What exactly are "Furries"?

Question

I've heard them mentioned, but I've never seen or heard much about them.

Answer 1

They are people who make me afraid to leave my dogs alone in the backyard.  ;~;

Answer 2

There's effectively two different groups of people who call themselves "furries".

Group A, is the group you hear about.  Crazy sexual fetishists who slap polyester fur all over themselves, and have all kinds of crazy fetishes.  A good, large chunk of them are g*y people with "closet fever".

Closet fever being a reference to current psychological theories, that if someone keeps a strong emotion bottled up inside for too long, you start to go nuts.  Some folks think Hitler mighta' been g*y, and it was this forbidden love of his fellow man that had him on the edge, and some mustard gas in the first world war is what made him go on the genocide tangent.  Unlikely, but it's possible.

More or less, Group A is full of people who for one reason or another, feel unaccepted by society as a whole, and exclude themselves and lock themselves away.  This typically happens in high school, where if you don't want the football players breaking your limbs for fun, you have to change and hide everything about who you actually are.  They keep themselves locked away within themselves, until it comes to a boil.  Their only outlet is a group of people online, whose primary rule as a whole is to accept EVERYONE, regardless of who they are, what they are, or what p**n they like.

So, you end up with chat rooms full of crazies, lots g*y, some not.  They bounce off one another a few years, and share the crazy.  The crazy feeds off of crazy and becomes more crazy.  They roleplay the crazy to explore the crazy, and seek to be more crazy.  Because this is their ONLY social outlet, the lines blur between fantasy and reality....

....and you wind up with the end result of group A, ridiculously crazy people.

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Group B on the other hand, are just perfectly normal folks, who just think drawing cartoon animals is fun and cute.  They tend to prefer to be called Anthro Artists.

"Anthro" is short for "anthropomorphicism".  It's a literary and artistic concept, meaning that one takes a decidedly non-human object, and gives it human-like characteristics.  Pixar's "Cars", for example, features anthropomorphicised vehicles getting into various silly adventures.  More or less, take a raccoon, have him stand on his hind legs, put a little hat on him, and give him a Brooklyn accent, and you got yourself an anthro character.

Some of these folks also sometimes do the fursuit thing, but it's more for cuteness and/or being silly.  They also keep it in the conventions, instead of insisting on the "right" to wear the things 24-7.

In general, Group B is a silent majority that fully admits Group A has their place, but wishes everyone would stop paying attention solely to them.  Group B feels that Group A needs to tone down some of the fetishist p**n, ESPECIALLY the hideously illegal sort (namely, the "cub" p**n in particular).  And in general, Group A is a bunch of selfish jerk-offs who want to plaster their depravity all over every inch of the world, and claim to be "fursecuted" whenever people tell them that pornography that would make Boston dock-girls have dry heaves definitely does NOT belong in a pre-school.  Or an animal shelter.  Or any other such public places.

Answer 3

I think they are people who dress up in animal costumes and have s*x wit each other. Its kinda like a fetish.

Answer 4

They're animals that have fur, as opposed to hide, skin or scales!

Answer 5

Before "Googling", read Maria. Then read Maria again. If you're not convinced, listen to me: Read Maria!

Answer 6

Truly, you don't want to know.