least, the ability to make friends. A true friend will provide infinitely more pleasure than fursuiting, art, or sex.

Second, Epicurus would say the community needs to avoid drama. In the same way that he kept to the garden where he and his friends dwelt, he would advise furries to stay away from anything dramatic in the community. So long as whatever was happening in the community did not affect his own pleasure, as a furry, Epicurus would refuse to take part in any of this “they said X” business that happens more frequently than most of us would like.

Thirdly, I believe that an Epicurean garden of furries would be incredibly creative. People would be free to draw, write, or compose what they wanted. Money would not be a problem, since they would have whatever they wanted on the doorstep. When not with their friends, this community of furries would be able to come up with whatever it is they wanted, without a deadline or a client ordering them about what to do. I imagine some very strange things would come from such a place.

To draw attention to the title of this article, “the hedonistic paradox”, I think that it’s time I bring it in. The hedonistic paradox (also known as the “paradox of hedonism” or “the pleasure paradox”), is a general observation which says that happiness is not something that somebody can obtain directly. It is common wisdom that, often, those who focus most on their own happiness have a tendency to end up as the most unhappy of all.

Whenever I think of this, my mind always drifts to furries. How can a community that has such a focus on happiness be filled with people who are, by and large, no more happy than any other group of people? To me, I think it is partly due to the focus of the community. A lot of “furriness” is outwardly focussed: creating a character, buying art of it, commissioning a fursuit, and so on. This makes me wonder if any of these things really help in attaining long-term happiness, as opposed to bringing only a temporary moment of joy. “Post-con depression” is commonly reported problem, which stems partly, I think, from the fact that these kinds of pleasures cannot last. I’m not calling these things bad, or mocking the people who enjoy them – by themselves they are fine – but I often question the negative effect that they can have on people when they have to come back down to reality. The nine-to-five job probably seems even more soul-crushing after a weekend
of partying and suiting.

For me, a solution would be the middle-ground between the current community and Epicurus. To me, furry is a love of anthropomorphics. I like pictures and stories with human-like animals, and enjoy the fact that I live in such an age where I can find others with that interest.

I am not arguing that we should get rid of the fursuits and porn. I myself do not wish to participate, but I understand that they are important for a great many people. I do believe that there is a healthier attitude to take towards them, however. Making friendship the main thing to be gotten from the furry community, giving money to artist without needing the art to be personal, and paying more mind to the charity events that the community does are better than the more inwardly focussed efforts.

In short, I suppose that this is what the article has been trying to say this: a calmer, more peaceful attitude towards things would be better. People would be happier if they were less concerned with their characters, money, and the drama, instead treating the community as a place to make friends, and as a creative outlet. I feel that many in the community could avoid the hedonistic paradox by adopting a more modern Epicurean approach to things.

Have you ever tried to delineate your past into phases? And not necessarily based on school. I mean, school and work do tend to serve as markers for a lot of our perception of time, and it seems almost habitual that we use them to mark out the periods in our lives. When I grew up, you went to preschool to prepare for kindergarten, which prepared you for elementary school. Fifth grade prepared you for middle school, and eighth grade for high school. Naturally, your senior year of high school prepared you for college, which prepared you for work, which helped you towards retirement, which seemed to be the best bit of all. Four years old, five, eleven, fourteen, eighteen, twenty-two, sixty-five.

When I was growing up, it all seemed right and natural. Right up until half way through my fifth-grade year, when I had just turned eleven. My parents had divorced when I was very young, and I’d spent my years up until that point living primarily with my mom. It was decided, though, once I left elementary school, that I would go live with my dad. That threw a wrench into the idyllic progression of years: where my dad lived, elementary school was kindergarten through sixth grade, not fifth, and middle school was replaced with junior high school.

If I were feeling particularly cheeky, I could blame most of this article on the turmoil caused by early recognition that, in River Tam’s words, “day” is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles, and really this was just all made up to make the paperwork easier. (I don’t, however, think that would give me a pass from the fact that I spent seven years in university, rather than four. That’s all on me.)

Whatever the reason, I stopped thinking of these seemingly arbitrary points in time as the true demarcation of childhood from adolescence or adolescence from adulthood. Maybe this is something that everyone goes through at some point in their lives, realizing that some things are just creative fictions.

It’s not that school didn’t have an effect on me. Like many, I suffer from cyclical bouts of depression in varying degrees of severity that, for several years, followed the schedule of school, rather than the amount of light in my days. I’d get strongly depressed around spring break, clear up around the end of school, get a little depressed mid-summer when I’d previously switched from living with my mom to living with my dad, then get extra anxious and depressed around the time that school started. College, with its emphasis on finals and its month-long winter holiday, added an additional kink in the middle of December when hell-week struck.

For a while – a more depressed while – I used these shifts in mood to mark the time. It’s difficult, when one is depressed, to think of depression as anything other than a tiresome, inescapable bore. Depression, as Andrew Solomon puts it, isn’t the opposite of happiness, it’s the opposite of vitality. The end of summer would start to swing around and I’d sigh to myself and think, “Time to batten down the hatches.”

Once I got deeper into college and these issues worsened, the seasonal clock shifted to something even shorter. A day, at its shortest, was divided up into an anxiety of the hours: Matins of suicidal ideation, Lauds of self-deprecation, Vespers of procrastination and loathing.

By the time that I started on serious medication for mental health (and not sneakily hiding kava, 5-HTP, and St. John’s Wort from my mom – sorry mom), I had all but broken my life down into three segments. There was BA – before anxiety, A – anxiety, and AM – after medication. Or, to take it in a more morbid direction, BSA and ASA – before and after suicide attempt.

Needless to say, I’m less jaded about the life that I lead, these days.

With time, I’ve gained more strength in the areas of introspection and retrospection. In introspection lies the ability to adequately assess one’s state of being, the set and setting around one. I can see that, somewhere in that mire of the A years, I managed to find my way into a relationship, a house, and a pretty neat job. In retrospection lies the ability to track my course through life from where I stand now, even if I couldn’t see it at the time. I could see that anxiety was a sort of tool that I leveraged to get me where I am today, though at a high cost.

Naturally, the immediate thing I leapt to with that newly strengthened retrospection is dividing my life up into two eras: BF – before furry, and AF – after furry.

As with gender identity and sexual orientation, furry was one of those things that made a lot of sense in retrospect, what with all those games of pretending to be a mouse or a cat (seriously, that occupied all of elementary school; it’s a wonder I held out as long as I did). That said, unlike other aspects of identity, there was a definite date to me finding furry (Yerf!, in late 2000), so it was easier to give it a hard and fast cut-over date.

More and more, as time goes by, I’ve settled on something both a little more subtle and a lot more fine-grained to mark the passage of time: the flow of various friendships within my life.

The early years, in elementary and middle school, I wound up finding myself in varied friend-groups related primarily to a few vague interests. I was super into drawing for a while, and into Star Wars, and the movie Tremors. Later, I got more into music, and even started composing brief melodies in fourth grade. Middle school saw an increased fascination with the mind and spirituality, and I even snuck a bible into the house to read at one point, after Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha got me thinking about the subject of religion in its own roundabout way.

Through out all of that, I found friends to go along with my interests. Some friends and I shared sketchbooks, while others played with me in the sandbox, making holes in the sand like in Tremors. I talked music with a violinist friend and talked spirituality with a buddhist friend.

This followed me into furry, as well. I talked about They Might Be Giants with Rela, joked about Discordianism with Rela and Louis. I talked about music and math and growing up with Kanu, who later became Melekh, and about poetry with an otter named Mondriaan. I spent countless hours talking about computers with Kanja, and about growing up with countless other teens on FluffMUCK.

These were the friendships of the past that I had formed. They delineate my past into my own small bildungsroman, a coming of age tale told through interactions with furries online, more complete than would one built on the strict litany of school.

Through this time I also formed friendships that endured. I talked about growing up and being grown up with Shanerak, who became Tabernak. Ryan and I spoke about spirituality and food, all the way back from second grade on. I talked about language and Teilhard de Chardin with Rikoshi (well, not just, but we do like us some Jesuit philosophy at times). Danish and I have stuck together in our own way over the years, as have Floid and I, each for our own reasons. Some friendships are built well for time, burning slowly and steadily throughout the years while others have flashed brightly and been all the more intense for the afterimages they leave behind after fading.

I’ve had friendships that have floundered for a while, and then then returned, as well as frienships that have spring anew as who I have become has changed over the years. It’s my own divine office, the liturgy of my life as told through friendship. Hour by hour, I fill my life with prayers of friendship – supplication, invocation, adoration, meditation, and even extemporaneous rejoicing in those in my life.

I don’t mean to simply wax poetic about how much friendship means to me, though it means a lot. I think that this is important to me particularly because I am shown the person I was at the time when the friendship was important to me, often because of the reason for the friendship. As I delved more and more into music, I became friends with more and more people who loved talking about music, which was reenforcement in a way, helping me to keep going along the path of a musician. In other cases, friends became inspiration for what would eventually become a large part of my life, such as John and Josiah, who both got me so deep into programming that I wound up working as a software developer after college.

Welcome to Furry! You probably won't have kids while you're here, but you sure will raise a lot of teenagers.

— Dammit Path (@pathhyena) August 27, 2015

In this sense, furry came at the perfect time for me, as it showed up right as several psychological preferences and aspects of identity were solidifying, leading to some of the longest-lasting friendships that I’ve formed in life. It was with these animal people that I came into my own, became an individual person and wound up maturing into the fox that I am today. I followed along with others as they figured out their sexuality and came out to their parents, just as I did. I trailed eagerly along behind braver folks than I as they plowed through the territory of gender identity, laying down paths that I could follow. And in so many of these cases, the friends of mine were furries. In fact, although I do have numerous friends outside of the fandom, those who are furries outnumber those who are not by a vast amount.

Furry is important in this way, and not just to me personally. It goes beyond my own experiences. Furry is a network of friendships, above all. It is made up of individuals sharing something together, learning from each other and leading the way for those who come after. A few friends and I got into furry with enough seriousness early on in high school that we wound up on FluffMUCK, and from there, others led me down various paths into the fandom. I can credit much of my interest in programming to furries, as well as in writing and my tastes in visual art, and I can only hope I’m doing a good job of providing an example in my own small way.

This is how I divvy up my life into meaningful pieces. I think less of how I spent six years at one elementary school and one at the other, and less of how my life was slowly taken over by mental illness until I regained control. I think more of the time I spent on FluffMUCK, the house with Ryan and Shannon, the weeks where I would look forward to Fort Fur Fridays, our local meet, with an intensity that baffled my non-furry partner at the time. I measure the seasons by conventions more often than by mood swings, these days, and it feels pretty good.

It feels good to know that there are folks out there being the best foxes, dragons, and cats that they can be, and having a really great time of it. And it makes me wonder how I’ve marked the hours of the lives of the people I’ve known. I don’t talk to Rela or Louis or Kanu anymore, but do they ever think back to that gawky fox named Ranna, that high school kid in need of a friend group who found it online with a bunch of other furs? How much pain have I caused to help mark the time? How much pleasure? How many bored conversations have I been a part of that others occasional think back on and laugh?

It’s not a melancholy thought, to know that lives have pain in them, though it is honest. And it’s not worth lying about the fact that pain is sometimes caused by others or by yourself, because it very much can be. After all, we are often the source of our greatest pleasures as well. It’s just worth knowing that you’re someone’s springtime, that others can be there for you through winter and summer both. And really, what better way to mark the time than with friends?

[adjective][species] is pleased to present part 3 of 3 in a series of guest posts by Televassi comprising a dissertation titled Shape Shifting and Spatial Shifting: How the Hybrid Body Allows the Werewolf to Transgress and Resist Disciplinary Spatial Orderings of the World in Three Nineteenth Century Werewolf Tales. Citations are be available here.

The first part is available here

The second part is available here

And for ease of reference, the entire dissertation is available here

Chapter 3 – The Wolves That Lurk Under Human Skin – The Were-wolf of the Grendelwold and the Guise of Humanity.

Frederick Scarlett Potter’s The Were-wolf of the Grendelwold, published in the London Reader of Literature, Science, Art, and General Information in 1882, stands as the least known text in this dissertation. Though Potter was a prolific writer who “published over fifty children’s books, including Erling: or The Days of St. Olaf (1876), Cousin Flo (1877) and Princess Myra and Her Adventures among the Fairy-Folk (1880)” (Easley & Scott 121), this short story on werewolves does not feature in critical discourse. This is not surprising, as in The Essential Guide to Werewolf Literature, a text that is the “first full-scale survey of werewolf literature” (Frost x), Frost admits of werewolf stories that there are “no doubt… many others waiting to be rediscovered” (105). Given the volume of werewolf literature Frost identifies, and the lack of a canonical text like the vampire finds in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the lack of attention to Potter’s story should not necessarily cause concern. This chapter analyses The Were-wolf of the Grendelwold and finds that Potter’s werewolf is at its most transgressive, as the creature masks its wolfish traits underneath a human form that allows it to infiltrate the rural community, and then express its wolfish strengths that allow it to trespass even deeper. The werewolf can then assimilate itself into cultural and reproductive spheres, as evidenced by his success in seducing Theresa by winning the games. Thus, rather than the wolf form only holding the ability to be transgressive as previously seen in Hugues and Wagner, the werewolf’s ability to express its wolfish traits under the legitimacy of a human human form breaks down any clear dichotomy between the two, and truly creates a hybrid creature that is wolfishly transgressive even when human. Ultimately, this exposes the futility of any spatial order that aims “to fix animals in a series of abstract spaces” (Philo & Wilbert 6) as well as regulate the place of human beings within society.

The Were-wolf of the Grendelwold constructs itself as a text about the deception of those policing spatial boundaries. In the Gothic “the monster always represents the disruption of categories, the destruction of boundaries, and the presence of impurities” (Halberstam 27). Potter presents the destruction and disruption of boundaries in subtle terms, for the werewolf infiltrates society in his human guise, concealing his wolfish other self under skin that “is figured in Gothic as the ultimate boundary, the material that divides the inside from the outside” (Halberstam 6). The notion that skin is a fundamentally secure boundary to order society is exploited by the werewolf. His ability to conceal, yet express his wolfish nature underneath human skin, embodies the fear that the werewolf can disrupt the orders of society by behaving as an animal, yet not signify as a threat to remove. Though the “secluded district” (Grendelwold 122) that the narrative takes place in may be able to rebuke the trespass of a wolf or other wild, threatening animals, the werewolf infiltrates the physical rural location because he does not appear as an animal or threat. Entering as a stranger from “beyond the Grendel forest… the dark line of forest which fringed the slope above the village” (Grendelwold 122), the supernatural werewolf demonstrates the danger that wild things can penetrate borders underneath a human form. This is because “the sign of the animal typically operates in the unwritten system of common-sense consciousness, of common knowledge, of stereotypes, where meanings are assumed to be self-evident” (170 Baker). However the werewolf, hidden within the flesh of the human, cannot easily signify as an animal threat. The werewolf’s entry is therefore granted because he deceives the visual policing of the boundary, allowing him to appear as a noteworthy “young man not to be easily overlooked” (Grendelwold 122) when he makes his appearance “on the fête of our patron saint” (123). This allows the werewolf to not just penetrate the physical border that divides the human rural society from the animal wilderness, but to cross the immaterial boundary of culture because he is human. However, his bestial nature is still present underneath his acceptable human skin, and Fritz uses it to participate in the celebrations of a day when “the whole population gave themselves up to games and merry-making” (123).

It is important to remember that the werewolf does not merely gain entry as a human, as he is not truly legitimate or non-deviant while human. His very being is intertwined with the wolf. Judith Halberstam notes that Gothic monsters represent “many answers to the question of who must be removed from the community at large” (3), however the werewolf Fritz, being a shape shifter, complicates such questions. In the “nineteenth century Gothic monstrosity was a combination of the features of deviant race, class, and gender” (3-4). Its monsters are “everything the human is not and, in producing the negative of human, these novels make way for the invention of human as white, male, middle class, and heterosexual” (22). Fritz’s infiltration is successful because he does not appear as a deviant, but neither is he purely human. Emblematic of this specifically human legitimacy is the acceptability his clothes grant him, for “none others were…so gaily dressed as he [Fritz]. His clothes were, indeed, of the same fashion as those of our own peasants, but they were of richer material, and bespoke the greater wealth of the wearer” (Grendelwold 123). The superior raiment of Fritz allows him to blend in and become a noteworthy person in the ensemble, “not easily to be overlooked” (123) because clothes are fundamentally human objects. However, these clothes are tainted by his werewolfery, as when Fritz is killed his wolfish body turns back into a human, and “still wore his gay clothes, but they were stained with blood now… where my knife had pierced to the heart of the savage beast” (134). In folklore, the werewolf transformation was achieved by an enchanted girdle of wolf fur; and this practice of donning “the wolf-girdle… was in the opinion of the vulgar perhaps the most usual way… of shape- shifting” (Summers 112). The suggestion is that Fritz’s clothes possibly function in the same way as the wolf-girdle, for if his clothes had no effect on his metamorphosis; they would not be present on his human corpse that has shifted from wolf to human upon death. This informs

Fritz’s appearance at the games, suggesting that the clothes that once “bespoke the greater wealth of the wearer” (Grendelwold 123) and “gave him importance in the eyes of our men” (125) also transform him into a wolf. Though Fritz does not wear the conventional wolf- girdle, his clothes therefore express the supernatural taint of werewolfery. This undermines the notion that his human appearance is pure of any wolfish hybridity, as the clothes that were once only human, are not only tainted by the inhuman, but able to transform their wearer into an animal. Therefore though “some question the porosity of the line between human and nonhuman animals, or otherwise argue that the boundary has always been avidly policed” (Wolch & Emel 19), the werewolf Fritz suggests that such boundaries are indeed porous. This is because even clothes that can withstand the scrutiny of a policing gaze can transform one into the animal that they were thought to be free of.

Despite initially seeming to abandon the transgressive potential of the animal body for the legitimacy of the human form, the werewolf is not a clear division between man and beast. Most werewolves show “the lupine instincts of the wolf or ‘beast within’ (an analogy of the unconscious) to have a damaging and negative impact upon the afflicted individual (an analogy of the conscious self)” (Du Coudray 6). Though this is true, Fritz’s conscious self, his human body, does not suffer from the literal ‘beast within’. Instead, his human guise allows the safe expression of his wolfish interior, in order to fulfil the fear that Carl “might be elbowed from his place [in Theresa’s affections] by some bolder rival” (Grendelwold 122). The werewolf achieves this usurpation by expressing his wolfish physicality in the wrestling and footrace in order to win Theresa’s hand at the dance. This is indicative of how “lycanthropy as expressive of surface-depth… for example, although the wolf is ‘hidden’ in the person, you can tell a werewolf by the eyebrows or the fingernails” (Du Coudray 61). Despite Carl’s initial wrestling success, a challenge by Fritz causes him to be “quickly overthrown” (Grendelwold 123) and after other victories Fritz, “remained the hero of the sport.” (123). Fritz, in human form, throws Carl from his place in Theresa’s affections, not by human faculties such as “greater skill” (123), but by his wolfish strength, as “he dragged me down with the force of a wild beast” (123). In the footrace, Fritz’s human form tells of his wolfish nature beneath, as he subverts the expectation that “Fritz would find many superiors” (124). Yet he “kept doggedly on… he moved at a kind of trot” (124). Though in human form, Fritz expresses the natural wolf’s ability to “endure a long-distance chase” (Marvin 27), to the extent that the narrative remarks that he “runs like a wolf!” (Grendelwold 124). Moreover, Fritz wins the footrace, when he “showed his white teeth as a dog might do when he snarls at his fellow” (125), an animalistic gesture that forces Carl to lose heart and allow Fritz victory. By expressing wolfish traits underneath the human body, the werewolf’s hybridity signals that it can successfully infiltrate not just the physical borders of the rural location, but the cultural boundaries within society. Fritz’s victory in the games by wolfish means wins him entry into the pool of eligible bachelors, a position that allows him to seduce Theresa.

Carl’s claim to Theresa’s affections is constructed by claims of spatial proximity; “he was her near neighbour; they had played together as children” (122). However he is in danger of losing that position if threatened by “bolder, stronger, and more handsome lads in the valley” (122). Thus the werewolf, by winning the games, as well as using his wealth to cultivate social acceptability, has become one of those competitors, and is certainly bolder and stronger because of his wolfish abilities. Since the prize bestowed upon “the champion of the sports” (125) is the mandate to “choose from among all the maidens present a partner with whom to open the dance” (125), human society effectively places Fritz into Theresa’s affections, as “she at once acceded to his [Fritz’s] request” (125). In this manner, the werewolf’s assimilation into society, and worryingly, the romantic landscape, is complete, and is truly at his most transgressive because he has been accepted as a partner and potential husband for Theresa. Society appears powerless to detect Fritz’s intentions, for “bewitched… like a bird before a snake” (126) the werewolf takes Theresa deep into his realm, the forest of the Grendelwold, and eats her – fulfilling the fear that the werewolf’s actions were of stalking humans as his prey.

With the werewolf’s aims accomplished, his retreat into the Grendelwold, the forest that “few of them had cared to penetrate far” (123) secures the werewolf’s mastery of the landscape. As a human, the werewolf infiltrates human spaces, but as a wolf can enter the wild spaces humans cannot, for the Grendelwold is regarded by them with “superstitious dread… even in broad day” (127). Carl, fearing Fritz’s intentions by the discovery of “a woman’s dress” (127) in the wood, indicates that the werewolf’s ultimate transgression was to invert how “animals serve as an important food source” (Mullin 208) by making the human the food. Due to the fact that Fritz’s wolfish actions were hidden under human skin, Carl is cautioned of going on “a wild-goose chase” (Grendelwold 127) because no one believes a werewolf has predated upon their society. There was no visual evidence of any transgression, so it is believed there is nothing to punish, even though Fritz’s wolfish actions were seen. Though Carl knows what manner of creature Fritz is, the werewolf is safe from harm now because he has transformed into a wolf, and as a wolf in the forest, his supernatural status is mistaken for “only that of a wild beast” (129). This is because the werewolf is now behaving like the wolf should; as a creature “supposed to inhabit wild areas” (Figari & Skogen 323). Thus, it is the exchange of bodies, as well as the ability to conform to spatial expectations of the animal that is key to the werewolf’s mastery of spatial boundaries, because he uses the right body in the right ‘place’ that human spatial orders have constructed.

With his transgression complete, Fritz, as a wolf in its wild place, is now able to do what humanity could not – defend the borders of his territory from incursion. The werewolf does not just contest, but undermines, as its ability to hide its true nature allows it to triumph.

Though it may be acceptable for the narrator to be found lying with a stabbed wolf in the Grendelwold, when it is revealed that he is lying with “ no wolf, but Fritz” (Grendelwold 134) the narrator “was thrown in prison on the charge of murder” (134). Thus, by his secrecy, the werewolf, despite dying, triumphs in his transgression, and appears to mock the human attempt to punish him. In death he appears to smile in triumph, as “from the open mouth the long white teeth glittered as of old” (134), showing the success of the werewolf’s ability to shapeshift between two shapes. In doing so, he is able to manipulate spatial orders, and therefore deceive the truth of what happened and where.

Conclusion

Scientific advances since the nineteenth century have dispelled any belief that human beings can metamorphose into any animal, yet the werewolf remains a popular motif in culture. Whilst it serves as “a primitive psychological mechanism to escape the real violence in contemporary society” (1 Otten), and even alerts one to the need “to examine the moral underpinnings of society” (15), these conclusions are only two examples of the multitude of meanings the beast can hold.

This dissertation has argued that the werewolf possesses the ability to transgress spatial boundaries created by human society in Sutherland Menzies’ Hugues, the Wer-Wolf, G.M.W Reynold’s Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf, and F. Scarlet Potter’s The Were-wolf of the Grendelwold. In each narrative the werewolf is able to resists spatial orders, even entering socio-spatial spheres by using its physical, wolfish traits. Either through costumed performance, by physically joining wolf and man through supernatural means, or disguising beneficial wolfish traits underneath human skin; the werewolf exercises animal strengths that the ordinary human does not. Though our admiration of animals “is grounded in the qualities you lack and that you admire… because you know you could never have them” (Rowlands 78), the werewolf is able to own traits that one might admire in the wolf itself; traits that others may find threatening. This allows the werewolf to become desirable and transgressive.

Hugues shows how performing the wolf can help the individual renegotiate his position exiled from an oppressive society by imitating the howl, claws and teeth of the wolf that threaten mankind. Wagner’s hybridity with the wolf revitalises his human body, and provides him with the ability to metamorphose into a wolf that can transgress by the speed it runs at, using it to even escape from prison. The Were-wolf of the Grendelwold shows how the werewolf can transgress by using his human shape to hide the wolfish traits of strength and endurance that allow him to out-wrestle and out-run the human competition, and so seduce Theresa. Therefore, it is clear that the werewolf can be a source of freedom. Though such an analysis may be far from the intentions of their nineteenth century writers, “books… behave monstrously towards their creators, running loose from authority… and turning to mock their begetters by displaying a vitality of their own” (Baldick 30). It is nonetheless important to pursue the evolution of the werewolf myth.

The werewolf therefore demonstrates the weakness of the spatial orders humanity constructs, not just to divide the human from the animal, but also to separate people from each other. The werewolf reveals the permeable nature of these borders and also suggests that the wolf, the wild animal once harmful to human interests, has imaginatively become an animal useful to us. This is not a negative thing, for just as “humans live in symbiosis with thousands of species of anaerobic bacteria… without which we could not digest and absorb the food we ingest” (Lingis 166), the werewolf’s close relationship with the wolf reveals how hybridity with the animal can better the human being. Recent “work in areas such as cognitive ethology and field ecology has called into question our ability to use the old saws of anthropocentrism… to separate ourselves once and for all from animals” (Wolfe xi), however in analysing the werewolf, this is not something to fear. With modern Japanese culture portraying the werewolf as “a metaphor for the ways in which humans are part of nature and yet separate from it, although…the focus is more on the spiritual aspects of that unity and separation, with the werewolf playing the role of boundary spanner” (Levi 154), it is clear the werewolf is indeed a “meaning machine” (Halberstam 21).

[adjective][species] is pleased to present part 2 of 3 in a series of guest posts by Televassi comprising a dissertation titled Shape Shifting and Spatial Shifting: How the Hybrid Body Allows the Werewolf to Transgress and Resist Disciplinary Spatial Orderings of the World in Three Nineteenth Century Werewolf Tales. Citations are be available here

The first part is available here

Chapter 2 – The Wolves Reinvigorate the Human Body: Wagner, The Wehr-Wolf and The Wolf’s Body.

G.W.M. Reynold’s 1846-7 serial, Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf, stands as one of the better known pieces of werewolf fiction from the nineteenth century, however, it does bear some flaws. David Copper criticises its “repetition and wearisome use of adjective and hyperbole” (118), yet such stylistic defects may arise from the fact that “Reynold’s fiction primarily targeted a lower- and middle –class readership” (Easley & Scott 65). On the subject of werewolves, despite boasting of them in the title, Wagner’s lycanthropic excursions are scarce in a work of seventy-seven chapters, yet this should not discourage analysis as what remains has been well received by other critics. Wagner is “a fine example” (Marvin 59) of how writers of werewolf fiction in the nineteenth century grew in desire to detail “the graphic metamorphoses of the human” (59), a trend that found “part of the thrill or horror of the weird and the grotesque” (59). Reynolds’s fiction conforms to this trend, as his werewolf serial is fascinated by breaking down the boundaries between the human and lupine body, and then detailing the sensational actions that arise. Wagner introduces the werewolf’s “cycle of monthly metamorphosis… as early as 1847”( Du Coudray 78), though now a concept integral to the werewolf myth, was then “very underdeveloped prior to the 1940’s” (78). This monthly shape-shifting is notable more so, because “Reynold’s depiction of the werewolf in its human form as a white, bourgeois male suggested that lycanthropy could not always be safely confined to an externalised Other… it implied that the affliction might also emanate from within” (53). This chapter shall analyse how Wagner expands the potential ability of werewolves to contest spatial borders by violating the most important border of all – the very body of the human being. Unlike Sutherland Menzies’ Hugues, Reynold’s Wagner does not keep human and wolf separate in his depiction of the werewolf; there is no costume. Instead, the wolf penetrates the human body and resides inside it, creating a hybrid body that trespass against spatial boundaries by dissolving the border between the human and the wolf. This hybridity revitalises the human body, and grants Wagner access to a lupine body which Reynold’s constructs as an essential means for spatial transgression. Using it, Wagner rampages across the countryside and even escapes from prison; the building that should stand as the impervious material emblem of human spatial discipline, for locking up the transgressive individual should prevent that individual from doing so.

In order to imbue the werewolf with the wolf’s transgressive potential, Reynold’s begins the narrative by constructing the wolf’s body as the locus of transgression. Wagner begins the narrative as a feeble figure, an “old man sat in his little cottage on the verge of the Black Forest” (Wagner 5). His status as an old man who “numbered ninety years… was toothless… and his limbs were feeble” (5) undermines the notion that this human body has the potential to resist, especially when he is threatened by the predatory wolf, which he fears has already made his daughter Agnes the “prey of ravenous wolves” (5). Due to the wolf’s strength and man’s weakness, Wagner’s rural space is under threat of collapsing into a wild space by the presence of the wolves, which, constructs them as transgressive symbols that can make an impact on the human being’s organisation of the land. Though it is contested whether “animals do not have the capacity to transgress the imagined and materially constructed spatial orderings of human societies” (Philo & Wilbert 14-15), characterising the wolf as one that predates on humans counters this claim. Though “‘resistance’ is generally taken to entail the presence of conscious intentionality… a property of human agency” (15), the wolf can be seen to resist and transgress boundaries, without getting drawn into the issue of whether animals have agency or not, because its predation, regardless of whether it is conscious or not, is a disruption that fundamentally damages the supremacy of human spatial orders. Thus, when Wagner’s guest notes of his future fate that “the wolves from the forest would have entered [the cottage] and mangled your corpse” (Wagner 6), the wolf is clearly transgressive. The walls of Wagner’s home do not prevent entrance because of the weakness of his “helpless, wretched, deserted condition” (6), therefore implying that if the material boundaries are ramparts that entrench human spatial orders; they are defunct as they are unmanned. Therefore the wolf is able to penetrate the borders of human spaces because their strength is illusionary. Thus, Wagner lives in a space where the boundaries separating human and wolf are fluid, the precursor to the collapse of the very boundaries of the body, which then creates werewolves.

With the Black Forest firmly established as a problematic backwater where rural man’s proximity to wild creatures threatens his existence, the devil’s offer to make Wagner young again at the cost of becoming a werewolf appears to merely actualise fears of contamination arising from such a close proximity; thus werewolf is born of spatial transgression initiated by the wolf. Montague Summers writes that when werewolves “transform himself into the shape of some ravening beast of prey… this animal will be the most commonly met with in the district where the varlet inhabits” (22), clearly associating the nature of the shape shifter by the location. Taken in the context of Wagner, it is no surprise that Wagner becomes a wolf – as there is no other candidate that could take its place, or provide a body that allows him to be transgressive. The werewolf myth has been thought to have arisen from the conflict between humans struggling to maintain rural and urban domiciles from the intrusions of wolves from external, wild spaces. Baring-Gould writes of early reports of lycanthropy in Arcadia that “the natives… would consequently suffer very severely from the attacks and depredations of wolves” (8). Modern critics also suggest that werewolves arose from “exaggerated accounts of nocturnal attacks on Stone Age settlements by bands of fur-clad warriors masquerading as wolves” (Frost 4), or from prehistoric man’s attempts to “to look and feel like the wolf by wearing its pelt or its teeth” (Beresford 20). Regardless, it is this permeable boundary between humans and wolves that provides the opportunity for Wagner to become a werewolf, and embrace the wolf’s transgression for himself.

The devil’s promise to Wagner that “I will render thee young, handsome” (Wagner 6) at the cost of “the condition which must be imposed upon thee” (6) in other words “the destiny of the Wehr-Wolf” (6), indicates that the cost of renewed vitality, in which Wagner “must change his natural form for that of the savage animal” (6), comes from becoming a werewolf. The offer to become a werewolf demonstrates that allowing the wolf to penetrate the boundaries of the human body will allow Wagner to regain “the vigour of youth… rendering that stooping frame upright and strong… of endowing thee, in a word, with a fresh tenure of existence” (6). Thus, the werewolf in its very genesis demonstrates that one may seek to become a werewolf because by allowing the animal inside the human body, the subsequent union allows the newly made werewolf access to the wolf body, which generally, but in Wagner’s case explicitly, is the locus of transgressive potential. In acquiring access to the wolf’s body, Reynolds also demonstrates that the act of becoming a werewolf is a transgression against the boundaries of the human body itself.

The werewolf is transgressive because it breaks down the bodily boundaries between animal and human, which all other spatial borders have attempted to do so. Wagner’s revitalisation echoes the success of Edward Jenner’s earlier success of using cowpox as an effective means of smallpox vaccination, which, “by 1833 a discovery made in a rural backwater of provincial England had been spread across the globe” (Fulfort, Lee & Kitson 198), as it “penetrated the human body with matter derived from the bodies of beasts and, in so doing, it made people sick to make them well” (203). Whether by science or supernatural means, the potential werewolf has its body similarly penetrated, allowing the animal access into a place it previously could never reach, making him healthy and young, but leaving his “health dependent on the mark of the beast” (202). The transgression of the wolf into the human body, although by supernatural means, and its consequent vitality through hybridity reveals how the werewolf is symptomatic of how “the categorical boundary between human and animals, so fiercely defended as a tenant of modernity, has been seriously challenged, if not dismantled in places” (Franklin 3). With the wolf firmly established as the vitalising element of the werewolf and the physical body that is naturally transgressive, analysis shall now turn to investigating Wagner’s actions with the wolf shape that his body has now embraced.

Wagner’s transformation in chapter XII demonstrates how the traits of the physical, lupine body allow the werewolf to contest spatial boundaries more effectively than the stock animal. “No longer a man, but a monstrous wolf” (Wagner 23), the werewolf assumes the physical lupine body that possesses great speed, so that “tree – hedge – and isolated cottage appear but dim points in the landscape – a moment seen, the next left behind” (23). The wolfish abilities of speed and endurance are the essential source of transgression, as in the shape of a wolf, the werewolf at the very least has the ability of the natural animal to “lope along at about 8-9km/h for many hours with few pauses” (Marvin 16) and with a “top speed of 60 km/h in a short burst and about 39 km/h for a kilometre” (16). Able to move faster than a human, the werewolf subsequently free to invade, evade, and disrupt landed human interests across distances that cannot be matched by other human beings. Therefore, when “a cemetery stands in the monster’s way… he turns not aside” (Wagner 23) because his speed allows him to race “through the sacred enclosure, on – on he goes” (23) because none are fast enough to stop him. Wagner’s transgression (see fig.2) does not just cause terror, but even death, as “the monk who walked nearest the head of the coffin was thrown down… and his brains were dashed out” (23). Therefore the suggestion is that the werewolf indeed has power over others, especially those, like monks, who rely on the illusion of power in immaterial, religious borders such as sacred ground to secure their own existence.

(Fig. 2) George W.M. Reynolds, Wagner, The Wehr-Wolf (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2008) 29, Print.

The werewolf’s speed, derived from its lupine body is the key that bestows it mastery of the landscape. Its ability to range faster than a human means that the werewolf is free to trespass because it is always ahead of the human beings required to police the imaginary and material boundaries they have constructed. Thus, for the werewolf Wagner, to whom “the very hills appear to leap after each other” (23), if the purpose of a border is to prevent and regulate the movement of bodies into certain areas, the speed of the wolf prevents him being caught and made to conform to such regulations. If the violation of these boundaries cannot be prevented, it then is essential to the order’s integrity that the transgressors are caught and eliminated. Even when hounds are later set upon Wagner, despite being able to “overtake him” (23) and “fall upon him” (23), the supernatural creature has the strength to “toss them aside” (23) because “that Wehr-Wolf bears a charmed life” (23). Though the dogs appear as a fitting body able to apprehend the ranging wolf, for dogs are derived from domesticated wolves, used often to guard human interests, their inability to match the wolf despite bearing similar traits suggests that the werewolf is successful in its actions because it is difficult to apprehend.

Though Wagner is imprisoned during the course of the narrative, this occurs whilst he is a human, and therefore does not undermine the werewolf’s ability to escape punishment for its transgression. As a suspected werewolf, Wagner’s trial is one that draws the populace as it is a public demonstration of disciplinary power. As such, “the great square of the ducal palace… was crowded… and the windows were literally alive with human faces” (67), drawing the notion that the previously transgressive werewolf will be destroyed, and so executing the problematic body. However, the rashness of the Chief Judge’s desire to publically exorcise “a monstrous and ridiculous superstition – imported into our country from that cradle and nurse of preposterous legends, Germany” (67), allows the transformed Wagner to escape the jail, as the performance of justice removes the offender from the cell containing it, so all can see. Like Foucault’s Panopticon, the judiciary’s desire to reverse “the principle of the dungeon… to enclose, to deprive of light, to hide” does not, like the Panopticon preserve “only the first and eliminates the other two” (554). Rather removes all three principles, for in their desire to bring to light and see the werewolf, it also frees him. Thus “the door was opened, a horrible monster burst forth from the dungeon with a terrific howl” (Wagner 67) and consequently the Chief Judge is “hurled down and dashed violently against the rough, uneven masonry, by the mad careering of the Wehr-Wolf” (67). The werewolf demonstrates that if there is any weakness in the physical boundaries that discipline society’s spatial geographies, they are open to violation not just by external forces, but even by humans themselves, as they allow them to be violated by their own desire to reinforce their watertight nature.

In conclusion, Reynold’s Wagner, though often dealing with the werewolf in brief segments of the narrative, conveys how the werewolf firstly is a creature that transgresses the fundamental boundaries of bodies. The human body then becomes that of the werewolf, and has the ability to transgress as a wolf, yet it is also a revitalised human body. When disciplinary bodies attempt to punish the transgressions committed by the werewolf, in part because the spatial orders lack the power to enforce themselves, the desire to secure the borders by the performance of justice, literally and figuratively, opens the door for the werewolf to transgress further.

[adjective][species] is pleased to present part 1 of 3 in a series of guest posts by Televassi comprising a dissertation titled Shape Shifting and Spatial Shifting: How the Hybrid Body Allows the Werewolf to Transgress and Resist Disciplinary Spatial Orderings of the World in Three Nineteenth Century Werewolf Tales. Citations are be available here

Televassi is a bit of a newcomer to the fandom, however in his time here he’s been amazed by the friendly and creative nature of the people that make it up. Apart from being a writer, he also enjoys rock climbing and scuba diving, and has a keen interest in Celtic and Germanic cultures. You can find this torc wearing wolf on twitter as @Televassi, and find more of his writing and art on FA and Weasyl. He’s always happy to meet new people, so don’t be afraid to say hi!

Fig. 1. Anon, “The Werewolf of Anarchy,” (Punch, 105, 23 December 1893,) 290, Print.

Introduction

Werewolves are prevalent, recurring figures in literature. Their “sheer pervasiveness… speaks of their continued popularity and psychological importance” (Stypczynski 186). The werewolf’s history of literary appearances is long, for “werewolves are insinuated into European literary history from their earliest appearances in the Near Eastern Epic of Gilgamesh, Petronius’ Satyricon, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses” (15), continuing “through the Middle Ages, in the works of Gerald of Wales and Marie de France… to subtly inhabit the early modern period” (15), before appearing in fiction written during the nineteenth century and onwards into the present day.

Despite this, academic analysis of the werewolf has been scarce. Most publications reprint folkloric or theological texts rather than new critical analysis. Brent Stypczynski summarises the critical field in five points; the shape-shifter as theological impossibility or monster; the medieval ‘sympathetic werewolf’ phenomenon; political postcolonial allegory; shape-shifting as insanity; or the werewolf as social allegory (6). All these approaches attempt to read the werewolf as emblematic primarily of one theme, narrowing their possible meanings in favour of one conclusive definition. This is a mistake, as Judith Halberstam argues in her book, Skin Shows, that “the success… of any given monstrous embodiment depends upon its ability to be multidimensional in terms of horror it produces” (110). This dissertation aims to explore new avenues as to what the werewolf can be, so that the nineteenth century texts are not read only as well-documented expressions of “fears of working class unrest, social change, Darwinism, imperialism, women’s liberation, and sexual freedom” (Easley & Scott xv). Recent criticism by authors such as Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray and Brent Stypczynski has built on such approaches by beginning to interpret the werewolf as a positive, if not desirable creature, and therefore signalling that new criticism should investigate this trend. This dissertation will analyse Hugues, The Wer-Wolf (1838) by Sutherland Menzies; Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf (1846-7) by George W.M. Reynolds; and The Were-wolf of Grendelwold (1882) by F. Scarlett Potter, and argue that each werewolf uses his lycanthropy to resist and transgress against rigid spatial orderings imposed upon the landscape and human society. Thus, this dissertation will expand upon previous critical interpretations, situating itself among modern criticism beginning to view the werewolf as a positive, even desirable figure. However, this does not depart from the traditional definition of the werewolf; it rather argues that its desirability still lies in its traditional definition.

A werewolf is a man or woman who, either voluntarily or involuntarily, is supernaturally transformed into the shape of a wolf and endowed with all the physical characteristics of that animal. (Frost 6)

Frost’s definition appears straightforward, however the notion of the werewolf, in its most extreme, as “one of the most terrible and depraved of all bond-slaves of Satan” (Summers 123), is complicated by its voluntary nature, indicating it can desirable. Frost’s later qualification that the werewolf exhibits animal traits, such as “cunning craftiness, swiftness of movement, bestial ferocity and unbridled cruelty” (6) allows one to hypothesise that such traits superior to the human body are what is desired. Frost does not however explore this possibility, as his assertion of cruelty colours the cunning, swiftness and ferocity as equally condemnable because they allow the werewolf “to gratify the taste for human flesh” (Baring-Gould 5). By suspending an anthropocentric, moral dynamic that sees such traits as negative because they harm human beings, it is possible to reveal how the werewolf’s animal qualities are tools that allow resistance and transgression of social-spatial locations.

Pursuing such a reading is possible because criticism in the twenty-first century has begun to gesture towards positive interpretations of the werewolf. Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray notes that the werewolf embodies “the possibilities of integrating the antagonistic aspects of the werewolf’s identity” (141), to the point that in modern fantasy fiction the werewolf “survives, develops ethical frameworks and achieves spiritual fulfilment” (149). Brent Stypczynski supports such a positive view, finding that “the modern werewolf begins to discuss issues as diverse as conservation, time travel, hidden societies, adaption of one’s skills, and teaching history” (182). Neither is this positive modern interpretation a reinterpretation, for Leslie Sconduto’s analysis of werewolf literature from the twelfth century indicates it is rather a rediscovery, as “all texts portray the creature [werewolf] as a victim and a hero” (3). However, these analyses neglect interpretation of the supernatural werewolf’s body, which this dissertation proposes is a means to freedom. In order to pursue such a reading of the werewolf’s access to a positive animal body, this dissertation combines literary criticism with the field of animal studies.

Criticism in animal studies is generally concerned with decentring the anthropocentric conception of animals in culture. This applies to the rationale of discovering superior, positive traits in the werewolf’s animal body, as human classifications of animal inferiority must be removed in order to do so. Otherwise, the werewolf’s physical traits such as strength, speed and ferocity continue to be seen as negative because they harm human interests – the exact reason that attests to their ability to transgress and resist spatial orders. Our view of animals displays “our own investment in the idea of an authentic nature, a natural order of things, for which the animal is the ideal icon” (Baker 180). Randy Malamud agrees with this view, as “we are interested in animals, by and large, in terms of what they can do for us… so their own freedom and integrity are diametrically opposed to our ability to do with them what we will” (18). The issue that emerges is the notion that animals are defined in our culture by “the ‘place’ which a particular animal, a given species of animal or even non-human animals in general can be said to possess human classifications or orderings of the world” (Philo &Wilbert 5). In order to revise a utilitarian, anthropocentric approach to animals, Malamud’s call for “a natural history of animals; animals as we’re not seeing them” (18) is an intriguing proposal, though it is apt to question whether literary animals can ever be seen outside of a cultural gaze, including the supernatural werewolf. Regardless, animals are judged in terms of their place in the natural order with relation to what they can do for us, or how they harm our own efforts to order the world, which explains why the fictional werewolf’s physical traits are overlooked as sources of freedom because they are tools that harm human interests by resisting spatial order. Thus, the werewolf resists the concept that:

Each identified thing has its own ‘proper place’ relative to all other things, and can be neatly identified, delimited and positions relevant to a conceptual space so as to be separate from, and not overlapping with, other things (Philo & Wilbert 6).

Understanding that such spatially determined notions are only “human classifications or orderings of the world” (5) is crucial to understanding the werewolf body as a positive figure. It is reasonable to suggest that humans also spatially construct places that apply to human beings as well, not just animals, and therefore culture can become repressive or oppressive. Regardless of the anthropocentric perception that “the animal can not think in other than the most rudimentary ways… has no sense of time or space…unable to plan future actions apart from the boundaries imposed by the immediate situation” (Sanders & Arluke 379), animals nonetheless “destabilise, transgress or even resist our human orderings, including spatial ones” (Philo & Wilbert 5). The werewolf can transgress too, as his animal shape bestows animal traits that allow the individual to resist his spatially assigned place in society in ways a human cannot, by embracing the threatening potential of the wolf’s pelt, howl, claws, teeth, and speed.

Chapter 1: The Wolf’s Shape as Escape in Sutherland Menzies’ Hugues, the Wer-Wolf

First published in 1838 in the Court and Ladies Magazine, a publication for women focused on light reading, fashion, and society (Easley & Scott 1), Hugues, the Wer-Wolf has appeared fleetingly in critical discourse. Whilst “Menzies could claim to be the poor man’s Walter Scott in his use of dialect and rural locations… the lycanthropic goings-on are described in such a limp manner… and despite its interest remains a only a marginal essay in the genre” (Copper 116). As a text about werewolves, its flaw is that the central character is not a real werewolf. Instead the ‘metamorphosis’ is achieved by the discovery of a werewolf costume that the protagonist uses to perform his werewolfery. The idea of using clothing to become a werewolf does not undermine the narrative’s werewolf status, as the belief that one could become a werewolf by either wearing a magical wolf-skin or by wearing a girdle of wolf fur are common themes in folklore. Instead, Hugues’ costumed performance demonstrates a desire to be the animal. This is because the physical appearance of the wolf, along with the semblance of claws, teeth and other non-threatening attributes such as the ability to eat carrion, are embraced because the threat the wolf offers allows him to escape the oppressive conditions of his previously ‘pure’ human existence. It is reasonable to read Hugues’ animal performance as liberating, because modern instances of wild animals entering human, urban spaces, reminds “people of the permeable boundaries between themselves and animals, between nature and culture, and even between national and international spaces” (Sanders 251). Hugues’ adoption of the wolf shape serves to clothe him with the transgressive freedom of movement a ‘wild’ nonhuman animal attains.

Before Hugues dons his werewolf apparel, it is important to understand the geographical structure of the narrative, as it is the oppression by these spatial boundaries that causes him to rebel. The landscape of Hugues is divided between nature and culture, particularly stressing the control of the forest which Hugues lives in. Menzies’ descriptive choices imply a language of control and limitation, for the woods are described in such fortified terms as “impervious covert” (Hugues 2) and “sylvan fastnesses” (3), the latter noted in a footnote as meaning stronghold, which therefore characterise the forest as a fixed, policed space. Existing on the “confines of that extensive forest-tract” (2), the Hugues family is restricted within the forest, signalling their spatially determined otherness as the text indicates no neutral ground between nature and society. Thus the narrative’s creation of a landscape where everything “has its own ‘proper place’ relative to all other things, and can be neatly identified, delimited and positioned relevant to a conceptual space” (Philo & Wilbert 5) is a construction with profound consequences for those within it.

“The class into which we place a species determines the treatment an individual animal will receive” (Lerner & Kalof 580) also affects humans, for the class the Hugues family are placed into has negative consequences for their welfare. The Hugues’ existence in the forest is no naturalistic idyll, for they are “wretched outcasts” (Hugues 3) preventing any possibility to interpret their existence as one that is wilful, thus, the spatial order they are defined by is oppressive of individual liberty and harmful to their wellbeing. The boundary that forces them to live an “a lone and miserable habitation” (3) is one that is socially constructed, as Menzies somewhat ironically writes that the former quote is possible because they are “under the protection of the ancient forest laws” (3), thus securing the notion that their spatial status is cultural. Social convention prevents their exit, not an impassable landscape, for they are ostracised for fear that they belong “to the accursed race of werewolves” (3). Thus the Hugues’ exile implies that “the werewolf… created through essential boundary transgressions: between the human and the animal, the civilised and the bestial, the domesticated and the wild” (Marvin 48) can be contained by placing it in wilderness areas, as these areas have no interest to man. Though this does not separate the werewolf’s issue of the wolf in the man, it places the hybrid in wilderness that is of no interest to humans, therefore making it obey the spatial order. Due to this designation, the family is “refused work” (Hugues 3) and does not have “a single friend among the adjacent homesteads” (3), therefore maintaining their outcast status by forcing them to live “a secluded and precarious existence” (3). This prevents them from moving across the border that divides human society from the forest, and the Hugues family contained therein. The implication is that Hugues’ inability to resist his spatial definition lies in his humanity, as any human plea “met brutal denials at all hands… accompanied by taunts and menace… dogs were let loose upon him to rend his limbs” (9).

It therefore appears counter-intuitive that Hugues embraces, and actualises the claims of werewolfism against him in order to resist his spatial isolation, as it was the very thing that caused his family’s exile. However unlike his human self, animals can “destabilise, transgress or even resist our human orderings, including spatial ones” (Philo & Wilbert 5), so when Hughes gives his impassioned desire to become a wolf, he signals that the animal shape can become desirable because it offers a means of resistance when all human modes of complaint are denied.

‘Oh, would I might be a werewolf… I could then requite them for all the foul wrong done to me… I would be able to terrify and torment those… who have persecuted out family even to extermination… I should at least find carrion to devour, and not die thus horribly’ (Hugues 11).

Hugues identifies that the physical body of the wolf with the ability to revenge himself and his dead parents and sister, for the image of the wolf provokes terror in those who behold it. Exceeding revenge, Hugues draws upon the wolf’s natural eating habits in order to allow himself to sustain himself, signalling that the animal becomes something that improves his life. Moreover, Menzies signals the wolf is able to transgress spatial boundaries, as “wolves had… emerged from their forest lairs, and, entering the cemetery by a breach in its walls, goaded by famine, had actually disinterred the dead” (4) demonstrating how animals can permeate the boundaries constructed by human beings.

When Hugues dons the costume, “he felt his very teeth on edge with an avidity for biting; he experienced an inconceivable desire to run: he set himself to howl as though he has practised wer-wolfery all his life, and became to thoroughly invest himself with the guise and attributes of his novel vocation” (13). These actions signal an attempt to emotionally connect through performance with two aspects that can be found threatening about the wolf; the howl which holds “a long held fear that it might signal attack on them [humans] or their livestock” (Marvin 24), and the jaw “that has a crushing power of 1,500 lb/in (double that of the largest domestic dog” (18). Armed and clothed as a wolf, Hugues is able to trespass against the boundaries that have oppressed him because his performance of the wolf enables him to create the illusion of possessing such abilities. Though it is an act; “performing an animal identity provides a way out of human norms that have become unduly restrictive” (Carlson 195), because Hugues’ performance of the wolf evokes fear that prevents people from exposing his illusion. Thus, Hugues is able to move by “howling in a frightful manner, and traversing meadows, fallows, plains, and marshes, like a shadow” (Hugues 13). However, Hugues’ performance does not only allow him to move across the boundaries he could not cross as a human, but also disrupt them by constructing his own rival spatial order.

As he roams Hugues encounters Willieblud, the Ashford flesher driving a cart full of meat for the market. Starving, Hugues’ wolfish guise allows him to steal food, as the flesher’s fear of the werewolf makes him passive, allowing Hugues to take control of the situation; “he howled in a plaintive tone, and, rushing forward, seized the horse by the bit” (13-14). Seizing the horse controls the freedom of the flesher to move across the land, allowing the previously oppressed Hugues to reverse the spatial order, all done under the guise of the wolf, as his human hands are hidden underneath “gloves in the form of paws” (12). Moreover, now that Hugues has literally taken the reigns of the situation, he uses his wolfish guise to voice the complaints he was unable to make as a human; “‘I hunger; throw me two pounds of meat if thou would’st have me live’” (14). Despite being disguised in a costume that lacks any real wolfish aspect, the fear of the werewolf transforms it into something more threatening than “a dyed sheepskin… a mask with an elongated muzzle, and furnished with formidable rows of yellow horse-teeth” (12). Hugues’ transgression expresses a deeper fear than that of the wolf alone. As “clothing is something which can also be seen to differentiate humans from other, nonhuman animals” (Hurn 110), the act of wearing the skin of the wolf is not just an example of how “clothes also represent powerful means for subversion…expressions of resistance” (110). It indicates that the narrative’s two undesirables, the wolf and the outcast, have joined together in the wilderness they were exiled in, and return to plague society anew, attacking the purebred human’s once secure spatial order of the world in a way he is powerless to resist. Hugues is the herald of this, as his human speech conveys the demand enabled by the hybrid whole, that of meat to eat, secured by the wolfish threat of violence upon the weak human body.

‘I would rather have raw meat than eat of thy flesh, plump as thou art. Throw me… what I crave, and… be ready with the like portion each time thou settest out for Canterbury market; or, failing thereof, I tear thee limb from limb.’ (Hugues 14)

Hugues, the werewolf, has now clearly changed the spatial order he once suffered under, to the point where his predations become a regular occurrence, regulating the spatial freedoms of the flesher, who would once have been the social superior preventing Hugues from doing so. Mirroring the wolf’s natural behaviour to construct a territory “for their own subsistence” (Marvin 23), the werewolf has similarly set up his own territory, a rival spatial order that man is now forced to submit to. It also grants him greater access into social circles, as he can for example claim the hand of a woman in marriage. Dressed as a werewolf, he is able to demand that “‘tis thy niece I would have speech with, in all courtesy and honour… which if thou not permittest… I will rend thee both do death” (Hugues 17). The werewolf combines human speech with the threatening physicality of the wolf in order to gain physical access to women, thereby opening up the prospect of marrying into society and inserting himself deeper into social spheres. This is evidenced by the fact that once granted, “the wolf had done her no injury whatsoever… acting with in every respect like a loyal suitor, rather than a sanguinary wer-wolf” (18). By forcefully initiating his courtship under the threatening guise of the wolf, Willieblud is powerless to stop the werewolf forcing himself into the pool of eligible bachelors and thereby court his daughter, for Willieblud is counselled that “slay a wer-wolf thou canst not… for his hide is proof against spear or arrow, though vulnerable to the cutting” (18).

After a brief episode whereby Willieblud cuts off the werewolf’s paw, mirroring medieval methods of exposing a werewolf, his plan is thwarted, as his daughter now loves Hugues. Stating that “If Willieblud should raise his cleaver to slay thee [Hugues], he shall first strike though his kinswoman’s body” (20), Branda indicates that Hugues’ courtship, instigated by his werewolfism, has secured a place in her heart, and by her legitimacy in society, a place for him in society to. As a consequence of cutting off Hugues’ hand, Willieblud is driven mad by the severed hand and dies, allowing Hugues to marry “Branda, sole heiress to the stock and chattels of the late unhappy flesher of Ashford” (22). Thus the suspected werewolf, once ostracised and contained in the wilderness, has now ultimately used his wolfish aspect to move out from his exile and secure his position in society, and confirm the place of his lineage through his acquisition of a wife – all of which, he gained access too by his performance of werewolfery.

Tim Gadd is one of the founders of alt.lifestyle.furry.

When a friend pointed me to these welcome essays concerning the early years of alt.lifestyle.furry—a time which will always exist as a vibrant and halcyon period in my memory—I asked if I might make a dedication, which the author and publisher kindly allowed.

ALF was an ideal as well as a community: a kind of social experiment which had never been tried on Usenet before. Myself and Ron Orr are usually credited with its conception and creation. We did come up with the idea, and write the charter and FAQ, but not without the consultation of the ‘creation committee’; a group of thirteen people in total who, over six months, provided input and review to the process.

Of these people there is no question IMHO that the most crucial was Brad Austin. His judgement was scrupulous, as was his instinctive grasp of the ethics of what we were trying to do. He was the one person whose advice I’d never ignore. Later, if the core values of the newsgroup were ever attacked, Brad was the staunchest of defenders; rigorously intelligent and morally unwavering, no matter how controversial the topic.

Brad died suddenly last year, age 45. I’ve never had a closer friend, and I miss him like hell. I wish more members of the community had known him personally.

There is someone else I want to mention. Virtually on New Year’s Day 1997, ALF hit the backbone Usenet servers and our participation suddenly exploded to many times the trickle of posts of the early months. The first poster I remember on that day was Craig Andersen – KimbaWLion online. Perhaps I’m biased, but to me he instantly became the first core member of the community from outside the original creation group, and I always told him I considered his appearance to be synchronous with and symbolic of the real birth of ALF.

Kimba quickly became my other closest friend, along with Brad and Ron, and his family welcomed me into their home on every visit to their hometown. He too passed away unexpectedly, late in 2012, age 58.

I’m grateful for the chance to leave this tribute on record to two true soul mates without whom things would not have happened like they did. I know there are many of our number who have fallen over the years, and this dedication is for them too, and those they left behind.

Tim Gadd
Tasmania, September 2015

Three years ago, on September 6th, a friend of mine passed away.

I’d not really had all that much exposure to death before that, if I’m honest. My step-adoptive-grandfather died when I was fairly young, and all I really remember out of that was the funeral, and inheriting a small medal he’d won from Colorado State University, something about soil science and geology. After that, I had dream after dream about what winning that medal must’ve been like, walking through some grand oaken hall to receive a pewter medal on a velvet pillow. That I later attended CSU, and that CSU had no oaken halls as in my dreams, always left me vaguely disappointed.

Other than that, my brush with mortality was limited to my grandmother, who passed some time later. The unfortunate part of her passing was that, for years before, she had been deep in a mire of dementia that left her a pallid shadow of her former self. From her, I remember that a lot of our final interactions were beset by confusion, frustration, and tears. “You’re [my mom]’s son, right?” she asked in the airport. She repeated the question seven or eight times, being sure, each time, to comfort herself that the person pushing her wheelchair was someone known to her.

My mom and I had flown out to see her as she got settled into a final stage of her life in Charlotte, North Carolina. My mom flew out to see her one more time before she died, but, after a long talk, it was decided that I would stay home. “I can’t handle it. I can’t be in that role again,” I pleaded, and my mom let me stay with my dad while she flew out of town.

Margaras died in an automobile accident on the base on which he was stationed. We, the group of friends that had congregated on FurryMUCK since long before I’d first appeared on the scene in 2001, learned about this from a close friend of his three years ago today, as I write this on September 12th. The friend slipped quietly into the room, confirmed that Margs had been a regular there, passed along the news through an article, and then slipped just as quietly from the room.

We all sat basically dumbfounded.

The news came the day before I was scheduled to fly to Canada, to Montreal. I had just started my job at Canonical the week before along with another coworker, and the team had decided that the best way to onboard us new folk was to schedule a week of us working together with a few previously defined goals.

My attention was divided that whole week. It was only my second week at work, and yet I felt as though I was dealing with a death in the family. I think all of us there on FM were going through something similar, to some extent or another. Some rejoiced in memories, some were crushed. I felt torn – Margs had been there as I was growing up. All through high school, through college, and into my first job.

Most of all, I remembered all of the times, upon performing “I’ve got a gal in Kalamazoo” during my senior year of high school, that I sang to him about “knowing a lynx in Kalamazoo”, where he’d lived. I couldn’t get that silly song out of my head for days after learning of his passing. He grumbled every time I quoted that to him, too – he was always a grouchy lynx.

He didn’t even live in Michigan anymore. Hadn’t in years.

I made it through the week okay. I think all of us found our ways to cope, and for me, that was in solidarity. I left myself logged in to FurryMUCK in a terminal on my laptop even as I worked, peeking back every now and then to see little tendrils of normalcy creeping back into the lives of those impacted by the loss. When I went to sleep, I left myself logged in so that I could wake up to a few hours of chatter before I had been disconnected for inactivity.

Me and a few others, some of whom also grew up knowing the grouchy lynx, still remember those days with a sort of clarity that eludes other, seemingly important moments in life. Every year, a few waves of memory wash through my days, carrying along bits of detritus. Memories of my first few days at Canonical, falling in love all over again with people, leaving a screen session running with the MUCK connected to wake up to.

When our lynx friend passed three years ago, I was left wondering what he’d say to me. I think this is a fairly common thought among those who have lost someone close to them. “Would I be making them proud?” “Would they tell me off for the bad decisions that I’ve made?” “Did they leave this world having a good impression of me?”

If Margaras were alive today, what would he say to me? When he left, I was just on my way out of a bout of self destruction – would he be proud that I had pulled through that, and several others in the intervening years? When he left, I was still figuring out some very basic aspects of myself: my gender identity and the whole open relationship thing – would he understand all of my halting forays into these territories, the backtracking and endless refining? Would that all become part of the story that we’d laugh about after the fact? Would we still laugh about knowing a lynx in Kalamazoo? What words of ours would we remember best?

I’ll never know, obviously.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot, this time around the sun. What words did we share that made it so that I felt so strongly about his passing? We never met in person, so words were about all we had between us, maybe the occasional *hug* or something to go with it it, but other than that, we were friends through the letters that showed up on each other’s screens.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that this is very much the norm within furry. I found myself thinking about the sheer number of people that I know primarily, or even only through words. Words that we have the chance to edit, words that we pick carefully. This is the face we present to each other, more than just a drawing or two of our character. Its relatively rare, in fact, that the image is what we know, more than the words: I can think of only a handful of examples of people that I know primarily through their likeness rather than through their words, and in almost every case, I am totally unknown to them – it’s a purely unidirectional relationship.

Our words, though, is how we truly know each other. It’s one of those things that sounds stupidly obvious when set down plainly like that, but all the same, I’ve been spending some time going over my words and thinking, “Who is it that the people around me know? Am I being earnest, am I constructing an artificial personality, or is it a bit of both?”

I know that I’ve said some stupid things in my life, and there is a part of me that regrets saying them. I’ve yelled when I shouldn’t have, and I’ve not spoken up enough when I should have. I’ve wound up in relationships and friendships that weren’t very healthy for me or for the other person, and I’ve left relationships that were truly good for me for reasons I still don’t understand to this day. I regret them, yes, but I can’t help but ask myself what I would be without them? Would I have matured into someone I would like to be friends with? Would I have matured at all, if I hadn’t, at some points in my life, done the wrong thing and actually made that mistake, felt the hot flush of shame?

Brené Brown talks about much of this in her 2012 talk at TED. She describes having a “vulnerability hangover” after admitting to a large audience that she had a breakdown, and goes on to describe the fact that vulnerability is essential to our lives. I think it’s fairly obvious that I agree, given the tone of this article.

More than that, however, Brown talks about how important it is that we have a conversation about shame. “Shame”, she says, “is not guilt. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.””

There are things that I am ashamed about with my friendship with Margaras. I didn’t talk to him enough, foremost. I didn’t reach out to him more, and when he was around, I too often was comfortable not engaging more fully. I probably also could’ve done without making that dumb Kalamazoo joke quite as many times as I did, too.

But again, I have to question what I would be feeling now without that shame. Would my pain have lingered for three years now if I had only perfect interactions with him? Would I miss him so deeply if there were no words left unsaid between us? Would I feel so glad about the time we spent together if I hadn’t also gone through rough times while knowing him, and hadn’t needed the comfort of a friend?

Now that I know the feeling of loss – how it tastes, how it aches, the weight of it – I think I better understand the way that my own words work, and the importance of shame to me. I have better control over the way that I interact with others, because I’ve gone through the process of learning how (and how not to). This has changed the way I use words, those most important things within the furry subculture, whether that be on twitter or here through [a][s], talking with friends on Slack or even chatting in person.

I’ll still make mistakes, of course, but I’ll feel better about them. Hopefully they won’t be so deeply stupid, and I’ll have a little less to be ashamed of as time goes on. I’ll feel guilt about the dumb thing that I did, but maybe a bit less shame about myself. Even so, I’ll still have reasons to feel strongly about the ways I interact with people through the words I choose. Maturation’s a hell of a task to undertake, but coming out through the other side, it feels much better.

So. To Margaras. To grouchy lynxes. To shame, to mistakes, and to maturity. And hey, until next time,

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I knew a lynx in Kalamazoo…

Everything’s O.K-A-L-A-M-A-Z-O-Oh what a lynx in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo”

Three years ago, on September 6th, a friend of mine passed away.

I’d not really had all that much exposure to death before that, if I’m honest. My step-adoptive-grandfather died when I was fairly young, and all I really remember out of that was the funeral, and inheriting a small medal he’d won from Colorado State University, something about soil science and geology. After that, I had dream after dream about what winning that medal must’ve been like, walking through some grand oaken hall to receive a pewter medal on a velvet pillow. That I later attended CSU, and that CSU had no oaken halls as in my dreams, always left me vaguely disappointed.

Other than that, my brush with mortality was limited to my grandmother, who passed some time later. The unfortunate part of her passing was that, for years before, she had been deep in a mire of dementia that left her a pallid shadow of her former self. From her, I remember that a lot of our final interactions were beset by confusion, frustration, and tears. “You’re [my mom]’s son, right?” she asked in the airport. She repeated the question seven or eight times, being sure, each time, to comfort herself that the person pushing her wheelchair was someone known to her.

My mom and I had flown out to see her as she got settled into a final stage of her life in Charlotte, North Carolina. My mom flew out to see her one more time before she died, but, after a long talk, it was decided that I would stay home. “I can’t handle it. I can’t be in that role again,” I pleaded, and my mom let me stay with my dad while she flew out of town.

Margaras died in an automobile accident on the base on which he was stationed. We, the group of friends that had congregated on FurryMUCK since long before I’d first appeared on the scene in 2001, learned about this from a close friend of his three years ago today, as I write this on September 12th. The friend slipped quietly into the room, confirmed that Margs had been a regular there, passed along the news through an article, and then slipped just as quietly from the room.

We all sat basically dumbfounded.

The news came the day before I was scheduled to fly to Canada, to Montreal. I had just started my job at Canonical the week before along with another coworker, and the team had decided that the best way to onboard us new folk was to schedule a week of us working together with a few previously defined goals.

My attention was divided that whole week. It was only my second week at work, and yet I felt as though I was dealing with a death in the family. I think all of us there on FM were going through something similar, to some extent or another. Some rejoiced in memories, some were crushed. I felt torn – Margs had been there as I was growing up. All through high school, through college, and into my first job.

Most of all, I remembered all of the times, upon performing “I’ve got a gal in Kalamazoo” during my senior year of high school, that I sang to him about “knowing a lynx in Kalamazoo”, where he’d lived. I couldn’t get that silly song out of my head for days after learning of his passing. He grumbled every time I quoted that to him, too – he was always a grouchy lynx.

He didn’t even live in Michigan anymore. Hadn’t in years.

I made it through the week okay. I think all of us found our ways to cope, and for me, that was in solidarity. I left myself logged in to FurryMUCK in a terminal on my laptop even as I worked, peeking back every now and then to see little tendrils of normalcy creeping back into the lives of those impacted by the loss. When I went to sleep, I left myself logged in so that I could wake up to a few hours of chatter before I had been disconnected for inactivity.

Me and a few others, some of whom also grew up knowing the grouchy lynx, still remember those days with a sort of clarity that eludes other, seemingly important moments in life. Every year, a few waves of memory wash through my days, carrying along bits of detritus. Memories of my first few days at Canonical, falling in love all over again with people, leaving a screen session running with the MUCK connected to wake up to.

When our lynx friend passed three years ago, I was left wondering what he’d say to me. I think this is a fairly common thought among those who have lost someone close to them. “Would I be making them proud?” “Would they tell me off for the bad decisions that I’ve made?” “Did they leave this world having a good impression of me?”

If Margaras were alive today, what would he say to me? When he left, I was just on my way out of a bout of self destruction – would he be proud that I had pulled through that, and several others in the intervening years? When he left, I was still figuring out some very basic aspects of myself: my gender identity and the whole open relationship thing – would he understand all of my halting forays into these territories, the backtracking and endless refining? Would that all become part of the story that we’d laugh about after the fact? Would we still laugh about knowing a lynx in Kalamazoo? What words of ours would we remember best?

I’ll never know, obviously.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot, this time around the sun. What words did we share that made it so that I felt so strongly about his passing? We never met in person, so words were about all we had between us, maybe the occasional *hug* or something to go with it it, but other than that, we were friends through the letters that showed up on each other’s screens.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that this is very much the norm within furry. I found myself thinking about the sheer number of people that I know primarily, or even only through words. Words that we have the chance to edit, words that we pick carefully. This is the face we present to each other, more than just a drawing or two of our character. Its relatively rare, in fact, that the image is what we know, more than the words: I can think of only a handful of examples of people that I know primarily through their likeness rather than through their words, and in almost every case, I am totally unknown to them – it’s a purely unidirectional relationship.

Our words, though, is how we truly know each other. It’s one of those things that sounds stupidly obvious when set down plainly like that, but all the same, I’ve been spending some time going over my words and thinking, “Who is it that the people around me know? Am I being earnest, am I constructing an artificial personality, or is it a bit of both?”

I know that I’ve said some stupid things in my life, and there is a part of me that regrets saying them. I’ve yelled when I shouldn’t have, and I’ve not spoken up enough when I should have. I’ve wound up in relationships and friendships that weren’t very healthy for me or for the other person, and I’ve left relationships that were truly good for me for reasons I still don’t understand to this day. I regret them, yes, but I can’t help but ask myself what I would be without them? Would I have matured into someone I would like to be friends with? Would I have matured at all, if I hadn’t, at some points in my life, done the wrong thing and actually made that mistake, felt the hot flush of shame?

Brené Brown talks about much of this in her 2012 talk at TED. She describes having a “vulnerability hangover” after admitting to a large audience that she had a breakdown, and goes on to describe the fact that vulnerability is essential to our lives. I think it’s fairly obvious that I agree, given the tone of this article.

More than that, however, Brown talks about how important it is that we have a conversation about shame. “Shame”, she says, “is not guilt. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.””

There are things that I am ashamed about with my friendship with Margaras. I didn’t talk to him enough, foremost. I didn’t reach out to him more, and when he was around, I too often was comfortable not engaging more fully. I probably also could’ve done without making that dumb Kalamazoo joke quite as many times as I did, too.

But again, I have to question what I would be feeling now without that shame. Would my pain have lingered for three years now if I had only perfect interactions with him? Would I miss him so deeply if there were no words left unsaid between us? Would I feel so glad about the time we spent together if I hadn’t also gone through rough times while knowing him, and hadn’t needed the comfort of a friend?

Now that I know the feeling of loss – how it tastes, how it aches, the weight of it – I think I better understand the way that my own words work, and the importance of shame to me. I have better control over the way that I interact with others, because I’ve gone through the process of learning how (and how not to). This has changed the way I use words, those most important things within the furry subculture, whether that be on twitter or here through [a][s], talking with friends on Slack or even chatting in person.

I’ll still make mistakes, of course, but I’ll feel better about them. Hopefully they won’t be so deeply stupid, and I’ll have a little less to be ashamed of as time goes on. I’ll feel guilt about the dumb thing that I did, but maybe a bit less shame about myself. Even so, I’ll still have reasons to feel strongly about the ways I interact with people through the words I choose. Maturation’s a hell of a task to undertake, but coming out through the other side, it feels much better.

So. To Margaras. To grouchy lynxes. To shame, to mistakes, and to maturity. And hey, until next time,

A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I knew a lynx in Kalamazoo…

Everything’s O.K-A-L-A-M-A-Z-O-Oh what a lynx in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo-zoo”

Remembering alt.lifestyle.furry is an essay in three parts. This is part three.

In reading the words of alt.lifestyle.furry participants, one may observe that the newsgroup had become a place where many felt safe in the telling of their profound feelings of personal animal identity and experiences of mental transformations. Popular culture often denigrates the authenticity and validity of spiritual or mystic experiences, so it was a brave effort for some to share their stories. Here is more of their conversation.

Lion said…

“…I have an extremely personal note that I shared in email with a couple of furries, and one suggested I share it with the world. I feel strangely nervous about it, but my feelings have been greeted kindly in the past, so…here goes…

 

I am no master of the mystic or anything, but…I think I’ve had a spiritual experience (and by that I mean I don’t think I’ve grasped the full profoundness of it yet). Like I’ve said in the past, a little over a month ago this lion just suddenly grabbed me. I felt his form surrounding mine. I could picture myself as him, and it gave me new confidence n dealing with other people. It was thrilling to envision taking on his form…my heart stopped when, for one too-brief moment, I actually looked at my feet and saw paws. The physical nature of this union is not always as strong now–and how I miss it!–but I feel like the lion’s spirit has been united (re-united?) with mine. I started out thinking I was indulging in fantasy, but I don’t think so anymore. Has anybody ever felt this way?”

 

A replied to Lion, saying…

“I haven’t experienced that effect visually, but I frequently experience it kinesthetically. The first time it happened I was about 12 years old and I was riding in a car in rural Colorado… I happened to see a horse grazing, and suddenly my kinesthetic sense was no longer my own, but rather that of the horse. I think this may be somewhat similar to the “ghost limbs” frequently reported by amputees. I’ve felt it many more times since then with many different animal species, and in fact I find I can bring it on deliberately rather easily now, at least with mammals.”

 

TG replied to them both, saying…

“What you’ve described does seem like a genuinely mystical experience- not that I’d really know, though. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, though it seems to remind me of something someone else once described to me. I don’t remember who it was. All I can say is it’s impossible to escape the sense of healthfulness and positiveness which seems to glow from your description. Whatever journey you’re on, it sounds like a good one, and I’m a little jealous. Most of all it reminds me that there’s more out there than we know about, which always re-assures me, for some reason.”

 

Lion said again…

“All I can say is it feels like a good journey. I am so thankful God has blessed me like this. And why shouldn’t it be reassuring that there is more out there than we know? If it wasn’t for faith and hope, I wouldn’t be here now. (And if you read into that a meaning in addition to here in alt.lifestyle.furry, you’re right.)”

 

Wolf spoke. . .

“Yay! to both of you. It’s really different when you gain a whole new viewpoint in another kind of body. Don’t be afraid down the road, Lion. Such a thing can grow on you. The know of wolf-thought is seldom far from me- most of the time. Now that you’ve experienced it, let it ride you from time to time, in a safe environment where you won’t get hurt as you “ken” (Scottish: “to know”) the feel of lion in and around you. A friend of mine has puma as her “totem” and she can slip into the mindset at the drop of a hat. I’ve a way to go yet to be able to do that with wolf (big, tongue-lolling grin).

 

A, I’m envious of you. Being able to slip into various mammals is a rarity. Unless it’s a way for you to try on several different feels until the one meant for you really hits. (Or do you have one in particular?) If you do have your true animal, then work to keep this gift active. Like I said, it’s a rare homo sap who can do the old shamanic mind-dance and take on any animal and be them for a time. Just take precautions to keep from getting lost in that state of mind. Sometimes it’s real tempting to not come back.”

 

Lion replied to Wolf…

“The only thing I was afraid of was not being understood. I feel that you understand very well what I am experiencing, and I’m thrilled to not only be accepted but to know others have similar experiences. I long for the chance to “ken” the lion–there are far to many distractions every day. These distractions put food on the table, but it seems like a waste of my effort in exchange for a paycheck. I really want to commune with the lion, talk with other furries, live, love, laugh, and be happy and slip into bits of old songs on occasion.”

 

M interjected…

<The manticore bounces happily at this thread>

 

“Yes! That’s it exactly!

 

I can’t recall if I ever posted the story of my Transformation here; blame it on my age-calcified brain if you like. But that sudden all-enveloping sense of rightness and homecoming is exactly what I felt when T. and I stood face-to-face in my mind’s eye.

 

That first time was about a year and a half ago; since then his presence has grown so strong that, in all important respects other than physically, I’ve become him. I think of myself as T, I see him in the mirror (a very odd experience, let me tell you); sometimes I even feel as if I’m about to shift, to take his form for real.

 

Darn it, it all make me so blasted happy to be this way! But I wish I had discovered it much earlier; it is a bit disconcerting to have one’s life change so radically…”

 

Platypus remarked…

I’ve had similar things happen, for a few brief seconds I feel as if I have a tail. Such moments are treasured.

 

U spoke…

“I don’t believe my experience was any great union, but it was a vision or something–maybe just a feeling of connectivity with things.

 

I was in Montana at field camp and out hiking at night. It was a full moon, and cloudy. The moon was bright enough that it actually created moonbeams where it peeked through the clouds. I cam upon a clearing where one of these moonbeams was actually illuminating the area. As I stepped into the light, I had…a vision…feeling…I dunno, of being a dragon high in the clouds. I could almost see myself in the clearing below. I heard a voice. I’ve forgotten the exact wording, but it said something like “between the light and the land it lies.”

 

Now I don’t believe dragons ever physically existed, but I do know that the dragon in many cultures is the personification of the earth energies. I feel the experience was partly generated by outside forces, but much of the imagery might have been my own subconscious interpreting things in a way I could understand. I’ve always felt a strong connection with nature (and, hence, animals), but it has always been stronger since that experience. I also feel fortunate in that I think the experience gave me the opportunity to experience the sensation of of unaided flight.”

 

M said:

“…the way it was for me; a revelatory experience that somewhere crosses into the mystical or religious. You end up sitting around, grinning a lot, because the thing’s so damned wonderful when it happens…

 

…When it happened to me, I was under the impression that it was something kinda unique (and, because of my innate rationalism, therefore suspect) but lately there have been a lot of posts from furrys who have undergone the same kind of experience, and that really does assure me that what happened was really real.

 

…Finding the key, the trigger, however you see it, isn’t impossible, and I doubt there any one particular way to do it. Indeed, I believe that it’s something you find by chance when the circumstances are right.”

 

TG spoke again, saying:

“I think it’s a mistake to imply that furriness is something which people need to “grow beyond”, in the sense of giving up childish things. In many cases furries do not grow into their sense of furriness until way, way, past adolescence. I know furries who didn’t really recognise that aspect of themselves until they were around 50, and the experience seems to have been a joyous, healthful one rather than some kind of retreat from reality. I certainly agree that we need to pay at the very least an adequate amount of attention to RL, but there are innumerable ways to be furry depending on the individual in question, and relatively few of them, IMO, appear to involve a denial of reality. I would be more inclined to say that they involve an acknowledgment of aspects of self which have been suppressed, or not apparent previously, and a willingness to explore those aspects. To me the journey is towards integration and self-discovery, not isolation.”

 

What I have presented to you in this essay is a small part of the story of the alt.lifestyle.furry newsgroup from its inception in 1996 until it began to decline in activity and participation, perhaps around 2005. There are many more stories contained in the archive of alt.lifestyle.furry, some of them good, and some not so cheerful. It is my opinion that the characteristics that defined alt.lifestyle.furry remain at large in the furry community today. Do some contemporary furries have the same feelings and experiences that these alt.lifestyle.furry participants had? My casual examination of furry internet forums suggests to me that they do. Will we ever again see a coming-together as they did back then?

Thank you, founders of alt.lifestyle.furry and all other furries who shared their light with the community. Please let me conclude now with my favorite quotation from one of the founders of alt.lifestyle.furry, Tim Gadd.

“The happiest furries I know are the ones who embrace their identity rather than rejecting or suppressing it. Of course that identity may reveal itself piece by piece. I’ve been furry for a long time, but in certain ways I’m only beginning to really examine what my own individual brand of furriness is. I’m sure that the direction you’re headed is positive and right for you. No-one can say there won’t be bumps on the way, but I’m sure the trend is upwards :)”

Remembering alt.lifestyle.furry is an essay in three parts. This is part three.

In reading the words of alt.lifestyle.furry participants, one may observe that the newsgroup had become a place where many felt safe in the telling of their profound feelings of personal animal identity and experiences of mental transformations. Popular culture often denigrates the authenticity and validity of spiritual or mystic experiences, so it was a brave effort for some to share their stories. Here is more of their conversation.

Lion said…

“…I have an extremely personal note that I shared in email with a couple of furries, and one suggested I share it with the world. I feel strangely nervous about it, but my feelings have been greeted kindly in the past, so…here goes…

 

I am no master of the mystic or anything, but…I think I’ve had a spiritual experience (and by that I mean I don’t think I’ve grasped the full profoundness of it yet). Like I’ve said in the past, a little over a month ago this lion just suddenly grabbed me. I felt his form surrounding mine. I could picture myself as him, and it gave me new confidence n dealing with other people. It was thrilling to envision taking on his form…my heart stopped when, for one too-brief moment, I actually looked at my feet and saw paws. The physical nature of this union is not always as strong now–and how I miss it!–but I feel like the lion’s spirit has been united (re-united?) with mine. I started out thinking I was indulging in fantasy, but I don’t think so anymore. Has anybody ever felt this way?”

 

A replied to Lion, saying…

“I haven’t experienced that effect visually, but I frequently experience it kinesthetically. The first time it happened I was about 12 years old and I was riding in a car in rural Colorado… I happened to see a horse grazing, and suddenly my kinesthetic sense was no longer my own, but rather that of the horse. I think this may be somewhat similar to the “ghost limbs” frequently reported by amputees. I’ve felt it many more times since then with many different animal species, and in fact I find I can bring it on deliberately rather easily now, at least with mammals.”

 

TG replied to them both, saying…

“What you’ve described does seem like a genuinely mystical experience- not that I’d really know, though. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, though it seems to remind me of something someone else once described to me. I don’t remember who it was. All I can say is it’s impossible to escape the sense of healthfulness and positiveness which seems to glow from your description. Whatever journey you’re on, it sounds like a good one, and I’m a little jealous. Most of all it reminds me that there’s more out there than we know about, which always re-assures me, for some reason.”

 

Lion said again…

“All I can say is it feels like a good journey. I am so thankful God has blessed me like this. And why shouldn’t it be reassuring that there is more out there than we know? If it wasn’t for faith and hope, I wouldn’t be here now. (And if you read into that a meaning in addition to here in alt.lifestyle.furry, you’re right.)”

 

Wolf spoke. . .

“Yay! to both of you. It’s really different when you gain a whole new viewpoint in another kind of body. Don’t be afraid down the road, Lion. Such a thing can grow on you. The know of wolf-thought is seldom far from me- most of the time. Now that you’ve experienced it, let it ride you from time to time, in a safe environment where you won’t get hurt as you “ken” (Scottish: “to know”) the feel of lion in and around you. A friend of mine has puma as her “totem” and she can slip into the mindset at the drop of a hat. I’ve a way to go yet to be able to do that with wolf (big, tongue-lolling grin).

 

A, I’m envious of you. Being able to slip into various mammals is a rarity. Unless it’s a way for you to try on several different feels until the one meant for you really hits. (Or do you have one in particular?) If you do have your true animal, then work to keep this gift active. Like I said, it’s a rare homo sap who can do the old shamanic mind-dance and take on any animal and be them for a time. Just take precautions to keep from getting lost in that state of mind. Sometimes it’s real tempting to not come back.”

 

Lion replied to Wolf…

“The only thing I was afraid of was not being understood. I feel that you understand very well what I am experiencing, and I’m thrilled to not only be accepted but to know others have similar experiences. I long for the chance to “ken” the lion–there are far to many distractions every day. These distractions put food on the table, but it seems like a waste of my effort in exchange for a paycheck. I really want to commune with the lion, talk with other furries, live, love, laugh, and be happy and slip into bits of old songs on occasion.”

 

M interjected…

<The manticore bounces happily at this thread>

 

“Yes! That’s it exactly!

 

I can’t recall if I ever posted the story of my Transformation here; blame it on my age-calcified brain if you like. But that sudden all-enveloping sense of rightness and homecoming is exactly what I felt when T. and I stood face-to-face in my mind’s eye.

 

That first time was about a year and a half ago; since then his presence has grown so strong that, in all important respects other than physically, I’ve become him. I think of myself as T, I see him in the mirror (a very odd experience, let me tell you); sometimes I even feel as if I’m about to shift, to take his form for real.

 

Darn it, it all make me so blasted happy to be this way! But I wish I had discovered it much earlier; it is a bit disconcerting to have one’s life change so radically…”

 

Platypus remarked…

I’ve had similar things happen, for a few brief seconds I feel as if I have a tail. Such moments are treasured.

 

U spoke…

“I don’t believe my experience was any great union, but it was a vision or something–maybe just a feeling of connectivity with things.

 

I was in Montana at field camp and out hiking at night. It was a full moon, and cloudy. The moon was bright enough that it actually created moonbeams where it peeked through the clouds. I cam upon a clearing where one of these moonbeams was actually illuminating the area. As I stepped into the light, I had…a vision…feeling…I dunno, of being a dragon high in the clouds. I could almost see myself in the clearing below. I heard a voice. I’ve forgotten the exact wording, but it said something like “between the light and the land it lies.”

 

Now I don’t believe dragons ever physically existed, but I do know that the dragon in many cultures is the personification of the earth energies. I feel the experience was partly generated by outside forces, but much of the imagery might have been my own subconscious interpreting things in a way I could understand. I’ve always felt a strong connection with nature (and, hence, animals), but it has always been stronger since that experience. I also feel fortunate in that I think the experience gave me the opportunity to experience the sensation of of unaided flight.”

 

M said:

“…the way it was for me; a revelatory experience that somewhere crosses into the mystical or religious. You end up sitting around, grinning a lot, because the thing’s so damned wonderful when it happens…

 

…When it happened to me, I was under the impression that it was something kinda unique (and, because of my innate rationalism, therefore suspect) but lately there have been a lot of posts from furrys who have undergone the same kind of experience, and that really does assure me that what happened was really real.

 

…Finding the key, the trigger, however you see it, isn’t impossible, and I doubt there any one particular way to do it. Indeed, I believe that it’s something you find by chance when the circumstances are right.”

 

TG spoke again, saying:

“I think it’s a mistake to imply that furriness is something which people need to “grow beyond”, in the sense of giving up childish things. In many cases furries do not grow into their sense of furriness until way, way, past adolescence. I know furries who didn’t really recognise that aspect of themselves until they were around 50, and the experience seems to have been a joyous, healthful one rather than some kind of retreat from reality. I certainly agree that we need to pay at the very least an adequate amount of attention to RL, but there are innumerable ways to be furry depending on the individual in question, and relatively few of them, IMO, appear to involve a denial of reality. I would be more inclined to say that they involve an acknowledgment of aspects of self which have been suppressed, or not apparent previously, and a willingness to explore those aspects. To me the journey is towards integration and self-discovery, not isolation.”

 

What I have presented to you in this essay is a small part of the story of the alt.lifestyle.furry newsgroup from its inception in 1996 until it began to decline in activity and participation, perhaps around 2005. There are many more stories contained in the archive of alt.lifestyle.furry, some of them good, and some not so cheerful. It is my opinion that the characteristics that defined alt.lifestyle.furry remain at large in the furry community today. Do some contemporary furries have the same feelings and experiences that these alt.lifestyle.furry participants had? My casual examination of furry internet forums suggests to me that they do. Will we ever again see a coming-together as they did back then?

Thank you, founders of alt.lifestyle.furry and all other furries who shared their light with the community. Please let me conclude now with my favorite quotation from one of the founders of alt.lifestyle.furry, Tim Gadd.

“The happiest furries I know are the ones who embrace their identity rather than rejecting or suppressing it. Of course that identity may reveal itself piece by piece. I’ve been furry for a long time, but in certain ways I’m only beginning to really examine what my own individual brand of furriness is. I’m sure that the direction you’re headed is positive and right for you. No-one can say there won’t be bumps on the way, but I’m sure the trend is upwards :)”

Remembering alt.lifestyle.furry is an essay in three parts. This is part two.

When one looks back on the sincerity and passion for furry life that many participants on alt.lifestyle.furry expressed, we may not be surprised that religion eventually became a topic of discussion. In fact the alt.lifestyle.furry FAQ specifically addressed religion in Part 3 (Appropriate and inappropriate topics), point number four. Briefly excerpted it said,

“For many furries, furry spirituality and religion are inseperable topics… we would like to assure everyone that it is ok to mention your religious beliefs here… if you believe they are important to your personal sense of furriness.”

Here are some voices from an extended discussion about religion and dignity.

F said:

“Okay, I have a serious question about the whole furry sub-culture. When I compare the peer group I’ve had up until last year (namely the church) with the peer group I have now, there’s one big positive and one big negative that stands out.

 

On the positive side, furries are much more open-minded and tolerant, while my old group had narrow guidelines for “right” and “wrong”, and if you were outside those lines they very quickly distanced themselves from you. However, there’s a big negative that stands out too. My old group had far more dignity. They had much stronger mutual respect and admiration for an individual’s personal struggle to live ‘a better life’. They had loftier ideals (right or wrong), and they spent their lives pursuing them. They spent far more time trying to strengthen each other’s ideals, and individuals who tried to weaken other’s ideals (ie. seduction) were not tolerated, whereas I’ve seen lots of otherwise nice furries who live by “If it feels good, and you have informed consent, do it”, irregardless of whether their partner will be emotionally hurt as a result.

 

Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m *NOT* saying that furries don’t have these things (I can think of examples of furs who do), but they *are* far less common in comparison.

 

So, here’s my question: Is this because my old peer group was stronger than average in this area, or is it because furries are weaker than average, or is it a combination of both? I have only my own life experiences to look at, and I’d like to hear others opinions. Anyway, I’d say more, but I want to hear some responses first. And please, I’m not trying to be a jerk, this is something I really want to figure out…”

 

FoxR replied to him, saying:

“Think about it and you will see the question almost answers itself. Church goers compared to an oft-misunderstood subculture. Hmm, I would think the answer is ‘both’ then. On a side note, reguarding church people being judgemental; not all are. At my church, many people know I am zoo, yet don’t shrink away as though the sight of me burnt their eyes. They even pray with me that the Lord might take away my desire for animals.

 

Then take CFox for example, another Christian who, although he surely seems to hold himself to a high moral code of conduct, doesn’t judge. Surely he has his limits, but I believe that he is very open to befriending those who aren’t on the same page as him…after all, he’s a furiend I count among the closest of my own, yet look at me? I am far from the image of a traditional Christian. Hope that helped a bit?”

 

CFox replied:

“It’s probably a combination of both. Many furs whom I personally know have rejected the Church because they were austricized by it. Furry is a tough culture to deal with if you are a religious person. I don’t think the furs were weaker, as much as some of the Churches that they went to – might have been weaker at accepting those not like themselves. It’s hard when you’ve been “judged” by some, to realize that one church does not a religion or The Church” make. Unfortunately, in some communities… one church is all you get… and one set of parents is what you have to cope with. And too, how much should religions be asked to accept? Some churches need to be strict for those weak of faith or will…. others, more tolerant for those who need to be accepted… and there are still those who help those who have fallen, or entered difficult times, regain their footing.

 

How much difference is too much? When does it turn from “Sin” to “In?” And too, we have to be careful, else we end up with the idea that we rationalize away our own morality completely… that it becomes okie to kill, maim, steal, or be contemptuous – in order just to get ahead. That’s a personal choice to make, and my own personal choice to not be friends with anyone whocares to do those things or like things on a regular basis. Heh, because at some point you are seen by others as by the company you keep… and too…given time your true colors will be shown for what you are, and how you handle yourself.

 

Too, for some furs, Churches and Religion just won’t go together with their furry personaes. That’s their choice, and their decisions to deal with. I’ve know some good furs, and not so good furs have their share of difficulties with the Church and on clashes with important Religious issues. They deal with theirs just as I must deal with my own issues and concerns. Just as a church must cope with the ever changing societal requirements for being above any moral code of conduct. For me, I have little conflict remaining… and most of who I am I place here for all to read. And while I appreciate Renegade’s vote of furiendship… I’m certainly no saint. I do hold myself up to a higher moral standard… because I want to,and because I can. I also won’t cowtow to those who judge me or accuse me of things I never did, just because they feel the need to climb on a soap box and point a pawdigit. And yes, I screw up. Know what… that’s part of the great part of life…. We screw up from time to time! Sometimes it’s taking a risk… or stepping out to be seen. I don’t mind being questioned as much as I used to… it’s expected. It’s natural. I look for understanding in myself first, and as a Christian, I look for guidance from a source that’s well known to me. Whom I respect as a peer. Then if needed, I’ll share what I know. I don’t take things at face value very often, and yet I’m sometimes an Eternal Optimist. I don’t always make it… but at least I try. I’m probably a stuffed shirt to a number of furs… to others, I’m probably an enigma, a cypher, and even a falsehood. That’s fine. I tried to find the all amazing hug fest in the Church and in Furry… and it’s not in either place. Dignity is inside… we all have it. And with furry, it doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, how much money you make, who you sleep with… and allows you sometimes more dignity than a church might… and too… it sometimes fails to give you guidance and understanding of how to maintain that inner dignity. Worse, it sometimes asks you to shed it, just for the sake of being furry. And remember, no one can give you your dignity… they can just take it away if you let them… or you just can’t stop them.

 

IMHO, Look at the Lion, the Tiger…. Dignity, thy name be roared from those majestic muzzles. Grace and Speed, look to the Cheetah and the Gazelle. Strength… who could hold against a bear? And for slyness and guile…well… *sly fox grin*… we like to pounce and have a good time too. Yet too, each one can be kind and gentle… if they want to be.

 

Still the name, and the place you hold… is your own doing, and by your own paw.”

 

SFox entered his comments:

“As one who knows what F is talking about, the support of organized religions for the morals and dignity of it’s parishioners after seeing that growing up as an active member of my own church. Yet, even knowing this I shied away from it, during personal times of crisis, or just put on a fake facade. Thus my fight with God began.

 

The furry community feels like it has that kind of support, but being that the community is so detached from one another through the great wonder called the internet, it just doesn’t have the depth and resource that can match that of a conventional “Church” of people. Physical people who can touch you in the truest meaning of the word. People you see every week or just on the street, bound in a common, accepted belief. Man is a social creature and while the internet gives us the illusion of social contact…the brain is not fooled by it. Your average church has a leader. A person not only trained in the scripture, but also in people. They’re almost, if not actually, a social worker. They’re best qualities are helping folks to rise above their hurdles and rejoice in times of good fortune. They are, most of them, fine people doing a fine job. I miss them.

 

The furry church, because the term is applicable, has no discernable leader. It has folks who are held in esteem, but generally there is no one furson at the top to guide and direct. So the church is headless and tends to wander amorphously.

 

Now each of these esteemed personalities have different ways of pursuing life. Each one has their own spin on furry and advocate different ways of living out the lifestyle to those who seek out their help and advice. These fursons are often untrained in how to understand the cognative functions of man and offer guidance by personal experience rather than clinical research. Also, the internet spawns a certain amount of anonymity both on the part of those in search of help and those giving it. It’s very easy to tell someone hundreds or thousands of miles away to “Do what feels good and to heck with anyone who stands in your way.” It’s also hard to offer true help to someone who’s not standing in front of you and only gives out what he/she is comfortable sharing. It makes it real easy to hand out erroneous information based on that kind of relationship.

 

The lack of frequent physical, flesh and blood, gatherings seriously limits the ability of the furry community to equal that of religion to serve in the same capacities. While furry tries, the simple lack of meaningful human contact stymies our benevolent efforts. Being one of the furs who feels disconnected to modern religion and can’t really find the courage to embrace alternative ones as fully as I would like, I find myself in an uncomfortable limbo, belonging to nothing. There was a special feeling that’s not present since I’ve again stopped attending church. I live in secrecy and worry now in my neighborhood and town. Worried that I will be found out and the whispering that may go on behind my back. I used to be able to walk down the streets with my head high, confident that I was an acceptable member of society. Now I avoid contact and social interaction in town.

 

I’m at a loss at what to do anymore…I understand furry for what it is, and my faith in religion is so shaken that I really don’t have the support structure I need to maintain more than just my dignity, but my self-respect, self-esteem and confidence that I’m living right. I depend on myself…and that’s not enough. Furry is less organized and has an illusionary foundation which causes it to fail more often when compared to the neighborhood church of any denomination.

 

That’s my spin on things.”

 

 OZ said:

“Among furries, interest seems to be focused on animals, while at the hurch, it is focused on the Bible. These are not contradictory interests, but they do produce differing philosophies. In the church, ‘leading a better life,’ has a somewhat specific definition in itself, which is not universal across other groups. ‘Leading a better life’ may be important to furries as well, but that furries have their own idea of what a ‘better life’ is, and it is not dictated by the furry philosophy to make sure others change their lives to meet this ideal. In other words, different groups such as the Church and the Furries simply have different priorities and values.

 

In order to strengthen each other’s ideals there has to be agreement within the group on what the ideals that should be strengthened are, and assume that it is the duty of group members to reinforce those ideals in each other and oppose those who would weaken the ideals.

 

The furries you refer to, in attempting to embrace the ideal of tolerance of a diverse community, have a very small set of other ideals in common, and don’t tend to support the practice of imposing one’s standards on others. This leads to a certain amount of anarchy (and a reasonable argument that furries don’t really constitute a community, but a simply a number of people with somewhat related interests).”

 

ARGriffin said:

“What I’d like to add:

 

Furry spans across many religions and nationalities. If Furry was to rigidly define rights and wrongs as do religions and constitutions, then Furry itself would become like a religion or a nation. It would basically become a cult. We don’t want that! Part of being tolerant means not encroaching on others’ religious or constitutional beliefs.

 

All furries are united by their animal identities and general respect for animals. Outside of that, we are all very different from each other, practicing different faiths and abiding to different nations. It is therefore unrealistic to expect the same kind of “togetherness” among furries that you see among individuals of the same faith, such as at a church.”

 

Lion continued the discussion with:

(Quoting from F, above) : “So, here’s my question: Is this because my old peer group was stronger than average in this area, or is it because furries are weaker than average, or is it a combination of both? I have only my own life experiences to look at, and I’d like to hear others opinions.”

 

Well, still having a foot in both worlds I’ll take a crack at this. It’s personal opinion but it might give you some insights or trigger something for you. I think that the church group was more focused and thus able to evaluate who and what they were more easily. They could look at what they did, who they were, how they acted and compare that to the expectation of their teaching and say ‘yes we’re on the path’ or ‘no we’re drifting’. Because of this it was easier for them to hold their heads up and take stock in who they were or to look at others and respect them or acknowledge that they were following the path.

 

Furries are far more diverse and there are so many different paths that it is not easy to say who’s right or wrong, doing good or getting lost. In part I think our openness is what allows us to exist together with all this diversity and not be constantly ripping each other apart. As you have said there are those in the furry community that have dignity and strive for very high ideals in their lives. One of the areas that I’m heavily involved in is fursuiting and I can tell you that for some furs in that group there is a tremendous amount of dignity and desire to do good. So much so that it would rival some church groups I know of.

 

So I would have to say that your answer is a combination of both. Each has weakness and strength but each also has potential for doing great good and helping other members to grow.

 

Furry does carry with it certain baggage that is hard for certain churches and religious groups to follow. I’ve got to say at first I didn’t even look at this because I was just too excited about having found others who felt the connection with animals I felt. It was only after the fact (after I was hooked you might say) that I took the time to see the conflicts. It took time but I resolved the conflict to a level I am comfortable with. . . . So yes religion can pose big problems (and dangers) to a person who is religious. But it is possible and I must say I’ve had great success in the past of helping others see that its not a matter of being furry or religious but that its a matter of finding the blend that works for each of us.

 

Remembering alt.lifestyle.furry is an essay in three parts. This is part two.

When one looks back on the sincerity and passion for furry life that many participants on alt.lifestyle.furry expressed, we may not be surprised that religion eventually became a topic of discussion. In fact the alt.lifestyle.furry FAQ specifically addressed religion in Part 3 (Appropriate and inappropriate topics), point number four. Briefly excerpted it said,

“For many furries, furry spirituality and religion are inseperable topics… we would like to assure everyone that it is ok to mention your religious beliefs here… if you believe they are important to your personal sense of furriness.”

Here are some voices from an extended discussion about religion and dignity.

F said:

“Okay, I have a serious question about the whole furry sub-culture. When I compare the peer group I’ve had up until last year (namely the church) with the peer group I have now, there’s one big positive and one big negative that stands out.

 

On the positive side, furries are much more open-minded and tolerant, while my old group had narrow guidelines for “right” and “wrong”, and if you were outside those lines they very quickly distanced themselves from you. However, there’s a big negative that stands out too. My old group had far more dignity. They had much stronger mutual respect and admiration for an individual’s personal struggle to live ‘a better life’. They had loftier ideals (right or wrong), and they spent their lives pursuing them. They spent far more time trying to strengthen each other’s ideals, and individuals who tried to weaken other’s ideals (ie. seduction) were not tolerated, whereas I’ve seen lots of otherwise nice furries who live by “If it feels good, and you have informed consent, do it”, irregardless of whether their partner will be emotionally hurt as a result.

 

Please don’t misunderstand me: I’m *NOT* saying that furries don’t have these things (I can think of examples of furs who do), but they *are* far less common in comparison.

 

So, here’s my question: Is this because my old peer group was stronger than average in this area, or is it because furries are weaker than average, or is it a combination of both? I have only my own life experiences to look at, and I’d like to hear others opinions. Anyway, I’d say more, but I want to hear some responses first. And please, I’m not trying to be a jerk, this is something I really want to figure out…”

 

FoxR replied to him, saying:

“Think about it and you will see the question almost answers itself. Church goers compared to an oft-misunderstood subculture. Hmm, I would think the answer is ‘both’ then. On a side note, reguarding church people being judgemental; not all are. At my church, many people know I am zoo, yet don’t shrink away as though the sight of me burnt their eyes. They even pray with me that the Lord might take away my desire for animals.

 

Then take CFox for example, another Christian who, although he surely seems to hold himself to a high moral code of conduct, doesn’t judge. Surely he has his limits, but I believe that he is very open to befriending those who aren’t on the same page as him…after all, he’s a furiend I count among the closest of my own, yet look at me? I am far from the image of a traditional Christian. Hope that helped a bit?”

 

CFox replied:

“It’s probably a combination of both. Many furs whom I personally know have rejected the Church because they were austricized by it. Furry is a tough culture to deal with if you are a religious person. I don’t think the furs were weaker, as much as some of the Churches that they went to – might have been weaker at accepting those not like themselves. It’s hard when you’ve been “judged” by some, to realize that one church does not a religion or The Church” make. Unfortunately, in some communities… one church is all you get… and one set of parents is what you have to cope with. And too, how much should religions be asked to accept? Some churches need to be strict for those weak of faith or will…. others, more tolerant for those who need to be accepted… and there are still those who help those who have fallen, or entered difficult times, regain their footing.

 

How much difference is too much? When does it turn from “Sin” to “In?” And too, we have to be careful, else we end up with the idea that we rationalize away our own morality completely… that it becomes okie to kill, maim, steal, or be contemptuous – in order just to get ahead. That’s a personal choice to make, and my own personal choice to not be friends with anyone whocares to do those things or like things on a regular basis. Heh, because at some point you are seen by others as by the company you keep… and too…given time your true colors will be shown for what you are, and how you handle yourself.

 

Too, for some furs, Churches and Religion just won’t go together with their furry personaes. That’s their choice, and their decisions to deal with. I’ve know some good furs, and not so good furs have their share of difficulties with the Church and on clashes with important Religious issues. They deal with theirs just as I must deal with my own issues and concerns. Just as a church must cope with the ever changing societal requirements for being above any moral code of conduct. For me, I have little conflict remaining… and most of who I am I place here for all to read. And while I appreciate Renegade’s vote of furiendship… I’m certainly no saint. I do hold myself up to a higher moral standard… because I want to,and because I can. I also won’t cowtow to those who judge me or accuse me of things I never did, just because they feel the need to climb on a soap box and point a pawdigit. And yes, I screw up. Know what… that’s part of the great part of life…. We screw up from time to time! Sometimes it’s taking a risk… or stepping out to be seen. I don’t mind being questioned as much as I used to… it’s expected. It’s natural. I look for understanding in myself first, and as a Christian, I look for guidance from a source that’s well known to me. Whom I respect as a peer. Then if needed, I’ll share what I know. I don’t take things at face value very often, and yet I’m sometimes an Eternal Optimist. I don’t always make it… but at least I try. I’m probably a stuffed shirt to a number of furs… to others, I’m probably an enigma, a cypher, and even a falsehood. That’s fine. I tried to find the all amazing hug fest in the Church and in Furry… and it’s not in either place. Dignity is inside… we all have it. And with furry, it doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, how much money you make, who you sleep with… and allows you sometimes more dignity than a church might… and too… it sometimes fails to give you guidance and understanding of how to maintain that inner dignity. Worse, it sometimes asks you to shed it, just for the sake of being furry. And remember, no one can give you your dignity… they can just take it away if you let them… or you just can’t stop them.

 

IMHO, Look at the Lion, the Tiger…. Dignity, thy name be roared from those majestic muzzles. Grace and Speed, look to the Cheetah and the Gazelle. Strength… who could hold against a bear? And for slyness and guile…well… *sly fox grin*… we like to pounce and have a good time too. Yet too, each one can be kind and gentle… if they want to be.

 

Still the name, and the place you hold… is your own doing, and by your own paw.”

 

SFox entered his comments:

“As one who knows what F is talking about, the support of organized religions for the morals and dignity of it’s parishioners after seeing that growing up as an active member of my own church. Yet, even knowing this I shied away from it, during personal times of crisis, or just put on a fake facade. Thus my fight with God began.

 

The furry community feels like it has that kind of support, but being that the community is so detached from one another through the great wonder called the internet, it just doesn’t have the depth and resource that can match that of a conventional “Church” of people. Physical people who can touch you in the truest meaning of the word. People you see every week or just on the street, bound in a common, accepted belief. Man is a social creature and while the internet gives us the illusion of social contact…the brain is not fooled by it. Your average church has a leader. A person not only trained in the scripture, but also in people. They’re almost, if not actually, a social worker. They’re best qualities are helping folks to rise above their hurdles and rejoice in times of good fortune. They are, most of them, fine people doing a fine job. I miss them.

 

The furry church, because the term is applicable, has no discernable leader. It has folks who are held in esteem, but generally there is no one furson at the top to guide and direct. So the church is headless and tends to wander amorphously.

 

Now each of these esteemed personalities have different ways of pursuing life. Each one has their own spin on furry and advocate different ways of living out the lifestyle to those who seek out their help and advice. These fursons are often untrained in how to understand the cognative functions of man and offer guidance by personal experience rather than clinical research. Also, the internet spawns a certain amount of anonymity both on the part of those in search of help and those giving it. It’s very easy to tell someone hundreds or thousands of miles away to “Do what feels good and to heck with anyone who stands in your way.” It’s also hard to offer true help to someone who’s not standing in front of you and only gives out what he/she is comfortable sharing. It makes it real easy to hand out erroneous information based on that kind of relationship.

 

The lack of frequent physical, flesh and blood, gatherings seriously limits the ability of the furry community to equal that of religion to serve in the same capacities. While furry tries, the simple lack of meaningful human contact stymies our benevolent efforts. Being one of the furs who feels disconnected to modern religion and can’t really find the courage to embrace alternative ones as fully as I would like, I find myself in an uncomfortable limbo, belonging to nothing. There was a special feeling that’s not present since I’ve again stopped attending church. I live in secrecy and worry now in my neighborhood and town. Worried that I will be found out and the whispering that may go on behind my back. I used to be able to walk down the streets with my head high, confident that I was an acceptable member of society. Now I avoid contact and social interaction in town.

 

I’m at a loss at what to do anymore…I understand furry for what it is, and my faith in religion is so shaken that I really don’t have the support structure I need to maintain more than just my dignity, but my self-respect, self-esteem and confidence that I’m living right. I depend on myself…and that’s not enough. Furry is less organized and has an illusionary foundation which causes it to fail more often when compared to the neighborhood church of any denomination.

 

That’s my spin on things.”

 

 OZ said:

“Among furries, interest seems to be focused on animals, while at the hurch, it is focused on the Bible. These are not contradictory interests, but they do produce differing philosophies. In the church, ‘leading a better life,’ has a somewhat specific definition in itself, which is not universal across other groups. ‘Leading a better life’ may be important to furries as well, but that furries have their own idea of what a ‘better life’ is, and it is not dictated by the furry philosophy to make sure others change their lives to meet this ideal. In other words, different groups such as the Church and the Furries simply have different priorities and values.

 

In order to strengthen each other’s ideals there has to be agreement within the group on what the ideals that should be strengthened are, and assume that it is the duty of group members to reinforce those ideals in each other and oppose those who would weaken the ideals.

 

The furries you refer to, in attempting to embrace the ideal of tolerance of a diverse community, have a very small set of other ideals in common, and don’t tend to support the practice of imposing one’s standards on others. This leads to a certain amount of anarchy (and a reasonable argument that furries don’t really constitute a community, but a simply a number of people with somewhat related interests).”

 

ARGriffin said:

“What I’d like to add:

 

Furry spans across many religions and nationalities. If Furry was to rigidly define rights and wrongs as do religions and constitutions, then Furry itself would become like a religion or a nation. It would basically become a cult. We don’t want that! Part of being tolerant means not encroaching on others’ religious or constitutional beliefs.

 

All furries are united by their animal identities and general respect for animals. Outside of that, we are all very different from each other, practicing different faiths and abiding to different nations. It is therefore unrealistic to expect the same kind of “togetherness” among furries that you see among individuals of the same faith, such as at a church.”

 

Lion continued the discussion with:

(Quoting from F, above) : “So, here’s my question: Is this because my old peer group was stronger than average in this area, or is it because furries are weaker than average, or is it a combination of both? I have only my own life experiences to look at, and I’d like to hear others opinions.”

 

Well, still having a foot in both worlds I’ll take a crack at this. It’s personal opinion but it might give you some insights or trigger something for you. I think that the church group was more focused and thus able to evaluate who and what they were more easily. They could look at what they did, who they were, how they acted and compare that to the expectation of their teaching and say ‘yes we’re on the path’ or ‘no we’re drifting’. Because of this it was easier for them to hold their heads up and take stock in who they were or to look at others and respect them or acknowledge that they were following the path.

 

Furries are far more diverse and there are so many different paths that it is not easy to say who’s right or wrong, doing good or getting lost. In part I think our openness is what allows us to exist together with all this diversity and not be constantly ripping each other apart. As you have said there are those in the furry community that have dignity and strive for very high ideals in their lives. One of the areas that I’m heavily involved in is fursuiting and I can tell you that for some furs in that group there is a tremendous amount of dignity and desire to do good. So much so that it would rival some church groups I know of.

 

So I would have to say that your answer is a combination of both. Each has weakness and strength but each also has potential for doing great good and helping other members to grow.

 

Furry does carry with it certain baggage that is hard for certain churches and religious groups to follow. I’ve got to say at first I didn’t even look at this because I was just too excited about having found others who felt the connection with animals I felt. It was only after the fact (after I was hooked you might say) that I took the time to see the conflicts. It took time but I resolved the conflict to a level I am comfortable with. . . . So yes religion can pose big problems (and dangers) to a person who is religious. But it is possible and I must say I’ve had great success in the past of helping others see that its not a matter of being furry or religious but that its a matter of finding the blend that works for each of us.

 

Remembering alt.lifestyle.furry is an essay in three parts. This is part one.

More than two decades ago, the furry community was one in which a small number of people created art and literature, and a greater number of people were the viewers and readers of those creations. A profound change began in Western societies with the rise of video games, active (e.g. MUCKs, and other such) and passive (e.g. newsgroups and websites, etc.) interaction on the internet, and an increase in science fiction-fantasy and non-traditional entertainment conventions that provided real-life interaction. From that change came the ability for the viewers and readers—the fans—to become more active participants in the cycle of content creation and content consumption. For many people the ability to publicly share with others their enthusiasm for furry art and literature was enough but another development was also underway. This development came fundamentally from the people who enjoyed what the content creators gave us, but who attached some serious personal importance, some profound emotional connection, to the furry art and literature. From this they began to create their own stories and characters.

On the internet, the establishment of the Usenet newsgroup alt.lifestyle.furry became a place where this new kind of furry enthusiast could gather. That newsgroup (which still exists and has some participation) was originally a group of furries who broke away from the alt.fan.furry newsgroup in 1996. They did so partly as the result of severely acrimonious discussions occurring there, but they were also motivated to have their own forum for the discussion of topics that were not purely related to furry fan subjects. Several furry authors have written accounts of the events of that time and this writer is grateful to them for their far-sighted efforts. Among these authors are Tirran and Petercat. Their archived webpage URLs may be found in a reference list at the end of this essay.

From the beginning, alt.lifestyle.furry was very active, often seeing ten or more posts per day. One feature of the Usenet system was the fact that people could label their posts to not be archived, thus making discussion threads that lack the original post, as we read them today. In my research I have had to infer from responding posts, which sometimes include quotations from the original, what was the message of the original writer. When people first entered the community of alt.lifestyle.furry they often posted what was known as the Furvey. This was a series of questions which helped them identify to others and themselves what they believed and experienced. Those questions could also provide a point for them to explain their remarkable experiences.

Some who found the alt.lifestyle.furry believed that they had indeed found a unique home for themselves and those like them. Postings to alt.lifestyle.furry appear to show that for some it became a significant event in their emotional and spiritual lives. Some of these stories were long and, if we take them as truthful, very revealing of their personal pains and failures, and their joy and success. Here are edited statements from several of them.

“It (alt.lifestyle.furry) used to be a place to talk about spiritualism and psychosis and veganism and our strange mental selves, without having someone give a Nelson*-like “ha-ha”. Well, most of the time…”  *from The Simpsons

Coyote

 

“The most important thing alt.lifestyle.furry used to “stand for” was to find a refuge for many people who felt unidentified with “the furry fandom”, who came here to gather other people like them. To make friends and share different points of view about the things they were interested on. To socialize, even electronically, and relax a little with people who will hear them. I do hope it will continue being this way. :) ”
Skunk

 

“…It’s been a wonderfully beneficial thing for me: the group gives me an outlet that I have been needing for quite a while. Not just for furriness, because until my recent epiphany I had suppressed any thought along those lines, remembering my past feelings with winces of embarrassment. I had just about convinced myself I was mentally defective for wanting to be a furry.

 

But I have been aware for quite a while of needing an outlet to talk about serious matters that are very important to me: God, love, the meaning of life, and now that I realize I am a furry, furriness! . . .All these things you just can’t talk about anywhere because no one wants to get into any heavy discussions. But the furriends in alf have a mutual desire to explore spiritual issues. It’s thrilling! These are the kind of things that expand the mind and make the soul glad…Even when there are tears of pain and sorrow, there is still the underlying joy of friendship, of connecting with like-minded individuals. ALF is truly a blessing. ”

Lion

 

“..Today tho, i want to just let you all know I am SO glad you’re here! My world can be so depressing (yers any different?) It’s such a great thing just to read the posts and see you here. I think “YES! They’re still other humans (or whatever) like me! They’re still ALIVE!” I could go on, but you have so eloquently articulated everything I feel. Like-This is HEALTHY- This is SPIRITUAL- This is where our souls meet- This is HOME…”

Fox

 

 

“No two of us are exactly alike, but we’re all furry together and we all recognise some deep inexpressable kinship. It’s enough for someone to say they are furry, or to say ‘this is part of my furriness.’ That’s all we need here.”

TG

“. . . you all, in your wisdom and kind words to each other, have provided me with a road to walk on, and a way to express myself without ridicule or scorn. It will be difficult, but it was not until now that I had the courage to really let myself go. Knowing I have friends to turn to in the inevitable moments of doubt and despair in my journey is the most comforting thought I have. ”

P

 

Let us not make the mistake of thinking that alt.lifestyle.furry was a continuous Shiny Happy Furhug. They were still subject to the emotions of any other humans, and some of them felt the pain of existence and asked the group for advice and consolation. Here, edited from the much longer account, is one such story and responses.

“I know I haven’t been seen much around here lately, but you furs are the only ones I know of that might understand. The problem seems so ordinary that I feel embarrassed just bringing it up, but one of my dreams last night left me reeling, like nothing I’ve ever felt. I can’t even say it was a furry dream. It was midwinter, and I was driving through a city where all my friends had left me behind. Somehow, though, the streets and the people were suffused with this strange warmth that made me feel welcome–lonely still, but somehow connected with everything. There was an old filk song on the radio, one about lost dreams, and it was still on my lips when I awoke.

 

There’s a reason I’m sitting here like an scared kid, telling this to a bunch of near-strangers, or at least I hope there is. Last night I had something touched within me that I still don’t understand, at all. It’s a feeling of emptiness, like touching your tongue to the place where a baby tooth has just fallen out, an intuition that something should be there when it’s not. There’s a longing somewhere in me that words always seem to just miss. It’s a longing for a place where I don’t feel so alienated from people and events, but it’s not really a place. . .

 

I still find it in my dreams. Sometimes, late at night when sleep-deprivation has stripped away all our psychological defenses, I find it talking with my closest friends, furry and otherwise. . . But not in large enough doses to find relief. . .

 

Sometimes I worry about my place on ALF. When the legendary post-CF8 flamewars broke out on AFF and guided me here, I thought I’d finally found my spiritual home. But somehow it just never came to be. . . maybe it’s because I take myself too seriously. . . The problem is, I’m not sure where else I can go to talk about these things. There’s something about the way that I look at life and love that’s very different from most humans, and I think that goes for some of you, too. I want to understand what it is that sets us apart, at least so we can recognize and support each other before Creeping Mundanity devours any more of us…

 

… So in other words, the ambient weirdness level around here has gotten dangerously low. Could anyfur lend me a little of their own until I can pay them back?”

N

 

N received some supportive replies. . .

“What happens? What happens when the euphoria of finding this place wears off? Become jaded? Drop your usual furry hang outs? Tear down the furry things you’ve built for yourself? Why must this loneliness take place? Is this a part of maturing as a furry? Can you decide to STOP being furry when you fulfilled a need you had for so long? Is it like a maturing phase, where you come to grips with your past and present, realizing now you can go on? Have I asked these questions of myself? Yes. I want to cite two occasions of where I doubted going on in this furry world, and worked through each one. I hope they help.

 

When I got the internet, all I had known for twenty two years was that I wanted something I didn’t know if I’d ever get, but kept hope. I had fantasies that someday I’d find a way to meet people just like me who lived their lives , had friends and just so happened to believe they were not completely human. I got alone on a computer late one night at a school I worked for. I searched things I never thought I’d have a chance too. In that one night the sun came up in my dark world. Here is the line quoted from the Werewolf and Shapeshifters Handbook that affected me the most in realizing I was not alone: “Part of me is a dog, or closer to Dog than to Man, but it is only part of me, albeit a big part. I am the sum of all my parts and I would not deny either side, human or canine.”

anonymous

 

“Yup, I could see clearly now, the skies were blue. In two weeks I had the net running at home. Through those webpages, I found furry, and Yiffnet and that’s where, I started to be “furry”.”

R

 

“Unhun. The mist of the dreamworld melts away under the merciless sun. That’s why you need to make your nest afresh each day. When you can visualize it in a heartbeat, then you know your safe place, and your wellspring, are safe from the corroding effect of the real world and all its mundanity. That alone can leach the wellspring dry. Keep in contact with your inner source and contact with others of a like mind. They can feed you and you them with a force that can help hold the worst ravages of the real world at bay. Come visit Homestead more often, N. That also may be where you get that warm feeling that you’re connected with everyone…

 

So we accept that we are and move on with it. And posting or e-mailing does help to make those webs stronger and give us support. That mundanity that you call Creeping Mundanity is a sort of spiritual bleakness that gives me shivers. It’s what dries up my wellspring of creativity. Extreme stress gives the Creeping Mundanity the ability of blanketing me with a smothering that I fight against instinctively.”

A

 

And sometimes the responses came in the form of roleplaying. . .

“(Suddenly, N is poinked by an acorn from above. He looks up, annoyed. High in the oak is a vulpan with a big, friendly grin and a cheery wave. He scales down to a large sitting branch near the ground.)

“Then maybe you need to realize light and friendly is a good thing! We’re willing to listen and help but you need to learn to relax.”

 

(S offers a seat on the branch. There’s a cool, pleasant breeze.)

 

(quote: The problem is, I’m not sure where else I can go to talk about these things. . .)

 

” Hey! Right here is fine! I think a lot of us do share similar feelings of isolation and loneliness. Something about walking around a tranquil landscape talking to people seeing themselves as fur lets us open up to each other. I’ll be the first to admit I talk too much about my personal life here!

 

(quote: So in other words, the ambient weirdness level around here has gotten dangerously low. Could anyfur lend me a little of their own until I can pay them back?)

 

(N turns back to S and is surprised to see him dressed as some swashbuckling scoundrel.)

“Ha-har! I got plenty ta spare! I’m off for world domination in the name of all things furry! Come on along and tell me your tale!”

S

 

References

• LOTCAF: Lifestyles of the Cute and Furry
• Petercat’s pages
• The alt.lifestyle.furry FAQ
• The Furvey
• alt.lifestyle.furry on Wikifur
• alt.fan.furry on Wikifur

Remembering alt.lifestyle.furry is an essay in three parts. This is part one.

More than two decades ago, the furry community was one in which a small number of people created art and literature, and a greater number of people were the viewers and readers of those creations. A profound change began in Western societies with the rise of video games, active (e.g. MUCKs, and other such) and passive (e.g. newsgroups and websites, etc.) interaction on the internet, and an increase in science fiction-fantasy and non-traditional entertainment conventions that provided real-life interaction. From that change came the ability for the viewers and readers—the fans—to become more active participants in the cycle of content creation and content consumption. For many people the ability to publicly share with others their enthusiasm for furry art and literature was enough but another development was also underway. This development came fundamentally from the people who enjoyed what the content creators gave us, but who attached some serious personal importance, some profound emotional connection, to the furry art and literature. From this they began to create their own stories and characters.

On the internet, the establishment of the Usenet newsgroup alt.lifestyle.furry became a place where this new kind of furry enthusiast could gather. That newsgroup (which still exists and has some participation) was originally a group of furries who broke away from the alt.fan.furry newsgroup in 1996. They did so partly as the result of severely acrimonious discussions occurring there, but they were also motivated to have their own forum for the discussion of topics that were not purely related to furry fan subjects. Several furry authors have written accounts of the events of that time and this writer is grateful to them for their far-sighted efforts. Among these authors are Tirran and Petercat. Their archived webpage URLs may be found in a reference list at the end of this essay.

From the beginning, alt.lifestyle.furry was very active, often seeing ten or more posts per day. One feature of the Usenet system was the fact that people could label their posts to not be archived, thus making discussion threads that lack the original post, as we read them today. In my research I have had to infer from responding posts, which sometimes include quotations from the original, what was the message of the original writer. When people first entered the community of alt.lifestyle.furry they often posted what was known as the Furvey. This was a series of questions which helped them identify to others and themselves what they believed and experienced. Those questions could also provide a point for them to explain their remarkable experiences.

Some who found the alt.lifestyle.furry believed that they had indeed found a unique home for themselves and those like them. Postings to alt.lifestyle.furry appear to show that for some it became a significant event in their emotional and spiritual lives. Some of these stories were long and, if we take them as truthful, very revealing of their personal pains and failures, and their joy and success. Here are edited statements from several of them.

“It (alt.lifestyle.furry) used to be a place to talk about spiritualism and psychosis and veganism and our strange mental selves, without having someone give a Nelson*-like “ha-ha”. Well, most of the time…”  *from The Simpsons

Coyote

 

“The most important thing alt.lifestyle.furry used to “stand for” was to find a refuge for many people who felt unidentified with “the furry fandom”, who came here to gather other people like them. To make friends and share different points of view about the things they were interested on. To socialize, even electronically, and relax a little with people who will hear them. I do hope it will continue being this way. :) ”
Skunk

 

“…It’s been a wonderfully beneficial thing for me: the group gives me an outlet that I have been needing for quite a while. Not just for furriness, because until my recent epiphany I had suppressed any thought along those lines, remembering my past feelings with winces of embarrassment. I had just about convinced myself I was mentally defective for wanting to be a furry.

 

But I have been aware for quite a while of needing an outlet to talk about serious matters that are very important to me: God, love, the meaning of life, and now that I realize I am a furry, furriness! . . .All these things you just can’t talk about anywhere because no one wants to get into any heavy discussions. But the furriends in alf have a mutual desire to explore spiritual issues. It’s thrilling! These are the kind of things that expand the mind and make the soul glad…Even when there are tears of pain and sorrow, there is still the underlying joy of friendship, of connecting with like-minded individuals. ALF is truly a blessing. ”

Lion

 

“..Today tho, i want to just let you all know I am SO glad you’re here! My world can be so depressing (yers any different?) It’s such a great thing just to read the posts and see you here. I think “YES! They’re still other humans (or whatever) like me! They’re still ALIVE!” I could go on, but you have so eloquently articulated everything I feel. Like-This is HEALTHY- This is SPIRITUAL- This is where our souls meet- This is HOME…”

Fox

 

 

“No two of us are exactly alike, but we’re all furry together and we all recognise some deep inexpressable kinship. It’s enough for someone to say they are furry, or to say ‘this is part of my furriness.’ That’s all we need here.”

TG

“. . . you all, in your wisdom and kind words to each other, have provided me with a road to walk on, and a way to express myself without ridicule or scorn. It will be difficult, but it was not until now that I had the courage to really let myself go. Knowing I have friends to turn to in the inevitable moments of doubt and despair in my journey is the most comforting thought I have. ”

P

 

Let us not make the mistake of thinking that alt.lifestyle.furry was a continuous Shiny Happy Furhug. They were still subject to the emotions of any other humans, and some of them felt the pain of existence and asked the group for advice and consolation. Here, edited from the much longer account, is one such story and responses.

“I know I haven’t been seen much around here lately, but you furs are the only ones I know of that might understand. The problem seems so ordinary that I feel embarrassed just bringing it up, but one of my dreams last night left me reeling, like nothing I’ve ever felt. I can’t even say it was a furry dream. It was midwinter, and I was driving through a city where all my friends had left me behind. Somehow, though, the streets and the people were suffused with this strange warmth that made me feel welcome–lonely still, but somehow connected with everything. There was an old filk song on the radio, one about lost dreams, and it was still on my lips when I awoke.

 

There’s a reason I’m sitting here like an scared kid, telling this to a bunch of near-strangers, or at least I hope there is. Last night I had something touched within me that I still don’t understand, at all. It’s a feeling of emptiness, like touching your tongue to the place where a baby tooth has just fallen out, an intuition that something should be there when it’s not. There’s a longing somewhere in me that words always seem to just miss. It’s a longing for a place where I don’t feel so alienated from people and events, but it’s not really a place. . .

 

I still find it in my dreams. Sometimes, late at night when sleep-deprivation has stripped away all our psychological defenses, I find it talking with my closest friends, furry and otherwise. . . But not in large enough doses to find relief. . .

 

Sometimes I worry about my place on ALF. When the legendary post-CF8 flamewars broke out on AFF and guided me here, I thought I’d finally found my spiritual home. But somehow it just never came to be. . . maybe it’s because I take myself too seriously. . . The problem is, I’m not sure where else I can go to talk about these things. There’s something about the way that I look at life and love that’s very different from most humans, and I think that goes for some of you, too. I want to understand what it is that sets us apart, at least so we can recognize and support each other before Creeping Mundanity devours any more of us…

 

… So in other words, the ambient weirdness level around here has gotten dangerously low. Could anyfur lend me a little of their own until I can pay them back?”

N

 

N received some supportive replies. . .

“What happens? What happens when the euphoria of finding this place wears off? Become jaded? Drop your usual furry hang outs? Tear down the furry things you’ve built for yourself? Why must this loneliness take place? Is this a part of maturing as a furry? Can you decide to STOP being furry when you fulfilled a need you had for so long? Is it like a maturing phase, where you come to grips with your past and present, realizing now you can go on? Have I asked these questions of myself? Yes. I want to cite two occasions of where I doubted going on in this furry world, and worked through each one. I hope they help.

 

When I got the internet, all I had known for twenty two years was that I wanted something I didn’t know if I’d ever get, but kept hope. I had fantasies that someday I’d find a way to meet people just like me who lived their lives , had friends and just so happened to believe they were not completely human. I got alone on a computer late one night at a school I worked for. I searched things I never thought I’d have a chance too. In that one night the sun came up in my dark world. Here is the line quoted from the Werewolf and Shapeshifters Handbook that affected me the most in realizing I was not alone: “Part of me is a dog, or closer to Dog than to Man, but it is only part of me, albeit a big part. I am the sum of all my parts and I would not deny either side, human or canine.”

anonymous

 

“Yup, I could see clearly now, the skies were blue. In two weeks I had the net running at home. Through those webpages, I found furry, and Yiffnet and that’s where, I started to be “furry”.”

R

 

“Unhun. The mist of the dreamworld melts away under the merciless sun. That’s why you need to make your nest afresh each day. When you can visualize it in a heartbeat, then you know your safe place, and your wellspring, are safe from the corroding effect of the real world and all its mundanity. That alone can leach the wellspring dry. Keep in contact with your inner source and contact with others of a like mind. They can feed you and you them with a force that can help hold the worst ravages of the real world at bay. Come visit Homestead more often, N. That also may be where you get that warm feeling that you’re connected with everyone…

 

So we accept that we are and move on with it. And posting or e-mailing does help to make those webs stronger and give us support. That mundanity that you call Creeping Mundanity is a sort of spiritual bleakness that gives me shivers. It’s what dries up my wellspring of creativity. Extreme stress gives the Creeping Mundanity the ability of blanketing me with a smothering that I fight against instinctively.”

A

 

And sometimes the responses came in the form of roleplaying. . .

“(Suddenly, N is poinked by an acorn from above. He looks up, annoyed. High in the oak is a vulpan with a big, friendly grin and a cheery wave. He scales down to a large sitting branch near the ground.)

“Then maybe you need to realize light and friendly is a good thing! We’re willing to listen and help but you need to learn to relax.”

 

(S offers a seat on the branch. There’s a cool, pleasant breeze.)

 

(quote: The problem is, I’m not sure where else I can go to talk about these things. . .)

 

” Hey! Right here is fine! I think a lot of us do share similar feelings of isolation and loneliness. Something about walking around a tranquil landscape talking to people seeing themselves as fur lets us open up to each other. I’ll be the first to admit I talk too much about my personal life here!

 

(quote: So in other words, the ambient weirdness level around here has gotten dangerously low. Could anyfur lend me a little of their own until I can pay them back?)

 

(N turns back to S and is surprised to see him dressed as some swashbuckling scoundrel.)

“Ha-har! I got plenty ta spare! I’m off for world domination in the name of all things furry! Come on along and tell me your tale!”

S

 

References

• LOTCAF: Lifestyles of the Cute and Furry
• Petercat’s pages
• The alt.lifestyle.furry FAQ
• The Furvey
• alt.lifestyle.furry on Wikifur
• alt.fan.furry on Wikifur

Guest post by George Squares. George is a speculative fiction writer with a background in biological science. He enjoys discussing and researching pop culture and fandom history.

I had never been to a BDSM club. Yet, I was invited to do a paid talk at one August 9, 2015 hosted at the non-profit gay social venue Impulse in Charlottesville, Virginia. The BDSM group who rents space at the club monthly is made up of queer and straight members, and they hire speakers to cover topics they might find interesting or pertinent. Quite a few of them were interested in furry.

My opportunity to speak came from a chain reaction that started New Year’s Eve 2014 at a board game party. During a Cards Against Humanity round, a particularly unpleasant guest (who was not invited again) started railing on furries in a half-hearted attempt at humor. Two of my friends joined in on the heckling, and I finally decided to tell them that they had the wrong idea.

Confused and curious, my friends admitted that they didn’t know any furries. I politely informed them that they were wrong due to the presence of myself and my fiance. They were surprised and embarrassed, but it blew over quickly. It didn’t blow over for the unpleasant guest, whose heckling intensified, but he was not well-liked by the host, and he had a whirlwind of his own problems as the night wore on.

Furries weren’t joked about at subsequent parties. Consequently, at the beginning of July 2015, I was approached by one of the friends involved in the New Year’s Eve heckling. She asked: “This may be a long shot, but do you know any local authorities on furry in the area? We’d like one to make a presentation at our organization.”

Considering we don’t really have official authorities on the furry fandom, I told her I was familiar with furry communities. I talked about how I published furry stories and wrote essays on furries, and that’s how I got an offer to speak for fifty bucks.

I decided that if I was going to talk about furries, then I should show off how different furries can be from one another by comparing and contrasting pictures in a handout for the audience. After crowd sourcing from folks I knew on twitter, @pandezpanda, @escodingo, @hakirsh, and @tabernak allowed me show off their suits. The artists @gavunimpressive, @kihublue and @wryote gave me permission to display NSFW art. Wryote also allowed me to use her doodles for the headers in the handout I’d distribute during the talk. One of the most amazing and under-appreciated facets of furry is our ease of access to contacting primary source creators. (The products of publicly accessible businesses like Bad Dragon, Contact Caffeine and book publishers were mentioned, too, but they were not emphasized as much as the works of individual creators.)

Impulse, the venue, was decorated much like most of the home-brew gay bars I had seen before. Black-painted walls that turned several corners obfuscated the interior. Paper lamps, Christmas lights and a disco ball hung from the ceiling. The bar was decorated with lava lamps, fiber optic displays and an assortment of blinking lights that served as distractions. I was offered liquor, but I took a ginger ale because I wanted to calm my stomach. Across from the bar along the wall, a straight line of chairs held mostly older couples who quietly conversed. The wooden stage itself was lined with white Christmas lights.

Needless to say, I was nervous.

I introduced myself as a furry to a room full of strangers. I mentioned my fiction and essays, as well as my experiences with the community. From the beginning I relayed that I wanted the talk to be casual and conversational so questions could be asked throughout.

The crowd was tense at first, and so was I, but when I got the presentation rolling everybody loosened up and the questions flowed.

I had about 50 minutes to go over a wealth of information. Here are some of the topics that I covered:

• What is furry, and why can’t a definition be agreed upon?
• Can content be considered furry if the creator is not?
• Can somebody be a furry if they don’t even like suits?
• How much can these suits cost?
• Can furry be a kink and not a kink at the same time?
• Is furry a queer fandom?

After the presentation was finished and I got home, some friends on Twitter were curious about the types of questions asked. I had a lot of good ones, and wanted to share some of my favorites and how I responded to the best of my ability.

Q.  Are suits really all in the four thousand dollar range or is that just an extreme?

A. The prices of suits vary greatly but for a full suit four thousand is not an extreme price. Some suits have custom fur patterns, eyes, claws, wings, accessories, and have cooling systems installed. One of the most expensive suits I’ve seen was in the seven thousand dollar range. Suits are an investment. You can get just ears, a tail, or just a head for much cheaper though.

Q. Are all furries mammalian? What about the ones who have scales? (Another audience member actually mentioned scalies and everybody laughed.)

A. I still call them furries as an umbrella term for the sake of simplicity. Dragons are quite popular. Quite a few people are sharks. In furry it’s okay to say “I’m a shark,” and that’s totally acceptable. (There was a slight pause.) I’m not a shark though, actually. I’m a weasel. That’s my thing. Weasels even have a skype group where we banter with one another. (Somebody said weasels are a great animal in the crowd which felt like validation.)

Q. I noticed a lot… of inter-species relationships going on. Do furries of different species typically get along?

A. Most furries of different species do get along. Sometimes there are playful rivalries and generalizations get bandied about such as “foxes are sluts” or “lions are egomaniacs,” but it’s mostly in good fun. The best comparison I’d use is in the Harry Potter fandom. People assign the houses they’d be in for themselves, and enjoy coming up with characteristics for types of people who’d be Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, or Hufflepuff. It’s very much a team mentality kind of thing and much of it is friends provoking friends. There’s always somebody who can take it too far, though, but they are often the person who doesn’t get invited to parties.

Q. Why does the internet typically have a beef with furries but not whovians, otaku subculture, or trekkies?

A. I think there are a lot of reasons for this. I’ll go back to my quote: “Furry is not in itself a queer fandom, but it is one of the few where queer representation is common.” I used the furry poll from [adjective] [species] to give you a general idea of male demographics in the fandom and how most of them are either completely homosexual, bisexual, bisexual-leaning-straight or bisexual-leaning-gay. It makes sense that the furry fandom has a lot of graphic male sexuality in it. Furry was showing off dicks and messy homoeroticism before Glee, Modern Family, or Buffy dared to show even light queer representation in the media. The sexualization of men in modern media is in many cases considered less acceptable or artful than the sexualization of women. Video games and anime frequently display the egregious sexualization of women. Members of those respective subcultures are not as stigmatized or shunned because that media is considered appropriate for a young male audience. This is not necessarily the only or even the correct reason furry has a stigma, but I strongly believe it is a large part of it.

Another reason might be that furry provides so many scenes and content for kink.  Just like with any group, some content will never be for you, and it is easy to squick people out with the kinks that they don’t enjoy. I heard an audience member currently in the crowd talk about babyfurs before this presentation, and this is a group that often gets stigmatized by other furries because some kinksters might find this kink far weirder than their own. Adult babies exist independent of furry, too, and there are documentaries on them like The 15-Stone Babies.

In fact, there was a group called the Burned Furs which lead to a lot of anti-kink uprisals in the fandom where furries would seek out members they deemed perverts, expose them, and shame them out of the fandom. (Some shocked noises came from the crowd.) Considering how prevalent kink still is in furry, it’s reasonable to believe they weren’t successful. But shaming groups still exist.

Q. Perhaps another reason is the presence of animal genitalia? (This was started by one member of an older couple and his partner nodded and agreed vocally.)

A. That’s definitely a thing. In fact, there have been threads where about a thousand or so people get into giant arguments on whether it’s acceptable for a sentient gay anthro dog to have a human penis, a dog penis, or if this is even a thing that should matter. Similar arguments can be made about the anatomical correctness of a dragon penis, which is impossible considering that a dragon doesn’t exist.

Q. So furries can get into huge arguments over the internet over dumb shit, just like in kink. We do have something in common. (The whole room laughed. Another question was asked immediately after.)

Q. Are furries always coming up with characters, or multiple characters? Why?

A. The evolution and growth of the furry fandom coincided with the internet age. Consider that many queer, teenage furries living in conservative areas might feel isolated and seek friends or lovers through an alias without the fear of being kicked out of their home.

But also consider that many furries are into creative endeavors like acting, dancing, art, and writing and the idea of creating characters is fun to them. An artist might come up with a character design, sell it to a customer, and the customer uses the character sheet to use as a design for a costume. In this way, furry promotes a creative art engine enabling the joy of character creation while also protecting some of society’s most vulnerable members.

Q. Furries are so cool, but I never know how to approach them in character! It’s like trying to talk to a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism in full plate armor. I feel like I’m from a different world!

A. That’s because most fursuiters are in the middle of a performance. It’s easier to get to know them when they’re out of suit, or at online places like Twitter or Tumblr. Some fursuiters are very casual about their suiting, but that’s typically difficult to gauge without knowing them, first.

Q. If I want to go to a convention to get my brains fucked out– serious question– would the convention hold something like that for kink groups?

There are things like rope sessions and kink panels at conventions, and some are designed for that purpose, but most of the sex that happens will be between adults who already know each other beforehand in hotel rooms, some of which are room parties. If you want to go to a con to have sex and don’t know anybody, you very likely won’t have a good time if that’s what you are looking forward to most.

There were more questions, which I took to be a good sign, but those were the highlights. After I finished, my friend thanked me for the presentation and I got a decent amount of applause. People hung around me after the talk, wanting to ask more questions, wanting more furry resources and contact information. They had warmed up to me considerably. The younger people seemed more enthused, but several older folks were too, and the bubbliest forty-year-old woman I had ever met was bouncing with delight.

A particularly insightful member noticed that there’s a lot of intersection in what kink groups go through and what furry goes through, too. I felt like I made a meaningful connection with this group, and it’s a funny, fuzzy feeling when words and images alone can foster so much mutual understanding between people. It was a great experience, and I hope I can do it again some time.

The full handout that I used for the talk can be found here. The handout has several NSFW images.

Guest post by George Squares. George is a speculative fiction writer with a background in biological science. He enjoys discussing and researching pop culture and fandom history.

I had never been to a BDSM club. Yet, I was invited to do a paid talk at one August 9, 2015 hosted at the non-profit gay social venue Impulse in Charlottesville, Virginia. The BDSM group who rents space at the club monthly is made up of queer and straight members, and they hire speakers to cover topics they might find interesting or pertinent. Quite a few of them were interested in furry.

My opportunity to speak came from a chain reaction that started New Year’s Eve 2014 at a board game party. During a Cards Against Humanity round, a particularly unpleasant guest (who was not invited again) started railing on furries in a half-hearted attempt at humor. Two of my friends joined in on the heckling, and I finally decided to tell them that they had the wrong idea.

Confused and curious, my friends admitted that they didn’t know any furries. I politely informed them that they were wrong due to the presence of myself and my fiance. They were surprised and embarrassed, but it blew over quickly. It didn’t blow over for the unpleasant guest, whose heckling intensified, but he was not well-liked by the host, and he had a whirlwind of his own problems as the night wore on.

Furries weren’t joked about at subsequent parties. Consequently, at the beginning of July 2015, I was approached by one of the friends involved in the New Year’s Eve heckling. She asked: “This may be a long shot, but do you know any local authorities on furry in the area? We’d like one to make a presentation at our organization.”

Considering we don’t really have official authorities on the furry fandom, I told her I was familiar with furry communities. I talked about how I published furry stories and wrote essays on furries, and that’s how I got an offer to speak for fifty bucks.

I decided that if I was going to talk about furries, then I should show off how different furries can be from one another by comparing and contrasting pictures in a handout for the audience. After crowd sourcing from folks I knew on twitter, @pandezpanda, @escodingo, @hakirsh, and @tabernak allowed me show off their suits. The artists @gavunimpressive, @kihublue and @wryote gave me permission to display NSFW art. Wryote also allowed me to use her doodles for the headers in the handout I’d distribute during the talk. One of the most amazing and under-appreciated facets of furry is our ease of access to contacting primary source creators. (The products of publicly accessible businesses like Bad Dragon, Contact Caffeine and book publishers were mentioned, too, but they were not emphasized as much as the works of individual creators.)

Impulse, the venue, was decorated much like most of the home-brew gay bars I had seen before. Black-painted walls that turned several corners obfuscated the interior. Paper lamps, Christmas lights and a disco ball hung from the ceiling. The bar was decorated with lava lamps, fiber optic displays and an assortment of blinking lights that served as distractions. I was offered liquor, but I took a ginger ale because I wanted to calm my stomach. Across from the bar along the wall, a straight line of chairs held mostly older couples who quietly conversed. The wooden stage itself was lined with white Christmas lights.

Needless to say, I was nervous.

I introduced myself as a furry to a room full of strangers. I mentioned my fiction and essays, as well as my experiences with the community. From the beginning I relayed that I wanted the talk to be casual and conversational so questions could be asked throughout.

The crowd was tense at first, and so was I, but when I got the presentation rolling everybody loosened up and the questions flowed.

I had about 50 minutes to go over a wealth of information. Here are some of the topics that I covered:

• What is furry, and why can’t a definition be agreed upon?
• Can content be considered furry if the creator is not?
• Can somebody be a furry if they don’t even like suits?
• How much can these suits cost?
• Can furry be a kink and not a kink at the same time?
• Is furry a queer fandom?

After the presentation was finished and I got home, some friends on Twitter were curious about the types of questions asked. I had a lot of good ones, and wanted to share some of my favorites and how I responded to the best of my ability.

Q.  Are suits really all in the four thousand dollar range or is that just an extreme?

A. The prices of suits vary greatly but for a full suit four thousand is not an extreme price. Some suits have custom fur patterns, eyes, claws, wings, accessories, and have cooling systems installed. One of the most expensive suits I’ve seen was in the seven thousand dollar range. Suits are an investment. You can get just ears, a tail, or just a head for much cheaper though.

Q. Are all furries mammalian? What about the ones who have scales? (Another audience member actually mentioned scalies and everybody laughed.)

A. I still call them furries as an umbrella term for the sake of simplicity. Dragons are quite popular. Quite a few people are sharks. In furry it’s okay to say “I’m a shark,” and that’s totally acceptable. (There was a slight pause.) I’m not a shark though, actually. I’m a weasel. That’s my thing. Weasels even have a skype group where we banter with one another. (Somebody said weasels are a great animal in the crowd which felt like validation.)

Q. I noticed a lot… of inter-species relationships going on. Do furries of different species typically get along?

A. Most furries of different species do get along. Sometimes there are playful rivalries and generalizations get bandied about such as “foxes are sluts” or “lions are egomaniacs,” but it’s mostly in good fun. The best comparison I’d use is in the Harry Potter fandom. People assign the houses they’d be in for themselves, and enjoy coming up with characteristics for types of people who’d be Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, or Hufflepuff. It’s very much a team mentality kind of thing and much of it is friends provoking friends. There’s always somebody who can take it too far, though, but they are often the person who doesn’t get invited to parties.

Q. Why does the internet typically have a beef with furries but not whovians, otaku subculture, or trekkies?

A. I think there are a lot of reasons for this. I’ll go back to my quote: “Furry is not in itself a queer fandom, but it is one of the few where queer representation is common.” I used the furry poll from [adjective] [species] to give you a general idea of male demographics in the fandom and how most of them are either completely homosexual, bisexual, bisexual-leaning-straight or bisexual-leaning-gay. It makes sense that the furry fandom has a lot of graphic male sexuality in it. Furry was showing off dicks and messy homoeroticism before Glee, Modern Family, or Buffy dared to show even light queer representation in the media. The sexualization of men in modern media is in many cases considered less acceptable or artful than the sexualization of women. Video games and anime frequently display the egregious sexualization of women. Members of those respective subcultures are not as stigmatized or shunned because that media is considered appropriate for a young male audience. This is not necessarily the only or even the correct reason furry has a stigma, but I strongly believe it is a large part of it.

Another reason might be that furry provides so many scenes and content for kink.  Just like with any group, some content will never be for you, and it is easy to squick people out with the kinks that they don’t enjoy. I heard an audience member currently in the crowd talk about babyfurs before this presentation, and this is a group that often gets stigmatized by other furries because some kinksters might find this kink far weirder than their own. Adult babies exist independent of furry, too, and there are documentaries on them like The 15-Stone Babies.

In fact, there was a group called the Burned Furs which lead to a lot of anti-kink uprisals in the fandom where furries would seek out members they deemed perverts, expose them, and shame them out of the fandom. (Some shocked noises came from the crowd.) Considering how prevalent kink still is in furry, it’s reasonable to believe they weren’t successful. But shaming groups still exist.

Q. Perhaps another reason is the presence of animal genitalia? (This was started by one member of an older couple and his partner nodded and agreed vocally.)

A. That’s definitely a thing. In fact, there have been threads where about a thousand or so people get into giant arguments on whether it’s acceptable for a sentient gay anthro dog to have a human penis, a dog penis, or if this is even a thing that should matter. Similar arguments can be made about the anatomical correctness of a dragon penis, which is impossible considering that a dragon doesn’t exist.

Q. So furries can get into huge arguments over the internet over dumb shit, just like in kink. We do have something in common. (The whole room laughed. Another question was asked immediately after.)

Q. Are furries always coming up with characters, or multiple characters? Why?

A. The evolution and growth of the furry fandom coincided with the internet age. Consider that many queer, teenage furries living in conservative areas might feel isolated and seek friends or lovers through an alias without the fear of being kicked out of their home.

But also consider that many furries are into creative endeavors like acting, dancing, art, and writing and the idea of creating characters is fun to them. An artist might come up with a character design, sell it to a customer, and the customer uses the character sheet to use as a design for a costume. In this way, furry promotes a creative art engine enabling the joy of character creation while also protecting some of society’s most vulnerable members.

Q. Furries are so cool, but I never know how to approach them in character! It’s like trying to talk to a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism in full plate armor. I feel like I’m from a different world!

A. That’s because most fursuiters are in the middle of a performance. It’s easier to get to know them when they’re out of suit, or at online places like Twitter or Tumblr. Some fursuiters are very casual about their suiting, but that’s typically difficult to gauge without knowing them, first.

Q. If I want to go to a convention to get my brains fucked out– serious question– would the convention hold something like that for kink groups?

There are things like rope sessions and kink panels at conventions, and some are designed for that purpose, but most of the sex that happens will be between adults who already know each other beforehand in hotel rooms, some of which are room parties. If you want to go to a con to have sex and don’t know anybody, you very likely won’t have a good time if that’s what you are looking forward to most.

There were more questions, which I took to be a good sign, but those were the highlights. After I finished, my friend thanked me for the presentation and I got a decent amount of applause. People hung around me after the talk, wanting to ask more questions, wanting more furry resources and contact information. They had warmed up to me considerably. The younger people seemed more enthused, but several older folks were too, and the bubbliest forty-year-old woman I had ever met was bouncing with delight.

A particularly insightful member noticed that there’s a lot of intersection in what kink groups go through and what furry goes through, too. I felt like I made a meaningful connection with this group, and it’s a funny, fuzzy feeling when words and images alone can foster so much mutual understanding between people. It was a great experience, and I hope I can do it again some time.

The full handout that I used for the talk can be found here. The handout has several NSFW images.