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Oh, you wanted to hear about the actual con programmming?
Overall, the con was a lot of fun, smaller than last year, with the same friendly diverse interesting activist core of people, but a lot fewer drop-ins, probably due to the more remote location and the increased price, which may have driven away some of the poor student and activist types, and didn't actually succeed in keeping the organization that ran the thing from ending up with about 3K in debt at the end of it all.
The con was on “queer standard time” (why do all fringe communities seem to have a constitutional inability to respect each others' time?), which meant a late start, but they actually did okay in shortening the opening plenary accordingly. Robin Ochs, the organizer of lots and lots of bi women's stuff in the Boston area, said this and that and sent us on our merry ways. There was lots of great programming planned - two or three sessions I'd happily have attended per slot. First choice ended up being Raven Kaldera's session on Trans-Spirituality. I was impressed with Raven when I met him last year, for his ability as a storyteller, his success in running a family-tribe of significant size and logistics, and his rewrite of “Dancing with Bears” as a gay clubbing anthem at last year's con. He's written a book relevant to the topic, Hermaphrodeities, which I'm hoping to review as part of the new BBI gig, as I want to encourage more books for the advanced pagan to exist.
After the worst squashed sandwich, stale cookies, and underripe fruit lunch ever was a session called “Be the Bomb that You Throw”, on out-there personal activism, run by Sister Phyllis Stein, one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who was dressed in full nun-garb. It reminded me of my own style: I look “normal” enough that people are forced to reevaluate when I'm not quite what they were expecting. But I am also working on being more out about most of my life on a day to day basis, and reminding myself that that sort of thing can be more societally useful than just pure vanity is a good thing.
The furry panel we ran was not hugely attended, but the small group there had a good time. Each of the panelists fell into what are probably typical roles for us all:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lediva attracting interest and being excited about things (she earned her furry toaster for recruiting by the end of the con, by dressing all weekend and continuing to talk about furry to every one who was interested, but not quite interested enough to choose the panel out of the overabundant programming schedule), postvixen trying to make qer way through the mass of ideas that qe'd been putting together for the few days before, tangent to wonderful tangent, and me playing panel mom, trying to make sure all of the attendees got heard, trying to keep responses short and encouraging and relevant.
The expected Sunday morning poly panel, which I'd decided to do out of laziness rather than stretching my boundaries more, turned out to have been replaced by a screening of the documentary “When Two Won't Do”. The film has been getting mixed reviews in the poly community, the filmmakers being called either “brave and honest” or “people who are setting back the work of the poly community twenty years”. It's a personal documentary of the life and times of a geeky filmmaker couple exploring polyamory, with one of the two partners being relatively resistant. Their story's not pretty, and in particular the suicide of one of the people in their web of relationships part way through was very disturbing. If nothing else, the film showed that large amounts of self-analysis and exploration don't necessarily guarantee any real communication. I haven't yet decided whether showing something this conflicted when we don't have something more optimistic available is good or bad, but it makes me want to add making a somewhat sunnier piece to my imaginary project list.
The last session I attended was a presentation of a medical/psych literature review of the work on the relationship between transsexuality and mental illness. The brief result: the trans community looks overall like the rest of the population in terms of other mental problems, though there is also a lot of faulty research which makes some pretty bad assumptions out there, especially when you look at racial and economic minorities. The presenter was one of the people who had caught my eye last year, though I'll insist watching him talk was not the only reason I went. I need to brush up my dabbler's knowledge of psych stuff a bit again, though.
Fine people, fine Chinese food (with the fortune-cookies-that-must-be-obeyed), a collection of contact info I may actually get organized enough to use this year, and a determination to get myself some vistaprint business cards closed the event for me. I'll be back next year.
The con was on “queer standard time” (why do all fringe communities seem to have a constitutional inability to respect each others' time?), which meant a late start, but they actually did okay in shortening the opening plenary accordingly. Robin Ochs, the organizer of lots and lots of bi women's stuff in the Boston area, said this and that and sent us on our merry ways. There was lots of great programming planned - two or three sessions I'd happily have attended per slot. First choice ended up being Raven Kaldera's session on Trans-Spirituality. I was impressed with Raven when I met him last year, for his ability as a storyteller, his success in running a family-tribe of significant size and logistics, and his rewrite of “Dancing with Bears” as a gay clubbing anthem at last year's con. He's written a book relevant to the topic, Hermaphrodeities, which I'm hoping to review as part of the new BBI gig, as I want to encourage more books for the advanced pagan to exist.
After the worst squashed sandwich, stale cookies, and underripe fruit lunch ever was a session called “Be the Bomb that You Throw”, on out-there personal activism, run by Sister Phyllis Stein, one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who was dressed in full nun-garb. It reminded me of my own style: I look “normal” enough that people are forced to reevaluate when I'm not quite what they were expecting. But I am also working on being more out about most of my life on a day to day basis, and reminding myself that that sort of thing can be more societally useful than just pure vanity is a good thing.
The furry panel we ran was not hugely attended, but the small group there had a good time. Each of the panelists fell into what are probably typical roles for us all:
lediva attracting interest and being excited about things (she earned her furry toaster for recruiting by the end of the con, by dressing all weekend and continuing to talk about furry to every one who was interested, but not quite interested enough to choose the panel out of the overabundant programming schedule), postvixen trying to make qer way through the mass of ideas that qe'd been putting together for the few days before, tangent to wonderful tangent, and me playing panel mom, trying to make sure all of the attendees got heard, trying to keep responses short and encouraging and relevant.The expected Sunday morning poly panel, which I'd decided to do out of laziness rather than stretching my boundaries more, turned out to have been replaced by a screening of the documentary “When Two Won't Do”. The film has been getting mixed reviews in the poly community, the filmmakers being called either “brave and honest” or “people who are setting back the work of the poly community twenty years”. It's a personal documentary of the life and times of a geeky filmmaker couple exploring polyamory, with one of the two partners being relatively resistant. Their story's not pretty, and in particular the suicide of one of the people in their web of relationships part way through was very disturbing. If nothing else, the film showed that large amounts of self-analysis and exploration don't necessarily guarantee any real communication. I haven't yet decided whether showing something this conflicted when we don't have something more optimistic available is good or bad, but it makes me want to add making a somewhat sunnier piece to my imaginary project list.
The last session I attended was a presentation of a medical/psych literature review of the work on the relationship between transsexuality and mental illness. The brief result: the trans community looks overall like the rest of the population in terms of other mental problems, though there is also a lot of faulty research which makes some pretty bad assumptions out there, especially when you look at racial and economic minorities. The presenter was one of the people who had caught my eye last year, though I'll insist watching him talk was not the only reason I went. I need to brush up my dabbler's knowledge of psych stuff a bit again, though.
Fine people, fine Chinese food (with the fortune-cookies-that-must-be-obeyed), a collection of contact info I may actually get organized enough to use this year, and a determination to get myself some vistaprint business cards closed the event for me. I'll be back next year.
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Clothing coming soon, so sorry about this disorganization of mine.
Furry 101
Given those two choices, it's the latter :). Here's the panel description from the convention, to give you a sense of what we were discussing, or trying to:
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Furry selves: Anthropomorphic Fandom and the Exploration of Identity.
Popular culture has found a new community to sensationalize, the "furries." Though MTV will tell you it's all about people having kinky sex in mascot costumes, the anthropomorphic culture is much more about playing with alternate versions of who we are, and who we could be, through costuming, role-play, art, and fiction. Furries have strong personal associations with animals or animal-people, and quite often include a not-quite-human sensibility as part of their identity. A
subculture very high in gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender presence, furry is a safe place for many people to 'try on a new skin' and express themselves freely. Perhaps there is such a thing as species dysphoria?
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Briefly: Furry is a movement/fandom/community of people who find some personal connection to the idea of anthropomorphic animals, the details of which can run the gamut from enjoying mainstream cartoons, to working with animal archetypes as part of their personalities, to costuming, to art and stories, to spiritual connection with the animal world, to kink, to all-out species dysphoria. People who are involved with furry tend to be playful, creative folks who like to explore their sense of self.
MTV, Dan Savage, and Vanity Fair have published in recent times on the sex angle, as that's what tittilates the public. It's a pretty pro-sex community, but sex isn't the core of it, certainly not sex with inanimate stuff.
Re: Furry 101
Re: Furry 101
Re: Furry 101
Thank you and
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I should really let Bee have first shot at this, but I can't pass up the chance. :) The shortest version I can muster is yes, it's the same furry that people make jokes about on Usenet, but it's Not What You Think. :)
Furry started out as a fairly innocuous movement of indie comic artists drawing sci-fi/fantasy stories with humanoid animal characters. It morphed, over time, into a sci-fi fandom a bit like the Trekkies... over a dozen large online roleplaying forums... an unusually noisy and ill-tempered newsgroup, even by Usenet standards... an alternative spirituality movement with (tenuous) ties to totemism and lycanthropy... and somehow, seemingly inexplicably, a sort of fantasy-based, mostly VR, alternative sexuality. All these groups are under the "furry" banner now; not everyone who calls themselves furry participates in all these activities, or even necessarily gets along with those who do.
As for the sexual aspect, well, um, yes. For various complicated reasons, furry is a very sexually open fandom, with disproportionately large overlap with the gay and BDSM communities. But some media outlets have tried to portray furry as first and foremost a sexual fetish, or even specifically as a fetish for having sex in animal costumes or with stuffed animals. Neither of these is true. These things do happen, but they're not defining "furry" activities by any stretch of the imagination. Most furries just... don't. :)
Many furries, like me, are physically attracted to the idea of sentient, humanoid animals, but the reasons for that are complicated and, once again, probably Not What You're Thinking. :) The overwhelming majority of furries know they're just dealing with fantasy creatures.
I think in many cases it's not their animalistic traits, per se, as much as the potential for experimenting with new bodies and expressing yourself through something evocative, wild, and a little mystical. At least, that's how it is for me and most of my friends who are involved with this strangeness.
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No pun intened, right? ;)
Sorry - I just couldn't resist :)
--Mike (who's in a way too silly mood to be doing anything serious)
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I don't think it's so much a disproportionate overlap, as the fact that furry is, out of all of those, one of the strangest - and someone able to deal with that generally has fewer problems dealing with the rest.
Of course, the number of completely messed up furries who *can't* deal with is also... well, let us say it is probably a statistically significant subset.