Yar Har, Fiddle Dee Dee, You Are a Furry
I watched Brent throw the ball back and forth, and I wondered if he could hold on to all that was beautiful about himself in the face of being told he was broken. "It is time to go tutoring," Sara yelled through the back door. Brent put his face down, and put his beautiful and wild black dog back behind the fence, "where," Brent said, "he belongs."
- Jonathan Mooney, The Short Bus
If you didn't go to RainFurrest, then whatever you thought it would be, it was better.
It was, in a word, furry.
* * *
I got one of the last rooms at the hotel and pre-reg'ed at the last minute, then der Emboof went in on the room with me. As usual, I'd been allergic to plans.
There was a workshop on publishing as a small press. I attended, and it was interesting to hear about the fiction side of the trade. I picked up the issue of Renard's Menagerie that prominently featured a raccoon story. I later settled down to read it - I don't take in enough fiction, much less short stories - and, having heard in the workshop about the immensely high standards of the publication and the trade, caught a gross grammatical error on the back cover copy and an apparent spelling error (or else creativity gone too cute by half) in a section heading. In other words, it was furry. The first story was good. It was about a raccoon.
Speaking of me buying hot raccoons, D.C. Simpson was there (!) and I got an autographed copy of the book of strips with the Nirvana parody cover of Timulty and yay!
And speaking, in turn, of me buying hot furries, I bought two pets at the pet auction, an adorable tabby-two I was already friends with (there was a bidding war involved, and Sarvey, the con charity, should like me now) and a red fox. One of these may have been a troublemaker; which it might have been is left as an exercise for the reader. (I think the same things about auctioning of anything sapient that you might, but my feedback is reserved for a con staff that ran a great event. It's complex.)
Kitty behaved very well, and I was a perfect gentleman. Okay, an imperfect gentleman, but a gentleman. Okay, I was a raccoon. The prospective owners (i.e. audience) at the pet auction were cheap (well, until that dominatrix went on stage, then the bidding shot to over $100), but then many of them are poor. In money. But rich in plenty of other things. Furs.
The auction was sandwiched between two halves of the Masquerade. RainRat rocked the quack doing the countries of the world, and then, of course, pirates took the stage! Kite the Fox has mocked me over many a drink, many a dinner, and many a drive. To see Whitepaws beat the living hell out of the infernal creature was a thing of bliss.
Also I secured a Marci badge. I'm official!
* * *
A paraphilia is, depending upon the source you believe, either a preference or a requirement (the DSM implies a requirement) for nonstandard means of achieving sexual gratification. I prefer to think of paraphilia more broadly, because the sexual component is only the part that naughty-mided shrinks have chosen to seize upon. Paraphilia, properly construed, is as much concerned with identity as with sexuality.
I've found very few scientific or medical books on paraphilia, and the only one I've found that doesn't suck is John Money's Lovemaps. Like anyone who makes a name for himself in science, he took part in controversial god-playing to advance his career and then lied about it (the Reimer case and who knows what else). I intend no endorsement of his practice with patients when I say Lovemaps, despite its highfalutin tone and use of overloaded diction bordering on comical, is a well written, superbly organized exposition of a reasonable theory of paraphilia readily accessible to the lay reader. Its value is well summarized by its definition of paraphilia in the introduction:A paraphilia is a strategy for turning tragedy into triumph according to the principles of opponent-process theory. This strategy preserves sinful lust in the lovemap by dissociating it from saintly love.
The saint-and-sinner stuff isn't value judgment; it is a conscious choice of image, or model, most appropriate to the societies from which the learned (or "nurture" not "nature") component of sexuality derives.
Like every psychological model I've met, I don't wholly buy into this one. But I think it has considerable value. Money proposes that there are six categories into which all paraphilias fall: sacrificial/expiatory, marauding/predatory, mercantile/venal, fetishistic/talismanic, stigmatic/eligibilic, and solicitational/allurative. (The dual-named categories are an example of his rhetorical overreach; another favorite is "sexuoerotic.") He makes a good case for it. It's strengthened in my mind, maybe unjustifiably, by his understanding of both the masochistic and the fetishistic aspects of autonepiophilia, in contrast to Stekel, who even in a whole book couldn't get close to correct. (He didn't have much to work with; he can no more be blamed than Newton can for not understanding special relativity.)
I like my expanded definition of paraphilia - encompassing identity, but integrating with sexuality - because it brings furry under the same umbrella as other fetishes and identities that have in common this "tragedy into triumph" driving force. The furry fandom must be the most obvious and finest example that can be had of latent tragedy masquerading (!) as as triumphant celebration. The triumph is a process, not an end, and a neverending process at that. That's one way (equally valid as many others) to conceive of the post-con depression we all know so well: a crest of the masquerade has been topped, and we are heading back to stasis, to the day-in-day-out struggles with the mundane, where each of our individual tragedies is real, close enough to touch, if we're not careful, no matter how far away we've managed to push it in time and space.
Don't understand this as a criticism of furs. It is precisely the opposite. There's tragedy all over us and we turn it on its head and party like there's no tomorrow, we snuggle in a culture that demands space and distance, we glitter and dance in a culture that hates magic, we mew and twitter and wag in food courts and hotels and restauraunts that want none of it. We come from broken homes, broken cultures, we have broken psyches, so many of us, and we say goddammit I'm cool and life is good and watch me prove it. But look around: it does begin with tragedy.
* * *
I had a conversation in the hospitality suite with a couple of furs, really sweet guys, who were trying to get me to create a Second Life account. "Name one thing you can do IRL that you can't do in SL," I was challenged. "Not be in front of a keyboard," I replied. Silence. This is a clash of cultures I not infrequently experience with other furs. But where spoken language fails to deliver, there are always snuggles.
I had the unique1 experience of having the elevator doors open and to immediately have the two con chairpersons thrown into me, as the con was closed by a ceremonious ejection, at the paws of a small contingent fursuiters, of the con chairs from their own event. This is roughly equivalent to when the professor has to leave the room at the end of the last day of class while the students fill out evaluations.
I may or may not have said something last Howloween, in a drunken phonepost, about one day being the ideal duration of a fur con. I'll tentatively expand my prescription to two days and change with an optional DeadDog.
* * *
I spotted the ConOps Coyote busily doing his thing:
I have dined with this coyote previously; unlike Kite, he is a gentleman.
There was a sweet baby fox on the receiving end of this, but as I didn't obtain his permission to post a picture of him nearly nekkid, even covered as he was by his hands and a cute guy with handcuffs hanging off his belt, I've cropped that part out:
A nonstandard elevator button configuration:
Fursuiters pose!
Scared hotel staff for the win:
It was a lot of fun. Count me in for next year.
1 I use "unique" in its literal, not its space-filler, sense: probably no one else in the history of humanity, or for that matter of anthropomorphics, has had this experience, which in Clue terms might be described, "It was the fursuiter in the elevator with the con chairpersons."
- Jonathan Mooney, The Short Bus
If you didn't go to RainFurrest, then whatever you thought it would be, it was better.
It was, in a word, furry.
* * *
I got one of the last rooms at the hotel and pre-reg'ed at the last minute, then der Emboof went in on the room with me. As usual, I'd been allergic to plans.
There was a workshop on publishing as a small press. I attended, and it was interesting to hear about the fiction side of the trade. I picked up the issue of Renard's Menagerie that prominently featured a raccoon story. I later settled down to read it - I don't take in enough fiction, much less short stories - and, having heard in the workshop about the immensely high standards of the publication and the trade, caught a gross grammatical error on the back cover copy and an apparent spelling error (or else creativity gone too cute by half) in a section heading. In other words, it was furry. The first story was good. It was about a raccoon.
Speaking of me buying hot raccoons, D.C. Simpson was there (!) and I got an autographed copy of the book of strips with the Nirvana parody cover of Timulty and yay!
And speaking, in turn, of me buying hot furries, I bought two pets at the pet auction, an adorable tabby-two I was already friends with (there was a bidding war involved, and Sarvey, the con charity, should like me now) and a red fox. One of these may have been a troublemaker; which it might have been is left as an exercise for the reader. (I think the same things about auctioning of anything sapient that you might, but my feedback is reserved for a con staff that ran a great event. It's complex.)
Kitty behaved very well, and I was a perfect gentleman. Okay, an imperfect gentleman, but a gentleman. Okay, I was a raccoon. The prospective owners (i.e. audience) at the pet auction were cheap (well, until that dominatrix went on stage, then the bidding shot to over $100), but then many of them are poor. In money. But rich in plenty of other things. Furs.
The auction was sandwiched between two halves of the Masquerade. RainRat rocked the quack doing the countries of the world, and then, of course, pirates took the stage! Kite the Fox has mocked me over many a drink, many a dinner, and many a drive. To see Whitepaws beat the living hell out of the infernal creature was a thing of bliss.
Also I secured a Marci badge. I'm official!
* * *
A paraphilia is, depending upon the source you believe, either a preference or a requirement (the DSM implies a requirement) for nonstandard means of achieving sexual gratification. I prefer to think of paraphilia more broadly, because the sexual component is only the part that naughty-mided shrinks have chosen to seize upon. Paraphilia, properly construed, is as much concerned with identity as with sexuality.
I've found very few scientific or medical books on paraphilia, and the only one I've found that doesn't suck is John Money's Lovemaps. Like anyone who makes a name for himself in science, he took part in controversial god-playing to advance his career and then lied about it (the Reimer case and who knows what else). I intend no endorsement of his practice with patients when I say Lovemaps, despite its highfalutin tone and use of overloaded diction bordering on comical, is a well written, superbly organized exposition of a reasonable theory of paraphilia readily accessible to the lay reader. Its value is well summarized by its definition of paraphilia in the introduction:A paraphilia is a strategy for turning tragedy into triumph according to the principles of opponent-process theory. This strategy preserves sinful lust in the lovemap by dissociating it from saintly love.
The saint-and-sinner stuff isn't value judgment; it is a conscious choice of image, or model, most appropriate to the societies from which the learned (or "nurture" not "nature") component of sexuality derives.
Like every psychological model I've met, I don't wholly buy into this one. But I think it has considerable value. Money proposes that there are six categories into which all paraphilias fall: sacrificial/expiatory, marauding/predatory, mercantile/venal, fetishistic/talismanic, stigmatic/eligibilic, and solicitational/allurative. (The dual-named categories are an example of his rhetorical overreach; another favorite is "sexuoerotic.") He makes a good case for it. It's strengthened in my mind, maybe unjustifiably, by his understanding of both the masochistic and the fetishistic aspects of autonepiophilia, in contrast to Stekel, who even in a whole book couldn't get close to correct. (He didn't have much to work with; he can no more be blamed than Newton can for not understanding special relativity.)
I like my expanded definition of paraphilia - encompassing identity, but integrating with sexuality - because it brings furry under the same umbrella as other fetishes and identities that have in common this "tragedy into triumph" driving force. The furry fandom must be the most obvious and finest example that can be had of latent tragedy masquerading (!) as as triumphant celebration. The triumph is a process, not an end, and a neverending process at that. That's one way (equally valid as many others) to conceive of the post-con depression we all know so well: a crest of the masquerade has been topped, and we are heading back to stasis, to the day-in-day-out struggles with the mundane, where each of our individual tragedies is real, close enough to touch, if we're not careful, no matter how far away we've managed to push it in time and space.
Don't understand this as a criticism of furs. It is precisely the opposite. There's tragedy all over us and we turn it on its head and party like there's no tomorrow, we snuggle in a culture that demands space and distance, we glitter and dance in a culture that hates magic, we mew and twitter and wag in food courts and hotels and restauraunts that want none of it. We come from broken homes, broken cultures, we have broken psyches, so many of us, and we say goddammit I'm cool and life is good and watch me prove it. But look around: it does begin with tragedy.
* * *
I had a conversation in the hospitality suite with a couple of furs, really sweet guys, who were trying to get me to create a Second Life account. "Name one thing you can do IRL that you can't do in SL," I was challenged. "Not be in front of a keyboard," I replied. Silence. This is a clash of cultures I not infrequently experience with other furs. But where spoken language fails to deliver, there are always snuggles.
I had the unique1 experience of having the elevator doors open and to immediately have the two con chairpersons thrown into me, as the con was closed by a ceremonious ejection, at the paws of a small contingent fursuiters, of the con chairs from their own event. This is roughly equivalent to when the professor has to leave the room at the end of the last day of class while the students fill out evaluations.
I may or may not have said something last Howloween, in a drunken phonepost, about one day being the ideal duration of a fur con. I'll tentatively expand my prescription to two days and change with an optional DeadDog.
* * *
I spotted the ConOps Coyote busily doing his thing:
I have dined with this coyote previously; unlike Kite, he is a gentleman.
There was a sweet baby fox on the receiving end of this, but as I didn't obtain his permission to post a picture of him nearly nekkid, even covered as he was by his hands and a cute guy with handcuffs hanging off his belt, I've cropped that part out:
A nonstandard elevator button configuration:
Fursuiters pose!
Scared hotel staff for the win:
It was a lot of fun. Count me in for next year.
1 I use "unique" in its literal, not its space-filler, sense: probably no one else in the history of humanity, or for that matter of anthropomorphics, has had this experience, which in Clue terms might be described, "It was the fursuiter in the elevator with the con chairpersons."