Well, you’re only seeing a small subset of the culture. Most furries don’t do fursuits or cons or any of that stuff. Most are invisible, just like a brony or a Harry Potter fan or a comic nerd or whatever. It’s just an interest or hobby that you wouldn’t know about unless you knew the person.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I know someone who is into the general aesthetic of SFW "furry" stuff but is a bit weird about it because one of two things happens if she shares some content she likes:

People turn away because they think she's into that stuff sexually
People get way too into engaging with her because they think she's into that stuff sexually.

Feels like there needs to be some better nuance between "I like furry style SFW art" and "I'm all into furry in the the way people guess". Not that there's anything wrong with the latter, but it's certainly something you should have to explicitly opt into rather than an assumption based on liking or doing a drawing or like wearing an animal ear headband or non-plug tail or something similarly innocuous.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 days ago

what seems to help from what i've seen is to make it more cartoony and less, you know, suspiciously detailed..
it will of course not work 100%, but it at least sort of sets the tone of it not being sexual, like how mickey mouse generally manages to avoid being sexualized.