Dear Papabear,
I'm a male furry in a relationship with a non-fur and it has been going great. She accepts me for who I am, furry and all. This sounds like a great thing but here's the problem: I'm gay. I came to terms with it about a year ago and we've been together for three years. What do I do? She knows I'm more gay than straight, but I really don't think I'm straight at all. I still really like her but I don't know if I will ever feel sexually attracted to her, or love her more than I'd love a close friend. To make matters worse, she's been talking about marriage and it is making me uncomfortable... I really don't want to end it, but it just seems wrong being with a female... Also I have this friend that I AM attracted to, and he apparently reciprocates my feelings, but neither of us will do anything about it because I'm already in a relationship. I want my girlfriend to be happy and she's always saying how happy she is that we're together and she's demisexual so she may never find someone else that she loves this way... This makes it harder for me to even think about an end to the relationship because she's such a great person and I really don't want her to be alone for the rest of her life... I'm sort of at a loss and any help would be appreciated... Thanks. Kye Fox * * * Dear Kye Fox, You don’t need to “end it” in terms of friendship, but you sure as heck need to stop letting her think that this is going to lead to marriage. Can you imagine what would happen if you let it get that far? All the way through the expensive ceremony? the honeymoon? ... but no kids because you don’t like her in that way. So, not only would you be deceiving her about what you could do for her as a husband, but if she ever wanted children you would be depriving her of that, as well. Stop this charade. You are not doing her any favors by pretending this is any more than what it actually is. And don’t undervalue friendship. A good, real, binding friendship can be just as precious as a marriage in many ways. Furthermore, if you went through with marriage with your girlfriend, you could potentially be depriving your male friend of what could actually be a romantic matehood—so that would be two people whose lives you would be wrongfully affecting because you’re afraid you’d hurt your girlfriend’s feelings. As for her being demisexual (for readers who aren’t familiar with the word, it refers to people who can only be sexually aroused by those with whom they are emotionally bonded), you might be thinking of yourself as a little too indispensable. There are a lot of people out there who would appreciate a woman like her. So, your count is now up to three other human beings who could be hurt by this: your potential boyfriend, your girlfriend, and the guy who could be her real mate if you admit to her that the two of you getting married is a bad idea. By now you should see where Papabear’s going with this. You might think you’re doing her a favor by hiding the truth, but you’re really not. Time to ‘fess up, hon. Hugs, Papabear
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Papabear,
I am in a relationship with a male who is younger then me. I am 27, he is 23. We've been in this relationship for awhile, about 6 years online, and we just moved in together, with his parents. The reason why I am writing is because I'm curious if I'm wrong in my attitude around him. He claims he loves me and we eat together, and spend maybe 6 hours together during the day, but the rest of the time (from 6 pm onward) he spends online on gaming sites until 3 or 4 am. I completely fall by the wayside and I feel out of sorts and unwanted. If I question him he tells me I give too much (too much love, too much information, too much attention, too many gifts... just too much of everything) to the point that he feels annoyed. I wonder if my feelings of wanting more attention is normal, or not. Thank you, Papa Bear. Overwhelmed in Oregon * * * Dear Overwhelmed, It’s nice that, after 6 years online, you’ve finally gotten together for a live-in relationship (although I would strongly suggest that the two of you are old enough to live somewhere besides with the parents). What I’m seeing in this letter are two things: 1) yes, you are perhaps a bit too clingy and needy, and 2) your mate has a serious problem with online gaming addiction. You say the two of you spend 6 hours a day together and then he goes off in the evening until the wee hours of the morning playing games. I assume, then, he sleeps until, like, 10 or 11 am or later. Then he gets up, spends time with you, and goes back to gaming. First suggestion: get a job or go to school. What’s going on there? Sounds like he does nothing but hang around the house and game. And, how about you? Are you working or going to school? Doesn’t sound like it. I think you both need to get your bums moving in this area. Anyway, we have a bit of a personality conflict here. It’s sweet that you want to spend time with him, give him gifts and affection, but you’re obviously overwhelming him; meanwhile, he’s the kind of the opposite. Remember, relationships are about compromise. A good compromise would be for him to reduce his gaming time to, at most, three hours a day (less is preferable); in exchange (ironically), you can try to be a bit less clingy and needy. Both of you need to find a little independence, and a good way to do that is for you to find some employment or attend school so that you have other things going on in your life besides each other and the computer. I suggest the two of you team up to figure out what you’re going to do with your life goals. That will give you something practical to work on. Life is not all about romance (gifts and affection) and computer games. You need more of a balance between fun and practicality. Compromise, meet each other somewhere in the middle. Remember, in a relationship it’s not about you, it’s not about him, it’s about the both of you working as a team together. That’s what makes matehood both difficult and wonderful at the same time. Hugs, Papabear Dear Papabear,
First off, I just want to thank you for what you do. I discovered your site a couple of years ago and very much enjoyed reading through the questions people have sent and your thoroughly kind and thoughtful responses. I just randomly thought of you again recently and decided to write you a letter about an issue that’s come to the forefront of my mind lately. It’s a rather awkward issue and, since I’m a pretty reserved, private person, I don’t know anyone personally who I could talk to about it. I’ll try to keep things brief as I explain my problem (I have a tendency to ramble when writing about myself). I stumbled across the Furry fandom around the time I was starting middle school and immediately found the whole subculture fascinating, since I have always had in interest in anthropomorphic animals. But at around the same time, (the beginning of puberty) I began having these interests and sexual fantasies involving male cross-dressing and generally feminine males. I’ve only ever felt really attracted to females IRL, so I guess I’m sort of mildly bisexual. And, not to be pious, but my interests aren’t anything straight-up pornographic, mostly more romantic and intimate, somewhat risqué at worst. I’ve never been comfortable with pornography or anything hardcore; it’s just not my cup of tea. Now to be perfectly clear, I wouldn’t say that I find furry characters inherently sexually attractive, any more than I find anime-style art to be more attractive than real-life humans, but the majority of my sexual fantasies ended up involving furry characters anyways, and that, along with my understanding of the general public perception of furries, led me to keep both of these interests as private, shameful secrets. Being a relatively imaginative person, I ended up constructing whole fictional settings/worlds for these stories, branching out to subjects erotic and chaste, furry and human. Gradually these turned into written short stories (mostly the fantasies) and eventually I started trying my hand at serious drawing, beginning in late 2010. I’d never considered myself artistically talented before, and most of my early attempts were fairly terrible, but the arousal and personal satisfaction I got from transforming my ideas into a form of reality did a lot in helping me get over that initial awkward stage and start getting somewhat talented at art. But because arousal was the main reason I drew, most of what I made involved cross-dressing, so I was too embarrassed to show it to anyone. Over time, as I got more comfortable with drawing, I started showing some of my family members my non-furry, non-CD art, and got back some mildly positive responses. At around that time, I ‘came out’ as a furry (with much preparation and nervousness) to my younger sister, the person in my family I have the most in common with, and she was totally okay with it, even if she herself wasn’t interested being a furry. Since it’s never been a pressing issue, I never brought it up to the rest of my family or to any of my friends/acquaintances. Based on a few offhand remarks, my family’s awareness of the furry fandom is limited to “weird people who dress up like animals” or, in the case of my brother-in-law (and maybe my dad since he watches so many of those CSI-type crime shows) “Perverts who like to have sex dressed up as animals”. But lately I’ve been making even bigger improvements in my art abilities, drawing on a daily basis, and getting to the point where I feel like I could gain a lot of admiration and even be able to make a living if I put my art online and. did commissions. Making a webcomic is something else I’ve been hoping to do for quite a while, and I’ve spent more time recently doing some solid character, setting, and plot development. This is all floating around in my head lately since, with my 20th birthday in a few months, I’m reaching the point in my life where I really need to stop hoping and imagining and wishing for things that could happen and actually start doing them. I’ve been working part-time for about a year and a half, and taking classes part-time at my local community college for even longer (I started in high school with a dual-credit program) and now I’m only a couple of classes away from getting my Associate’s degree. My parents (who I still live with) want me to continue my education and get a Bachelor’s in a general business degree, (something I have already done a few electives for) but I’m having doubts about it. I’ve never really felt comfortable or excelled in the academic environment and I’m not exactly looking forward to taking 20-odd classes with names like “Basic Marketing Principles” and “Workplace Leadership”. I took a college-level art class once a couple of years ago, but I had trouble with the assignments and ultimately dropped out of it. I don’t really want to, or feel like I need to, get an art degree. I understand the benefits, but I just don’t think it’s necessary for me. As for my current low-paying employment at a grocery store, the work itself is fine, but there isn’t really any room for promotion aside from being a manager, and I just don’t see myself as having a ‘managerial’ personality, and I don’t really connect with anyone in my small group of co-workers, mainly since they come from a very different background than me, and a fair few are immigrants don’t speak English very well. There are some nice people, but not really anything more than work-friends. I understand having a career as an independent artist is a bit of a long-shot and not nearly as secure as an office job, and I don’t have a problem with having a “day job” that pays more than $10 an hour (unlike my current job) to support myself until (if ever) my dreams become a reality, but I just don’t know if I can make myself sit in all of those classes and pretend to be interested in something I’m not for a couple more years just to scrape by and get a potentially pointless degree. I really don’t have an excuse for not already doing what I want to with my life, other than that I’ve always had trouble making myself do difficult things someone else doesn’t expect or require me to do, and well, what I want to do is something that no one has ever told me I should do. After quite a bit of thought, I’ve come to a three-option fork in the road, and thus, my dilemma. See, for all my love of drawing, a large part of what I like drawing the most is still cross-dressing focused stuff, and I am still very hesitant about revealing that aspect of myself to others. Option 1: I don’t tell anyone I know about my art, I just start posting whatever I’m inspired to draw online. The good part of this option is that I’m totally free to just be myself and not self-censor my creative flow. The bad part is that it means I either can’t show my family what I make and love to do, or I do show them and let them, well, know that I’m interested in that sort of thing. I can understand coming out as gay or transsexual, but you don’t really need to ‘come out’ as enjoying a particular sexual kink. That’s not the kind of thing you should just go shoving in people’s faces. Also, I might feel uncomfortable about meeting people IRL at conventions and whatnot who aware of that element of my personality. And sure, I might be able to get commissions from like-minded people of cross-dressing related art, but I feel like my other art and webcomics and whatnot would be ‘tainted’ for some people by the association of my personal ‘interests’. Option 2: I start showing my art online, but not any of my cross-dressing related stuff. This option has the benefit of me being able to tell people I know about it, and not experiencing any form of guilt about it, but at the cost of self-censoring my creativity, which would make it more difficult for me to ‘give my all’ in the art I make. It’s not that I only like drawing CD stuff, it’s just that my ‘muse’, as it were, gives me more fuel to make the best art I can when I have a *ahem* vested interest in the subject matter. Option 3: This is a combination of the other two: I have one account where I post all of my regular stuff on a place like Deviant Art, and another account on a different art site where I keep all of my CD-related stuff. That way, no one would have to see what they don’t want to. But I don’t think I would be able to keep them so separate that people couldn’t put two-and-two together and catch me with my metaphorical pants down. If so, that might be even worse than the first option where I’m open about everything, since it would make me look like a two-faced hypocrite. I just… I feel like my life has been stuck in a rut for a long time, and I have no good reason to be. I have a car, plenty of money (I’ve been saving practically all of what I’ve earned from my job), and seem to be an intelligent, creative person. I mean heck, I live pretty close to a good-sized furry convention (like, less than a half hour’s drive) and I’ve never been. I’m a lurker on all of the websites I frequent, and I’ve grown apart from the people I was friends with in middle and high school, so I’m basically friendless now, and I have difficulty interacting with people I don’t know well, even online. I hardly leave the house anymore for a non-work non-school reason, and when I do, it’s with members of my immediate family. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being afraid to be myself, but at the same time, I have no idea how to get out of this rut and start doing things and meeting people and not just being comfortable with mediocrity anymore. I know my parents want what’s best for me and to support me, and I love my family immensely. This is part of the reason why these thoughts are troubling me. I want to be able to share my life with them, not just run off and do my own thing entirely, or put on a mask every time I see or talk to them. So, to take all of this and try to condense it into an answerable question, “How should I handle my personal sexual interest in relation to my overall artistic ambitions”, or more broadly, “What am I gonna do with my life?!” Thanks for taking the time to read through all of this, and I hope to be hearing from you soon. –The Invisible Artist (age 19) * * * Hi, Invisible. Wow, this is a lot of questions, actually. My general policy is to answer one per letter. Basically, I guess one could summarize it as: what should I do with my life? And so I will try to respond at this more fundamental level. At 19 you’re going through a major transitional phase in your life between cubhood and adulthood. No breaking news there. But it is a chapter that many people make the mistake of allowing others to write. Often, it is the parents who write it; at other times, it is peers; sometimes, it is just circumstances in life. I’ll give you a case in point: my sister was pressured by our dad to major in business at the University of Michigan (kind of like your parents wanting you to take business courses). She hated it so much, but for three and a half years she did what Dad wanted. Finally, just a few courses short of a bachelor’s degree from a prestigious university, she couldn’t take it anymore. One night, we got a telegram (I was still living at home with my parents, as I was still in high school); all it said was she was okay but that she was leaving. She quit school and disappeared for months (although she did call a couple times). She spent a couple years working odd jobs, but eventually went back to school and got a Ph.D. in a subject she actually liked: biology. Now she is a tenured professor. The point is that she decided to do what she wanted to do, and, although it was a huge struggle, she eventually achieved her goal and is so much more happy than if she had listened to Dad. But, because she had listened to him for so long, she really wasted years of her life that could have been better spent working toward her biology degree. Oh, and she also came out as a lesbian and is now happily married to a doctor. What you are seeking, fundamentally, is happiness, no? And you won’t find it by doing things to please your parents or to please furries online or to please your bosses. I can’t tell you what you want to do, but what you need is to really figure out what your passion in life is. Finding a passion is not easy, and many people live out their lives without discovering it. The lucky ones not only find their passion but live it. Happy is the person whose job is his passion for he will never work a day in his life. On the complementary issue: your sexual interests and how they influence your work. Unless sex is your job (i.e., you work in the profession), I wouldn’t advise mixing them together. From what I’ve seen in the art world, if you wish to be a successful artist, you really won’t become one by just drawing porn—even soft porn, and especially not furry porn. I agree that you don’t necessarily need an art degree (many great artists are self-taught, and many artists with degrees end up working at White Castle). If you want to make a living at it, you will need to work hard at improving and marketing your work. Same is true if you wish to be an author. I’ve been down that particular road, and it is extremely difficult. The key to both is—and you might hate me for saying this—learning the ropes of business, marketing, and public relations. The most successful artists excel at marketing themselves. Therefore (ouch), you might actually learn a lot of valuable skills by taking business courses (how’d we get to this point, eh?) You’re now, like, wait a minute, but you said about your sister...? That’s different. A biology professor has no need to market herself to succeed. If you go into the arts, you will definitely benefit from those skills. My conclusion for you, then, is to go to business school with the intention of learning how to market yourself as an artist. In other words, don’t do it because your parents said so, do it because it will help you get what you want (this is all assuming you want to pursue the arts). Specialize, for example, in how to market and do PR in the entertainment industry. I know a couple people who specialized in organizing and promoting conventions (not furry ones, although furcon organizers could certainly learn from people who organize, say, auto shows) and entertainment acts and they are now quite amazingly wealthy. Meanwhile, keep your sexual interests to yourself, where they should be. Your sexuality is a private matter and should be kept separate from your career goals. Concerning this: examine deeply why you wish to post soft porn furry art on the Internet. Are you doing it because you want an art career (buzz! wrong! see above!), or are you doing it for validation, the deep-seated urge to be recognized? If the latter, then keep that to the side, an avocation rather than a vocation. Wishing you luck, Papabear Hi Papabear,
My name's Bluefluffy. I’m a young gay fur and I kinda fell in love with a fursona—not with the person himself, just with the fursona, and, more specifically, one picture of him. But it's quite useless to be in love like that. I can't hug him, and so it’s pretty hard, but I can’t keep him off my mind; I keep falling in love. Next to that, the person himself is way older than me—I guess like 18 years older—and he lives in the US and I live in little Belgium in Europe. It can only make me sad by keep being in love with him. I had a real-life boyfriend in the meantime, and I wasn't in love with that fursona anymore, but things went wrong and we broke up, so I’m single again. And I fell in love with that one fursona again :( What can I do? Greetings, Bluefluffy * * * Hi, Bluefluffy, Simple: this fursona that the American fellow has represents those traits that you find most attractive. What you should do, then, is take mental notes (or, even, write them down) as to what things about this furry character attract you. These traits become the measuring stick you can use when looking for a mate to share your life with. Now, obviously, they can’t be physical traits like fur and a snout LOL, but rather it’s the personality traits you are seeking. Keeping in mind that it is not too often you find someone who meets all your desires 100%, allow yourself a little leeway when socializing with potential boyfriends and mates. Don’t reject someone, in other words, just because that person isn’t perfect. No one is perfect, but you can get pretty close. Let this fursona that you love, therefore, provide you with a model for what you seek. Hugs, Papabear Papabear,
Here’s an interesting one, and I hope you don’t mind a novel to set this up. You’ve provided some very good info to me in the past and it’s helped me avoid a few mistakes; perhaps you can help me navigate this particular minefield? To start, I’m a fur that’s plain sick and tired of dating other furs. The dating pool within the fandom is very shallow due to a few reasons. Firstly, I’m straight and there’s very few single female furs that are local; I don’t do the whole ‘out of state LDR’ stuff that many of my friends resort to. Secondly, the fandom is getting younger and I’m getting older. I turn 32 this year and I’ve started to understand there’s a huge difference between 21 and 31. Finally, most local furs are into heavy drinking and drug use; pot was recently legalized here so that’s the big thing for everyone to do. I’ve never been into any of that junk in the first place and my employer drug tests. I’m not about to risk a career I’ve been dreaming of for years just to party at a furmeet. There’s other reasons in there as well, but those are the primary ones. That leaves the alternative of dating outside the fandom, in the mundane world so to speak. I ended one of the longer relationships I’ve had about a month ago. I usually spend years in a bitter “Don’t even look at me like you’re attracted to me” mood which generally chases people off, but I’ve decided that’s not a healthy thing to do and put myself out there after a week or so. That’s kinda quick, I know, but the breakup was rather bad and I really should have gotten out of this situation not long after it started. I’ve got a better idea of what I want in a partner, and I’m burnt out on dating furs. I wasn’t expecting to receive a response that wasn’t a spambot, especially on Craigslist, but I did. She’s a little younger than I am, but not by much. She’s got a career in the same industry I work for, but a completely different job function. There’s a lot of common ground between us, and while she’s not exactly local she’s close enough to visit often (a city about 40 miles away). However, she’s not a fur. I haven’t told her about the fandom. She knows I attend comic conventions and will cosplay at them; she hasn’t been negative about that. We’re having our first date this weekend but we’ve been emailing and texting rather regularly over the past few weeks. By the time I send this off and get your response that’s probably already happened. I won’t discuss the fandom or my ties to it this early on, but how would I explain this to someone who hasn’t been exposed to it? I write furry stories, I don’t do artwork or fursuit, but go to the local con sometimes (I’m skipping this year as I’m buying my dream car in a couple of months and am using all available funds for it) and have some more responsible fur friends I hang out with from time to time. This is more of an interest/hobby for me than it is a lifestyle. I’m not willing to keep my interests closeted or ditch them in favor of dating someone “on the outside,” but how can I appropriately handle this? Regards, Heisenwolf (age 31, Colorado) * * * Dear Heisenwolf, Hello, and welcome back. Wow, your fourth letter to me; glad I can help you. Sounds like you have really developed a good head on your shoulders. Yes, the vast majority of furries are much younger than you, and you’re going to have a problem relating to them (although there is a growing number of greymuzzles these days, too). Good for you, too, for not settling for an LDR where you would rarely, if ever, meet the other person in the real world. So, you’re not a lifestyler but more of a hobbyist, which actually makes talking about this with your girlfriend even easier. I would approach it the same way you would talking about being a Trekkie and going to Star Trek conventions and such. You already told her you go to comic book conventions, where they dress up, so why is furry such a big stretch? It’s really just another aspect of what she already knows you are into. If I were you, I would invite her to a comic book convention and then do the same with a furry convention. Anyone who has been to a furcon knows they are (at least in the public areas) completely benign and just silly fun. So, instead of making some “dramatic announcement” that you’re a furry, like you were going to confession and telling a priest in a fit of guilty catharsis, just be cool about it. “Hey, hon, there’s a furry convention I’d like to go to, want to come with? It’s kind of like a comic book convention, only the focus is on anthropomorphic animal characters. It’ll be fun!” Furthermore, don’t hide your furry stories. Work on them, perhaps, while the two of you are spending some time watching TV after dinner. And, when she asks, explain what you’re doing as just one of your many interests. She sounds like a pretty cool person, and I bet she’ll have no problem with it just like my non-furry mate, Yogi, had no problem when I told him, and I have taken him to a number of furcons since (Biggest Little Furcon is likely our next stop). Don’t make a big deal about it, because, really, it isn’t a big deal. Good luck with your new girlfriend! Papabear |
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