Talk:Fursona

Dropping some sources

I don't have the time to comb through these and make edits myself at the moment, but I figured I'd drop the sources I've found in to help prove notability and keep the article alive in the meantime:

• Keeping the Magic: Fursona Identity and Performance in the Furry Fandom
• Self as Gem, Fursona as Facet(s): Constructions and Performances of Self in Furry Fandom
• My fursona and me: a tail of identity
• A Furry Friend: An Autoethnography on the Relationship Between Gender Identity and Fursonas

Between this and the existing sources I think there's more than enough to establish this as a notable subject :3

Housetiger 🏡🐯 (he/him + ze/hir) 🔸 talk 🔸 contrib 🔸 10:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Housetiger most of them look reliable but the last one is probably not ideal.CycoMa (talk) 08:38, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

How about this Housetiger you add these sources in and I’ll twek some details up.CycoMa (talk) 22:02, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Alright! I've added a heap of information mostly from the first and third links. Thanks for giving the sources a look over for me. Housetiger 🏡🐯 (he/him + ze/hir) 🔸 talk 🔸 contrib 🔸 12:58, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Why is Hsu & Baley (2019) restored as citation on this page for the claim, "Acting out one's fursona in person may involve wearing a fursuit"? Certainly Maase (2015) can suffice as a citation (to say nothing of a dozen others)[and why is more than one needed for what is by now virtually a platitude], but it is certainly strange to prefer Hsu & Bailey (2019) over the best-established Furry researchers' work, namely Plante, Reysen et al, 2016 as likely the most suitable (pun intended) citation. Consequently, the reference to this study should be removed from this page. 08:39, 7 November 2022 (UTC) Talastra (talk) 09:07, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Stop the image edit warring

We do not need constant fights on this page over the fursona image. Here is the timeline of recent events:

• Originally, the article has no image. (Special:PermaLink/1052123389)
• User:CycoMa1 adds File:Rooccoon (Amuztak).jpg with the WP:ES →‎Fursona § Fursona species: I think this image is good enough. Plus it has been used across the Wiki. in Special:Diff/1053071082. To be clear, this is a good edit given the state of the Commons at the time it was made.
• I see the page, and decide, as the image in question has JPEG artifacting, is low resolution (375x), and is of unclear provenance, to donate art I commissioned, File:Fred Brennan fursona animation.gif, to the Commons, and exhaustively document its copyright to put this issue to bed once and for all. (Special:Diff/1078217134)
• New user FurBoi21 replaces the image with a copyvio, File:Furboi Furry Art.png, currently in process of removal from the Commons. User:Discospinster correctly reverts (Special:Diff/1081372355).
• Another new user, Aldordema, adds another copyvio unrelated to the first, File:CorgiFurry.png. This is another copyvio. They also upload File:SchwerwiegendArt.jpg, a third copyvio. I mark both per c:Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion § F1.

Now, to be absolutely clear, I have no problem with whatever image ends up being used, but we don't need endless replacements. Users should stop and discuss the issue here, familiarize themselves with Wikipedia's copyright policies and those of the Commons, and then once we have multiple actual non-copyvio candidates, we can decide which to use.

@CycoMa1, Discospinster, FurBoi21, and Aldordema: So far, my image, File:Fred Brennan fursona animation.gif, is the only suitable image on the Commons which has no technical issues, either of resolution or compression artifacts. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 20:47, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto: I support the use of your commissioned image, however I think having an animated image as the leading image for an article is a bit distracting. I assume that making it a still image wouldn't otherwise change its suitability? What do you think about that? ~ Housetiger 🏡🐯 (he/him + ze/hir) 🔸 talk 🔸 contrib 🔸 12:30, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

That's certainly fine! I can extract a frame if you don't know how, Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 16:47, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto: I would appreciate if you could do that, yeah :) ~ Housetiger 🏡🐯 (he/him + ze/hir) 🔸 talk 🔸 contrib 🔸 19:13, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Done! File:Fred Brennan fursona animation frame.png. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 19:47, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Housetiger: How does the new image look? I thought a Wikipedia-related one would be better, also this one is arguably "more SFW" as he has shorts in it. Thoughts? Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 18:56, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto I think it's the blush and the coy expression that's got people riled up :P I think it's harmless enough, though (and frankly pretty representative of the furry community) so I'm for it. Housetiger 🏡🐯 (he/him + ze/hir) 🔸 talk 🔸 contrib 🔸 17:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

i wanna kiss fred's fursona and buy them dinner ok bye Hollihop (talk) 23:17, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto Do we want more images? I have a few I would be willing to release under a Commons compatible license. Frigyes06 (talk) 07:42, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

2.12 fursonas

This is the figure in the lead for how many fursonas the average furry has over their lifetime. How do you have 2.12 fursonas, though? It seems like a silly statistic to not use a whole number for, and it trips me up every time I read this article. However, that is what the source says. Would rounding down to 2 in the article be in violation of some policy, or are we allowed to do that for the sake of making more sense? Could we phrase it as 'just over two' instead? ~ Housetiger 🏡🐯 (he/him + ze/hir) 🔸 talk 🔸 contrib 🔸 14:01, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Housetiger: I think we can write "between two and three". Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 18:57, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto That sounds reasonable to me. Done! Housetiger 🏡🐯 (he/him + ze/hir) 🔸 talk 🔸 contrib 🔸 09:46, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Hsu & Bailey (2019) should be deleted from this page outright

As noted above, Hsu & Bailey (2019) are not necessary or appropriate where cited. However, it is difficult to understand why it is cited at all (unless whoever flopped it in didn't read it). I have read it. Twice. Just because this is peer-reviewed does not mean it is sound research. Unfortunately, I nerd-sniped myself, so this is characteristically long. To cite only the three most glaring errors:

• (1) the study incorrectly frames the whole of "The 'Furry' Phenomenon" (in the title in quotation marks for some reason) as a paraphilic fetish, unironically citing "cross-dressing" "desiring limb amputation" and a study by the same authors in which "men sexually attracted to children were also sexually aroused by the fantasy of being a child" (p. 1351) are their analytical frame (while also offering two awkward coinages, anthropomorphozoophilia and autoanthropomorphozoophilia),
• (2) consequently, despite caveats, the study regularly conflates an (at most) very narrow subset of only males in the fandom as the entirety of the fandom; to be even more exact, it's not even clear that the target population the authors examine would have to be be exclusively Furry (and they explicitly include some respondents who said they were not Furry; they also excluded females and trans people because there wasn't enough data). Certainly, one can programmatically limit a sample to "male Furries," but if so, then referring to the "Furry" phenomenon in general as male-only is very incorrect. Just so it's clear what's at stake here; these authors claim that the "Furry" phenomenon is illustrated by, "My most sexually arousing fantasy is being turned into a female anthropomorphic dog by a female anthropomorphic animal. I am then forced into sex slavery and raped on a daily basis. Another fantasy is being sprayed by a female anthropomorphic skunk and turning into one myself" (p. 1365). I should note: I'm perfectly fine if this is what someone wants to fantasize about; I am not okay with studies that construe this as representative of the "Furry" phenomenon. I'm not okay with a study not providing better validity assurances for (potentially trolling) responses.
• (3) Much more inappropriately, the study uses unvalidated qualitative (even possibly trolling) responses within a primarily quantitative study (the passage above is an example of such material). Thus, while the authors admit that open responses to the question "gender" were too varied to be analyzed, they are nevertheless content to present open-ended responses of user-provided narratives that ostensibly "described the development of their fantasies related to being an anthropomorphic animal in a way that is consistent with the concept of ETIIs" (p. 1364). In an an attempt to be as fair to this research, I must cite the last example of a "narrative" provided by one participant in its entirety but in pieces. The participant begins by noting, "In my fantasies, I sometimes imagine myself as my fursona. At other times, I imagine myself with my fursona. My fantasies focus on being put into a mascot costume, being dressed in humiliating outfits (diapers or something feminine), being eaten or eating others, or being transformed into an anthropomorphic animal" (p. 1365). The participant also states, "More recently, I was put into a blue jay costume and masturbated while fantasizing about being a bird, unable to speak in anything but squawks" (p. 1365). Clearly, while this involves fursonas and anthropomorphism (as claimed by the authors), it seems almost completely a certitude that this was not representative of the majority of responses. However, we must remember that study's authors insist in the paragraph leading to this this example that the responses place "an emphasis on the actual transformation into an anthropomorphic animal or creature"; nevertheless, the same participant reported their "most sexually arousing fantasy": "For example, my most sexually arousing fantasy is being a Power Ranger who is defeated and captured by a big, puffy, and pink monster called the Impursonator. After being humiliated and then eaten by her, I am slowly encased in a big, puffy, and pink costume resembling her" (p. 1365).

If the other fantasies reported here would be recognized by Furries as by a Furry, this last one is not explicitly a Furry's; rather, their most sexually arousing fantasy involves being a Power Ranger (and doesn't fit the author's framework). I'm certainly willing to entertain the notion that a Furry wrote this, but this was also data collected by randomly trawling the Internet and word-of-mouth, and there is no apparent effort in the study to validate that the responses are really from Furries (or males for that matter) and not trolls. The abrupt inclusion of this qualitative data without an adequate validation framework seems inserted "naively" (or sensationalistically) into a quantitative paper and methodologically dubious. [This objection also relates to the problem of the analytical framework used as well (see below), but I have to go back to the fact that this particular study is hardly a necessary place to cite that "Acting out one's fursona in person may involve wearing a fursuit." This point isn't even a primary focus in this research, all the more so given that nearly 50% of respondents said that sex and fursuiting wasn't important at all.]

Again, the citation of Hsu & Bailey (2019) on the page itself is very dubious and utterly inappropriate as a citation for "Acting out one's fursona in person may involve wearing a fursuit." I should stop here, but if you want to dig into the study further, you will also find that there's less distinction between whatever "phenomenon" the authors claim to report on and Furry-identified and not Furry-identified people, so that the phenomenon they claim to identify may not even be characteristic of Furries per se. Of the greatest importance (if one digs further in), the paraphilic framework the authors use fails to capture a critical point. That is, the study's analytic framework drawn from autogynephilic men ("cross-dressers" [sic]), apotemnophilia ("sexual arousal by the fantasy of being an amputee"), and autopedophilia ("men sexually attracted to children were also sexually aroused by the fantasy of being a child") requires such men to "internalize" REAL objects. Thus, the authors write the unconvincing sentence, "By fursuiting and enacting their fursonas, furries change their appearance and behavior to become more like anthropomorphic animals. In these ways, they are similar to male cross-dressers, who change their appearance and behavior to become more like women."

Really have to pause here, to remind you that the "analogue" with cross-dressing has to be fur-suiting, even though 49.1% of the sample population said fur-suit sex is not at all important. Second, what does "or enacting their fursonas" even mean in a context of "internalizing" an external erotic target? Just as a by the by, as a Furry male I don't ever "enact" my fursona; I "interface" with the world through the increased sociality that fursona allows. Meanwhile, what is the analogue for (heterosexual male) "cross-dressers" "enacting their autogynephilia"? The authors write, "Autogynephilia can be conceptualized as an erotic target identity inversion (ETII), in which an external erotic target (e.g., women) is located within a man’s own body" (p. 1351). Thus the authors say despite "surprisingly weak" correlations (p. 1366), "It seems that fursuiting among male furries might be conceptually analogous to cross-dressing among autogynephilic men, because both activities involve changing one’s appearance and behavior to become more like his preferred erotic target: an anthropomorphic animal or a woman, respectively. Because autoanthropomorphozoophilia and fursuiting were not strongly associated, however, future research is needed to clarify the nature of this association" (p. 1366). Alternatively, the authors might acknowledge that their framework is inapplicable and poorly explained by it.

Perhaps the framing of ETII in this paper is poorly argued, but the idea that putting on clothing externally in order to locate an erotic target "within a man's own body" is a strange construction. It also would fail to explain why some people might fursuit non-sexually or other motivations for having fursuit sex. Just as psychologists used to tie themselves in knots trying to understand mashocism, without every listening to the people doing it, "It feels good!" one certainly doesn't need to invent a new paraphillia to understand at least a tactile experience of fursuit-sex (and fursuiting itelf).

However, there's an even more critical failure of analytic here. For the case of autogynephilia, the "external erotic target (e.g., women)" actually exists. When a participant in the study says, "I liked the idea of being a cartoon cat that was fat and fluffy" (p. 1364), what is real-world analogue here? It can't be the fluffy, fat cat (Garfield doesn't actually exist); so, it's the fluffy, fat picture of a cat? In which case the "object" that a Furry (man only) must want to locate in his body is a photograph, or a drawing, or a carton? (Let's just ignore how bollocks that sounds for the vast majority of Furries' experiences). Or, as the authors lay it out, "If some male furries are motivated by an ETII, then they should experience both sexual attraction to anthropomorphic animals (anthropomorphozoophilia) and sexual arousal by the fantasy of being an anthropomorphic animal (autoanthropomorphozoophilia). This is because anthropomorphic animals comprise the external erotic target, which would be internalized as the ETII" (p. 1352). No. There are no "anthropomorphic animals" to comprise an external erotic target; there are only media representations (including fursuits). Also, note the tautology, "If some male furries are motivated by an ETII," then they are most decidedly Furries with an ETII (if this is even a valid construct); that a narrow population of (male) Furries has an ETII is not characteristic of male Furries generally (and even less so Furries generally).

So the only "analogy" that holds up possibly here goes back to fursuiting; that one wants locate in the Furry (man's) body the external object of the fursuiter (not the anthropomorphic representation itself). In that sense, it would be no wonder that being able to internalize whatever is represented by a "fursuit" would be more like the construct they utilize. Nonetheless, nearly 50% of participants said "not at all interested" sexually in fursuits, and <10% said "extremely interested." Note: where the authors have an opportunity to summarize this data specifically, instead they aggregate "the importance of fantasizing about being or dressing as anthropomorphic animals during masturbation, the average degree of its importance was 2.29 (SD = 1.41)" (p. 1358) on a Likert scale of 1 to 5. By lumping this together, they claim that 25.1% of participants marked this as very or extremely important. This is not in fact the numbers for fursuiting only; even more, they found that their sample had "almost never" fursuited and that the frequency that they did if they did was also "almost never" in the last year (p. 1355); in fact, 80.2% answered "never fursuited," while 49.1% reported no sexual interest in fursuiting. And again, why does this matter? Because their entire framework is that the thing viewed is what one wants to internalize, and what does it mean to "internalize" a fat, fluffy carton in comparison to being a "woman" (as a cross-dresser), someone who wants to be an amputee, or a pedophile who wants to be a (real) child? This is completely incoherent, never mind that it misconstrues the "Furry" phenomenon to such a narrow degree that it's irrelevant on its face.

The only genuine merit in the article is that, having asked if the participants are into bestiality, it establishes that Furries are no more into bestiality than the general public. It should be removed. Talastra (talk) 09:05, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

{{Multiple image}}

@Alocolad: Your desire to broaden the representation of fursonas in the article's images is welcome, but your WP:ES comment come on bruh was not really civil. Nevertheless, I agree that the image of the three fursuiters is very cute and a good physical representation. I used the {{multiple image}} template to broaden the representation at the expense of neither fursuiters or furries who self-express through digital artwork. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 08:04, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto: Cool beans, to elaborate at the time I thought (on top of wanting to broaden what was depicted) that the original image in question might either give the wrong impression to people/reinforce potentially negative stereotypes of the furry fandom held by many people likely to be researching the topic, simply due to the character being shirtless and having drawn nipples. I understood the internal reference, but also felt that many readers may not. I could’ve and probably should’ve said that instead, but in the end I think the current solution of having both images up is a good one. Alocolad (talk) 00:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alocolad: I figured as much, and understand. To understand why I didn't simply commission a thin or clothed character for this article (I'm not so socially unaware to know that my fursona's weight is the main reason people object to him lol, although perhaps a few wouldn't like any shirtless character):

1. Wikipedia is not censored;
2. I have the same bodytype;
   1. (and wouldn't feel a thin version is actually my fursona/the same character;)
3. I didn't want to whitewash the subject but at the same time didn't want to add something obviously inappropriate;
4. No one has an issue with Sonic the Hedgehog not wearing clothes, so perhaps he's more appropriate than Sonic. ^{(intended to be humorous)}

Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 13:20, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

@Psiĥedelisto: For the first point, please consider Wikipedia:Offensive material#"Not censored" does not give special favor to offensive content. ❤︎PrincessPandaWiki (talk | contribs) 13:46, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@PrincessPandaWiki: No kidding, I'm satisfied with the current version of the page. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 11:18, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Protogen

"Protogen" is a redirect term for the Fursona article, but there's no mention of it in the article. Should there be an addition to it somewhere, like the Furry Species section? Shanshansan (talk) 05:56, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think we can currently add protogen to the list. Because there are currently no reliable sources out there for it.CycoMa1 (talk) 04:18, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I did find like 2 news articles that talk a bit about protogens.

From | here and | here. Although I'm not sure these are reliable sources. Anyone has any thought?CycoMa1 (talk) 20:28, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

I suppose it's enough to add a passage describing what protogens are, though I doubt much more can be added unfortunately. A cursory search for more solid sources doesn't turn up anything. ArkHyena (talk) 22:14, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

I also did find this book written by Joe Strike. This book has quite a good amount of pages on protogens and primagens.

I'm not entirely sure about the publisher of the book to be honest.

I know Joe Strike has been mentioned and interviewed a lot in mainstream media and he even has his own IMDB page. So it does seem like he does have some reliablity and some notablity. He is not as notable or as reliable as Fred Patten. What do you guys think, I'm open for us reacting some kind of WP:CON.CycoMa1 (talk) 14:46, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I also forgot to mention Joe’s LinkedIn.CycoMa1 (talk) 15:03, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm personally not opposed to there being a few paragraphs on protogens. It's just I think we need reliable sources, because most of the sources on it appear to be unreliable.CycoMa1 (talk) 15:05, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

You can find some information (publisher, ISBN, publishing date) here.[1] It would hopefully allow some information to be written on the details of protogens/primagens and their histories, I'd certainly say go for it. It's unfortunate that a lot of the fandom's details remain highly informal and are hard to codify/document reliably. ArkHyena (talk) 22:02, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Here is what I currently got here. What do you think?

I couldn’t find any better images for Protogens unfortunately.CycoMa1 (talk) 04:19, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Image is okay for now; hopefully more images will be uploaded to commons soon (hey, if I get to go to a con I might do that myself). I'm curious though, no mention of primagens? Or is sourcing there too sparse for that? ArkHyena (talk) 05:29, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Couldn't really find any sources saying that primagens are used as fursona. This might be due to the fact Primagens are a closed species. The closest thing to sources saying primagens are used as a fursona is the mention that they are used for fursuits.

The source did also mention Dutch Angel Dragons, but couldn't find reliable sources saying they are used as fursonas either.

Just sticking to WP:NOR.CycoMa1 (talk) 16:21, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

By the way, only one of these new articles says a protogen can used as a fursona.CycoMa1 (talk) 15:47, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

There you go Protogens are now in the article. For now I’m gonna let other people expand on the part regarding Protogens.

I am gonna leave the expand tag in the species section because I realized there are still a bunch of fursona species missing in that section. Like various Pokémon fursonas, Dinosaur fursonas, and Dutch Angel Dragons.CycoMa1 (talk) 21:20, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

If possible, a table listing the most common species and their stats/percentages would be really nice; not sure where else one can find a source for that besides FurScience tho. ArkHyena (talk) 23:04, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the lack of response. A part of me would be in support of that and another part of me feels like it would have some issues.CycoMa1 (talk) 23:48, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

All good! What issues, if you don't mind specifying? ArkHyena (talk) 00:27, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response again. Basically sources on it would list fursona species many people aren't aware of.

Some sources have listed Sergals as a common fursona, however there are no reliable sources on what exactly sergals are. Readers might be confused by wikipedia saying "a 2019 study found that 3% of furries use sergals as a fursona species," without us defining what a sergals is.

Another issue is that many fursonas are based on mythology, this is not an issue for dragons everyone knows what that is. But this is an issue with mythical creatures like kobolds, because it is very obvious most furries who use them as a fursona are using the Dungeons and Dragons version than the whole troll-like creature.

I have more to say, just keeping my comment short.CycoMa1 (talk) 00:25, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

By the way I am probably overthinking this. Not against.CycoMa1 (talk) 00:40, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

For sergals, we may have to omit that from the listing; for kobolds, a link and a brief explanation supported by the main article should do. Overall, I believe most of the list should do fine. ArkHyena (talk) 00:56, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm now on that task.CycoMa1 (talk) 16:37, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

"page needed"

The New Science of Narcassism claims that 95% of all furries have at least one fursona. However, it requires a page number. If nobody has the book available to them, I can go to my local library and try and get the book so I can read it. Moreover, is the book a reliable source? Shanshansan (talk) 06:54, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Information Literacy and Scholarly Discourse-2002

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 August 2024 and 6 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lapry101 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by T.p.amalfitano (talk) 22:18, 9 September 2024 (UTC)