In summary : furries do self-censor, but they often do it for reasons far more sensible and morally good then simply being afraid of negative judgements by others.

2) Mental Health
You *can* tell the difference, usually in a few minitues of conversation, between furs of the sensible, reputable kind and the ones who really do belong in a mental hospital. Some ways of doing this are : good furs have at least moderately sucessful real lives, friends, perhaps a partner, a stable job, and aren’t fixated on any of these things. In particular, any fur who offers you sex before getting to know you at *least* a little is probably not doing well. In a lineup, you might not be able to tell who’se sane, but if you could talk to a fur for a few minitues and ask probing questions you’d be able to find out. This is normal – it’s quite hard to tell who suffers mental health diffiulties in non-furs too….. most people don’t go around with signs around their necks saying things like “I suffer from depression”.

In summary : Some furries are nuts, most furries aren’t. You can usually tell the differene quickly by talking to them – but beware of making assumptions… some things you think imply a crazy person don’t (e.g. some slaves are well-adjusted!) and some things you think would be normal or ok do (having sex with everyone in sight is usually an indication of serious trouble).

3) The idea that your social status is determined by who you sleep with might appear to be true, but in my experience it is totally false. Put simply, status in furry is determined by skill at furry-related activities (drawing, roleplaying, computers) activity (how well known and active you are in the community) the status of people you associate with / hang out with, your attitude…

I can see how you could get the impression that social status in furry is determined by who you have sex with, but it’s not true – good quality furries with high social status are attracted to other good quality furries with high social status…. just like in real life the good, mature people are attracted to other good, mature people.

4)
The furry community does have a fair number of nutters in it, I admit, however the majority aren’t crazy and there are actually some very sane people there. Unfortunately it’s the nutters that get all the spotlight, who are most keen to call themselves ‘furry’ and who spend the most time in places like SL.

Checking out the most highly visible furs in SL is like checking the depressed people – many people are depressed sometimes and lead otherwise normal and productive, happy lives. However, if you seek out the people who identify as depressed and grab the spotlight with their depression, then of course you’re going to find people at the extreme end of the spectrum who are crazy or mentally ill.

Lastly, I’d point out that furry is a community based around sexuality, not intelligence (though most of us compensate for this by being selective about our friends!). You get a substantial portion of idiots in the general population (just turn on the TV and wath the news for a few hours, or any documentary channel on human affairs). So, just as there are idiots generally, there are idiots in furry. Furry also does tend to attract idiots because furs are very open and accepting of others, and becuase sex is something almost everyone can do to some degree.
You do say this in your article, but really I’d expect everyone reading this to know that anyone nowadays who wants to have sex with several partners and actually BANS the use of STD/STI tests is probably not only stupid but also actually dangerous and should not be touched. People like this are known to exist but 99% of furs have nothing at all to do with them and prior to your article I wasn’t even aware such people existed at all. I’ve been an active participant in furry for about 5 years now across both OL and RL and I’ve not seen anyone do anything nearly as stupid as that.
If you take nothing else from this comment, take the fact that furries are 10% good, 80% ok, and 10% dangerously bad… about the same proportions as normal people. It’s just the bad 10% get most of the attention in articles. Yes, furries are more prone to mental health problems, but then so are people who spend a lot of time online doing anything, so are students, so are the elderly….furry has good and bad bits, and though it is potentially very dangerous and very good, one must admit both of these things to understand it fully. Most articles either go for the “woah, wtf? dangerous!” line or the “it’s ok really we’re just misundersood line”. The truth is somewhere in between. Most furs are ok but there are a fair number of nutters.

-Anon
-A furry for the last 5-6 years…