Are Furries Doomed?

Fallout from enforcing bans on “Broadly Offensive” behavior may threaten furry avatars

by Cinnamon Twist, spicy reporter

Can furries yiff without being offensive?

Great Britain had many rules on the books for many years that it didn’t enforce in the American colonies. They were there, sure, but they were largely ignored. When Britain started to enforce rules in order to make the colonies more profitable, the colonists rebelled. Is this the fate of Second Life’s residents with regard to the notorious “broadly offensive” clause in the TOS?

In a recent article by the Herald’s award winning syndicated advice columnist Heartun Breaker, a reader asked Where do I find animals in Second Life who want to play animals... and play with me as I am?

The answer brings us to a string of even more interesting questions - some not which could be not safe for work.

Where do I find animals in Second Life who want to play animals... and play with me as I am?

The answer to that is, of course, everywhere one looks in Second Life. As the Lindens look to clean up the “broadly offensive” behavior that has been allowed to grow and develop unchecked since 2003, one of the many questions that will surely be raised involves the line between Furries and bestiality.

mounting evidence of virtual bestiality?

Most Furries in Second Life have adopted the classic “anthropomorphic” animal, like a cartoon animal. The Lindens even offer such an avatar as one of the basic shapes you can choose when you are born in Second Life. If one uses such an avatar, and one has sexual congress with another avatar, either human or furry, is that bestiality?

straw poll indicates some SL players will cross species boundaries

More to the point of the original question posed, what if someone looks for an avatar that looks less like a cartoon and more like a real animal? With some shopping, one can find avatars that will turn one into an anatomically correct dog or horse. Having sex with one of these creatures for real in many US states and foreign countries is a crime. Certainly many people find the idea of coupling with a dog or horse to be offensive. Will these avatars soon be banned? Can we logically assume that if the realistic animal costumes are banned then a case can be made to ban all furries in order to avoid the “gray area” that would ensue should the Lindens choose to ban “realistic” animal avatars?

In many shops, people are able to buy animal props, with poses and animations, that allow them to simulate sex with dogs and horses. These “animals,” though they look realistic enough, are merely sexual props; no more real than a ‘dildo’ or a sexual pose ball. Having sex with animals, or appearing to have sex with animals, however, is far more offensive than using traditional sex toys, so do they need to be banned? If so, how do we differentiate them from the other sex toys?

Where will the community draw the line with regard to “broadly offensive”? Will dildos, sexgen beds and Furries soon be a thing of the past?

Comments

[Nacon]

Don't forget Gor as well, retard.

(We all know that's you getting humped on, Pixeleen.)

[moses]

i am sorry but the term 'broadly offensive' is offensively broad.

[WitnessX]

Now stepping into a drama minefield. It is advised you use furfags as guides, as if one explodes, nothing of value will be lost.

[Walker Spaight]

Actually, Nacon, Pixeleen prefers video-enabled multi-operator media starlet avatars.

[Lisae Boucher]

It's weird but in the Netherlands and Belgium bestiality is not illegal. In Germany, having sex with animals isn't illegal either, but publishing bestiality porn is. In the USA, about half of all the states explicitly consider bestiality a crime. The other states will just call it mistreatment of animals, which accidently also happens to be a crime. However, in the UK people could get the death penalty for bestiality and after the death penalty was abolished, punishments in the UK for bestiality still tends to be very high. (At this moment, 2 years imprisonment.)

In the Netherlands in 2004 there was a case of sexual abuse of a pony. The guy who did this was just released again since legally, he had done no harm to the animal. Much to the dislike of the public, as I might add. After this, it was announced that steps will be taken to put a stop to these kinds of activities but it takes years before one such proposal actually becomes law here.

Bestiality is still a difficult topic, though. It is just another fetish and many people -including me- just think it's real sick. Yet many lawmakers seem to have forgotten to write appropriate laws relating to this sick behavior. Instead, laws are extremely vague, as usual.

[The Prophet]

lawdy lawdy!! Thats nasty. More pools to close now that SLH has antagonized us.

Furfag sympathizers are no better than furfags.

this is just stupid its second life. its called virtual its not real so i dont see anything wrong with it just someones playing animal. so i donno what is going on but i just find it stupid stop taking virtual things real its a game . so shut up if you dont like it and leave

[Anonymous1]

stop taking this as something real its a virtual game and second life is a game i see notthing wrong with it being in a game its not real , yes it maybe sick but why should i care if someone like doing it in second life we should not give a care in the world. if they where doing it in real life maybe i would say something else but its not its only virtual so stop having a go at something thats not real and only in a game.

[expression]

I'd much rather see SL digital dogs doing this than real dogs. I don't give a shit what people do in games, as long as it stays in the game. Simulating sex with animals hurts no people and no animals.

How is this any worse that fragging a player running around in quake 3. In that case you are shooting and KILLING a person. NOT!

[Eric Rice]

Congrats, guys, you made TechCrunch. Level UP!

[HazimGazovX]

Pictures of Profoky Neva are broadly offensive, even she gets pissed when she sees them. It's all about priorities. Get rit of Profoky, then worry about the dogmonglers.

[Natu]

i kill animals all the time in world of warcraft, is that murder?

[Flack Quartermass]

Let's hope LL doesn't continue down that slippery slope. When SL becomes too much like RL, I won't be there.

I have no personal desire for any of the activities mentioned in the article.

I do, however, support a resident's *option* to do so because I find it more appealing to allow what I may dislike than to be thought-policed for things that 1) hurt no one, 2) occur between consenting adults and 3) take place in a virtual world.

[Alazarin]

Where do you think all those babyfurs come from? You think a stork delivers them? Nope, it's Mom and Pop furry having their fun :D Or possibly Momma furry and Poppa alien or Momma human and Poppa furry or whatever. Who knows? Who cares? We might all be test-tube babies out of a gene-splicing lab for all I know. Or replicants.. or simulants.. or virtual entities with no real existence outside of an artificial simulation. And without the examples photographed for the story, where would all the werewolves come from? Take pity on those poor transylvanian peasants.... where would they be without their werewolves? Or their vampires for that matter.

Next predicted scandal in SL: Dryad s3cks... is it immoral? And those trees... they're all a bunch of dangerous subversive hermaphrodites!!!!!!!!!!!! Three anal-rententive neo-conservative christian-fundamentalist throwbacks think so and are will be doing the chat-show circuit on TV next week to call for public burning of all Dryads.

[Lisae Boucher]

Quote: stop taking this as something real its a virtual game and second life is a game i see notthing wrong with it being in a game its not real

I do realize why people have some fear about this. People are afraid that people who behave like this in a virtual world or who collect images (virtual or real) of bestial porn will sooner or later cross some lines and do things for real. But why would people think such things?
In general, when an offender is arrested for animal abuse then a search of his place tends to uncover some animal porn too. But then you have to start wondering what he did first. Did he first collect the porn and then start to abuse animals? Or did he start abusing animals first and then decided it would also be cool to collect related images?

It is actually a chicken-and-egg problem that people don't have an answer for. Yet the two seem to be strongly related to one another. So does virtual bestiality encourage people to start abusing animals? Or do people who abuse animals also happen to be interested in bestiality porn?

[Draconis]

Isn't the whole point of second life to escape from reality and the rules it implies? If people want to have cartoon/realistic anthro sex then there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's done in a place away from communal areas where there are minors. What goes on behind closed doors and in private online or off is up to consenting adults.

Now if avatars are behaving badly in public...well...that's a whole other matter.

[Anon]

It may be "just a game" but furfags are going to scare away other players (customers). Now yiff in hell!

[Lewis Nerd]

"Isn't the whole point of second life to escape from reality and the rules it implies?"

If so, please explain why racism, nazi imagery and such are banned in SL.

The point is that everyone will find something distasteful/illegal/immoral/sick - so where do you draw the line? What can you allow, and what can't you allow? Don't fall into the trap of basing it on US laws because 70% of the playerbase are not in the US - and Linden Lab is not a "US only" company either now.

Lewis

[Nik]

Anything two consenting adults want to do is fine -- particularly in a world where physical harm is an impossibility. As long as it does not get seen by underage types, who cares?

That's the position the Lindens should take regarding EVERYTHING that happens in the mature areas of SL -- including people who want to roleplay being children. Because once you start saying, "This particular behavior is NOT okay," the option of expanding that definition is on the table.

Slight caveat to the above: I'm guessing that, for legal purposes, they'll have to make sure no RL child porn or bestiality porn is being passed around. Good luck policing that.

[Lisae Boucher]

Quote: The point is that everyone will find something distasteful/illegal/immoral/sick - so where do you draw the line?

Actually, that is such a good question! And unfortunately there is no good indication of where to actually draw those lines. Second Life does bring out some of the extremes into plain view, but that's mostly because you can so easily travel around and thus miss the signs indicating what kind of offensive material is on the land that you're about to enter.

Another issue is how to determine what is really offensive and what's not? Who is going to decide this? And what motives will be used to decide about this? Right now we're discussing bestiality. And I'm against that and so are many others. But next time there might be a similar discussion about homosexuality and how it should be outlawed. And then the demand that women return to the kitchen again. And whatever other restrictions they could come up with. So we don't want certain freedoms to be taken away.
Yet we also want to make sure people won't use their freedoms to abuse others. So some restrictions are required. If you take that into consideration then you should be allowed to do anything that doesn't cause harm or discomfort to others. (And with others, I also include unneeded cruelty towards animals.)
But then there is the discussion that people always tend to have that certain kind of behavior would sooner or later lead to abusive actions. This is why people are against bestiality images since it might cause people to actually abuse animals. Same about racist remarks, since such remarks could encourage to actually start to act upon those and hurt people from the racial group that they dislike. It also means that people who discuss how to make bombs are considered dangerous since they could use that knowledge to actually make some bombs.

[Concerned Citizen]

This is quite a pickle the lindens have created. The Lindens let sex spin out of control for four years. It's going to be impossible to get that genie back in the bottle.

Will prudish America come play if we have slavegirls paraded around on leashes? Furry couples with multiple breasts and partners that look like puppies? Human ageplayers? The Transgendered and flaunting set? Women walking their dogs then taking them home to...uh...see picture above.

(Well they will come play of course, but it will be on the downlow and then they'll deny it).

More importantly, will the corporations come keep this ship afloat if it's a digital downlow?

Virtual?! Real?! What's the difference!!! OMFG! It gets worse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NidUG88wY4o

[moses]

hmmm...'broadly offensive' to WHO ? i do not remember completeing a survey about what i like and do not like. any one here get one ?

[Lewis Nerd]

On a related note...

http://www.wgrz.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=49447

Lewis

[Second Lulz Vigilante]

Geez the PN guys and their sympathizers crack me up. Sim crashing is gay. Sort of like using a nuclear weapon to kill a housefly. Going to a furfag sim for any reason is double gay. All these guys prpobably take a few minutes to jack off to yiffy before their guilt and shame causes them to fire off a sim crasher. lol!

A more effective way of pissing off furfags is to debate them on neutral territory where they can't eject you and you don't have to look at yiffy sex. Using logic to explain to them why yiffy is disgusting has a far more lasting psychological effect than griefing(most of them hate logic and having their precious rationale torn to shreds ya know). Griefing them just gives a martyr complex and makes them even worse than before.

I've even got a couple of the more reasonable ones to give up yiffing. Something no griefer has ever accomplished. lol!

[Lisae Boucher]

Quote: The Lindens let sex spin out of control for four years.

As my father told me, if it wasn't for all the sex the Internet would never have been as popular as it is nowadays. Apparently sex and anything sex-related seems to make the biggest revenue on the Internet. What will people continue to use it for if sex disappears completely from the Internet? And I do even mean every hint about sexuality, thus even something suggestive as the relationship between Harry and Ginny in the 7th book...

Quote: Will prudish America come play if we have slavegirls paraded around on leashes?

I think there are also plenty of non-prudish Americans who at one point will have enough of all those restrictions. Especially when more and more of them see how relaxed things are in other countries. Simple example: gay marriages. These are accepted in many European nations already but in the USA still not completely possible.
The biggest problem in the USA is the unconditional patriotism. Freedom of opinions is okay until someone says something that is completely out of order. The best example of this is how the USA thought about Communism a few decades ago. One simple trick to take down someone with a different opinion was to accuse the person of being a communist. Nowadays, communism dis disappear but now there's a different target, which all relates to the 9/11 attack and the threat of terrorism after that. Suddenly, extremist Muslims became the enemy and many of them are still awaiting their trial after being captured outside the US borders.
Unfortunately, those patriots aren't wrong in what they say. But it's the way they operate to try to take down anything that even seems to be the opposition. Michael Moore, for example, has almost become an enemy of the state (well, just G. Bush) simply because his documentaries about weapon control, about 9/11 and more recently because of his reports on the US Health Care system.

Quote: More importantly, will the corporations come keep this ship afloat if it's a digital downlow?

Companies don't have morals. Companies tend to just go for profits. However, the market does force companies to maintain the most popular morals at that moment and companies don't like changing things whenever morals change so they tend to enforce the most important morals. They will do anything to stay popular amongst the public. So if the public allows naked slave-dance-girls in public then the next advertisement they make will incorporate them. Then again, if an artist displays her bare nipple during a huge event then companies will publicly announce all kinds of steps they've taken to prevent such things in the future while also pointing out such things could still happen to their competition. And of course companies will use their influence to make sure they don't have to change their moral values too often, since changing morals is more expensive than preventing such changes.

[Lisae Boucher]

Quite: Sim crashing is gay.

And what's wrong with being gay? ;-)
Yeah, I get your point but couldn't resist the remark.

Quote: Using logic to explain to them why yiffy is disgusting has a far more lasting psychological effect than griefing

Yeah, but that can backfire after which griefing becomes easier. If the furry-lovers have some logical counter-replies then you'd just end up in an endless arguments which will have a psychological effect on both sides.
Reminds me on one thing... When you see Donald Duck walk in the comics, he's always bottomless. But when he gets out of the shower he wears a towel around his bottoms. What's up with that? :-)

Oh, don't worry. I agree with you on this. Furrylovers have a very weird sexual fetish. They've probably been reading too many comics with ducks and mice in them. Those magazines should be banned! ;-)

[Csven Concord]

*wonders whether or not a person having relations with someone who has an organ transplanted from an animal is guilty of pseudo-bestiality*

[Hali Heron]

Furries by their nature are not offensive content. If Furries are banned, so will my music.

[Second Lulz Vigilante]

"Furrylovers have a very weird sexual fetish. They've probably been reading too many comics with ducks and mice in them. Those magazines should be banned! ;-)"

@Lisae

That's the part I don't get though. I was raised on Warner Bros. cartoons. I loved em. But I never sexualized anything about talking animals. If I ever put on a furry av I wouldn't get the urge to yiff. I'd be more far more likely to try and re-enact all the slapstick things I'd seen in the cartoons like dropping anvils and pianos on people's heads.

As for the classic cartoons it wasn't Donald Duck I couldn't figure out. It was all those black and white Popeye the Sailor shorts from the Depression era that freaked me out the most. 2 ugly guys fighting over an ugly anorexic woman repeating the same dysfunctional love triangle formula:

1) Olive and Popeye are doing fine until Bluto comes along and Olive stats to favor Bluto.

2) Popeye gets his ass kicked by Bluto and becomes depressed.

3) Bluto gets too "fresh" with Olive, i.e. tries to rape her(that's what's implied).

4) Popeye eats a can of Spinach which somehow magically grants him superhuman strength, kicks Bluto's ass, and wins back Olive...until the next cartoon where the whole damn thing gets recycled.

Popeye the Sailor was hella disturbing thing to watch.

[Second Lulz Vigilante]

"*wonders whether or not a person having relations with someone who has an organ transplanted from an animal is guilty of pseudo-bestiality*"

@Csven

If the organ transplanted was a dog cock, I'd have to say "yes". :p

If anything, SL is keeping them away from the real shit. like a holding pen. Though let's be honest, SL will never ban furries, they're their bread and butter. The people who spend the most on the game are furries. Good luck at ever seeing any of them banned for broadly offensive content, the day they do that, all the furries will up and leave SL. I've seen it happen before. Sheezyart.com used to allow adult art, however, furries took advantage of this and the site was jokingly known as the #1 furry porn site online, until the admins got sick of it and banned adult works. which led to massive drama. It was pretty damn hilarious. However, LL isn't that stupid, and there would be lindens who'd quit, etc.

Technically furryism as an erotic fixation is indeed bestiality, because it's an infatuation with another species, some have more humanlike figures than others, but that's more or less a security thing. Which you start buying and using realistic animal genitalia, it's pretty much evidence. There's no innocent factor about it. It's like saying hentai is not as bad as real porn in context of potential offensive material.

However, it's probably best to leave it alone, because it keeps a lot of people off the rest of the internet.

[Lisae Boucher]

Quote: If anything, SL is keeping them away from the real shit. like a holding pen.

I don't know. Some people seem to think it will only encourage people to try this for real. Reality is that we just don't know the effect. It's similar with violent video-games. Do they prevent violence or do they actually cause more violence? That too has still not been proven.

Quote: Though let's be honest, SL will never ban furries, they're their bread and butter.

Problem is, when that happens then there would be so much more that needs to be banned. Not just from Second Life but also in real life. People could even wonder if Mickey Mouse should be banned since he's a humanoid animal-like thing with a girlfriend...

Quote: Technically furryism as an erotic fixation is indeed bestiality, because it's an infatuation with another species

Which brings another question. How about all those books with the main characters in some fantasy settings? Where do half-elfs come from? :-) What if someone writes an erotic story about sex with elves? What if there's an adult version of Star Wars where Anakin decides to have sex with a wookie? (Wookee? Wookiee? Woekie? WhoCares?) As before, where to draw the lines and more importantly who is going to decide about this and based on which motives?

"Technically furryism as an erotic fixation is indeed bestiality, because it's an infatuation with another species" False on multiple levels. 1. Bestiality, in common usage, deals with non-human animals ("multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia"), which in turn are defined biologically by kingdom, not species. 2. If you want to be "technical", humans are biologically animals ("multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia"), but for the purpose of defining "bestiality" to be meaningful in this context, guess we won't be too "technical" 3. Whereas the fantastical anthropomorphic organisms often found in furry fandom do not exist in nature, their representations are not technically a species of anything, in any event. You can't take a furry depiction and call it the depiction a species of anything in real life any more than trying to do the same for random squiggly lines, some of which might resemble eyeballs and a mouth. The most that can be said is that the representation has identifiable characteristic of particular organisms/species/animals, but do not represent animals, themselves. Because bestiality concerns animals (which are real), it is not meaningful to apply the term to fantastical organisms (which are not real) simply for their non-human animal characteristics, unless you're prepared to apply "human" terms to the same organisms for their human characteristics (which would defeat the purpose of making the distinction for applying this specific term in the first place). And Linden Labs WILL censor ANYTHING if it deems such is in its business interest to do so. They've already proved that.

[Eric Bauman]

Long live evil forces of Ganon!!!

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAH.

[SherpaDerpaX]

lolfurfags

[Cheezo]

These comments look to be made of tl;dr and BAWWWWWWWWWWW

[Psychotic Writer]

>Can furries yiff without being offensive?

Hell no.

I have no problem with people wanting to wear different avatars, and run around in a "role" but the whole sexual aspect of furryism is freaking sick to me. It's gross, nasty, weak, and fails hard.

Red rocket = You are so going to hell.

When EVER was a RL dog hurt in any way by humping a RL girl?

Really, even RL animal sex doesn't hurt animals.

Think the dog would mind humping anyone?
Come on people.

Simple answer to the question in this article:

No, of course they won't ban furry sex. They're not crazy.

[Lisae Boucher]

Quote: When EVER was a RL dog hurt in any way by humping a RL girl?

There has been a recent case of a 2 year old child who was sodomized by a Pitbull. Question remains if this was just natural behavior for this dog or if it has been trained to have sex with humans. I think the dog was just naturally horny, though. And there's a common cure for that too which would solve this problem with this dog together. My girlfriend just suggested that we should also do that with real men with the exception of a few studs which all of us women can share for reproduction... ;-)
But I'm sure she's kidding...

But the reality? Except for the possibility of bite marks and scratches, there doesn't seem to be much of a danger here. However, for the dog this tends to become confusing. He is allowed to mate with one of the alpha females so he must be the alpha dog, right? Worse, the dog might start to think it's okay to have sex with anyone who is part of the family including any outsiders. He's the alpha male in a species where the females tend to be more bossier than males. And it's already confusing for him to interact with those humans since their behavior is so different from real dogs that having sex with their bosses just confuses them even more.

No, dogs won't mind humping people. But it's other people who will mind being humped by a dog. I still see images of a teddy bear being violated by a small poodle. The child who owned the toy wasn't too happy about it either nor were the parents. And it happened to be their own dog to begin with. But they managed to get it under control through simple surgery. The teddy bear has lost it's virginity and the dog lost a couple of balls to lick...

The same applies to other animals, btw. Teach them to have sex with humans and next time they might decide to take advantage of some human. So to prevent rape by animals, you better not train them on how to have sex with humans to begin with.

[A Zebra]

Interesting that the person above mentions neutering the animal. Apparently it's perfectly acceptable to mutilate an animal by cutting off its testicles, but you can't have sex with it because that's icky, or the animal might not like it. Here's a news flash: animals like to have sex. That's where all the little baby animals come from.

As anyone that's ever had a dog hump their leg can attest, animals don't have much of an objection to inter-species sex. I don't think that "it's disgusting" is a good enough reason because as mentioned before, everyone finds everyone else's sexual kinks pretty awful.

Furries make up a significant minority of SL residents. Although Daniel Linden showed in his hour-long seminar (sorry, I don't have a link, I think it was in a Herald article), he's not particularly furry-friendly and wouldn't see much of a problem with doing away with them. There are a few furry Lindens however.

Furries aren't doing any harm - if you don't like it then don't go to furry places. As for bestiality, furries tend to be animal lovers and have a deep respect for their chosen species. That may (although certainly doesn't necessarily) include a sexual interest in the RL animal, but as said before, sex is perfectly natural and anyone that thinks otherwise should go and live on a farm for a while.

Bestiality in SL? - that's just ridiculous. They're pixels, folks.

from Zebra - long time reader, first time commenter ;)
~ Furry love! ~ ;)

[Alazarin]

I can only assume that Cinnamon Twist's article was a deliberate wind-up / troll. And a very humorous one at that. Well done, Cinnamon Twist! It certainly brought out the haters with their pitchforks 'n' torches and the pretentious pontificators. Sure, many of us furries fantasise about sex. Who doesn't? What people come across in SL is role-play between consenting adults and is no more 'dangerous' than people dressing up as roman centurions, klingons, martians, mermaids or whatever and having a bit of fun. The number of furs who advocate any form of bestiality can be counted on the talons of one paw. When seen in context of the sheer size of the furry population they barely even register on the radar.

I suspect that our freshly-minted and rabidly vocal morality police are sexually frustrated losers who have never made it past the missionary position if they even made it that far in life. I hasten to guess that they're rather well acquainted with Rosie Palm and her five sisters.

[Anon]

>Interesting that the person above mentions neutering the animal. Apparently it's perfectly acceptable to mutilate an animal by cutting off its testicles, but you can't have sex with it because that's icky, or the animal might not like it. Here's a news flash: animals like to have sex. That's where all the little baby animals come from.

Go to hell. That shit is sick. Sex with an animal? Come on. Yes, animals like to have sex, wow! So do we, but WITH each other? No, animals do it because honestly, when a dog "mounts" something it has a habit to attempt to dominate, and humps. It's not doing it because it likes to have sex with creatures not of it's species, it's doing it because it's trying to dominate. People who fuck animals are fucked in the head.

~ Furry Death ~

[Lisae Boucher]

Quote: Apparently it's perfectly acceptable to mutilate an animal by cutting off its testicles, but you can't have sex with it because that's icky, or the animal might not like it.

Actually, the same happens to pigs. It's even worse for pigs since their testicles are removed or else their meat will have some weird smell. It also happens to bulls, horses, sheep and other animals that are kept for food. Normally the males of every species would be competing over mating rights. Cut off their nuts at an early stage in life and they will be a lot calmer and more tolerant towards other males once they grow up.

Am not saying I consider it icky. It's just not my kind of thing. And when you hear stories about children being sexually abused by dogs the you could wonder if the testicles of a dog are more valuable than the anus of a two year old human child. As I've said, you could train a dog to have sex with humans. But dogs will repeat that trick even at more inappropriate moments.

And virtual furry sex? Those are pixels indeed and I just don't know what effect such images have on humans. It could be that they'll start abusing animals. It could also be that they rent a Wookie and Leia suite and prepare to create some loud noises together. So I'm just neutral about this.
Don't see any fun in furry-sex anyways. I hate hairballs in my mouth which also explains why my girlfriend and I keep certain areas hairless... Oops, sorry. Too much information. :-)

Still, I am convinced that if you train animals to have sex with humans then the animal might become confused some day which would require testiclectomy to prevent in the future. Or otherwise the animal might become a bit violent the next time it wants sex. And keep in mind that for many species, sex means dominance.

[Bobby Troughton]

That'd be silly, they'd have to ban all other costumed forms of sex too. Being that the broadly used avatars in SL tends to be furries, I'd doubt it'd be considered to be broadly offensive. I think mainly Lindens moral crusade would just go after kiddie porn, age-players, and racist nazi folk. Seems most furries think furry sex is more of a joke then anything. :)

[O.O]

It's amazing to see this even being brought up. And the various comments in part make me roll over the floor in laughing, and shake my head in disbelief over their stupidity. And one or two actually make good points...

Furry *in itself* has absolutely NOTHING, ZILCH, NADA to do with bestiality. Even two furries having sex with eachother, is not bestiality. It may be weird, it may be ridiculous, and it certainly is deserving of mockery, but it's not bestiality.
Yes it LOOKS like it, but anyone with two braincells and google can find out what it is. Clearly, most of the nay-sayers and pitchfork carrying crowd have either no google, or no briancells.

If you think furry is icky because it's a fetish about animals, I am calling you a stupid dipshit, you read it correctly. Do your research before opening your mouth.
If you think furry is just wierd and wanna make fun of it because it's different, hey, knock yourself out. I do it too, furry IS weird. But not a fetish.

Bestiality is sexual intercourse between an ANIMAL and a human (Animal in caps to indicate the difference with a furry: Furries are not animals, they're non existant, anthropomorphic animals. See your local dictionary). The SL images in the article above indeed is bestiality. And indeed, this might lead to people trying it IRL as well.

Bestiality is by definition not animal cruelty: If you think a human male can hurt a mare for instance, you're giving him way too much credit... Even the worlds largest human penis is not large enough to cause even the slightest tickle to a mare, who are obviously built for the size of a horsewang.

In most cases, people who have sex with animals, deeply care for the animals, and would never hurt them in any way. The cases where you hear of animals being seriously hurt, it's not simple zoophilia but it's done with the intent to harm the animals. Such is animal cruelty and illegal in most countries on the planet.
Most animal porn you will find on the net however, it's not about hurting the animals, nor about a deep care, but simply profit. It also consists mostly of human females and male animals. Obviously, the only ones who it might be cruel to, is the human female.

The danger of a dog learning that sex with the female human of the house is indeed that in it's mind, it makes it dominant. But there's easy ways to prevent that: make sure the man of the house asserts his dominance. Or just make sure that you train the dog so it knows it's only okay to do that sort of thing in given sutuations. Cause ya know, you can train dogs very easily. (seeing the amount of dogpoop on the sidewalks everywhere, however, shows that most people don't know this yet.)
The example of the dog raping the teddybear is in this context unneeded, as of course, each animal has a sexual drive and they will do this sort of thing even without being taught so. But, fortunately, dogs can be trained so they could have also taught it not to do that, and the castration wouldn't be needed.

(incidently: castration, if done properly by a vet, is a painless operation under narcosis (sp?), and is not maming an animal. A lot of dogs are castrated anyways, as well as cats, to prevent other unwanted aspects of the workings of the organs... Like the smell from unneutered cats.)

Where was I going with this?

Oh right. last two points:

- It's PIXELS and NOT RL. If you have problems seperating RL from a game, go have your head examined.

- Who's damn buisness is it anyway what two concenting adults do in their little virtual privacy, but their own? Putting your nose where it does not belong, THAT is broadly offensive.

(PS: I can see the flood of "Furry lover, GTFO and yiff in hell" and what not coming already. You couldn't be more wrong, I'm totally on your side. But, at least I do my homework on the subjects of my ridicule, as opposed to most of you.)

[shockwave yareach]

1, no, furry is not a sexual anything. Furry simply defined is an appreciation and enjoyment of anthropomorphism. This covers a large area of media and furry has been a staple of advertisers for generations. (Put a Tiger in your tank, for example) Not every furry is into yiffing at all and most oldtimers have more interesting things to do. And furry doesn't even have to have living beings - the walking talking furniture in "Beauty and the Beast" are anthropomorphic.

2, While furry itself isn't sexual, just like any other fandom there are corners where (surprise) people have sex. Name me any other activity or group that does not. You cannot even point to the Catholic Priests and say they don't (Run, little alterboy - run!), so don't act like it's automatically bad and evil. But unless you go looking for it (or arrange with friends to make some photos, as certain reporters do) you aren't going to just stumble onto it. Just like the Kirk/Spock fanfiction, if you want to find something, you'll find it. Doesn't make the whole thing about sex though, anymore than the Star Trek wank material made Trek all about boffing across the universe.

3, It is no different having people play as Animals or Digitgrade animals than it is all these other people pretending to be angels, devils, demons, vampires or samauri... then screwing each other a thousand different ways with 15,000L beds in a rented skybox. Furries are people enjoying a fantasy unreal life through the computer, the same as the rest of you. If it's okay for you to have your demon/angel sexcapades, then don't bitch about what others are doing.

4, if you want to take the approach that "it'll lead people to try it in real life!", then you'll have to ban all the video games where you shoot people, because "it'll lead people to try it in real life!" as well. And lets not forget to ban every book and movie out there with a murder/cheating spouse/crime as well. If we follow your logic, Netflix will be pretty empty.

If furry isn't your interest, then whatever man. You can go back to dressing up like Paris Hilton with a dildo hanging out of your purse - I don't care. What you do is your biz and what I do is mine. But if you aren't a furry, don't even pretend that you have the faintest idea what it's all about because from the outside, you don't see or know squat.

[WitnessX]

OMG YOU GUYS FURRY ISNT SEXUAL GAWD

YIFFING IS A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY ITS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH SEX

[Furry]

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

[mootykips]

if it was an enjoyment of anthromorphism you'd be joining a bloody Disney fan club not masturbating to badly-drawn pictures of animals fucking each other.

you furries are even worse at trying to cover up the fact that you want to fuck animals than Tizzers was at covering up her strategy with WU.

[Shava Nerad/Shava Suntzu in SL]

Man, I turn 48 this week, and I am old enough to remember these same arguments being spewed over miscegenation (life partnership between humans of different races) and homosexuality (partnership between humans of the same sex). Both have been compared to animal sex, bestial sex. And both attracted the kind of hate that I'm reading above.

Now, furry sex may look more to you like bestiality, but your grandparents thought sex between a black man and a white woman looked just as brutal and abusive and uncivilized (and compared it to sex with animals). Yiff is not bestiality, any more than having sex with someone wearing vampire fangs is necrophilia. A vampire, in literature, is not a dead body, but a magical creature of fantasy. Anthropomorphic animals (or Animorphic humans?) are fantasy creatures, not animals. And none of them doing anything in SL harms anything in the real world.

It's time for people to grow up and realize that victimless crimes (those between consenting adults) are not worth prosecuting.

If you want to argue that there is coercion in furry sex, I want to hear the argument. There are no individuals involved who haven't exercised their judgement, which is more than I can say for some of the posters involved in this hateful trash.

As a note, I don't do pixel sex, I've *never* done anything sexual with furries, I sometimes wear neko ears and a tail and a fox skin *over a totally human shape*, but I wear it as a fashion statement, not a fetish -- does that make me even more perverse? This shot (http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=179911&sort=Pictures.PictureID&Name=Shava+Suntzu)
was used on a national TV news show on Canadian TV to show off Second Life fashion. It's just not a big deal to anyone outside SL that people wear fur.

Now, you will in fact find the same problems -- maybe more -- with the club scene in SL. So blow up the furry scene in the media, and you will find the laws of every country coming into SL and shutting down everything. I mean gosh, what *tax* laws are we in danger of ducking? If women can't drive in Saudi Arabia, should they be allowed to *fly* in SL?

Better get a life and a more tolerant attitude before the big people come in and take it all away, little boyz.

Shava

[Revolutionary]

Why the hell is someone posing as my beloved leader above? I swear to god Mootykips, the leader of PN did *NOT* post that crap about furry sex being ok. SLH fools. Ticked off because we crashed your HQ today? Here's a story for you, B**Tch gets pwned by screaming ninja turtle as it pins her against a hill. She swears, threatens to call the police, kill my family,etc,etc, while I laughed so hard I shat myself, literally. Then she pops back as we spam out jell-owned and pools closed textures, and uleash our new replicating, notecard spamming weapons codenamed 'fagbot', saying 'Orbit Polsky', 'Trap Polsky', right before I finaly laugh at her and crash the sim. The End. Fags.

[Elliott Eldrich]

I'm a furry in SL, and also the owner of six islands, and three profitable businesses. In fact, I make my RL living in SL. Allow me to take a moment to address some of the malformed ideas presented in the comments I've read here.

First, regarding "furfags". Sorry Charlie, I'm straight as a plank. Never been gay, never will be gay. Just don't swing that way. Sorry to pop that little bubble. Do I have a problem with gay people? No. Am I gay? No. Hopefully that helps clear up that particular misconception.

Second, regarding "beastiality". I've found that a LOT of women are attracted to me and my avvie in SL. Is it the fact that I'm a furry, or does it have anything to do with the fact that I'm polite, well spoken, kind, helpful, capable and successful? Who knows, but I think perhaps my personality has just a little something to do with that.

Third, why did I become a furry? Mainly because after my first couple of weeks in SL and watching all the guys who bulked up their avvies with giant fake muscles, tattoos, facial hair, shoulders from here to Cleveland, with guns and crap hanging off of them in a parody of an Arnold Schwarznegger wet dream, I decided to instead go short, cute and furry. See, I'm secure enough in my sexuality to not have to need to dress myself up like something from the cover of "Gay Bodybuilders Fantasy World" magazine. Funny how that works, eh? Also, being as SL is a fantasy world, I decided to do something different with my avvie, instead of being a clone of some Hollywood movie star. Boy, I guess that must make me some kind of freak! How DARE I want to be something other than what this society says is appealing? Oh NO, could I be thinking for myself? How frightening! How totally unacceptable, someone who doesn't subscribe to the program pushed down our throats by corporate media conglomerates! I must be some kind of heretic! Oh no!

Fourth, last and certainly not least, by being furry I can distance myself somewhat from the rest of the human race, you know, the ones who seem to derive so much power and pleasure from hating everyone and everything that is different from themselves. Golly, why would I want to provide any distance between myself and the lovely, loving and truly wonderful humans on this planet? Gee, just can't imagine.

If Descartes lived today, he wouldn't say "I think, therefore I am", he'd look around at the population of the planet nowadays and opine "I hate, therefore I am".

[Lisae Boucher]

Quote: But there's easy ways to prevent that: make sure the man of the house asserts his dominance.

What man? Why does there have to be a man in the house anyways? Don't you think we women can't handle dogs without men? :-)

Quote: The example of the dog raping the teddybear is in this context unneeded

But how about that dog that sodomized a 2 year old?

Quote: It's PIXELS and NOT RL. If you have problems seperating RL from a game, go have your head examined.

Yep. However, people in general worry that others will start having some crazy ideas about just those pixels. Which is why there are people demanding a ban on all violent games and even want to have them banned for all adults. It's just that there's no reliable research that shows the effect of such images on the human mind.

Quote: if you want to take the approach that "it'll lead people to try it in real life!", then you'll have to ban all the video games where you shoot people

But aren't people trying that already? Actually, it's something that's already done in the USA. There are many shops that sell all kinds of computer games except those that are rated 18+. They effectively ban all 18+ material anyways since these shops are for the whole family. But that also means that when a game is published and it gets rated as an 18+ game, it won't be easily available on the market. It has a huge impact on sales since it would only be available at some specialized shops.
So while the ban on violent games isn't official, unofficially that ban already exists.

Quote: As a note, I don't do pixel sex

Actually, I've tried it with my girlfriend. Me behind my computer, she behind hers. Didn't really work out so well. We ended up in our real-life bed pretty fast since well... We were only a few meters apart to begin with. RL sex is so much more interesting anyways... :-)

[Magnus]

Good riddens to bad rubbish

[mootykips]

Revolutionary, you idiot, the comment is above the name.

Now time to pull a Prok. Insert random Soviet phrase here!

"Man, I turn 48 this week, and I am old enough to remember these same arguments being spewed over miscegenation (life partnership between humans of different races) and homosexuality (partnership between humans of the same sex). Both have been compared to animal sex, bestial sex. And both attracted the kind of hate that I'm reading above."

Why not just bring up Hitler and bring in Godwin's Law while you're at it? Spoiler: you wanting to fuck animals or humans in animal costumes is not equivalent to the gay rights movement or acceptance of interracial relationships. Saying that is a disservice to all those that fought for those causes.

"Now, furry sex may look more to you like bestiality, but your grandparents thought sex between a black man and a white woman looked just as brutal and abusive and uncivilized (and compared it to sex with animals)."

See above.

"Yiff is not bestiality, any more than having sex with someone wearing vampire fangs is necrophilia."

That's a red herring. Having sex with somebody with a pretend gunshot wound and fake blood all over them is more appropriate of an analogy, and if somebody did that you'd rightly think they're more than a bit messed up in the head.

"A vampire, in literature, is not a dead body, but a magical creature of fantasy. Anthropomorphic animals (or Animorphic humans?) are fantasy creatures, not animals. And none of them doing anything in SL harms anything in the real world."

"I want to rape somebody, but it's fantasy, OK?" I forgot, that analogy isn't fantastical anymore, it's what the Goreans do. Claiming fantasy doesn't make your stupid fetishes any less telling to your perhaps closeted sexual fetishes (i.e. bestiality).

"It's time for people to grow up and realize that victimless crimes (those between consenting adults) are not worth prosecuting."

I agree! Next time I try to arrest you and bring federal prosecutors to charge you with felonies, you can go ahead and quote me on that. However, if you mean prosecute you as in "make fun of you repeatedly while firing thousands of toruses inside your FurNation pyramid", it is worth it because it's loving hilarious.

"If you want to argue that there is coercion in furry sex, I want to hear the argument. There are no individuals involved who haven't exercised their judgement, which is more than I can say for some of the posters involved in this hateful trash."

Did I claim that there wasn't? No, you have two (disturbed) consenting teenagers..err..I mean "adults" (because SL is age verified right?), that want to have animal sex with each other. At least there's consent involved. Right.

"As a note, I don't do pixel sex, I've *never* done anything sexual with furries, I sometimes wear neko ears and a tail"

That's called a "catgirl" and that's not furry. Over at EBAUMSWORLD.COM we have a chart for this very thing: http://macrochan.org/get.py?sha1=EQOTRTH76VRPOQJVXHAEXUGEVK3T7ZMO (i trust this link will be scanned by SLH editorial staff, I'm not trying to sneak a goatse on anyone)

"and a fox skin *over a totally human shape*, but I wear it as a fashion statement, not a fetish -- does that make me even more perverse?"

Depends on what you do with it.

"This shot (http://www.sluniverse.com/pics/pic.aspx?id=179911&sort=Pictures.PictureID&Name=Shava+Suntzu)
was used on a national TV news show on Canadian TV to show off Second Life fashion. It's just not a big deal to anyone outside SL that people wear fur."

Who cares?

"Now, you will in fact find the same problems -- maybe more -- with the club scene in SL. So blow up the furry scene in the media, and you will find the laws of every country coming into SL and shutting down everything. I mean gosh, what *tax* laws are we in danger of ducking? If women can't drive in Saudi Arabia, should they be allowed to *fly* in SL?"

Are you seriously saying that because people run around in fursuits it will become a federal crime? That's extremely unlikely but would be pretty awesome.

"Better get a life and a more tolerant attitude before the big people come in and take it all away, little boyz."

Yeah, damn Lindens and their banning us hundreds of times only to be thwarted by third-party software! They'll shut us down pretty hard man.

"Why the hell is someone posing as my beloved leader above? I swear to god Mootykips, the leader of PN did *NOT* post that crap about furry sex being ok."

Ehm, dude... That's NOT what he said. Lern 2 read, PNfag.

[NobodyImportant]

SecondLulz Vigilante wrote the following:
"Griefing them just gives a martyr complex and makes them even worse than before."

There's one critical point you missed, though - Furries have had a martyr/persecution complex since their "fandom" was created. Drama ensues between furry factions and it ensues when they tried to force everyone to accept their shitty porn. When people resisted and said "Fuck no, your porn sucks", they screamed "fursecution" and equated themselves to Jews. But this, this is an old story. You should know this already.

"A Zebra" wrote:

As if it's not bad enough most furries seriously believe they are an 'animal trapped in a human body', now you're trying to justify having inter-species sex with a dog.
*facepalm*

[Coincidental Avatar]

And how about sex with Plastic Duck?

[Lisae Boucher]

Well, I wonder... What about robot-sex where people take the shape of robots and have sex? What about smurf-sex where people color themselves blue, wear white hats and drop their white pants every time? What about generic fantasy sex where dwarves and elves F*** their brains out? Or Harry-Potter sex where some goblin has sex with Voldemort? Or Star-wars sex where Princess Leia uses her strap-on on a Wookie avatar?

Personally, I don't care about this since it's pixel-fantasy. Or dress-up fantasy when people just buy some costumes and dress up. It does become different when people start having sex with real animals, though. So are we sure this furry sex within Second Life will encourage to misuse animals in real life?
As I've said before, we still don't know what effects playing videogames have on the human mind. Some people think it will increase the risk of abuse. Others will claim it actually reduces the amount of abuse. And both will provide lots of valid reasons to prove their point, yet none of it is conclusive.
So, for now the majority rules since this is a democracy. Those who are in favor of furries in Second Life, move to starboard. Those who are against, move to the port side. And if you're undecided you can stand here with me... :-)

"if somebody did that you'd rightly think they're more than a bit messed up in the head."

The problem is, everyone thinks that whatever is outside their own comfort zone is indicative of being 'messed up in the head.'

Personally, I think devoting tons of energy and passion to going 'ew! ew!' over someone else's sexual fantasies (as long as they aren't attempting to involve you in them) is a pretty good indication that someone might want to spend a bit of time on a therapist's couch. Either you have a highly boring sex life, or one that's so messed up you can't bear to focus your attention there.

But even being thoroughly convinced that you ain't quite right, I don't see much purpose in leaping from that belief to feeling justified in banning you from anything. So you're messed up in the head.... join the herd.

The only time I have ever, in a year in SL, actually graphically seen furry sex is in the Herald. It's entirely possible to have an active rich SLife complete with sex without having to be witness to anything that might distress your fragile little mindset. If this is not your experience, find more comfortable places in SL to spend your time or... oh, here's an idea... stop seeking it out. That may be a latency issue.

[LoneSoviet]

FURRIES WERE NEVER SAFE AROUND THE PN. LONG LIVE PN! LONG LIVE PC!

This message brought to you by ebaumsworld.com

[Pete Childs]

if people don't like it they will play some other game or they can limit it to a certain area no reason to ban this really i mean... come on!

[Crimson Prudhomme]

I think this SLH article needs to be modded down as 'Flamebait -1'

Seriously. SLH is being silly by lumping an entire community (a large community, really) where most members actions are no stranger than your average adult SL player, in with the sort of deviant, out there groups that most of us refuse to associate with.

SLH might as well write an article about how all humans are offensive because surely, ALL of them MUST like watersports...

[andy]

What the hell is with this furry stuff? It's bad enough to have fake sex in second life as a human, let alone a furry. I got into Second Life for a while and it was ok fun (until they zapped all my stuff I spent hours and $$ on).

What I never understood was virtual sex. Are people such losers they can't have sex in the real world? What do you get out of watching a stupid animation having sex? It's beyond me. Add furry and it's just another level on the loser ladder.

I think people who have fake sex as an animal or not are just wearing a big sign that says "I'm a socially retarded perv who hasn't showered in 5 days and can't leave my mom's basement". I say dump the furries, only because they scare other people away. Maybe not dump, maybe exclude them to "dweeb island" or something.

I don't get it.

Never will.

So what's next? Declare having sex while wearing a Halloween mask to be illegal? No RL sex with hairy people?

Avatar sex isn't real sex, and an avatar animal controlled by a human being is in no way an "animal".

Just about the only argument you could possibly make is that SL sex with furries increases the propensity for bestiality in RL; but there is no evidence at all for that. And even if it did, so what? As a culture that abuses and slaughters billions of animals every year, why should anybody give a damn?

[Draconum]

Given that zoophiles and furries are not the same group (yes, whether the trolls can believe it or not, it doesn't really matter, as its not those people that create reality around here), I don't really know how furries got dragged into the whole mess to begin with.

Certainly there is are people who are interested in both but, are isn't there always overlap of some groups? Gays (or blacks, etc.) and republicans? Geeks and football fans? Trekkies and Star Wars fans? Hell, if we're going to go that route, let's just associate everybody on earth, however remotely, to every group on the planet, and every group to each other. Bonus points if you can 'Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon' yourself to furry fandom.

And my little itty bitty comment about SL: If two people want to partake in what is, essentially, a visualized thought exchange that affects no one else... how can you possibly stop them or even ask them to stop? Should it also be illegal to TALK about such subjects as well? Imagine if you got arrested because you were talking to another adult, pretending that they were a child. That's the same as if you arrested two people for talking to each other... pretending that they're animals. That's kind of ridiculous.

[Robert Dobbs]

As I understand shariah (sp?) (muslim) law, It is o.k. for a man to have sex with an animal as long as he does not then eat said animal. In Lybia, a man can have sex with sheep and camels as long as they are female.

[Robert Dobbs]

Ooh, ooh, I hit post befor I got into the whole discussion about banning shape shifting greek god avitars because I stroke it while reading Leda and the swan.

[zale]

The difference between acceptable and unacceptable in sex is a matter of consent.

Animals cannot give consent. They do not have the mental capability to give informed consent to a sexual act with a human therefore it is unacceptable.

Furries (and any adult in Second Life) on the other hand CAN give informed consent to sexual behaviour and acts and therefore should be seen as acceptable - no matter how realistic or anthropomorphic their avatar is.

It's never about what the outside looks like; it's about the brain inside.

I know of at least three Linden employees who're furries. Not just greeters and playground monitors, either - programmers.

[chromal brodsky]

It's pretty disappointing to see Boingboing give this poorly-constructed "article" mindshare time. By the shaky logic presented, the US should consider banning all animals from its borders because they can be fucked, and folks playing D&D should be prosecuted for the crimes they virtually commit during a fantasy campaign.

Also, anyone who bothers to conduct some very preliminary fact-finding will see that furry sex, or any kind of sex, is hardly pervasive or universal on SL. Sure, it's there if you look for it. So... is this article about secondlife, or the fetishes of its author? Lame.

[Ekayvoo]

Lol. :D That's, like, total crap.

[lololitadesudesu~~]

lol SLers
Why are you all so afraid of and enraged at yiffing and furries or yiffing furries? People who like to be feral might be questionable and suspicious, but come on, anthro furries just like to do it in the butt with others dressed up as anthro furries. I guarantee you that you will not find them out trying to rape a horse or a dog unless said horse or dog resembles a humanlike cartoon with a humanlike personality and mind. If you wanna be ignorant and assume things anyway, then do your thing and promote a prudish restrictive virtual world where everyone lives in the "golden age" of the 1950s when the husband and father is the master of the house and all women live in the kitchen until death; where fundamentalist christian values rule over any sort of humanity and where the soul is extinguished in favor of hard work and labor. While you're at it, assume all of SL BDSM is cruel dominant mistresses enslaving whole regions on a whim and mercilessly breaking the bodies and minds of innocent boys and girls. Regardless of what furries do and what they are and aren't, they're still lulzy dramatic furfags, and should be kept around for amusement and cheap thrills. Banning furries is pointless, and censoring them is pointless too. Just leave them alone and let them do their thing, but warn them that it must stay in SL or in private or else they're getting jell-OWNED in a cell, fursuit and all. FALCON PUNCH! YES! PUUUUUUNCH!

[Anonymous]

exterminate the furfags and the disbelievers with them

[Freaky Lynx]

Need I make the observation that this is not sex with animals. I mean come on, is there a dog on the other side of that computer screen who is controlling his dog avatar and having sex with girls? No. It's a human being - anyone who doesn't understand that... well, maybe they do need laws and rules to keep from hurting themselves. Sex with animals is wrong because their not sentient, they cannot make decisions or voice consent - but as I stated earlier, these are human beings in digital costumes consenting.

This whole thing is a game, and like all games - people use it to play out their fantasies, some of which are not so PG. This rule seems more about thought control than anything else.

[Lupe]

For those wanting to ban things on the chance that they may lead to real life issues in the future I welcome you to the general mindset of America where people purchase insurance and do everything and anything they can to protect themselves against a sue happy society. A society ruled by fear mongering and manipulated by sensationalism, religious based law and bloated statistics and lies.

Now if you want secondlife to become the same sorta place then support bans on certain activities and squak and gripe about them and allow the morallity police to come in and remove your means of escapism. Because that is all that second life is, an escape from real life. As for this furry sex looking like beastiallity all I see is two players and one happened to chose a furry avatar and the other chose to be a human of some sort and they are both atop a pose bubble.

[Lisae Boucher]

Quote: As I understand shariah (sp?) (muslim) law, It is o.k. for a man to have sex with an animal as long as he does not then eat said animal.

As the Ayatollah has apparently said: "A man can have sexual pleasure from a child as young as a baby. However, he should not penetrate. If he penetrates and the child is harmed then he should be responsible for her subsistence all her life. This girl, however would not count as one of his four permanent wives".

If you look at Islam or other religions, I notice so many rules and exceptions to those rules that they can be used to approve or disapprove any kind of misbehavior. Which means that any laws based on religious values isn't worth the paper that they're printed upon. Laws must be out of common sense and should be used to make sure people can live in harmony with one another, free of any abuse of offense.

Religion can teach us some valuable lessons about morality, though. And can be used as a start for discussions about what is and isn't offensive. But turning religious values into laws is just oppression. Having religion control any laws means restricting the freedom of especially those people who disagree with said religion.

Quote: Animals cannot give consent. They do not have the mental capability to give informed consent to a sexual act with a human therefore it is unacceptable.

Yeah, but having your teddybear or 2 year old toddler violated by a real dog is not something the toddler or teddybear consented to either. Even though an animal won't easily give content, many male animals can be quite willing to have sex with humans with little training. The only problem is that sex for animals isn't just pleasure but also some signs of dominance. Thus, an animal trained to have sex with humans can become dangerous for humans when he wants to have sex again.
But dogs will just ride your leg when they're in that mood...

In SL, as said often before, the furries aren't there to resemble real animals in most cases. They are there to be extremely exotic. I myself would just choke on a virtual hairball when thinking about furry avatar sex but others seem to enjoy it. Since it's not about sex with animals but sex with something exotic, I just chose not to approve or disapprove it.

[Designuki]

Stepping back and taking a nice, deep breath might be good.

Repeat after me: If you don't like a certain kink, JUST DON'T DO IT. What is this crap about going ape nuts bonkers on someone just because you think they have weird tendencies? Do you think it makes you bigger or better, somehow? Do you think it makes you cool? Guess what: IT DOESN'T. It makes you look like an intolerant jackass, is what it does.

Not all furries are in it for sex. Others most definitely are. I won't apologize for that. You see, we humans who play furries have this little thing called a "libido". We also have this other little thing called an "imagination". We don't have any exclusive rights to either, nor do we (overall) have a particularly outstanding degree of either.

However, when the libido and the imagination join forces, amazing things can happen. Things that simply can NOT happen in real life. Did you know the most potent sex organ of all is the one that lies between the ears? Those furs who engage in furry sex roleplay definitely do. (That's not to say that furry sex RP is necessarily highly creative. I've seen the gamut, from lame one-liners to stuff almost worthy of literary awards.)

So, some furries like to exercise that big, honkin' sex organ between their ears. And lots more? DON'T. For many furs, it really IS about expressing their personality by way of an animal avatar, or about simply enjoying art involving intelligent animal/animal-like characters. And for those who do? More power to them.

But you won't ever hear that from the lamebrained "yiff in Hell, furfags" bunch. They're too busy hating to shift their brains out of neutral.

[mootykips]

not really. we wouldn't have a problem with you furfags if you:

a. didn't invade internet communities like 4chan, post your furry porn everywhere disruptively then cry when someone tells you to GTFO and that nobody wants to see it.
b. didn't cause drama everywhere you go
c. didn't proclaim that you were a furry in a completely unrelated context, then bitch when someone rightly tells you that no, "furry"ism is not an 'appreciation of anthromorphic characters', it's a fucked up SEXUAL fetish people brand themselves as to join with other losers to feel normal, similar to self-diagnoses of Asperger's syndrome
d. weren't total lol-cows (see a. and c.). One word: "fursecution".
e. following up on the Prokofy-esque conspiracy to brand the "furry fandom" as a non-sexual one, things like Anthrocon that mislead the public and serve as a physical (as opposed to digital) invasion.

You invade Anonymous' home, we try to fight you off there, it doesn't work due to the way futaba works. So now we're taking you on here. you attack our home, we attack yours. don't like it? Too bad, you prompted it.

lastly, you have a right to be or do whatever you want. You do not have the right to stop others from making fun of you because of it. The fact that you dress up in animal costumes and want to sodomize each other is pretty fucking weird, but the fact that you plan entire conventions about it and actually want to do it OUT of the Internet is even weirder. Have you ever seen ScatCon? WatersportsCon? BBWCon? No: because people with those particular kinks rightly keep them in the sexual context they belong in. It's only this twisted rationalization of "liking (in a non-sexual way) anthromorphic characters" that is so convenient and so particular to furries because pretty much everyone sees these things (from Mickey Mouse cartoons to football games).

[ditrysanchez]

I think this furfaggotry has to come to an end now. I'm getting sick of walking around in SL seeing you furfags haveing e-sex in the middle of an open sim and acting all "cute" because you think being a furry means you can get away with it. The PN is here to deal with what LL is reluctant to do. The PN will win, lulz for us and doomzday for you.

[SLAddict]

It's disgusting to see how easily anti-furry griefers type the word "fag" e.g. as in "fur-fag" in this blog and other forums... an epithet representing intolerance, hate, and violence towards GLBTs. I'm surprised they also haven't appended racial epithets but then again that wouldn't win them much popular support in a public forum (instead they whisper to themselves "better keep the n-word and other slurs for our private "lulz"). The griefers think "OMFG Nooo we can't say "fur-n*****rs" in public (cuz we might lose recruits). fur-fags is ok. We gotta stick to harassing minority groups or your innocent SL bystanders, all the while using imagery with a racist intent (not necessarily a racist image) like jello'd cosbies (which will confuse the naive while appealing to racists) and indoctrinate a new generation of white robes." The fact that many anti-furries also happen to hate the GLBTs community is no coincidence. Griefers operating in the guise of getting kicks out of "just" crashing furry sims are actually indoctrinating another generation of degenerates.

And no. SL is not just a game. There are many who treat SL like a game, there are many who do not, and then their are pathetic griefers who make it a game of harassing and assaulting others and spreading hatred and bigotry. It's the same argument by those before you who said "it's just a tv show, it's just a video game, sticks and stones..." Like cinematic tv and film before it, SLs and the VWs like them are powerful communications mediums. Ask any parent whose kids are "just playing a video game" what the think when their kid gets hyper, aggressive, curses into the headset at another player, starts developing behavioral problems, etc. It's not "just tv", "just a video game", "just words" or "just sl". So for you fraks who think violence in SL is "not real" and that your lulz don't actually emotionally hurt some of your victims, someone should take a frakin RL bat to your heads. Then again, YOU KNOW THAT ALREADY AND YOU ENJOY being violent sexist racist homophobes and indoctrinating others into your morally bankrupt world.

P.S. What's racist about self-replicating pictures of Bill Cosby Jello ads ... well what's racially offensive depends on context and subject(s). For example, one black man might say to another black man "yo wassup nigga". Here the use of the n-word could be a way of reappropriating of the epithet from its use by racists; used by someone ignorant of the black civil rights movement; ... and even in the Black/African American community, the use of the n-word is subject to debate. Point is, if YOU are not black, i wouldn't suggest going up to a black man and calling him "nigga". So you think the griefers' typists are actually blacks displaying pictures of a beloved American pop culture figure or more likely non-blacks using it as a racist prop. My take, if your not black, your not allowed to use the n-word or use pictures of blacks as griefing props. "THAT'S RACIST". So think about it, griefers just happen to get kicks out of the harassment of others and just happen to use the image of a black man as a griefing prop? WAKE UP PEOPLE.

My god, you people are all retarded. You sit there dressed like animals so you can "yiff" each other, all while paying the faggots at Linden Labs hundreds per month. Well I'll tell you where you can yiff - IN HELL. PN will be sure to give