Eye of the Tiger: Why Furries Have a Fabulous Future
Take a walk on the wild side, courtesy of next gen sextech
Have an inexplicable need to howl at the full moon, scamper through tall grass, bound over hill and dale, or frolic with fellow cartoonish animals?
If so, you might be a furry and, considering the plethora of technological innovations lying on the immediate horizon, may soon be passionately howling, sensually scampering, energetically bounding, and, of course, amorously frolicking like never before.
White Rabbit
Emerging from the middle to late 1970s underground comics, furry fandom and its fondness for eroticized anthropomorphic animals has gained popularity. There are now many regular, large-scale conventions and countless smaller, regional get-togethers.
Like many subcultures, it often seems as if there are many furry-identified people as there are reasons for, among activities such as crafting and selling art and costumes, socializing and dating, or putting on and attending dances all while wearing fursuits—a full-body animal-styled costume.
And there are those furry folk who love leaping into orgy-styled furpiles, though these are a relatively small percentage of fandom, despite what irresponsible media and bigots would have you believe.
Such attacks on the furry community have led to tragic results. For example, in 2014, when nineteen Midwest FurFest attendees were hospitalized from what police later determined was an orchestrated chlorine gas attack.
Hungry Like The Wolf
Sharon E. Roberts of the University of Waterloo’s Social Development Studies Department and cofounder of Furscience, an International Anthropomorphic Research Project, writes in her The Conversation article on whether or not furryness could be likened to a sexual orientation:
“It’s not. It’s a fandom. However, it’s worth noting there are many marginalized statuses within the furry community. Depending on the study, we find more than 70 percent of furries identify as LGBTQ+ and more than 25 per cent are gender-identity diverse.
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Adding, “Furries are bullied at almost twice the rates of non-furries, and our forthcoming research indicates that four to 15 percent are on the autism spectrum. Despite these risk factors and some who fear ostracism for their interests, furries’ well-being, self-esteem, life satisfaction, relationship quality and happiness are the same as non-furries.”
Researchers have also begun to explore another aspect of furriness: it’s possible intersection with gender dysphoria, specifically when a person’s fursona isn’t limited to donning a fursuit but uses this to transform into their authentic self.
Hound Dog
Today’s furries may be limited in how lifelike their fursuits can be—and there’s an excellent chance tomorrow’s won’t be—especially when remembering lifelike doesn’t necessarily equal realistic. That said, some furries may enjoy the option to look and perhaps also act less cartoonish.
As artificial companions steadily become less mechanical, similar tech might be integrated into fursuits, giving the wearer a greater range of facial expressions and body movements: tails keyed to emotions, pheromone-detecting whiskers, or maybe super-small actuators to make their fur literally stand on edge.
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
As we’ve covered previously, a promising solution to not looking and acting like something built and not born may lie in liquid or air-filled artificial muscles integrated into a futuristic fursuit.
Talking about natural, why not bypass artificial components entirely by growing tomorrow’s fursuits?
Already developed by researchers from the University of Tokyo, fusing synthetic skin cells—or cloned animal tissue—to a full-body, probably soft robotic, skeletal frame would give our state-of-the-art furry the smell, taste, appearance, and texture of a real animal.
Taking bioengineering further, rather than merely stepping into a fursuit, you may be able to genetically engineer yourself for a weekend, a week, or the rest of your life.
A horse with a name
Whatever you may think about twitching whiskers, swishing tails, flicking ears, kneading paws, loudly barking, gently purring, furries, the furry community deserves our respect.
Why? Because they do what others can only dream of, to look deep within themselves to discover their innermost passions, then bravely stand up and proclaim to the world, “This is what I like,” or, more courageously, this is who I am!
Image Sources: Depositphotos
