As the Just Like You* campaign nears its midpoint, Furscience has made the news once again: Dr Roberts was interviewed by Vice (Canada); they ask the questions, and Dr Roberts gives them the science in this really information-packed piece. It’s certainly worth a read, and is another excellent example of a positive news story about furries that actually gets to what fandom is all about. If anyone wants additional context, be sure to read Dr Plante’s article, “Furry is NOT a Fetish.”
It’s not a “fetish”, but it’s also not a “non-fetish”.
As in: Every furry who expresses themselves are different. Some require sexual interest to be one, and some don’t.
Though I am so sick of articles acting like those who are into it sexually don’t count as furries who are being more about escapism, and other less sexual terms. Sexual furries are no better or worse than those without it and they can share the same fantasy like features like those without sexual interests.
I don’t know if these websites acts like this, but I wanted to have my sayings. I also think society should just learn to accept furry in general even if somehow it was mostly sexual.
Any endeavour can be fetishized; the data show that the raison d’être of the fandom isn’t. As Dr Roberts points out in the Vice Media (Canada) video, “Do Furries have sex? Humans have sex,” but that any sexual aspect within the fandom is expressed similarly without. Librarians go to librarian conferences because they share an interest in library and information sciences. To the extent that some may couple up, seems to be true for any sufficiently large collection of people with shared interests. The problem with any mention of sex when discussing marginalized groups, as you rightfully suggest, is that it becomes automatically deviant without a better appreciation of the whole context. Our latest data (Coming soon!) show that Furries think other furries are more interested (3.7 out of a 1-7 scale) in the sexual aspect of the fandom than they actually are themselves, but even that interest is reasonably limited (3.1), so less than “meh” 😉 on the Furry as Fetish metrics we’ve gathered.
That’s true.