Ask Lemmy

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.