A ton of factors, but I’ve been a fur for 22 years and I give zero fucks about what others think about it/me, so an unfiltered view.

Most of my friends are furry, and all of them are at least neutral on the topic. I had a clan I was in during my ‘okay yes fine I am a furry let’s make a sona I guess’ awakening, and I was booted for that fact. So everyone I’m friends with has to not be a dick, or you’re getting blacklisted.

Most of my friends are weird, and the furry ones especially. I know no innocent furries, we all have our vices, and I love that. A space where I can be weird, suggestive, kinky, lewd is liberating. But even beyond sexy stuff, it’s just this melting pot of weird interests, hobbies, aspirations, and everyone wants to see everyone else succeed. The ‘vibe’ as the kids call it, online or in person, is always positive. Compared to gestures to the outside world, yeah nah I’m staying in the happy bubble.

Most of us are quite intelligent, lots are STEM, many are post-secondary grads. Most are okay with atheists/non believers. I thiiiink the majority are gay/les/bi. Basically, a group of smart people who aren’t dicks to each other. Again, nice place to be.

With the exception of my first relationship, which was never made ‘official’ but we were together for a couple of years, I only date furries. For the above reasons and more, I limit the dating pool from like a billion+ to hundred-thousands (maybe millions?), then further by being gay (very limited homoflexibility). But I want to be with someone (one or several) who share my interests, excitement, ideas and topics; and who shares similar values, like not being a dick to others. These simple traits are… less common, in the general population.

And of course, the kinky stuff. I’m all over the place and with the exception of some obvious ‘yeah nah’ topics that are generally assumed unless stated otherwise by people, I am will to/have tried a lot of things. Again the sort of non-judgemental environment let’s me say something that would be absolutely wild anywhere else, and others will respond like it’s nothing at all. Being free of judgements is absolutely unique, in my experience.

There are a few shady characters, bad apples, and all that - every group has them. But I haven’t interacted with one myself, and it’s been over two decades, so I’m pretty confident in saying that the bad characters are a rounding error, and that ‘we are all in this for the positivity of each other’.

Im not a furry but I can tell you the answer is all and some combination. I used to go to cons and con folk could range from those who just like sci fi, fantasy, anime, etc to those who are really into one particular aspect to those who its like their whole lives. Many con folk over time sorta developed a consona. They bought clothing and such and over time what they wore to the con would be pretty consistant. My wife has a story about them stopping off at a guys house and he opened the door and when he saw it was confolk he closed it and after a few mins was back in his con outfit. Like no one at the con should see him without it. For me furries are just one of the interests people could be big on at cons. I missed them when they got their own con because the general con they used to go to had two dances and the fur dance had the AC cranked to max. You could go dance at the reg dance and once you were hot and sweaty go crash the fur dance.

I’ve liked Anthro characters since I was a child. Grew up watching cartoons like Redwall, Rescue Rangers, Ducktales etc. First stumbled upon some furry art as a teenager while “exploring the internet”, as one does. And I guess from that point it was obvious to me that I’m a furry. It’s definitely not exclusively a kink for me though, but a general interest. I just enjoy seeing those characters in pretty much any context. Throw some anthro characters in a video game and I’m at least twice as likely to buy it than if it were regular humans.

Ive kinda always liked things related to it (spent my childhood reading warrior cats and redwall, would always choose humanoid animal characters in games over humans when available, because I found humans kinda ugly somehow, etc) but never really considered myself one until after high school because it was considered “cringy” and I had to grow out of worrying about that. Actually was unfortunately rather judgmental towards furries myself at a certain age just out of denial.

Kinda warmed up to it in college after growing a bit and getting away from my old classmates, but it’s difficult to say what the initial draw was because, well, Ive had some sort of a liking for characters designed as humanoid animal people as far as I can remember (or, given that those are pretty common in kids media, I guess I didn’t really stop preferring them because they somehow felt easier to look at and imagine interacting with than more realistic human characters. I do have social anxiety and autism, which I suspect might have something to do with that feeling but I cant say for sure).

I would consider furry generally a subculture. I can see why some people would consider it a kink, given that furry culture seems to have a weaker taboo about sexual stuff than wider society does and that the community makes a lot of porn, but I don’t think it really qualifies as one for a given person unless one is just there for that and doesn’t have some interest in the wider community or furry characters in other contexts. For my part, I tend to imagine or prefer furry characters in any context that would generally involve human characters. Ie, if I draw or write or just fantasize about something, I’m very likely to work furries in regardless of the content, so them popping up in horny stuff is less a matter of finding those characters an inheritly sexual thing, and more a matter of sexual stuff being included in “everything that normally has humans”.

As far as my participation goes, that social anxiety I mentioned does limit me a bit, Ive not been to any conventions for example despite hoping to eventually. It’s mostly limited to art and internet communities for me at the moment, though most of my current friend group are also furries just cause those places are where I went looking for them.

Guy I used to date said he thought people would just be cuter with tails.

tl;dr it’s a creative hobby

Not a furry per se (yet maybe) but I’m in the same social circles, ymmv. Basically it’s just oc cosplay, and like all hobbies and crafts some people have a more enthusiastic, personal approach to it; and some like it surface level.

Essentially, it’s a joint art style in a large art community. People get to create their own characters and share in that art culture, and for some it’s a very powerful escape and a way to explore yourself in a different way.

I said “I’m in a hurry”.

Geeze. Someone’s got a one-track mind.

A tail is like a necktie for your butt.

• Recognized, goldstar furry

Crystal in Star Fox Adventure, I’d say its an interest in furry art though as I don’t care to have anything else the scene likes. It mostly seems to form from environmental pressures and experiences.

I have a happiness fetish and those drawings are often happy.

In contrast to porn in general, where participants often seem miserable.

Not a furry but I see the appeal. The character design possibilities greatly expand, and they tend to look cute or cool. If it didn’t work, Disney wouldn’t do it so often!

Been friends with a few furries for a while. Can say a lot of the answers I’ve read here encompass what I would say is majority of furries. There’s some that get into it exclusively for kink, it’s okay if they do, but even the furries have a strong disdain for pedophilia, zoophilia, and non-consensual in real life and in most instances drawn art.

Wants to touch on the zoophilia aspect as well, given most interactions of a sexual nature within the fandom are with is dubbed your persona/furrsona, it doesn’t fall under that term. Especially as well nearly all of them are at least human level intelligence but may not be able to vocalize like one. It’s a thin line there but real life practitioners are detested because surprise surprise, people in the fandom have some fairly strong moral convictions.

I’m not.

What counts as “being a furry?” On a scale from Garth to ‘I identify as a non-human animal’, where’s the cut-off?

I feel like there are probably a lot of people who don’t consider themselves to “be furries,” as such, but wouldn’t say no to Lola Bunny, for instance.

(Also, compare: Kinsey scale vs. furry scale.)