Welcome to the jungle

>> Montreal's furries and furverts defend their unusual lifestyle

by SIOBHÀN O'CONNOR

There's an old photo of me taken at Disneyland wearing a pink mini-skirt with matching knee-socks laughing giddily in the arms of one of Cinderella's little mouse friends. Had I known then what I know now, I might not have smiled quite so big. Nor would I be so open about my love for my good friend Jenny Bear, whose cuddly plush and brown-checkered dress lulled me to sleep for a good 10 years of my life. Joining Jenny in the coffin of my cartoon-loving youth are a pair of bunny ears, some Care Bears, Scooby Doo, Jessica Rabbit, Pépé le Pew and Wile E. Coyote. All this since I discovered a subculture of people who never let go their Jenny Bears and continue into adulthood to relate to their furry friends.

Welcome to the wild world of "furries," a growing community made up mostly of men, quite a few Montrealers among them, who strongly identify with one particular animal or animal character be they plush toys, mascots or cartoons. Some furries are also furverts and, as the clever name hints, these are the lusty ones who are into plush and other furries sexually.

But ask most furries to explain what they're all about these days and they'll start by telling you that they're not into screwing animals, they don't fantasize about giving it to teddy bears and that Vanity Fair's George Gurley got it all wrong. Gurley's "Pleasures of the Fur," the first in-depth look at furries and plushophiles (many of whom have sex with plush), pissed off a lot of furries by focussing on the sexual elements of the subculture.

Talking furry

Like snowflakes, no two furries are alike and the community, or "fandom" as it is affectionately called by insiders, has been described alternately as a support network, a hobby, a lifestyle and a sexual orientation. Lewis is a thirtysomething Montrealer who feels a closeness with wolves and, incidentally, looks a little like one. He lives with four dogs and says he's "picked up a lot of canine characteristics. I have this idiosyncrasy where I 'woof' at people when I can't think of what to say."

Jonathan Roth, a professional animator born and bred in Montreal who now lives in Maine, says he defines himself much like he would his totem animal, the red fox, and says that if it were scientifically possible, he'd like to become one--but only if it was reversible. High-schooler Cnipur (pronounced "sniper"), on the other hand, says, "I like my human form and I wouldn't trade it," while a man who goes only by the name McElhone says, "Lingerie girls are not for me. I'm into plush bunnies, but not just sexually. I feel more comfortable when I'm in my bunny suit or online talking to other furries about what it means to be a fur."

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, many furries, who may have otherwise remained in hibernation, have found each other online where their enthusiasm is played out in chatrooms and newsgroups. Somewhere between 25 and 50 Montreal furries are part of a menagerie of thousands of foxes, wolves, rabbits and whatnot who get together nightly to "talk furry" using a complicated chat code. Other furry activities include online role-playing games, collecting furry-related art, donning "fursuits" (some of which look like overgrown stuffed-animals, others are more realistic) and attending conventions, or "cons." And while this may all sound like a weird way to pass the time, it's still just good, clean fun--right?

Frisky business

The juicier stuff, of course, is when this furry business gets frisky, which "it sometimes does," concedes the 34-year-old Montrealer McElhone, a graphic designer who calls himself a furry and a furvert. "Furverts are people who like to give it to teddy bears through strategically placed holes (SPHs) and fuck other furries in fursuits. Or sometimes we just have pile-ons where a bunch of furries lie together like pack animals. We make up a pretty small part of the community. It's always the fringes of any subculture that get the most attention, especially when we're into kinky sex. I know I'm not in the majority but I still deserve to be treated like a legitimate member."

If he sounds a little defensive it's because he is. He says he's been on the receiving end of a lot of flak recently from furries who he feels don't want him in the community anymore because they think furverts give them all a bad name. He says he's been "dissed or ignored" in chatrooms and has stopped receiving e-mails from his Montreal furry friends.

According to Roth, the Vanity Fair story has provided "ammunition to what furries call the Burnt Fur Schism, the migration of people away from the fandom. This has been highly damaging to the community." Gurley's lengthy, investigative story, which ran in the magazine's March issue, is a fascinating read to the uninitiated, but it's caused quite the stink in the fandom because of its depiction of furries as "sex-fetishists." Like any subculture that exists largely underground or behind closed doors, media attention can be as harmful as it can be helpful. Says Roth: "What Gurley has done is [tantamount to] going to a sports game, finding one of the shirtless fans with a painted face and asking him what it really means to be a sports fan."

Origin of the species

All of this furry talk certainly begs the question "Why furry?" While it's true that not everything in life can be explained through some traumatic childhood fuck-up, sitting down with a few local furries provided insight into the whys and the hows of furriness, something they too are hard-pressed to explain.

Cnipur thinks that some people are drawn to the fandom "because a lot of furries are reclusive, anti-social, shy or weird--but I'm not like that. Maybe they think it's easier because animals don't talk and they see some characteristic in their totem animal that they wish they had."

McElhone, on the other hand, says he discovered his furvert leanings as a horny teen. "It's not uncommon for teenage boys to look for different things to penetrate," he says. "Look at that American Pie movie for Christ's sake. I was brought up in a house where sex was taboo. I always loved cartoons and had lots of plush lying around so one day, when I was about 14, I just rubbed up against one a little. When I found out there were other people like me, it was amazing."

Lewis looks after the Montreal furry mailing list and has a stuffed animal collection that "would put any 14-year-old girl to shame"--though he has no interest in having sex with them. He says: "I think people become furries because they see animals as an alternative to their human form. You'll never find a furry whose totem is an ape or any other primate. Everyone wants to be cool animals like foxes, wolves, bears or cats."

Roth sees it differently. "I think the real attachment the furry fans feel is with the characters we've grown up with in the popular media," he posits. "Animated and written characters have to be believable, engaging and create an emotional bond with the viewer to be loved. I think it's that bond that keeps people interested in furries when they grow up. As a child I saw these shows with humanoid animals and thought that's how life should be, rather than the way it was at school. By the time I was a teenager, I began to actively seek it out."

Miffed and yiffed

A cursory look at any online furry newsgroup confirms that in-fighting is rampant, many of the debates centring around the role that sex (or "yiffing") plays in the fandom. While Lewis agrees that the sex stuff does make up part of the fandom, he says it's limited. "If people are into bestiality or plushes it makes sense that they'd gravitate toward the fandom because it involves animals. But it's a small group that tags along. Look at goths. There are goths who think of bloodletting as sexual, but most goths would be pretty angry if everyone thought all they were into was vampire sex."

Sixteen-year-old dolphin-lover Cnipur chirps, "The idea of sex with plush or with another fur just takes it to new extreme, in my opinion. It's like you can't get any in real life so you have to go on the Internet as an animal. I like hugging my plush, I think they're cute and nice to hold but the idea of going at a plush makes me cringe. Furry is not about sex."

Maybe not for most, but while non-sexual furries are railing against the "furry equals sex" equation, Montreal furverts like McElhone are trying to secure their place within the community. "Like I said, I am a legitimate furry," he explains. "But I also stand by my desires to screw whatever I want. I'm not hurting anyone. When I am online with other furs I ask if they're into strap-on [dildos] or SPHs. That way I know. If they aren't into that then that's okay too. I'm not a freak or a pervert, I just like to be up-front about what I like."

Flocking together

With all this online activity, it's a wonder furries ever actually meet face to face. Though Montreal furries do occasionally get together, they admit it's rare and that they save their money for expensive cons--the ultimate furry to-dos where they get to parade around like show ponies in their carefully crafted thousand-dollar fursuits making friends and influencing people. The cons are notorious yiffing grounds, but for the most part, these are "educational gatherings where we can all sit down and talk about what really matters," says McElhone. And what really matters to this furry? "Well, rabbits have a bad rap because of the expression 'doing it like bunnies,' so I like to talk about that. We also talk about how furries are perceived, we buy furry art, we have group discussions about cartoons and movies with animals in them."

Feral!, an annual outdoorsy summer camp near Toronto, takes furries into more natural settings, says Lewis--something some furries are less comfortable with than you'd think. "At Feral! they hold a predator-prey game where we chase each other around in the grass and I always find it amusing to watch the people who actually think they should've been born animals completely ill at ease and unable to play the game. I think games like that are a bit of an eye-opener." Lewis has attended four cons so far: "For me, attending a standard furry con like Anthrocon [in Philadelphia] is about being seen, selling art and doing my performances."

Though Montreal furries haven't hosted their own con yet, Cnipur is hard at work trying to get one together for next winter. Don't be surprised if by this time next year hotel lobbies in downtown Montreal become something of an urban wildlife reserve, brimming with lively, fursuited friends who look like cuddly, overgrown versions of your childhood teddies.