"Furverts."
Apr. 23rd, 2009 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsJust a warning: the images in this link are so not safe for work [NSFW] that you really shouldn't click on the link if you're anywhere other than in the privacy of your own home.
Yesterday, Fleshbot alerted me to the existence of the book "Furverts," the ad copy of which reads:
The book is really stupid: a collection of species-discorant fursuits in various psuedo-sexual poses, and if you look carefully at the fursuits [NSFW] you can see that they're all professional jobs; not one of the people in the book is an actual member of the furry community.
The board-book format annoys the hell out of me, because the only other board-books I know of are children's books. This book, with its "delightful peek-a-boo ring of fur," might inappropriately suggest childhood or even tempt kids into opening the book. That tells me that the people who wrote this either weren't thinking clearly, or decided that the association with the playthings of children was worth keeping. Either way, it's nasty and wrong.
But what irks me most, and this can be seen in Fleshbot's headline, "How the furry half loves," is the association with "Furry" as "Fursuiter Fetishist." Which is a bit like claiming that a football fan is not just a quarterback wannabe, but deep down he dreams of getting freaky with the quarterback in the lockerroom showers afterward.
Furry fandom is not zoophilia. Anime is not tentacle porn. Most football fans do notnot rent Jocks gay porn videos.
Furry characters can be metaphors for anything human. We describe our fellows in sometimes flattering, sometimes insulting animal terms: catty, dog-faced, deer-in-the-headlights, cow eyes, lemming. Furry characteristics in comics and books can be used to emphasize these or any other number of points. For a webcomic, they're frequently little more than place markers: for some artists, using fur color and ear shape is easier that actually trying to draw different human faces.
Sure, there are furverts, and plush-lovers, and so on in furry fandom. Nobody denies that. Just as nobody denies that hentai exists in anime. But they're not the same, and equating them is laziness. Anime has started to outgrow the tits-and-tentacles stigma attached to it. Furry has a long way to go, and this book is a vicious shove backward.
Yesterday, Fleshbot alerted me to the existence of the book "Furverts," the ad copy of which reads:
Birds do it bees do it but no one does it like furries do it. Long an underground cult phenomenon furries have gone global holding conventions where furries from around the world can meet and mingle. Photographer Michael Cogliantry captures the kinky intimate side of the furry subculture–an elephant and a donkey a chicken and a fox caught in flagrante delicto. The playful board-book format opens with a peek-a-boo ring of fur on the cover inviting the reader into the "illicit" and hysterically funny world of furverts.[Emphasis mine]
The book is really stupid: a collection of species-discorant fursuits in various psuedo-sexual poses, and if you look carefully at the fursuits [NSFW] you can see that they're all professional jobs; not one of the people in the book is an actual member of the furry community.
The board-book format annoys the hell out of me, because the only other board-books I know of are children's books. This book, with its "delightful peek-a-boo ring of fur," might inappropriately suggest childhood or even tempt kids into opening the book. That tells me that the people who wrote this either weren't thinking clearly, or decided that the association with the playthings of children was worth keeping. Either way, it's nasty and wrong.
But what irks me most, and this can be seen in Fleshbot's headline, "How the furry half loves," is the association with "Furry" as "Fursuiter Fetishist." Which is a bit like claiming that a football fan is not just a quarterback wannabe, but deep down he dreams of getting freaky with the quarterback in the lockerroom showers afterward.
Furry fandom is not zoophilia. Anime is not tentacle porn. Most football fans do notnot rent Jocks gay porn videos.
Furry characters can be metaphors for anything human. We describe our fellows in sometimes flattering, sometimes insulting animal terms: catty, dog-faced, deer-in-the-headlights, cow eyes, lemming. Furry characteristics in comics and books can be used to emphasize these or any other number of points. For a webcomic, they're frequently little more than place markers: for some artists, using fur color and ear shape is easier that actually trying to draw different human faces.
Sure, there are furverts, and plush-lovers, and so on in furry fandom. Nobody denies that. Just as nobody denies that hentai exists in anime. But they're not the same, and equating them is laziness. Anime has started to outgrow the tits-and-tentacles stigma attached to it. Furry has a long way to go, and this book is a vicious shove backward.
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Date: 2009-04-24 03:42 am (UTC)