Introduction:
It would be safe to say, there are almost as many opinions and theories about what furries are, as there are furries themselves. It's a never-ending debate among many people who know of or who are part of the fandom, usually furries themselves tying to find the line between being an ordinary person and being a furry. That's the problem, there is no "line" between being a fury or not, it's just one big fuzzy blur. There is no "right" way to be a furry. For every theory and opinion about what a furry is or should be, there is another different type of furry in existence. I'm not here trying to tell you what a furry is or should be, and I bear no direct definition of the term. The purpose of this is to lay out as many of the facts and theories as possible, putting everything in perspective to enable you to make up your own mind.

The basics:
The word furry predominantly applies to an interest in anthropomorphic animals and/or mythological or imaginary creatures that possess human or superhuman capabilities. The plural form of furry in all its contexts is furs or furries; the subjects of furry interest are also known as furries. You may have heard the comparison: Star trek fans are called trekkies, and people who's interests are animation and cartoons are called furries. Thats all fine, but the problem with that is that anyone whos simply just a fan of cartoons, thats typically any child etc, probably will never be referred to as a furry. It may not be politically correct but im sure you can agreee, being a furry, in one way or another is much more significant then simply being interested in cartoons. My sister is 23 and likes cartoons, but theres no way in hell you can call her a furry, she'll tell you to come talk to me and that shes nothing like me when it comes to cartoons.

An in-depth look into the sexual aspect of the fandom:
The other aspects of the furry fandom are relativly self explanatory, so we won't be exploring them here. It's the sexual aspect that gets us scratching our heads the most and constantly wondering: Why do some furries have this odd sexual attraction cartoon characters? Well, the answer to that isn't very clear as of now, asking why these furries are the way they are is rather like trying to ask why gay men are gay; it can't really be answered with a definite scientific-backing reason. So for now, the next best thing to go by is a theory by a furry such as myself based on my own personal experiences.

In my oppinion, the sexual attraction to cartoons is similar homosexuality in the fact that its not consciously chosen by the individual, he or she just is by some cause; early life emotional experiences or otherwise. No one chooses his or her sexuality, you may disagree and I accept that, I urge you to please read on with an open mind. These furries can be either strait or gay, from what I've seen, a most male furries are gay. It is at this point that I ask you to please not discriminate against furries who are sexually attracted to cartoons, something has caused it and it cannot be switched off simply because someone doesn't like it. Let me remind you that not all furries are this way; it's an aspect of the furry fandom, not the point. A number of theories exist about male homosexuals who are furries, such as the confusion of being gay resulting in the sexual attraction to cartoon characters as a way to cope. There are just too many things that can contribute to what causes a person to become sexually attracted to cartoons, so I cannot explain them all, I can only state this fact.

I believe there are two types of furry who have sexual relations with cartoon characters. One type is more about sex and fetishes with a variety of characters, there's no emotionally binding relationship with any of them. Relationships with characters would be loose, lust objects if you will. Such a person may have the same sexual attraction towards cartoons as he or she would toward humans, he or she may also be in a healthy relationship with another human at this time. The other type is someone who takes the lust towards a character a few steps further by becoming emotional partners, as if the character were real and essentially relieving the person of his or her single status. To understand this, remember back, to when you last had a burning lustful crush on someone, feel the love that you felt. Imagine having that same feeling towards a particular cartoon character and never towards any human or living thing for that matter. There are furries out there who have this feeling towards certain characters, me being one of them, see part two for more detail on how I am. For these people, cartoon characters are the primary sexual attraction; human beings are of no or little interest. Cartoon characters will be looked at the same way a normal man should look at women, assessing how attractive they are, all the usual routine, the only difference being that they're cartoons, not real people. Because cartoons aren't real, there's no flirting, no dating, no messing around. So when he or she finds a carton character attractive, usually it takes a few programmes before a sexual attraction builds, involving finding the character very cute, just loving it. Next it'll be all about how sexy it is, how great it would be to be able to grab that body one and for all, take it in and taste that first passionate kiss. This is about the point where you can call the character a lust object. Many characters can accumulate as lust objects, one that are occasionally masturbated over with numerous fantasies, kind of like finding your favourite porn; it's not a love affair. The final point is when you form an emotional attachment with one of the characters, no longer giving it lust object status. A good example of when a character is fully loved rather then looked at as a lust object, is such when you'd rather look at the characters face, not focusing all the attention so how sexy the body is. When all you want to do it look into the characters eyes, kiss long, gently and passionately, and just hold each other forever and ever. When the point of each Saturday morning is to lie in bed and just be with the character, to just look at, love and cuddle for hours. Basically it all boils down to the relationship not being all about sex, when its wanting to be with, to hold onto, and to be real, more then just the want of sex. One of the other benefits of having this sort of relationship with a character, is there's no inconvenience of having a partner, not having to work your life around someone else. If you're able to get past being alone, and be able to not feel lonely, there's no real need to have a human companion in your life. These furries are very self-sufficient. They may be different, but they're probably happier then you, as much as you might hate to admit it, and they don't even have a lot of control over it.

Some may argue that people who are sexually attracted to cartoons are socially aquad, weird even. Truth be told, some of these furries are. As usual, bad news is more interesting then good news, you only have to watch TV1 at 6PM to know that. So people tend to only pay attention to the weird ones, they forget the most people who care sexual furries are actually normal, that these people may very well be your boss at work, or that big road works guy who gives you the thumbs up as you drive by. I feel that I have stressed the fact enough that this is so similar to homosexuality regarding being able to tell just by looking at how someone acts.

Lets face it, if someone's sexual 'thing' isn't something you yourself do, its perverted and wrong. You will (probably without knowing until now), close your mind off, and just say NO as we try to tell you that its really not that bad. I'm sorry to direct this in such a way that make you out to be ignorant, but even I know every well that I have been guilty of the same act. We have a tenancy to forget about things that are, in reality, much worse. At this moment you may think that having a sexual attraction to cartoons instead of humans is really sick, and something that needs to be sorted out. Just wait a minute, what happens when its put in perspective? Someone may be yelling and screaming, as the leaders of Burned Furs did, about some furries being 'perverted'. At the time of their preaching all that is right, they forget. They forget that what these furries are doing has practically no ill effect to anyone or anything. Compare it with normal human porn: In some way or another, it inflicts harm, sometimes physically and/or most commonly psychologically. Next time your looking at your porno, remind yourself that you're looking at someone's daughter. You're looking at a person who has very likely made the biggest, most humiliating decision of their life. This 'actor' is a real person with feelings, and she's giving herself away, exposing herself to hundreds of thousands of people, who are all whacking off to her humiliating situation. I don't know many porn stars, but from what I've seen on Dr Phil, not many of them are proud of what they do. Now, take another look at these 'perverted' people who have sexual fantasies about cartoons. Does this person, in any way contribute directly or indirectly to any sort of harm or any type, if any at all? There's nothing but this person, and lines on paper, and maybe even a soft toy with a few sticky scuff marks on its behind. A furries sexual fantasy is confined entirely to the individual, there is in no way, any harm to people or property that you can speak of. So why do we write them off at 'really sexually perverted' or 'sick'. Tell me, what is it that's really wrong with it? Sometimes it seems to me that furries are held to the same conviction that bestiality offenders are held to. Look at it like this: Norbert Beaver minds if anyone makes love to him on a regular basis. He will not yelp as you shove your non-beaver size thingy into his behind, nor will he suffer severe, painful injury from your sexual poundings. Norbert will never get a disease from the infested petrii dish that is your blood stream. He will not suffer near-permanent psychological harm that your continued abuse over the months will result in. Norbert Beaver is no more then nicely arranged, two-dimensional colours on a flat surface. He's not real. It will be argued though, that the idea of someone fantasising about having sex with a cartoonised dog for example, is too close to bestiality for comfort. When I think about it, these people who think this have good reason to. In some cases it's similar to a man who has drawings of naked little children, instead of photos, his interests are basically the same and I would be very worried. Truth be told, I do have to account for the portion of furries whose sexual attention will stray every now and then from fictional characters, over to real bestiality fantasies. Narrowing the percentage even more, most of these furries don't go further then fantasy, there's very few who would seriously take part in such acts. It's simply inevitable that there would be a portion that would. These people just an aspect of the sexual aspect of being a furry, they are quite a small percentage of the furry population, and they hardly represent the fandom as a whole. I'm not cases, sexual behaviour towards fictional characters will be limited to just that. It's a love of particular characters that goes beyond that of normal persons.

The Burned Furs:
The media have a job; it is to bring us information and to entertain us so that we keep watching their broadcast, that's the simple fact: bad news is interesting and it sells. If the media are going to make a story about furries, it needs to be interesting. The media didn't actually look for furries, they didn't even know about them. The fandom found the media when a certain group of people stood up and brought attention to the fact that there's a so-called "sexual perversion" happening within the fandom. It was at this point, that all the media had to go by was the interesting notion that there's a worldwide group of people, mostly concentrated in the US, who like to dress up as cartoon characters and have group sex. This was the beginning of a very long era of fur bashing, furs against furs and the general population against furs.

There have been many shows on TV over the years that feature sexually oriented furries, with hardly any information about the rest of the furry population. But what's the point? Most of what it means to be a furry has nothing to do with sex, and to put it in perspective would result in a rather boarding TV show. It's a no brainier really, that when it comes to the media, the focus of furries is sex. The sexual furry is such a mystery to anyone who's not one, it really is a hard thing to understand. And like something that's not understood, it is feared.

The Burned Furs were founded in 1998 by Eric Blumrich and Charla Trotman, also known as Squee Rat. People of this group, in the words of Charla, "are furs who have spoken up against fandom perversion and been 'burned at the stake' for it." The Burned Furs started out on the basis that anthropomorphics fandom is being overrun by sexually dysfunctional, socially stunted and creatively bankrupt hacks and pervs. There was much controvercy over the exact nature of the Burned Furs beliefs, they were often accused of wanting to impose a kind of anti-sexual vision over the fandom. There were even certain members of the group that were intolerant of gays, furry lifestylers and even Christian furries. Burned Furs claimed that none of the above was a problem, as long as it was kept private, within the law and not displayed in an attention getting manner, especially through the media. Many critics connidred the Burned Furs to be a hate group, due to the harsh in-your-face tactics, offensive shirts made by the group, and even physical threats made towards other furries. The Burned Furs were opposed by a peace group called the Freezing Furs who believed that the Burned Furs were a hate group. Two more groups; Nonaligned Furs and Furry Peace were formed around the factional conflicts which resulted from the formation of the Burned Furs. By 2001, the Burned Furs had alsmost completely vannished, having many of the members leaving the fandom. Along with them, the peace groups also faded out, no longer having any need to be around.

Many critics of Burbed Furs claim that this group were responsible for furries being looked at as dirty, and that they created what they were seaking to destroy. To an extent this it true, being that it was already known that some furries take their aspect of the fandom onto a sexual level, but the fact not being well known by people outside of the fandom on a whole. It was virtually unherd of. Some who oppose Burned Furs say that when the group stood up and made a lot of noise about wanting to abollish the sexual aspect of the fandom, the trouble it cause brought more attention to the fact, effectivly making the situation regarding the link between furries and odd sexual behaviour worse. Some say that if Burned Furs had never existed, most people outside the fandom would not be aware of the sexual aspect. Thus no CSI or ER epidoes would have ever been made, steriotyping the fandom as a sexual oddity of strangers having sex in fur suits, and people would be able to still call themselves furries without being looked at as misguided plushie rapists. Before the Burned Furs, there was a time when it was good to be refered to as a Furry, it was a fun thing, innosent. There have always been a handful of sexually motivated furries, but they weren't ever the aspect of the fandom until Burned Furs stood up and made a unreasonably huge fuss. Its not because of Burbed Furs as a whole, its all down to their overy forcive method. You think they would have learned from Hitlers mistake, you can't get rid of it by shouting a lot and abusing innosent people. It all boiled down to one persons rampid temper tantrum, all because of a wise crack remark made by a prospective employer when she stated that she was a Furry.

Before concluding this chapter, I would like to make perfectly clear that the majoroty of Burn Furs members aren't as evil as I may have made them sound, most of the members remain today as good furries. It's the leadership of Burned Furs, the handful of people who lead this whole fiasko on, that I considder almost evil.

The furry fandom will always be home to furries that are sexually attracted to cartoons, but there will always be some who disagree with it. That's life! Its okay to have an opinion, just take a look at yourself and make sure your not going so far as to force it upon others.

I hope reading this has been of benafit to you, no matter what your orientation.