MR. Cogliantry is in Willamette Week touting his new book Furvert a so called peek into the furry fandom. There was some choice material in his interview:
“Not exactly. When I first had the idea I started going online onto furry forums; I wanted to schedule the shoot during a furry convention. But the conventions bar the media—they won’t allow any outside photographers in. Eventually I decided to just do what I wanted to do…it’s not a documentary. I got one letter that said, “Obviously this isn’t real. But if you ever want to shoot the real thing, contact me.” And then others that say, “This [the sex stuff] never happens.”
No exactly how about no, I read a few sites and suddenly I was an expert.
My reply as follows:
I am a furry here in Portland. To say that we are just about having sex in costume strikes me as no different of a stereotype as saying as Black males, like me, eat only fried chicken and watermelon. I still see MR. Cogliantry work as a form of furry blackface in the way mistrals of old use blackface to project their own stereotypes. The furry community is quite diverse both in make-up and interest. There are some weird exhibitionist types as was as decent moral people, the fandom is not about whom one can get into bed but an interest in anthropomorphism. In our furmeets here in Portland, our small group has gays, a straights and even me a Christian, right of center Black Republican.
Your interview says a lot about you, an artist/journalist in a long line of those who has done no research and relies on serotypes to publish misconceptions about the fandom and exploiting the misconceptions to make a buck.
PS. There reason the media is banned form out furry conventions is because you like the media are not going to report the truth. Furries, along with Conservative Republican and Fundamentalist Christians are groups the media fail to report things right. Secondly your acts in public and in your book will not be tolerated by both the Hotel and Furry