The Furry Sexuality Survey

In issue 4 of the Furtean Times, I announced my "Furry Sexuality Survey" - the first survey solely dedicated to the one issue that appears time and time again for us furries and media representations of the fandom. Well, the results are in - thanks to the 192 people who took part.

Before I reveal them, I understand that there have been one or two complaints about the survey. For example, I heard that people complained about when I asked the gender of the people answering their gender, that they augured over the fact that I only included two answers (male and female) and that this would therefore be unfair towards people who were transgender, pangender and so forth. I would like to apologise towards everyone who has brought up issues, and will act upon them if I do another survey at some other time in the future.

The Basics

First of all, the question of gender. 83.85% of the people who took part were male and the other 16.15% were women. The average age was 21.6 years.

When talking about the gender of their fursonas, the number of those who male or female fursonas had dropped to 80.73% and 14.58% respectively. 3.65% of furries had hermaphrodite fursonas. 1.04% had fursona of other genders.

This is where things become odd, by which I mean that I have my suspicious that some people taking the survey may well have been taking the piss. When asking what species people took as their fursona, there were the obvious ones such as foxes, grey wolves, cats, horses and so forth. Some had no fursona, which is fair enough. However, I suspect that there are very few furries who have a fursona of "Pope".

The geography was a bit odd too. Again, it is hardly surprising that the poll was dominated by the British - the Furtean Times being a Britain based fanzine - with 57.29% of people from within the United Kingdom, followed by Americans with 27.60% participants and then Canadians with 6.25%. However, only 1 person who answered the poll was German. This is compared to Afghanistan where 2 people who answered the poll claimed to come from. Now, I realise that this may be in part to the fact that there may well be furry servicemen stationed in the country, but considering that Afghanistan was the first country on the list, I have my doubts over the validity of some of these claims.

Relationships, Sexuality and Media

The next question was relating to relationship between furries. Sadly, over half of the people who answered, 56.25% are not in a relationship. However, nearly a third (31.77%) are in a relationship with another furry, whereas 11.98% are in relationship with someone who is not a furry.

Next, it is that question - furry sexuality. Can you guess what type of sexuality came out top? Yes, it is bisexuality again, with 32.81% of furries stating their love of both genders. Heterosexuality came in a close second (30.73%), and homosexual furries make up just under a quarter of the fandom (23.96%). 8.85% claimed to be uncertain about their sexuality and 3.65% stated they are of another sexuality.

Now we come to media representations of furries; over half (52.60%) claimed that they believed that representations of furries in the media is biased. Only 9.38% through it was unbiased, while quite a large proportion of you, 38.02%, either had no opinion or where not concerned about the subject.

Fetishes

However, perhaps the following statistic is one of the most shocking of all. When asked, "Do you consider yourself to be a fetishist?" an astonishing 61.98%, nearly two-thirds of the furry fandom, consider themselves to be fetishists. (However this could be contributed by the survey being aimed directly at fetishists within the fandom. - Ed)

I then asked what fetishes furries were most keen on, and which they hated. Here are the results: The Dirty Dozen of Liked Fetishes!

1. Bondage - 55.56%
2. Submission/enslavement - 51.59%
3. Sex toys - 44.44%
4. Fursuits - 27.78%
5. Leather - 24.60%
6. Spanking/Flagellation - 23.02%
7. Uniforms - 21.43%
8. Fatfurs - 21.43%
9. Rubber/Latex - 19.84%
10. Inflation - 19.05%
11. Watersports - 18.25%
12. Tentacle rape - 17.46%

I also asked if there were any other fetishes that furries where fond of. These included paws, cubs, unbirthing, vore, zoophilia, plushies, but most of these had comparatively small percentages, with some of them only receiving one or two votes. And on the other side of the wall... The Baker's Dozen of Disliked Fetishes!

1. Scat - 76.15%
2. Snuff - 54.62%
3. Pregnancy - 48.46%
4. Watersports - 46.92%
5. Asphyxiation - 43.08%
6. Fatfurs - 42.31%
7. Inflation - 36.92%
8. Sonic - 33.08%
9. Pokémon - 27.69%
10. Tentacle rape - 26.15%
11. Digimon - 25.38%
12. Hyper - 23.08%
13. Macro/Micro - 23.08%

Again, I asked if there any other disliked fetishes. These included gore, babyfurs, and again, vore and unbirthing. However, this is where my suspicions arise again. One person raised the question, "So how exactly do you do these things in reality?" Whereas another person said that the fetish they disliked was, "Stuff that makes you all freaks ^^".

Yiff

On the subject of yiff, there is a large amount of furries who have seen it, with only 18.75% furries saying that they do not like it. Out of those who had seen it, it was a fairly even spilt between those who had told, and those who had not told people outside the fandom that they enjoy it. 43.75% (84) said they did not tell anyone outside the fandom of their enjoyment of yiff; whilst the other 37.50% were more open.

However, despite the fondness of the material, 59.90% of furries have never drawn or written their own yiffy material. Out of those who have, many were reluctant to show it to people outside the fandom (26.04%), although some 14.06% have done.

The next question asked about the amount of yiff in the fandom. Only a small amount, 8.85%, believed there was too little yiff; exactly a quarter of the people who answered believed that there was just enough yiff and 29.17% of furries believed that there was too much yiff. However, the largest response to the issue about yiff went to those who had no opinion on the matter or where not concerned - with 36.98% of respondents claiming this.

When asked where most furries get their yiff, the most common answers tended to be websites such as fchan, Fur Affinity and Yiffstar. Other responses given included the websites VCL and Bondofox, the controversial Softpaw Magazine and the webcomic Jack.

Your Comments

The follow is a list of some of the comments that people gave when answering the poll.

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The people who have sexual feelings for animals use the furry community to their advantage, they use the over tolerant atmosphere of the group to avoid criticism and socialise with actual Human beings for a change. Also, they try to hide themselves amongst the Furries who have more conventional beliefs hoping that everyone elses image shadows over theirs (rather like a needle in a haystack), but they fail to realise that they actually stick out like a sore thumb (just use a magnet and the needle will come out). Zoophiles do more damage to the group by typecasting it, rather than giving it diversity. The same goes to Babyfurs, I believe that they have the potential to stain the furry fandom far worse than they ever could do to their nappies. Both zoophiles and babyfurs are unacceptable in my view.

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The media has shed bad light on the furry fandom, especially when they give stereotypical views that we would expect from the likes of Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4Chan.

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The only conern about furry sexuality is how the media highlights on furries yiffing which portaras us furries as doing nothing but having sex.

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i think the majority of furrs are either gay or bisexual, u dont get nearly as many strait furrs at meets as u do gays and bisexuals, and the number of male furrs greatly outnimbers the number of female furrs.

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Like anything which is a mostly online based genre of people it can easily be clouded over by the immaturity and general hedonism of what can be a minority. Also it is the few extremists that people see and learn about that set the template of opinion on the rest. Such is quite a sad point concerning the sexuality of the fandom but then again sexuality is a hard thing to define. I respect the fandom for being honest with itself, we're all adults and know what we like and we endulge in it, we do not force it on others and they can always look away. It takes maturity to confess your own kinks and sexuality and the openess of the furry community is what I admire in it. The flipside comes with those that focus too much on the sexual side of the fandom, such cases being artists being hassled and violently harrassed because they choose not to display yiffy works of their characters. Also there are those who engage in needless, empty and put simply whoreish behaviour, a little release of tension is fine by me but I am not one to affiliate myself with those who's first words to you on IMs are "I'm so yiffy right now, can you get your webcam on and show me your cock?" and that's pretty much all they talk about.

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I feel that "furrys" are more open about there sexuality. Atleast within the fandom, and I think that is why those who know about furrys sterio type them as homosexual. Also people dislike anything that isint exepted by the mainstream media.

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I still believe there are far more straight furs than most people wish to acknowledge...

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I happen to be a zoophile, and too young to really partake in any relationships or actual activities. If I were to get into one, it would probably be with someone who loves animals (not necessarily furry/zoo). It's upsetting that the only people who know about my fuzziness are people who have their own, different problems. I'm frequently distressed by even subtle comments or harsh jokes against such sexuality at school, and I just wish I could say something. In short, I feel trapped by biases against furries/zoos.

My Personal Conclusions

Overall, this survey has been, for me at least, a true eye-opener (or at least I have removed my blindfold). The bisexuality of the fandom comes as no surprise, as it has been shown to be true in other surveys in the past. I suspected that the proportion of fetishists to be high, but to encapsulate almost two-thirds of the fandom is a truly interesting discovery.

The main thing I would take from this is while we furries are much more open and adventurous than the average person; many of us are still looking for that perfect partner (or partners). Maybe one day, we'll all find the perfect partner, but when you consider the vast difference between one fur and another, the chances of finding your perfect partner appear to be minuscule.