What it Means to be a Furry!?
Joseph Vesper (Fox Lupus) The Furry Convention I have been to Georgia, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, as well as many other states and places. I have also had a multitude of cultural experiences in each one. I rode horses in Texas, my girlfriend lives in Georgia, and I went to military school in Kentucky. However, one of my strangest and overall best cultural experiences that I have ever had was going to a Furry convention in Columbus, Ohio. It is now time to come clean with the reader. I have always been a furry, ever since I was eleven years old. However, I have never been able to attend a furry convention until recently. Like most, people who have seen the Furry CSI episode, the MTV Sex2k furry special, or that horribly written article in Vanity Fair magazine, I was a little nervous and cautious about the whole thing. Would I be accepted into the subculture? Would there really be massive orgies of fursuiters littering the convention floors? Would I walk in and immediately get my leg dry humped by a German Sheppard? Would the walls be plastered with photos of naughty drawings of anamorphic animals? Of course, not I tried to reassure myself. However, those bad stereotypes kept poking at my head. Although being a furry was a partial fetish, it also had more of a meaning to me. I had often dreamed about how wonderful it would be to be a fox, free from common everyday human problems. Being allowed to simply lie under a tree and let the soft wind blow through my fur, not having to worry about college papers, tests, jobs, or anything. Some people have music to escape, others have athletics, but for me it was furry. Nevertheless, it was even more than an escape for me; it was essentially a way of life. As I neared, the Holiday Inn hotel where the convention was taking place my stomach began to tighten. While I was parking my car, I noticed a big group of fursuiters, furries that wear fursuits, who had gathered in the middle of the hotel grounds. Were they actually doing the naughty out in the open? I feared. Nevertheless, I parked the car and made my way over to the convention. To my surprise, they were simply posing for photos by a brand new mustang car. I slipped past the congregation feeling rather shy and made my way to the registration room. When I entered the hotel to go to the registration room, I was half expecting furries to be covering the floors, doing the naughty. However, nothing of the sort was taking place. Instead, most were standing around talking. Finally, I reached the registration room and paid the money required to attend the convention. While registering I received a badge with my fursona on it. A fursona is your furry character. For an example, my character is a red fox named Fox Lupus. After registration I decided to look at the merchandise section of the convention, after all, I had three hours until any seminars or interest group meetings began. Upon entering the merchandise section, I was amazed at the sheer amount of furry comics that they had. They had both adult orientated comics but an even more massive amount of clean furry comics. In addition, I also noted that all of the adult oriented comics were covered up so that no minors would be able to see them. Most unlike the impression that I got from the media of adult anamorphic pictures plastering the walls of the convention grounds. I started to talk to the main seller of the comics and he told me that he had furry customers from around the world, Russia, Egypt, England, even one customer from Ethiopia. After what seemed like an hour or so of talking to the man, I purchased a few comics and made my way around the rest of the merchandise room. There were people who would draw your fursona for you, and people selling homemade ears and tails to ware. Essentially, they had anything a furry would ever want. Towards the end of looking around at the massive amount of furry merchandise, I ran into a vendor who had a dire dilemma. She had to judge a fursuit contest but did not like the idea of leaving her vending area unattended. After talking to her for a while, I suggested that I sit down and watch her stand for her while she went and judged. She smiled, stood up, gave me a belly rub, and said "thank you very much foxy, I'll be back in a little while." Therefore, I watched over the area while she was away. Upon her return, she thanked me again and offered me a set of fox ears for a very cheap price; I simply could not refuse the offer. After the whole ordeal, I went back out into the wilderness, so to speak. Walking by a door that led to a big stage, I noticed a group of people sitting down in chairs and talking. I entered and sat down towards the back. A cheetah fursuiter that was working a camera for the event told me that a homemade furry costume contest was about to begin. We talked for a few minutes about the convention until the contest started. First, a fursuiter cat came out and did a little dance to show off his homemade fursuit. Surprisingly he was the only contestant that year with a homemade fursuit and he won. After a few more skits and the stage closed, I made my way to the first of the seminars that I wished to attend. It was a writing class about how to write good stories with anamorphic characters. It was fascinating and interesting. The panel was headed by a fursuiter who was also a world-renowned author. I learned about world development and the importance of character creation. After the first panel, I stayed for the second one in the same room. However, the person in charge of it was unable to make it due to medical problems. Thus, I simply waited there. A few other furries showed up for the closed panel and I ended up getting in a long conversation with them. One in particular was named Sparky Blue Fox. He was an electrical engineer and had been a furry for only a few years. Just recently, he had become a fursuiter. We talked and talked, about how being a furry pertained to everyday life issues. After an hour or so of small talk, Sparky and I made our ways to the Fox interest group, a panel dedicated to just us foxes. The interest group was set up like the Jeopardy game, but the questions all regarded foxes instead of random categories. Somehow, I ended up being elected the captain of one of the teams. It was very fun and I learned some things about foxes that I never knew. For instance, did you know that the Norwegian name for fox is rev? When all of the questions were done and the game was over our team was victories with a score of five thousand to three thousand. The fox interest group was really fun and interesting. Nevertheless, I now had an hour to kill until the Furry Atomic Battle of Doom took place. The furry Atomic Battle of Doom is actually a bunch of skits done by people who are dressed up in fursuits. I guess you could call it a play or a show. While I was waiting, I decided to participate in a game called Are You A Werewolf that was being played by twelve or so furries. In the game cards are handed out to the players. The cards are either a seer, one of two werewolves, or one of the rests of the villagers. When night comes in the game, all players close their eyes. Then the two werewolves open them and pick someone that they would like to kill during the night. Then the seer wakes up and points to someone, the coordinator of the game then gives the seer a thumb up if that person is a werewolf or a thumb down if it is not. Then afterwards everyone wakes up and discovers who was killed during the night, and they then choose someone to hang because they think that they are one of the werewolves. Either the game is over when the werewolves kill a huge portion of the villagers or the villagers get the werewolves. It is a fun game and a couple of times I ended up being the werewolf. During one session when the villagers eliminated me, I ran into a German Sheppard fursuiter. I just had to get my picture with him so I asked him and he obliged. Afterwards though he began to nuzzle against me and I am not the least bit shy to say it, I nuzzled him and hugged him back. That is when one thing really struck me. Nearly all the furries I had met at the convention had been very kind and nice to me. They really accepted me. Nevertheless, what struck me even more was that they accepted everyone. You did not have to hide anything. If you were gay you were ok, is you were black they had your back, if you were white you were all right. Finally, after an hour or so of games nearly all the furries lined up for the Atomic Battle of Doom. I joined them in line and was able to catch a seat in the middle of the room, next to the cheetah fursuiter I had met earlier; his name come to find out was CJ. As the show went on, I was amazed by the realistic look of the fursuiters costumes and all of stereotypes that they made fun of during the show. In fact, it was almost like watching a great episode of Family Guy. However, everyone laughed hysterically at all of the jokes. Some were racial furry jokes, the black furries laughed, some were gay furry jokes, all the gay furries laughed, some were about fursuiters, all the fursuiters laughed, some were even about white furries, I even laughed. Nearly everyone laughed when the CSI episode that made so much fun of furry stereotypes was mentioned in the play. That is when it all came together, what a furry really was. Wikipedia's definition of a furry is someone who is a fan of animals with human characteristics, MTV's definition is a fetish, but the real definition should go like this: Furry = A person just like you, with the same problems, the same loves, the same losses, the same everything. All except that, they like animals with human characteristics and they know how to deal with stereotypes of furries, with humor and love.