Whan Papa bear offers bad advice.
Recently the administer of the Greaymuzzle group and advice columnist posted a letter to his advice column from a 15year old called They Hate Us for Being Free:
“Hi Papabear,
I’ve been seeing a lot of furry hate recently on the internet, and to be honest, I am tired of people hating on us, thinking that we are all zoophiles or thermals [I think he means therians, or maybe feral], and to see that even though we hate them (zoophiles/therians) as well, people still don’t see that! I feel like the fandom is dying, and you know what? We should destroy the furry community to make a new community like it, except with thermals or zoophiles, and to not have inappropriate things like murrsuits. It should be child friendly!
Do you think we should recreate the furry fandom and have a set of rules with it? To keep everyone more safe and to stop furry hate all together?
Anonymous (age 15)”
While I do agree with some of Papa Bears response I have some serious disagreement particularly with the following:
“What you’re proposing has already been tried in what was the Burned Furs vs. Freezing Furs debacle of the late 1990s, which was a conflict between furries who wanted to get rid of adult art (Burned Furs) and those who felt it was part of the fandom (Freezing Furs). As you can tell, the Burned Furs lost. There are a number of reasons for this ranging from the fact that those leading the Burned Furs charge were pretty much incoherent and rambling in their philosophy of why adult furry art is bad to the fact that an integral part of being a furry for many in the fandom is the freedom to explore sex and gender. An anti-porn movement has started again recently, blossoming on Twitter from a group called puriteens. Puriteens are not specific to the furry fandom, but they have been active in it and attack not only people who are okay with fur porn but also zoophiles and feral furries and, I see, therians, as well. The think that feral furries are zoophiles, which of course is not at all the case.”
To start lest lay the background. The late Furry video blogger Wild Bill TX observed young furries interested in his furcon videos. While talking with these young people, he observed they found about furry though the internet, they like the Fursuits and the art, but they did not like the sexual aspic of furry. Our Anonymous 15-year-old seems to fit the profile.
As for the Burn it is more complex, one can read the manifesto while I do agree with some of their points, but I am turned off by the host angry tone. I believe what destroyed them was the Burn Furs trying to replace fandom with a purity movement. Such movements have cropped up in the past including Mundane Science Fiction and the Steampunk Manifesto. These purity movements with to replace and remake the fandom into their image; anyone who disagrees is attacked.
I think the word Puriteens is more of a derogative non-sequitur. Perhaps Papa Bear was referring to Fluffies of Fluffy fandom. Unlike the Burnt Furs, Fluffy Fandom are not interested in replacing Furry Fandom but to carve out a Young Furry, SFW clean niche in the fandom yet still identify as part of the larger Furry Fandom such niches do exist in the fandom (Ham Furs and Greymuzzles for example.
My advice to this 15-year-old teen is to borrow from Geen Armstrong, a convention organizer: is there is a place for you. There is no need recreate the fandom and counterproductive trying to recreate the fandom. There are social media groups and furry conventions such Anthro Weekend Utah and Anthro NW which keep a family friendly SFW PG policy for the convention. Even as a devout Christian and furry I am part of niche groups such as Clean, Straight Furries on Facebook and the other Chstian Furry groups on Facebook, Telegram and Discord. The Furry fandom is chaotic but there is still a place for you in the Furry Fandom.