A New and Popular Lifestyle Has Their Fur Up
A New and Popular Lifestyle Has Their Fur Up
by Bill Knell
“Has their fur up” means that something makes a person or people angry or upset. It's an old phrase, but it's more than appropriate for the Furry Fandom, “a subculture of people who enjoy anthropomorphic animal characters and may dress up in fursuits” (Google).
At first look it seems innocent enough; just another fad or trend unleashed on the population by “furry fandom” enthusiasts. Problems arised, coming to the attention of parents, teachers and school boards, when the furries began to demand special school privileges to act out their obsession.
Full blown protests outside schools and student walkouts have occured to draw attention to schools that have tried to ban furries. These civil disorders include non-furry supporters indicating how strongly people feel about special groups being cancelled in schools.
In a day when accomodations are made for people with various beliefs or lifestyles in public schools, furries want their piece of the pie. That piece might be the ability to wear their furry costumes to school, eat meals out of a pet dish, be taken for walks during recess by other students sympathetic to their cause, and even have litter pans available for their toilet needs.
These unusual challenges to accommodate furries in public schools have caused an upROAR. Some students have been given permission to wear furry costumes to school as long as they do not disturb or disrupt classes. Other student furries, who can't afford the expensive garments and headgear, are being allowed to wear pet collars, eat things like milk bones and have other sympathetic students brush their fur during class breaks.
Full furry costumes, which include heads and footwear, tend to cost $400 to $1000 or more depending on their size, quality and authenticity. These are for the more serious follows of the lifestyle and those who can afford them.
Stories of teachers and schools making accomodations for the furries have caused a Texas Legislator to introduce a bill to ban furries in public schools. But what does that mean? Costumes? Feeding? Clubs and activities? Lavatory situations (no litter pans allowed!)?; and so on. Florida Legislators are trying to ban furry costumes and accessories hoping to cancel the Sunshine State student furry movement in classes because some feel it continues to grow exponentially and already distracts from learning.
Sports teams don't know how to handle furries that show up at their games. The Mets have already had some issues… “The New York Mets announcing booth might not know much about furries, but they sure do seem to talk about them quite a bit” (SNY). A group of furry Met fans regularly come to games fully costumed and sit together. Team management does not know how to handle the situation worrying that the furries presence might be too big a distraction from the game; but they also don't want to exclude diehard fans no matter how they dress.
Incidents of “furry accomodation” are few and far between in schools according to Texas news organizations covering the bill to ban furries. If we can believe the many furry lifestyle videos online today, it seems that students are bringing their furry preoccupation to school with them and some schools are tolerating it in the name of fairness and equality.
I am not a furry, but if I were one the most important thing to me would be to obey the 6-2-1 rule. Get 6 hours of sleep. Eat 2 meals. Take 1 shower. Spend the rest of the time living the furry lifestyle and being involved with the furry fandom. Oops, sorry, I gotta go. My litter pan awaits
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