“Chasing Tail”: Testing the Relative Strength of Sexual Interest and Social Interaction as Predictors of Furry Identity

ABSTRACT

Furries can be described as a mediacentric fandom, similar to other fandoms, which organizes around an interest in anthropomorphic art. Past research has also aimed to highlight and understand the sexual motivations of furries, leading to questions regarding the relative strength of fandom and sexual motivations for joining and maintaining membership within the group. The goal of the present study was to test the relative contributions sex- and fandom-related motivations (e.g., social belonging) have in determining furry identity to provide better conceptualizations of this unique community for future research and education. In a sample of furries (n = 1,113), participants reported sexual attraction to facets of their interest and were found to be sexually motivated to engage in specific fan behaviors. However, a series of follow-up analyses revealed that non-sexual motivations were not only stronger in magnitude than sexual motivation was, but were also much more strongly correlated with furry identification.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the participants who contributed their experiences and perspectives to this research. The furry fandom is continuously kind, generous, and engaged in the scientific exploration of fandom and fan cultures. Without their support, this research would not have been possible.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ In a doctoral dissertation, Zidenberg (2021) assessed online communities of self-identified zoophiles, conceptualizing “furryism” as a type of Class I zoophilia (Aggrawal, 2011) consisting of humans who role-play in sexual and non-sexual contexts as non-human animals. The author would later conclude that “most persons with zoophilia were not furries, and while furryism was correlated with indicators of zoophilia, these associations were decreased to non-significance after controlling for self-identified zoophilia. Thus, the link between furryism and these zoophilic indicators are only by virtue of shared variance with zoophilia” (pp. 57-58).