As you will know many furries we know are ditching Deviant ART to join a rival gallery called Fur Affinity. You know, the “place for furries”. I had picked up a bit of aggravation from defenders of the site and furry porno, telling me not to knock it until I try it. Well, as you may know, I joined it last month, and I’ve tried it. Hell, I’ve now got all the more reason to knock it!

Unlike VCL, which simply is for ALL furry artwork in general, Fur Affinity is simply an obvious backlash against Sheezy and Deviant’s strict rules against pornography, going as far as copying most of those sites’ layouts to an extent. Today Fur Affinity is the internet’s leading furry porn gallery. In fact, it’s now more popular than VCL, which I don’t find hard to believe since VCL is so frustrating and boring anyway. Alarm bells are ringing. As it is furry fandom does not have a great image because of stereotypes, and sites like this do no favours in improving this image. Instead, it’s only serving to prove the stereotypes correct after all - furries, mostly gay, obsessed with sex. Wonderful. 9 out of 10 furries must really love their porno, or “yiff” as they affectionately know it as.

Most furry artwork is gay, hence most furries are gay or bisexual. Any furry makes this as noticeable as the nose on their face. This really pisses me off, not because I don’t like gay people (I’m friends with a few gays) but it means that me and other furries who are not as far into that kinky stuff are vulnerable to stereotyping from furry haters and even other furries. It’s true that there is a fair amount of non-gay yiff, but most straight furries I know tend to download very little if any of it. Some die hard furries see a new furry and assume “they must be gay”, even if they are straight or not so into sex. Some gay furs themselves don’t even understand why the fandom follows a gay preference.

Now unlike other online galleries, there is no search feature on FA because it’s disabled. But since most people on this site are so unashamedly obsessed with male genitalia, they won’t need to look far to find something to jack off to. And I cannot count how many pictures have two gay male canines going in through the out door making a mess. Why do so many artists draw these pics, and draw some more when they are all practically the same anyway? I’m not saying these guys are bad artists, instead I’m saying it’s a terrible waste of their talent, and a waste of internet bandwidth. These artists like to say that they love the anatomy of their characters, but essentially it’s just a picture of their characters screwing each other, and for no other reason. And the people who watch this can only call it “cute” or “I want to join in!”. Well, I won’t join in and I won’t interrupt your fun, but I’d prefer it if you were more discreet about it.

I like some of the artistic style of furry artists, because some of them draw very well. It doesn’t matter to them if it’s gay because they’re either gay or bisexual. And they make lots of cash from selling fuckloads of porn, so even furry haters can love making money off of furries. They can hardly be blamed for what they’re doing. This is good enough, but only if seeing TV shows and films portraying furries as horny homosexual smut-lovers ruining every clean furs’ reputation doesn’t bother you.

I do not hate furry pornography. There, I said it. I DON’T. I admit it, I actually LIKE tame furry erotica of various types. But such stuff is very hard to find. It’s tough enough to find on VCL, never mind FA. I for instance, have occasionally drawn my characters in sexy scenes and so on. I even have plans of doing two of my own ones in sexual intercourse. Without the naughty bits showing. I don’t call that offensive. On the other hand, I was even unlucky to come across a picture of some huge horny naked wolf shagging a handcuffed male police fox, who clearly didn’t voluntarily end up in that position. The picture was a commission, so obviously people loved it and gave upbeat comments on it, except me that is. Being raped up the backside by a criminal is the worst thing that can happen to an officer of the law, period. To them rape appears exciting and captivating, for some sick reason. This isn’t exciting at all, it’s tasteless and bad for our reputation. And it makes popular people out of those who draw it.

FA itself wouldn’t be so obnoxious the burned furs movement if it didn’t try so hard. Their mascot Fender the ferrox unsurprisingly appears to be a gay pornography promoter, the way he has been designed is blatantly obvious. I kind of wish he wasn’t in that sense. I mean, they even have their main categories based on ‘general furry art’, ‘inflation’, ‘fat fur’, ‘vore’, etc. And there’s also a category for porn of existing characters fanart, from Fox McCloud to the most obscure. There’s even a separate category for Sonic porn. Get the idea what’s happening yet? Is the future of anthro animal artwork? This type of website does not give furry fandom a good image. Just like Nazi Germany or Al Quaeda don’t go down well in society today. Okay, maybe that’s exaggerating a wee bit, but you get the picture.

Even people I know are guilty of promoting hardcore smut. I for one have seen some ordinary looking furries’ galleries, friends and/or strangers, and was concerned - no, I was HORRIFIED - to see these decent people having most if not all their favourite images as dirty gay smut, as opposed to actually equally showing approval for REAL artwork. Not that I’m saying porn is fake, but furry porn as opposed to general furry artwork is like comparing modern art with the Mona Lisa. It’s no contest.

So what’s the future of furry fandom? I personally see it as more of the same for the next ten years. Lovers of furry porn brand me as obnoxious and rude, lovers of free expression say I’m narrow-minded. Well, it’s true in a sense, I tend to be. That’s my way, and anybody else’s way of blunt, honest free expression. I’m a very honest person, and I’d rather take a punch in the face than a stab in the back. So I give any artist who thinks that the future of furry fandomness does not mostly lie in the shape of a sex toy a great big thumbs up. In fact, some porno artists probably would say the same thing, they just don’t want to draw clean stuff. It’s not their nature when they can make so much $ and £ from the dirty stuff. Even the term “furry” is now considered dirty. So now I prefer to call myself an cartoon animal artist or something.

“Don’t like it, then don’t look at it”. That’s what the defenders of the hardcore smut say. Or even those that don’t. Well I’ll be honest here. You really don’t know until you’ve looked at it, and to be frank it’s hard not to when that’s all to see on these sites. And of course you won’t be able to see their clean stuff in peace because some people on the site don’t know the meaning of ‘Mature Filter’. And they won’t come back to DA or wherever else they came from.

So that’s it then. We’ve had it for the time being.

But on a closing note, I’m not leaving FA. Not yet, so I can see my friends’ art, dirty or not. I won’t leave FA until I’ve seen some insolent smut lover make dirty gay porno of Keen and company without my permission first.