So it’s a long, furry story...

Okay, where to begin?

Well, when I started high school I was pretty sure I was straight. For my first year and a half I was an "innocent". So innocent in fact that I had never seen a Playboy; my dad had some prior to parenthood but when the kids came along he threw them out. In my sophomore year I stumbled on some adult furry art on the internet. I was at first repulsed, but I returned again and again. I tried to keep the subject matter narrow in scope, but I let up as time passed until after college I let myself look at pretty much any pinup, pose, pairing and position. All that time, I told myself that it wasn’t real and didn’t reflect or affect the real me, and my feelings of attraction to real people. I didn’t get involved in the furry community at all. I also didn’t really date anyone; I had to focus really hard on school. There were a few girls that I liked but that was it. I was and still am pretty shy and introverted but I’m friendly and I like extroverts, because I guess I wish I could be one, but after a lot of socializing I can't help but get worn out.

So I’m worried about porn addiction in regard to the furry art but I’m also worried about my interest in furry art in that it is not real. The figures depicted are fantastic, not just because they have animal characteristics, but because they are often stylized and/or idealized drawings and paintings of the human figure that are designed to be aesthetically pleasing and lack the imperfections of reality. In a sense it’s worse than real human porn in the way it objectifies human bodies. I worry that my attraction (social, romantic, physical, sexual, whatever) to normal average real human beings might be lessened. Also the variety of furry porn out there is so wide and so fantastic that I’m probably conditioned to enjoying the more extreme stuff more than the more “vanilla” stuff, and makes me want to try that hard stuff, even though I have no real experience of it at all.

Finally after college I realized that my furry little secret wasn’t going away (nor was the fact that I looked at a whole lot more than just female pinups), and that I should try to make something good out of it. I think I’ve been doing that, slowly but surely; I go to some meets and a few conventions and I try to make it a healthy social outlet. Better late than never, I guess. I also went to some group sessions at a GLBT center for coming out and had good come from that, though in the end I honestly still didn’t know if I was straight, gay, bisexual, or asexual. I did start dating a little, the first time with a guy in an open relationship with another guy. Not my thing, but I was experimenting. I let him touch me a bit and it felt good but it wasn’t what I wanted. Then I dated one girl for 6 weeks, but she liked me a whole lot more than I liked her. We got pretty physical too, but we didn’t have sex either.

For about three years after that, I didn’t try very hard to date anyone. I deal with depression and also have trouble figuring out what kind of career I want, so I kind of decided not to do much dating until I felt I had established some more independence. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I decided I was tired of waiting and that time was wasting. Also I had recently started reading some stories about same sex relationships and I think they were making me yearn for companionship in real life.

Most recently I went on a couple dates with a guy I met online. He’s nice and we get along, but I don’t know that I’m really attracted to him. I do get some sexual arousal when we make out but I’m not sure I’m going to like him more over time. I’m probably not going to keep dating him, but I’m worried that I’m being too picky. I’m worried that all that furry porn has conditioned me. Sometimes, I feel like I could have sex with him, but it would probably be for the wrong reasons, like I want it just because I want to have sex, and preferably with someone who likes me and wants to have sex with me, not because I really like or am really attracted to him. Or maybe I’m not as attracted to men as I thought (again ‘cause of furry porn), which sucks a bit, because I had finally made a personal decision that I didn’t think I wanted to try to date girls anymore, and I had finally told the last of my immediate family members, my father. Maybe I really am asexual, despite having a sex drive that I don’t know how to satisfy in a way that I feel is socially or ethically or romantically healthy.

Here’s a crazy random fact that I don’t know where to put but feel crazily compelled to relate anyway: I can remember as a preteen often getting very peculiar feelings below the belt whenever characters ended up naked on The Simpsons (of whom most were male and typically for comedic reasons)! Maybe it was because they were naked and I wanted to see what was always obscured from view; maybe it was because I found the situation exciting (again often comedic and not sexual)! In fact... one more tidbit about me... I remember enjoying not wearing any clothing at a young age, sleeping naked, and walking around the house naked when nobody’s home. Once or twice I walked around my neighborhood late at night with little or no clothes (I was The Midnight Streaker!). I even did it in my high school after everyone had left the building. I enjoyed the freedom of not wearing anything, and the adrenaline from fear of getting caught. I continued in college, until I did get caught. I got very, very lucky and wasn’t arrested or charged with a crime. It really wasn’t until recently that I made a sexual connection to it. (I don’t do it anymore! Really!)

I sort of just now realized that so many of my issues stem back to looking at furry porn for all those years instead of striving to have a more real social (and maybe sexual) life! That sucks, because I have to admit that I do like my furry porn. I also like furry art and stories that aren’t so porn-centric, and socializing with other furries (*waves at HuskyPup*). I do realize at times that I need to stop looking at so much of it in order to function better in life, and am able to keep away from it for various lengths of time, from a few weeks to even a whole year, though that was a decade ago. Everything in moderation, I guess.

tl;dr:
1. Porn addiction worries (source: furry)
2. Porn conditioning worries (source: furry)
3. Sexual preference uncertainty (source: furry)
4. Extensive sexual exposure despite lack of sexual experience (source: furry)
5. Schediaphilia? (source: The Simpsons and furry?)
6. “Closet exhibitionism” / nudism? (source: Simpsons and furry?)