A Huge Kerfluffle
Lately, it seems that there have been furs in the media "actin the fool" and making it all look bad for us.
And so there have been many wise comments and analysis posts on what could cause this, what brought this on, and what we can do to make the furry fandom a little less "Lord of the Furs" to quote one excellent person.
I'm going to offer another suggestion, one that mixes things up a bit.
Furry is where it's at because the behavior has been condoned for a long time. It was a series of small steps and decisions that has built this fandom into what it is, and now we have people showing porn in restaurants, dry humping in parks, doing drugs, and talking about boning their dogs. Not to mention the hitting on children, or many other things.
Except.. this behavior has gone on for a long time. I've seen staff at conventions ignore drug use. I've seen staff at conventions be told to "fuck off" when they asked people in leashes to stop leading each other around. I've seen the same staff ignore the situation.
I think we need to examine some things before we try to solve this problem.
First, we need to determine what furry is now. What it should be. What is MFF about? What is AC about? What is being a convention going fur about? What is being a lifestyler fur about? What do our conventions currently SAY furry is about by their actions? What do the websites and mucks say Furry is about? What gets sold at conventions, and what does THAT say we're about? What does second life say we're about? What does Wikifur say we're about? That's the first goal. We need to find out what Furry is, and what our actions say Furry is.
The second goal is that we need to figure out what we want Furry to be. If it's different from what we find out Furry IS, we need to determine if it's wrong or right to be this way. We need to use our judgements and our values to determine where we want to be and why we're not there.
Finally, we need to start mapping out a series of actions that get us from point A (now) to point B (what we want.) We need to act on those things. We need to set goals. If Furry isn't about the porn, then why does Fur Affinity seem to say it is? If it's not about the sex, why do so many people go to conventions to hook up? If it's not about the fetishes, why do we condone behavior at conventions that are fetish in nature? We need to really and truly DO something. If it means banning people for misbehavior, so be it. If it means requiring all artists who sell R or X rated art to get their own segment of the dealers den, so be it. If it means disallowing tails and ears in fine restaurants, okay.
But we cannot keep doing exactly what we've been doing and expecting a different result. That's what has gotten us to the point we're at. If people want Furry to change, they're going to have to be willing to make the hard decisions.
And so there have been many wise comments and analysis posts on what could cause this, what brought this on, and what we can do to make the furry fandom a little less "Lord of the Furs" to quote one excellent person.
I'm going to offer another suggestion, one that mixes things up a bit.
Furry is where it's at because the behavior has been condoned for a long time. It was a series of small steps and decisions that has built this fandom into what it is, and now we have people showing porn in restaurants, dry humping in parks, doing drugs, and talking about boning their dogs. Not to mention the hitting on children, or many other things.
Except.. this behavior has gone on for a long time. I've seen staff at conventions ignore drug use. I've seen staff at conventions be told to "fuck off" when they asked people in leashes to stop leading each other around. I've seen the same staff ignore the situation.
I think we need to examine some things before we try to solve this problem.
First, we need to determine what furry is now. What it should be. What is MFF about? What is AC about? What is being a convention going fur about? What is being a lifestyler fur about? What do our conventions currently SAY furry is about by their actions? What do the websites and mucks say Furry is about? What gets sold at conventions, and what does THAT say we're about? What does second life say we're about? What does Wikifur say we're about? That's the first goal. We need to find out what Furry is, and what our actions say Furry is.
The second goal is that we need to figure out what we want Furry to be. If it's different from what we find out Furry IS, we need to determine if it's wrong or right to be this way. We need to use our judgements and our values to determine where we want to be and why we're not there.
Finally, we need to start mapping out a series of actions that get us from point A (now) to point B (what we want.) We need to act on those things. We need to set goals. If Furry isn't about the porn, then why does Fur Affinity seem to say it is? If it's not about the sex, why do so many people go to conventions to hook up? If it's not about the fetishes, why do we condone behavior at conventions that are fetish in nature? We need to really and truly DO something. If it means banning people for misbehavior, so be it. If it means requiring all artists who sell R or X rated art to get their own segment of the dealers den, so be it. If it means disallowing tails and ears in fine restaurants, okay.
But we cannot keep doing exactly what we've been doing and expecting a different result. That's what has gotten us to the point we're at. If people want Furry to change, they're going to have to be willing to make the hard decisions.