Tulsa Area Furs is a non-discriminating club for people who enjoy furry art, fursuiting, going to cons, and making friends! We have several meets a month, as well as other events.

What Is a Furry?
"Furry", leaving aside its literal, follicular definition, is a word with what some have called "multiple meaning disorder". It denotes both a fandom and the object of the fandom's obsession.

To get away from circular definitions, let's start with the word "anthropomorphic". Etymologically, this means "person-shaped", but it usually refers to characters who look like animals but behave in (imagine me making quote marks in the air) human ways. For example, Bugs Bunny is an anthropomorphic character; he looks like a rabbit, but he's been known to adopt certain human affectations (like, say, talking and wearing clothes).

Yes, some of the best-known anthropomorphic or "Furry" (hereafter spelled with the capital, to distinguish it from the adjective that means "having fur") characters come from cartoons. This doesn't mean that Furry is a genre only for children (indeed, some would argue that children shouldn't be brought anywhere near the fandom), but it does mean that many people first encounter the concept when very young.

So, then, an animal character is Furry if it interacts with characters outside its species as an approximate intellectual and/or social equal or otherwise behaves in ways unlike its "real" counterpart. Donald Duck is Furry, as is Goofy; the jury's still out on Pluto. People who create art about, write stories about, roleplay as, or even discuss such characters are Furry fans or simply "Furs". For example, if you're trying to classify Pluto right now, you're a Fur.

Furs often find themselves fascinated by "real" animals (a.k.a. "non-anthros"). Perhaps a Fur finds certain qualities, or perceived qualities, of the animal admirable. Myths and fables are filled with personified animals, from A'tuin to Aesop, giving us useful similes like "sly as a fox" or "wise as an owl". The wearing of animal skins, though seen as a barbaric practice by many Furs today, began in part as a way of taking in the power of the animal (and keeping warm, of course).

So what do Furs do? Thanks to the Internet, Furs can chat with each other via multi-user "dungeons" (MUDs) or multi-user C kernels (MUCKs). Some Furs use the 3-D environment SecondLife to interact more visually, and many Furs meet up in real life at conventions or "furcons".

© by McMguffin