Remember furries on CSI?

Oh, goodie.

He promised the show won't be sanitized. The "CSI" crew will still travel into bizarre territory now and then.

Indeed, one upcoming episode titled "Fur and Loathing" examines a crime that takes place among a group of adults who dress in animal costumes and participate in a sex act known as a "fur pile."

oh christ. When will our fellow furries learn NOT TO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE!?!?!? >.<

Personally, I'm reserving comment until after the episode actually airs. If the script consulting that was talked about here before has made a difference, the episode might not be as bad as this makes it sound.
She could just be a shallow Hollywood git, remember.

hey, i gotta better idea

DONT ***** send ANYTHING to Marg Helgenberger for starters..
she doesnt give a shit
neither does anyone at CSI
neither does CBS

secondly - clean up the ***** fandom so that this shit stops happening

problem solved

-love
mouse@blackvault.com

I suspect Marg was not talking about furries, but rather fursuiters, or to be precise erotic fursuiters. Unless of course she meant "dress up in animal costumes" and "have sex" but not at the same time. ;) To make these linguistic distinctions though, you practically have to be furry or heaven forbid, ask someone who is furry. Instead of thinking she just called you a yiffy fursuiter, instead consider that perhaps she really was only talking about fursuiters who enjoy pleasuring each other in costume. Everyone else, all the rest of us, the grand majority of furry fans and enthusiasts, these people could care less about us. "Oh sure, you liked Secret of NIMH and have read both books, plus fan created full length sequels, ...so what?"

She was in error though. People who actually dress up in animal costumes and have sex aren't a whole subculture, more like a small group, maybe even numbering in the dozens. :shrugs: I could be wrong, there are 6 billion in the world after all. But I'd argue that more people have a "thing" for bath toys than fursuits. The day they have a fursuit sex convention I'll call it a subculture, and promptly move to another country. :D

Cold-blooded murder isn't very bizarre, sadly enough. Most people can at least understand it, and certainly have been inundated with it, watching TV shows. Bizarre doesn't necessarily mean evil; if anything it means strange, or even diverse, and furry is most certainly diverse even I have to admit. By not judging, she meant she didn't call erotic fursuiters debased, immoral, heathen, pagan, Satan worshipping, sodomizing, lunatic hedonists who should all be rounded up and shot. (I'm not judging either, that sentence is a lie.) That's usually how people judge anything different from themselves, if our major religions are any indication.

Starling

Not to start a flame situation, but once furries stop hiding in the closet like gays from the 60s did and become more open about their interests you'll see less of this stuff over time. As long as the "normal" furs keep avoiding the press, all the press will have is the extravagant, "in your face" furs. There is nothing any more odd in collecting anthro stuff as there is in collecting Disney, comics or trading card games.
Having gone through lots of fandoms through the years, I remember when all the press wanted out of comic fans was "how much" old comics were worth. And the footage only showed folks in superhero costumes. No one really covered the artists or writers. I know this turned off many collecters who refused to talk with the press. After years of folks finally willing to talk about all aspects, things got more balanced. Suddenly you saw prominent collectors, creators and such talking about graphic novels, inspiration for movies and more. The fact that much of furry comes from (now respected) media as comics, anime and animation will eventually come to public view.
Best example of "hiding" causing damage was a recent special about folks wanting to be a different species. (I think on National Geographic). They talked to at least two furs who seemed rational, if "odd". What made it seem terrible was that the furs went to a convention where (as the narrator put it) "no outside cameras are allowed!" Sheesh! It would have been better seeing a typical con with comics, folks in normal clothes, etc. walking around. Not seeing anything allows folks to really think the worse! True, they would have probably focused on the extremists, but in the background the audience would have seen some normality... and maybe a nice comment might have slipped in.
Face it, the oddities of furry fandom will always be what drives the media. Heck, comic-con footage still has too many stupid costumes and "pow" and "bams". But who knows, if more folks are willing to be seen as "standard", there will be a "Fur Eye for the Bald Guy" on future TV.

>It seems someone's efforts to give the fandom yet another black eye have sadly succeeded.

You're got to be kidding. Are you really so arrogant? These people don't give a damn about the fandom. They just want to make money. They think having an episode with furries will accomplish that. I highly doubt anyone on the show has any desire to hurt the fandom, and many of them had probably never heard of it until recently. Negative media coverage of the fandom is not an act of hatred, it is an act of greed.

I'm not saying there isn't a problem, but acting like the media is out to get us is just silly.

www.csifiles.com just posted an episode synopsis that begins:
----
If you think "Slaves of Las Vegas" had some of the weirdest sexual situations on primetime television, you ain't seen nothing yet. In "Fur and Loathing", CSI: Crime Scene Investigation enters the world of "furries" and "plushies", people who have sex disguised as animals.
===

Unfortunately, the remainder is no better. Anyone happening across the site, and reading this front-page article will form an instant and unpleasant impression.

There's been a lot of mud flying around recently about "controlling the fandom" or cleansing it or what not.

You're out of your mind.

First of all, I would like to state my belief on what furry is, since it's so simple and easy.

Furry is a label.

Furry is an empty ambigious label that means absolutely nothing to anyone -except- the person who defines themself as a furry. What furry means to you, may mean nothing to me, and vice versa. You might find someone out there that feels furry means nothing but orgies and zoo sex. Does it have to mean that for you? Of course not. But just like every other person, they can call themself a furry whether or not you agree with them. There is no law that says they can't call themself a fur. You can yell at them all you want, but they can call themself a fur if they want to no matter what you say. There's also nothing that can truly stop them from going to cons (besides breaking con rules and so forth). They might be interested in nothing but spoo art, but if they call themself a fur, then they're a fur whether you agree or not, he/she doesn't need your written aproval to become a fur.

You can't "cleanse" the fandom, it's just not going to happen. You can whine and complain all you want about whatever aspect of furry that you don't like, but they don't have to leave or listen to you. They can go on with their friends and be furs. You can't force them to wear a sign that says "IS NOT A FURRY" or some such nonsense. There's also nothing stopping a zoosex advocate to talk to every media outlet and tell them that furry is about sex with animals. Is doing that incredibly stupid? Yes, yes it is. But you cannot stop him from doing it. The best you can do is try to get the attention of the media and tell them he's full of it. Chances are they don't care, they just want money and ratings after all.

That's my two cents, too bad it's not enough to buy some piece of mind

It's difficult to get worked up over any bad publicity furry fandom is going to get on one night of television, considering AFF makes us look bad 24/7.

You know, sometimes I really hate it when I'm right.

Anomie, Social Control Theory, Deviance, and Furries. What does it mean in regards to the media, and CSI?

Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, introduced the concept of anomie in his book The Division of Labour in Society, published in 1893. He used anomie to describe a condition of deregulation that was occurring in society. This meant that rules on how people ought to behave with each other were breaking down and thus people did not know what to expect from one another. Anomie, simply defined, is a state where norms (expectations on behaviours) are confused, unclear or not present. It is normlessness, Durkheim felt, that led to deviant behaviour. In 1897, Durkheim used the term again in his study on Suicide, referring to a morally deregulated condition. Durkheim was preoccupied with the effects of social change. He best illustrated his concept of anomie not in a discussion of crime but of suicide.

In The Division of Labour in Society, Durkheim proposed two concepts. First, that societies evolved from a simple, non-specialised form, called mechanical, toward a highly complex, specialised form, called organic. In the former society people behave and think alike and more or less perform the same work tasks and have the same group-oriented goals. When societies become more complex, or organic, work also becomes more complex. In this society, people are no longer tied to one another and social bonds are impersonal.

Anomie thus refers to a breakdown of social norms and it a condition where norms no longer control the activities of members in society. Individuals cannot find their place in society without clear rules to help guide them. Changing conditions as well as adjustment of life leads to dissatisfaction, conflict, and deviance. He observed that social periods of disruption (economic depression, for instance) brought about greater anomie and higher rates of crime, suicide, and deviance. Durkheim felt that sudden change caused a state of anomie. The system breaks down, either during a great prosperity or a great depression, anomie is the same result.

Merton and Strain Theory

Robert K. Merton, an American sociologist, borrowed Durkheim's concept of anomie to form his own theory, called Strain Theory. It differs somewhat from Durkheim's in that Merton argued that the real problem is not created by a sudden social change, as Durkheim proposed, but rather by a social structure that holds out the same goals to all its members without giving them equal means to achieve them. It is this lack of integration between what the culture calls for and what the structure permits that causes deviant behaviour. Deviance then is a symptom of the social structure. Merton borrowed Durkheim's notion of anomie to describe the breakdown of the normative system.

Merton's theory does not focus upon crime Per say, but rather upon various acts of deviance, which may be understood to lead to criminal behaviour. Merton notes that there are certain goals which are strongly emphasised by society. Society emphasises certain means to reach those goals (such as education, hard work, etc.,) However, not everyone has the equal access to the legitimate means to attain those goals. The stage then is set for anomie.

Merton presents five modes of adapting to strain caused by the restricted access to socially approved goals and means. He did not mean that everyone who was denied access to society's goals became deviant. Rather the response, or modes of adaptation, depend on the individual's attitudes toward cultural goals and the institutional means to attain them. Conformity is the most common mode of adaptation. Individuals accept both the goals as well as the prescribed means for achieving those goals. Conformists will accept, though not always achieve, the goals of society and the means approved for achieving them. Individuals who adapt through innovation accept societal goals but have few legitimate means to achieve those goals, thus they innovate (design) their own means to get ahead. The means to get ahead may be through robbery, embezzlement or other such criminal acts. In ritualism, the third adaptation, individuals abandon the goals they once believed to be within their reach and dedicate themselves to their current lifestyle. They play by the rules and have a daily safe routine. Retreatism is the adaptation of those who give up not only the goals but also the means. They often retreat into the world of alcoholism and drug addiction. They escape into a non-productive, non-striving lifestyle. The final adaptation, rebellion, occurs when the cultural goals and the legitimate means are rejected. Individuals create their own goals and their own means, by protest or revolutionary activity.

Deviance and Social Disorganization

In criminology, subcultures theories emerged as a way to account for delinquency rates among lower-class males, of these the infamous teenage gang. Subculture theories believe that the delinquent subcultures emerged in response to the special problems that the members of mainstream society do not face.

The strain theorists explained crime as a result of frustrations suffered by lower-class individuals deprived of legitimate means to reach their goals. Cultural deviance theories assumed that people became deviant by learning the criminal values of the group to which they belonged to. This laid down the foundation for subculture theories during the 1950s.

A subculture is defined as a subdivision within the dominant culture that has its own norms, values and belief system. These subcultures emerge when individuals in similar circumstances find themselves virtually isolated or neglected by mainstream society. Thus they group together for mutual support. Subcultures exist within the larger society, not apart from it. The members of the subculture are different from the dominant culture.

The subculture theories we will look at are extensions of strain, social disorganisation and differential association theories. Subculture theories help to explain why subcultures emerge (extension of strain), why they take a particular shape (extension of social disorganisation), and why they continue from one generation to another (extension of differential association).

For instance, Marvin Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti's Subculture of Violence thesis argues that the value system of some subcultures not only demands but also expects violence in certain social situations. It is this norm which affects daily behaviour that is in conflict with the conventional society. Here we will explain the subculture theories proposed by Albert Cohen, (Subculture of Delinquency), Richard Cloward & Lloyd Ohlin (Differential Opportunity), Walter Miller (Lower-Class Focal Concerns) and Marvin Wolfgang & Franco Ferracuti (Subculture of Violence).

To better understand and appreciate subculture theories one must first probe into the historical time period of the 1950s. The values of the middle class were dominant and anything else was not considered normal. Peaking urbanisation produced more and more deteriorated cities in America. The suburbs of the middle class were emerging. Delinquency was mainly perceived as a problem of the lower class. The middle class "we-they" separation led to seeing itself as the far superior class.

Chicago School of Thought

The theme of the Chicago school focused upon human behaviour as determined by social and physical environmental factors, rather than genetic, personal characteristics. The school believed the community to be a major factor on human behaviour and that the city functioned as a microcosm.

Researchers from this school developed empirical sociology, that is, studying humans in their natural environment rather than an armchair look at the social environment. Chicago theorists combined data, such as individual cases with population statistics which constructed an important foundation that has since been the basis for many criminological theories of today.

Members of this school focused upon the city of Chicago (hence the name) as a source for many answers to its probing questions. Many scholars of this time believed that urbanisation and mobility into the city was a cause for many of the problems experienced at the time.

Crime was fostered mainly in the slums. Many unemployed people, male, female, young and old, became transients. A plethora of social problems emerged, ranging from poor sanitation, inadequate housing, juvenile gangs, vice, to name a few. People were no longer closely-knit, nor were communities familiar. Many had no one to turn to during these troubled times. Crime was mainly fostered in the slum areas, where many of the immigrants lived. People began to form their own support groups and gangs, which emphasised deviant values. All of this served as a laboratory for the new sociologists at the University of Chicago.

The school contributed two methods of study. The first was the usage of official data, such as census reports, housing/welfare records and crime figures. High areas of crime, truancy and poverty were applied to different geographical areas of the city. The second method was the life history, as first studied by early Chicago school theorist, W.I. Thomas. This contributed a shift away from theoretical abstracts to more concrete approaches of the real world and real world related phenomena. The process of becoming deviant or criminal was explained by psycho-social phenomena. They wanted to present human behaviour in its natural environment, and this is why the Chicago School is often referred to as the Ecological School.

Further observations by researchers provided a clear analysis that the city was a place where life is superficial, where people are anonymous, where relationships are transitory and friendship and family bonds are weak. They saw the weakening of primary social relationships as leading to a process of social disorganisation.

Chicago criminologists clearly saw pathology in the city which led to criminality. Much of the research conducted by Shaw and McKay illustrated this point. The Chicago School clearly stressed humans as social creatures and their behaviour as a product of their social environment. The social environment provides values and definitions that govern behaviour. Urbanisation and industrialisation break down older and more cohesive patterns of values, thus creating communities with competing norms and value systems. The breakdown of urban life results in basic institutions such as the family, friendships and other social groups to become so impersonal, almost anonymous. As values became fragmented, opposing definitions about proper behaviour arise and come into conflict with other behaviour. Disorganisation is more prevalent in the centre of the urbanised city, and decreases with distance. Thus, crime developed through frequent contact with criminal traditions, goals and values that have developed over a period of time in disorganised areas of the city.

Differential Opportunity Theory

In 1959, Richard Cloward noted that Merton's anomie theory specified only one structure of opportunity. He, however, argued for two and not one. He thus proposed that there are also illegitimate avenues of structure, in addition to legitimate ones. In 1960 he and Lloyd Ohlin worked together and proposed a theory of delinquent gangs known as Differential Opportunity Theory. This theory, like Cohen's theory, combines the strain, differential association as well as the social disorganisation perspectives.

Delinquent subcultures, according to Cloward and Ohlin, flourish in the lower-classes and take particular forms so that the means for illegitimate success are no more equally distributed than the means for legitimate success. They argue that the types of criminal subcultures that flourish depend on the area in which they develop. They propose three types of delinquent gangs. The first, the criminal gang, emerge in areas where conventional as well as non conventional values of behaviour are integrated by a close connection of illegitimate and legitimate businesses. This type of gang is stable than the ones to follow. Older criminals serve as role models and they teach necessary criminal skills to the youngsters. The second type, the conflict or violent gang, is non stable and non integrated, where there is an absence of criminal organisation resulting in instability. This gang aims to find a reputation for toughness and destructive violence. The third and final type, the retreatist gang, is equally unsuccessful in legitimate as well as illegitimate means. They are known as double failures, thus retreating into a world of sex, drugs, and alcohol.

Cloward and Ohlin further state that the varying form of delinquent subcultures depended upon the degree of integration that was present in the community.

Social Disorganization

The growth of cultural relativity, that is, the view that cultures are not better or worse than one another, but simply different, in sociology led to a questioning of the existence of a universal set of values. The pronounced social changes following World War I and the Great Depression, included immigration, urbanisation, and industrialisation into the U.S. The crowding of large cities and the cultural diversity within them led to a huge urban development, which was conducive to deviance. An explanation was needed to sort out and understand this new phenomena. The concept of Social Disorganisation is largely associated with the "Chicago School" of sociology and was based on the work of W.I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki as well as Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, to name a few. Thus, the term social disorganisation refers to both an explanation of deviance and a state of society that produces it. It was the result of intellectual development that had taken place since 1910 in Sociology. It rooted its explanation of deviance in social norms and community activities.

Crime was seen as a product of uneven development in society, with change and conflict which affects the behaviour of those within it. This theory emphasised that society was organised when people are presumed to have developed agreement about fundamental values and norms, with behavioural regularity. Social organisation, or social order, exists when there is a high degree of internal bonding to individuals and institutions in a conventional society. This cohesion consists largely of agreement about goals that are worth striving for and how to behave and how to not behave. Simply put, social disorganisation is social disorder.

I

t was believed that social organisation involved an integration of customs, teamwork, high morale, and bonding. This led to harmonious social relationships. Such a group showed solidarity and homogeneous and traditional behaviour. Social disorganisation theorists believe social disorganisation existed in much of city life. They made such a relationship almost unmistakable. They used the city as their laboratory in which they studied deviance and crime. They concentrated their research on disorganised local areas, slums or inner-city areas of high crime, prostitution, suicide and other deviant forms of behaviour. Thus, in their theoretical framework, social patterns of the urban environment produced social disorganisation, which led to crime and deviance.

Thomas and Znaniecki compared the conditions immigrants had left in Poland with those they found in Chicago. They also studied the assimilation of Polish immigrants. They found that older immigrants were not very much affected by the move, due to managing to continue living as peasants, even in the urban slums. The younger generation did not grow up on these Polish farms and thus were city dwellers. They had very little traditions of the Old World and were not assimilated into the new ones. The rates of crime and delinquency started to rise and Thomas and Znaniecki attributed this to social disorganisation, which they defined as the breakdown of effective social bonds, family and neighbourhood associations, as well as social controls in the community. Their study influenced others to come.

Robert Park and Ernest Burgess introduced an ecological analysis of crime causation. Ecology is the study of animals and plants and how they relate to one another in their natural habitat. Park and Burgess then examined area characteristics instead of criminals for their explanations of high crime. They developed the idea of natural urban areas, which consisted of concentric zones which extended out from downtown central business district to the commuter zone at the fringes of the city. Each zone had its own structure and organisation, characteristics and unique inhabitants. This had been known Burgess' Concentric Zone Theory.

Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay were researchers at the Chicago's Institute for Juvenile Research and maintained a close relationship with Chicago's Sociology department. They were interested in Park and Burgess's conception of the "natural urban area" of Chicago and used this model to investigate the relationship between crime rates--mainly delinquency--and the various zones of Chicago. They found that the crime rate was distributed throughout the city, delinquency occurred in the areas nearest to the business district, that some areas suffered from high consistent delinquency rates no matter the makeup of the population, that high delinquency areas were characterised by a high percentage of immigrants, non-whites, lower income famines, and finally, and that high-delinquency areas had an acceptance of non-conventional norms, which competed with conventional ones. They collected their data from over 56,000 juvenile court records with covered a period of time from 1900-1933.

However, there were problems with the concept of social disorganisation and these problems are what contributed to its decline. First, it confused cause and effect. That is, it described community factors related to crime and deviance, but it must be able to distinguish the consequences of crime from disorganisation itself; it didn't. Many early social disorganisation theorists were not careful in clarifying the concept of disorganisation. Second, social disorganisation was rather subjective and judgmental, all the while pretending to be objective. Observers failed to free themselves from biases and placed their own value judgements on behaviours. Third, it tried to explain crime as an almost entirely lower-class phenomena, and in no way included middle and upper-class deviance and crime rates. Thus, it was biased, in that it favoured middle-class standards. Those in the lower strata were assumed to have higher levels of crime rates because their members lived in the most socially disorganised areas of the city. Fourth, social change was often confused with social disorganisation, and little attention was paid to explain why some social changes were disorganised and why others were organised. Finally, what is disorganised? At some times, things may seem like disorganisation but at other times, they may be highly organised systems of competing norms and values. The concept produces a bit of ambiguity.

Techniques of Neutralization

In the 1960s David Matza, and his associate Gresham Sykes, developed a different perspective on social control which explains why some delinquents drift in and out of delinquency. Neutralisation Theory, or Drift theory as it is often called, proposed that juveniles sense a moral obligation to be bound by the law. Such a bind between a person and the law remains in place most of the time, they argue. When it is not in place, delinquents will drift.

According to Sykes and Matza, delinquents hold values, beliefs, and attitudes very similar to those of law-abiding citizens. In fact, they feel obligated to be bound by law. Then, if bound by law, how can they justify their delinquent activities? The answer is that they learn "techniques" which enable them to "neutralise" such values and attitudes temporarily and thus drift back and forth between legitimate and illegitimate behaviours. They maintain that at times delinquents participate in conventional activities and shun such activity while engaging in criminal acts. Such a theory proposes that delinquents disregard controlling influences of rules and values and use these techniques of neutralization to "weaken" the hold society places over them. In other words, these techniques act as defence mechanisms that release the delinquent from the constraints associated with moral order.

In Delinquency and Drift (1964), David Matza suggested that people live their lives on a continuum somewhere between total freedom and total restraint. The process by which a person moves from one extreme of behaviour to another extreme is called drift, and this is the very foundation of his theory.

Along with Sykes, Matza rejected the notion that subcultures of delinquency maintain an independent set of values than the dominant culture. They hold that delinquents actually do appreciate culturally held goals and expectations of the middle-class, but feel that engaging in such behaviour would be frowned upon by their peers. Such beliefs remain almost unconscious, or subterranean, because delinquents fear expressing such beliefs to peers. Techniques of Neutralisation suggest that delinquents develop a special set of justifications for their behaviour when such behaviour violates social norms. Such techniques allow delinquents to neutralise and temporarily suspend their commitment to societal values, providing them with the freedom to commit delinquent acts.

Sykes and Matza's theoretical model is based on the following four observations.

1. Delinquents express guilt over their illegal acts.

2. Delinquents frequently respect and admire honest, law-abiding individuals.

3. A line is drawn between those whom they can victimise and those they cannot.

4. Delinquents are not immune to the demands of conformity.

Thus, Sykes and Matza propose the five Techniques of Neutralisation: -

Denial of responsibility. Delinquent will propose that he/she is a victim of circumstance and that he/she is pushed or pulled into situations beyond his/her control. ("It wasn't my fault!")

Denial of injury. Delinquent supposes that his/her acts really do not cause any harm, or that the victim can afford the loss or damage. ("Why is everyone making a big deal about it; they have money!")

Denial of the victim. Delinquent views the act as not being wrong, that the victim deserves the injury, or that there is no real victim. ("They had it coming to them!")

Condemnation of the condemners. Condemners are seen as hypocrites, or are reacting out of personal spite, thus they shift the blame to others, being able to repress the feeling that their acts are wrong. ("They probably did worse things in their day!")

Appeal to higher loyalties. The rules of society often take a back seat to the demands and loyalty to important others. ("My friends depended on me, what was I going to do?!")

Sykes and Matza further argued that these neutralisations are available not just to delinquents but they can be found throughout society.

Attempts have been made over the years to verify the assumptions made by Neutralisation Theory, and the results have, thus far, been inconclusive. Studies have indicated that delinquents approve of social values, while others do not. Other studies indicate that delinquents approve of criminal behaviour, while others seem to oppose it. Neutralisation Theory, however, remains an important contribution to the field of crime and delinquency. Social bond theorist, Travis Hirschi, asked an important question: do delinquents neutralise law-violating behaviour before or after they commit an act? Neutralisation theory loses its credibility as a theory which explains the cause of delinquency if juveniles use techniques of neutralisation before the commission of a delinquent deed and therefore becomes a theory which simply describes reactions that juveniles incur due to their misdeeds. The theory does fail on the account that it doesn't clearly distinguish why some youths drift into delinquency and others do not. The theory remains too abstract and vague to be of any practical use unless we understand why drift occurs, critics have argued.

Social Control Theories in Review

Theories of social control focus on the strategies and techniques which help regulate human behaviour and thus lead to conformity and compliance of the rules of society, including the influences of family, school, morals, values, beliefs, etc.

Does existence of rules guarantee peaceful existence of the group?

Who is to ensure compliance with such rules? Social control theorists are out to study such questions. They are interested in learning why people conform to norms, they ask why people conform in the face of so much temptation, peer pressure, and inducement. Juveniles and adults conform to the law in response to certain controlling forces which are present in their lives. Thus, they are likely to become criminal when the controlling forces in their lives are defective or absent.

Social control theorists argue that the more involved and committed a person is to conventional activities, the greater the attachment to others (such as family and friends), the less likely that a person is to violate the rules of society. Social control has its roots in the early part of this century in the work of sociologist E.A. Ross. Ross believed that belief systems, not specific laws, guide what individuals do and this serves to control behaviour, no matter the forms that beliefs may take.

Social control is often seen as all-encompassing, practically representing any phenomenon leading to conformity, which leads to norms. Others see social control as a broad representation of regulated mechanisms placed upon society's members. In other words, social control regards what is to be considered deviant, violations of the law, right or wrong. Social control mechanisms can be adopted as laws, norms, mores, ethics, etiquette, and customs, which all control and thus define behaviour.

Social control theory is viewed from two perspectives. The macro-social perspective explores formal control systems for the control of groups, including the legal system such as laws, law enforcement, powerful groups in society (who can help influence laws and norms) and economic and social directives of government or private organisations. Such controls can serve to be either positive or negative. On the other hand, the micro-social perspective focuses on informal control systems, which help to explain why individuals conform. It also considers the source of control to be external, that is, outside of the person. Other related social control theories to investigate are:- Travis Hirshi (Social Bonds) and Gresham Sykes and David Matza's Techniques of Neutralisation (Drift Theory). Also Walter Reckless' Containment Theory can be seen as a theory of social control, although we can also consider it a self-concept approach.

Labeling Theory

A group of labelling theorists began exploring how and why certain acts were defined as criminal or deviant and why other such acts were not. They questioned how and why certain people thus became defined as criminal or deviant. Such theorists viewed criminals not as evil persons who engaged in wrong acts but as individuals who had a criminal status placed upon them by both the criminal justice system and the community at large. From this point of view, criminal acts thus themselves are not significant, it is the social reaction to them that are. Deviance and its control then involves a process of social definition which involves the response from others to an individual's behaviour which is key to how an individual views himself. To make this point, let's briefly examine a crucial point made by sociologist Howard S. Becker, in 1963.

Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender. The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behaviour is behaviour that people so label."

Labelling theory focuses on the reaction of other people and the subsequent effects of those reactions which create deviance. When it becomes known that a person has engaged in deviant acts, she or he is then segregated from society and thus labelled, "whore," thief," "abuser," "junkie," and the like. Becker noted that this process of segregation creates "outsiders", who are outcast from society, and then begin to associate with other individuals who have also been cast out. When more and more people begin to think of these individuals as deviants, they respond to them as such; thus the deviant reacts to such a response by continuing to engage in the behaviour society now expects from them.

So what does this have to do with furries? If you recall my posts about the upcoming CSI episode, we can see distinct and effective representations of anomic theory, and labelling taking place. The images portrayed by the popular media, and by that small percentage of truly deviant and off the wall groups within the furry fandom create anomie. Those of us who are just here to have a good time, and aren't involved in any strange behaviors or lifestyle choices are left feeling as though they have nothing to belong to; no common and bonding set of rules, ideals, or norms that make furry cohesive as a group, and thus legitimate as a subcultural phenomenon. Here we have the plot synopsis of the upcoming episode-

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation enters the world of "furries" and "plushies", people who have sex disguised as animals.

It all starts when a man called Bob Pitt is found dead at the side of a road, dressed in a raccoon costume, according to CSI Files sources. Bob's somewhat unusual get-up leads Grissom and Catherine to this year's "Fur Con", an annual convention in which ordinary people put their lives as "skins" on hold to dress up as furry creatures. Having found blue fur in Bob's vomit found near his body, the CSIs are on the lookout for any furries who might be sporting a blue costume.

Grissom, in full scientist mode, finds the event fascinating, but Catherine finds the whole experience too weird for words. It isn't long before they find a potential suspect, Miss Kitty, who is spotted slinking down the catwalk of the furry fashion show in her neon blue costume. Kitty refuses to take off her mask at the convention, so she's hauled back to the police department for questioning.

Fed up with interrogating a ***** cat, Captain Brass orders Miss Kitty — who likes to be known as Sexy — to take off her mask. But when the deputy does so, a quiet-spoken, middle-aged man named Bud Deaver is revealed. Rather embarrassed and withdrawn without the support of his feline alter ego, Bud says he and Bob Pitt (known in the furry world as "Rocky Raccoon) were "skritching", or rubbing their faces up and down each other's fur.

But when Grissom finds Bob Pitt's semen on the Miss Kitty costume, Bud has to confess what really happened when furries get intimate.

I have been involved in fursuiting for more than ten years now, and have never once been involved in any such activities, and am appalled and angered that things I enjoy would be represented this way on national television. Sure, there are people who are involved in some really off the wall activities. And of late, they seem to be the most popular subject on television, and in the mass media. As I say, I'm a furry. And I've never had sex in an animal costume in my life. Those of you with enough sense not to believe everything you read on somethingawful.com or see on MTV can understand how hurtful, and how destructive labelling can be. Add to that a lack of cohesiveness in furry to stand up for itself, and for the people within it to band together under a common theme, you are left with such an amazing amount of social dissonance, it's not suprising that people have a difficult time understanding furry, and thus relating to it.

For example, "Furry" is a useful shorthand for the anthropomorphic animal fandom. Anything to do with such creatures is on-topic, as it were, whether watching them in cartoons, drawing them, writing about them or whatever. Bugs Bunny is a furry animal, for example, as are the Redwall books' characters, and if you enjoy that sort of thing, then you are, whether you like it or not, a furry fan.

Yet at the same time, we have the other side to furry such as the "furry lifestyler", often shortened to "fur". These are people who in some way shape or form feel a strong emotional and/or spiritual connection to animals, generally one specific species. It may or may not have a religious aspect. And it may or may not have a sexual aspect.

So how do we determine which aspects apply directly to the fandom, or more specifically, to the people within it? We can like cartoon artwork, but we can also have a spiritual attachment to a specific animal. We can have no spiritual attachments to a specific animal, yet feel a sexual orientation in artistic expression or personal expression through furry. There is no distinct combination of traits that make up a the stereotypical furry, which makes for a puzzling situation in defining and determining the status of the furry fandom as either of sociological importance as a subcultural group, or as social deviance as an offshoot from images which are popular and peculiar to western civilization. If I like Mickey Mouse, does it make me a furry? By the popular definitions floating around, yes, it does. But do you also have any of the following aspects... etc... This is problematic.

We recall that Durkheim proposed two concepts- First, that societies evolved from a simple, non-specialised form, called mechanical, toward a highly complex, specialised form, called organic.

If furry lacks a specialized and complex form, it is still in the mechanical phase of development as a cultural group. This makes it particularly vulnerable to the violent forces within groups that define or destroy them. Yet it also exhibits a lack of bonding between members, so no clear method of addressing the conflicts presented by the media and the more extreme individuals is present. Merely keeping the press away from conventions, and writing reaction letters to magazines and television channels does nothing, when the people writing them have no set unified bonds between them.

Furry in general is allegedly fandom, not a fetish. It's often referred to as a minor offshoot of Sci-Fi fandoms, though most see it as it's own entity. It's unfortunate that all many people seem to remember is unflattering attention such as the extremely slanted Vanity Fair article or the Mtv "Sex2K" episode. Obviously they were trying to sell something, and sex sells easier than the truth. But such is modern society in this country. We have to also remember, that because of the lack of bonds and norms that would otherwise make furry into a noticable and distinct subcultural phenomenon, the majority of people who comprise the mainly middle class audiences of public television don't know who or what a furry is. When asked or confronted with the information, the majority of people off the street will tell you they don't know what your'e talking about. However. When 95% of the viewing audience have never even heard of the furry fandom before, and suddenly get exposed to the darker side of it right off the bat, what are they to think?

Thus furries are immediately labeled as deviant, criminal, or otherwise unwanted. This creates strain and stress on people who consider themselves furries when placed in social arrangements with people who claim to know what furry is from contexts presented in popular media, which as most intelligent people can attest to, is contrived and has never presented a truthful aspect to anything. This is hurtful and detrimental to people who are otherwise underserving of such accusations, prejudices, and faleshoods. But until some general sense of unity is established to define it as a subculture, it will constantly be the unwilling victim of the most extreme cases, the media, and the illegitimate.

I am extremely ticked off at how they portrayed the furr's on CSI. I dont think they could have done a worse job at it. For one they only portrayed the sexual side of everything. When in all reality being a Furr is a heck of a lot more than "Yiffing" about all over the place. Anyway I personally would like to get a hold of the writter and talk to him about how some (most) furrs really are.
Diamond White Wolf
wolfen_blood777@hotmail.com

There is a little good in everything.......

...........it was the CSI "Fur" Episode that introduced me to the fandom. During the episode I was saying to myself "What are furries? Where did they come from? Why haven't I ever heard of this furry thing?"

Immediately after the show I jumped onto the internet and searched on furries. Numerous hits came back and I started clicking and reading. The more I read the more I HAD to read.

Suddenly I realized "This is me, I am home!"

There has always been a yearning to be outdoors, around animals, breath fresh air. It was my niche, where I felt at peace. Now for the first time I am finding out what I always knew inside but had suppressed.

Buried deep inside partly to gain acceptance among others and partly because I was wrapped up in the normal?!!? life. Now I was free, exploring my new world, seeking others like ME, finding them and realizing that THEY are like me.

That they are ME!

So I must go on record as saying "I loved the CSI episode on FURS...........

CSI people are as conniving as the religions people against Jesus. They always wanted Jesus to be seen in a bad light. CSI is no different. Furries are fun loving not at all like the mentality of CSI. CSI could make anyone look bad doing normal things. CSI needs to repent of being Pharisaical to the Innocent furries.

CSI people are not like Jesus. That should be clear. Had they they would not have behaved like a sneaky conniving, planing, manipulate people with a straight face trying to make another look to be less than they are. The devil in people revel in Hatty. That makes the people in CSI feel macho like a proud military officer.

MY spelling was not so good. Sorry. I see a spirit in the furry that would end war forever. I see heavenly beings maintaining peace forever. They are not mischievous like CSI was drawing in childlike innocent minds looking for a fun time treating them badly. Furries would not be bad had thier suits look like the nude art that is seen in the dealers den. God smile p upon the parts he made not frowning on them at all. I want God to be in people accepting the sight of them with no age restrictions at all. God would have it to be that way.

As a furry fan, the episode did not offend me whatsoever.