Struggling with overcoming closet-furiness

[hotshot7000]

Honestly, I don't know how to put all this out in to words entirely, but I will do my best to spell this out simply with minimal context.

I am such a closet fur, I'm so deep in the closet I may as well be in f***in' Narnia lol....

I am 25 years old and have been tampering with the furry universe on the web since I was in Grade 8, and now find myself at a standstill about the topic.
I struggle to really commit to the idea of calling myself a furry
And yet I have a fursona like so many others who I simply call my "OC" instead to more or less disguise that fact for other's and for my own sake.

I enjoy trying to draw this said OC and other anthropomorphic characters and such, yet I won't dare wear a thing that says I am a furry by any means. I have one hoodie with a native print of two wolves on them and  wolf necklace I think, but that's truly all I got for such things.
Movies are probably the main reason I got in to the realm of furries in general before I discovered Furries. So I got hooked on the idea that such people could live that way in society.

Later followed up with discovering people identifying by such appearances, and leading me to research the rest of this said Social World..... And as many have, I discovered many things that changed my perspective..... In more ways than one >//> Lets just get that point though.

You can bet I do not have AAAAA-HE-HE-HE-HEN-yware near enough confidence in my opinion to ever invest in a fursuit and go walk about in some occasion.



I guess my main point to all of this is...... Am I a furry?... And if I am, am I unecessarily closet shaming myself?

[Korozar]

Are you a furry? Well it sounds like it, but in the end that's something you decide for yourself. Nobody else gets to declare that you are a furry.

Are you unnecessarily closet shaming yourself? Ehh, maybe. If you feel like it's causing you a lot of stress to be 'in the closet' then probably. That said, even if you do decide you're a furry, that doesn't mean you have to make a big announcement of it to all your friends and coworkers. It's a hobby and a social thing, and nothing feel embarrassment or shame over. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise probably isn't worth listening to.

I'd say, if it's causing you stress, be a furry! Join some chats, maybe commission some art, even come to a meet or two (if you aren't doing all this already). Calling yourself a furry can mean as much or as little as you want it to. Heck, it might mean nothing more than calling your 'oc' a 'fursona' instead!

[Kithop]

Pretty much this - the only time you'd struggle to call yourself a furry and have the rest of the community accept you is if you're a Nazi, and that's just because no community should accept Nazis. ;)

Beyond that, you get to decide how much or how little you want to be a part of a culture like this.  That's both furry's strength and weakness - there are a myriad of reasons for people to want to be involved, and sometimes those same reasons can be what pushes others away (just ask a cross-section what they think about the various sexual/fetish aspects!  Or don't.  Maybe don't.  We've heard this enough. ;P).  What furry is to one person could be almost completely disconnected from what someone else thinks of when they call themselves furry, but that's kind of the beauty of it.  We're not specifically 'fans of a commercial property', though there are definitely commercial properties that have had bigger influences on us than others (e.g. Disney, Don Bluth, Pokemon), but as I've heard from Aphinity a number of times (who may have been paraphrasing someone else), we're also a community of creators, and many of us are fans of each other.

Furry is much more than fursuits (I don't have one, despite being involved for... way too damned long, now) - we have a well-known and respected group just over in WA who make strongly scented, caffeinated soap with pawprint molds and furry art stickers.  We have traditional artists, digital artists, fursuiters who go for the cartoon look, the realistic look, or decide to shove electronics in (ooh, shiny LEDs).  We have comics, musicians (yo), gamers (also hey - and seriously, we have someone who has won a big-name eSports tourney and has their fursona in place of their RL photo for the posters!), writers... and a whole bunch of people who are here as fans of any or all of the above.  Maybe they want to learn how to get into some of these creative outlets, or maybe they're comfortable just being a part of a community with so much new outflow of ideas and culture going on.  Maybe their special talents lie elsewhere, but they end up finding a good use of themselves giving back by working at the various conventions and furmeets we have.

There's nothing wrong with being more on the sidelines, too - occasionally browsing through art, maybe, but not wanting to go to a convention or even a local furmeet - you still get to call yourself a furry if you want to, even if you don't feel necessarily part of a specific community of like-minded people.  Just like how you can be a fan of anything else and not necessarily join a club for it. :)

Personally, I went the route of 'I'm not going to specifically volunteer the fact that I'm a furry in my introductions, but I'm not going to go way out of my way to hide it, either.'  Yeah, I'm 90%+ sure my coworkers figured it out eventually (and now there's at least 3 of us in the same department, with rumours of a possible 4th or 5th nearby - furries run the internet), but they don't hassle me about it.  Probably because my coworkers are generally awesome, and they all have their own hobbies and nerdy pursuits, whether it be board games or escape rooms or D&D or what have you, and they know how it goes when someone's an ass to you over your 'fringe' hobby.

Not everyone on the 'outside' is going to accept you if they find out.  That's the cold, hard truth, unfortunately, but then, people love any excuse they can get to not accept you for who you are, if they're trying.

Many times, that stigma comes from a place of ignorance - we all can think of the stereotypical person whose knowledge of furry consists solely of 'that one CSI episode'.  Who thinks of furry solely as fursuiters, and fursuits solely as a fetish thing.  Sometimes you can successfully explain to them how the entire rest of the fandom exists, sometimes not.  Sometimes that argument just isn't worth having.  Yeah, people in the fandom hook up sometimes.  No, not everyone.  Some of them probably do it in suit, though that's a terrifying thought for many other suiters ("You know how much this costs?!").  We can't very well claim to be an inclusive, sex-positive fandom while simultaneously trying to minimize the existence of people for whom that's a big thing, of course.  There's just so much more to it than that.

If there's one piece of advice I can offer in all my rambling, it's that furry is mostly what you make of it.  You don't have to be a suiter, or an artist, or creative in any real fashion.  You don't have to go to all the conventions, or even the local furmeets.  You don't even have to be a part of this forum.  You decide how much or how little, who and what you want to be.

If you do decide to test the waters, however, I hope you'll find a warm, welcoming community of all creeds, skin colours, sexualities and genders, where it's okay to open up and be who you are, or maybe an alternate, idealistic version of yourself.  Be who you want to be. :)

[Psykan]

I have some input that may be helpful.

As some may already know (because I was on the BC Furries Telegram channel and plan to jump back in fairly soon), I'm a non-fur.  I don't have a fursona, and in fact trying to be someone I'm not is pretty awkward, so I don't even try--not even in roleplay.  So I'm here as a resident human...or more accurately, as someone who has place in any fandom, community, family, group, or anything of the like.  Believe me, I've tried many times already.  All I get out of the effort is a profound sense of displacement, discomfort, and stress.

But I've realized that, paradoxically, my place of belonging is no place at all.  It's as an outsider, a wanderer, or in the furry context, a lone wolf that I'm most comfortable.  But I've also learned that isolation benefits no one, not even someone like me.  So I mingle with furs and all other sorts just to build bridges; given my circumstances, the process isn't exactly straightforward, especially if I want to do it the right way.  Needless to say, this means things happen that knock me flat on my behind, forcing me to go back to the drawing board.  It's taken countless hard falls ad painful lessons for me to get to where I am now, and this will be a lifelong process.

The best advice I can give you is to be true to yourself.  Not only will this help you feel more comfortable and confident, but you'll find that many furs and non-furs alike will appreciate you for your honesty.  It's not easy, and takes a lot of effort.  You're going to make mistakes, and you'll come across people whom you'll never be able to get along with because of their opinions about who you are.  But just keep at it--and I think you'll find a lot of furry friends at your side, too.  When people who aren't like you have their reasons for sticking with you, nothing else really matters, because in the end, that's all anyone really needs.  Cherish that support, and you'll start feeling pretty darn good about who you are, in both your strengths and your shortcomings.

By the way, I've never bought into the silly stereotypes and stigmas regarding furries that float around in society.  If you're not sure what's right or wrong, then just remember that there are plenty of non-furs who do the same unsavory, disgusting stuff that the few furs those stereotypes are based on do.  It's something the ignorant sorts manage to conveniently forget when they bash furs.

Just be yourself, because that's all I'm doing.  I'll support you, too!  :3