Furries

Are you familiar with Furries? They're people who dress like cartoon animals and have sex. At least that was my understanding of them when I watched this episode of Sex2K on MTV about ten years ago. At the time, it was MUST-SEE television for the high school set. (Now it's only kind of interesting and possibly dated, though I'm not sure what evolutions, if any, have been made in the Furry community since this first air, but watch if you're curious.)

I remember my friend Nicki was the one to break the ice on the topic in the cafeteria. "Did anyone see the show on MTV about the people who have sex in animal costumes? Soooo gross!"

Of course we had seen it. We were a product of our generation who was learning to watch MTV not for music videos, but to remain culturally relevant. If you didn't have an opinion on The Real World's Stephen slapping Lyme-diseased Irene, you best stay home "sick" the following day.

Suddenly, there were ten of us, all of whom would have normally been embarrassed to admit we had watched a show about people who copulate in animal costumes, loudly discussing the shocking content of the show. We are all obligated to use the words "gross" and "weird" in every single sentence, lest anyone thought we watched because we were aroused rather than morbidly curious.

For the remainder of high school, my friends would jokingly refer to each other as a "Furry" if we wanted to paint someone as some sort of sick pervert. I think it's safe to say that none of us were actually Furries, but who knows what happened once they went off to college.

After all, when I was in college, I actually met a Furry! He was a friend of a former roommate of mine. He had small, cartoonish, animal-like facial features. More importantly, his face was framed by the most ridiculous long, moppy hair. Think Farrah Fawcett hair, but darker and on a boy. His appearance practically made him look like a Furry without wearing a costume, so my thought when someone told me he was a Furry was that it was a joke someone had made that later spread as fact through rumor.

Still, the MTV special made me unusually inquisitive about Furries, so I did what any college student would do and turned to Facebook to conduct an investigation. I didn't expect to find anything too damning, since surely a Furry would stay closeted about this fetish, but sure enough, I saw that he belonged to a group devoted to Furries at my college consortium. There's more of them? I wondered, until I clicked on the group and found that he was the only member. He had created the group and was looking for other local college students who shared this identity.

Thereafter, I couldn't look at the guy without picturing him in a mascot outfit with a hole cut out around the genitals, bumping uglies with some other creature. Several months later, I checked in on his group again. He was still the only member and had dejectedly posted an update, "Come on... I can't be the only Furry here!"

Oh, but he could. I mean, I hope since then he's found some slutty fox to mate with, since everyone deserves to be happy, but I can't imagine there are too many people with a bear suit in the closet. But, you know, if you're turned on or whatever, I'll do my best to put you in touch.