Write to Papabear

Are Most Furries Gay?

6/9/2012

Dear Papabear,

I have been involved in the fandom for about five years now, and in that time, I have noticed an uncommonly large gay community among furries. I know that, statistically there are more men than women in the fandom, but I have a hard time figuring out how the gay furry community became so pervasive. It seems that M/M porn is just as, if not more, common than M/F porn. Any thoughts regarding this?

- Northern Sphinx

* * *

Dear Sphinx,

According to a recent survey (http://www.klisoura.com/fs2011v.html), only 21.5% of furries identify as “completely” or “mostly homosexual.” So, gay men and women (the fandom is comprised mostly of young white men, as you noticed) are actually in the minority.

An August 2002 Gallup survey (http://www.gallup.com/poll/6961/what-percentage-population-gay.aspx) reported, “The average estimates [for the percentage of homosexuals in America] were that 21% of men are gay and 22% of women are lesbians.” So, as you can see, the percentage of homosexuals in the furry community is quite representative of that in the United States as a whole.

The impression that gay men are a huge majority in the fandom persists, however. Why is that? Papabear believes it is for the same reason that the gay community is so prominent in theatre: gay people tend to be more outgoing and flamboyant. Therefore, they are much more noticeable than straight men and women. Apparently, too, they like to draw a lot more art of a pornographic nature than straight people do (though, actually, some of our best gay porn artists are women, such as that of the Blotch team, which is two female artists).

Papabear would also be interested in finding out what percentage of gay furries are fursuiters, since fursuiters get the most notice and would contribute a lot to the impression of sexual orientation among those in the fandom.

So, there’s your answer, Sphinx. There are no more gay people in the fandom than there are in America, percentage-wise, they just are a lot more noticeable.

Cheers,

Papabear

7 Comments

Critter link

6/10/2012 11:15:52 am

Hold on a moment here. The cited Gallup article states that in a survey people *estimated* that 20% of the population is gay, *not* that there are that many! Holy moly, if there were that many gay guys around I might have better luck getting a date :)

As the article states, estimates of the actual percentage of people in the population who are gay is in single digits at best.

And what's with the creative stereotype? Much as I try to draw or make music or whatever, it's still bad :(

https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3jdwxtkUP1qk4e33o1_500.png

Papabear

6/10/2012 03:31:40 pm

Hi, Critter. Sorry, but I DO believe that 1 in 5 people are gay or have strong leanings toward homosexuality. The numbers are "estimated" because a big number of people are still closeted. As for the creative stereotype, I didn't mean that gay people are all creative, I mean that they tend to be more noticeable in many ways. Just their personalities in general. You notice them.

Critter

6/10/2012 09:54:11 pm

Hmm, well I don't have any way to peer into people's souls so you may be right.

But seems to me in many senses it doesn't really matter if there's a lot of deeply closeted folks out there. What counts is if you're willing to put your hand up if someone says "are you gay?" They're the ones who are available for friendships, relationships, political action, etc.These people are also pretty easy to count and this is where the lower end of the estimates come from: 1-2%.

As for the "colorful" types, yeah, they're noticeable :) But I was a bit surprised years ago when I first got involved with the wider gay community how many very shy gay people there are. Not entirely surprising since a lot of us have endured negative reactions from the world and not everybody is of the personality type to be flamboyant.

As to the question of why are there so many out gays in the furry community, I think it relates to why people identify as being furry in the first place which is an interesting question in itself.

man

8/10/2020 11:53:46 pm

https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx
In U.S., Estimate of LGBT Population Rises to 4.5%

8/11/2020 09:06:42 am

Wow - a comment on an eight year old post! Looks like people look through the old entries, cool.

Nice update as well. Thanks, man.

Something that seems to me has changed is that more people, especially those under thirty-five or so, are identifying as "queer". This is great, but it can be different than identifying as having a same-sex romantic attraction (gay).

Offthepink

11/6/2021 08:01:50 am

There's gotta be a reason as to why every furry site you go to, gay content is all over the place compared to straight stuff. It's usually the FIRST content you see, until you make an account and can set preferences. If they aren't the majority, why cater to that segment so hard? You don't have a party with 80% of the food on the table be pizza if only 10% of the people there requested it, while the rest of the guests ordered subs, asian cuisine, and other foods. Methinks people are just being disingenuous...

11/12/2021 07:09:02 am

Here are the latest stats from FurScience about sexual orientation:
Sexual orientation:
Lesbian, gay, homosexual: 28.8%
Straight or heterosexual: 10.1%
Bisexual: 23.4%
Pansexual: 16.5%
Asexual: 10.5%
I don’t know: 5.8%
Something else: 4.9%

There is actually a very good reason why so many in the fandom are not traditionally hetero, and that is because LGBTQ people feel socially persecuted in the mainstream and they find a community of accepting people in the fandom. Being furry doesn't make you gay, but many in the LGBTQI community do find the fandom an attractive community to belong to.

Are Most Furries Gay?

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