I: This podcast has explicitly adult themes and language. Listener discretion is advised.

J: I want to hear your thoughts about Our Flag Means Death. Tell me everything. Did you scream because I screamed. I was watching it with my friends….

I: At which part?

J: When they kiss!!! I was watching it with like five friends. And we were shouting like it was like a touchdown. Like it was like arms in the air. People were standing, people were shouting. It was great.

I: I actually didn't miss that part when they were standing in the moonlight and the red piece of silk and he put it in…like…

J: “You wear fine things well” [loud squeaking sound]

I: “You wear fine things well”....I squeaked really hard and I loved it quite a bit.

J: I am a homosexual. It's that. Well, and at that point too, I didn't I hadn't known the ending because we watched the finale like we watched the whole thing, but we watched the whole thing like right after the finale had aired. So I hadn't seen any spoilers. So I'm like not getting my hopes up. They're probably not going to be cannon. But then they were cannon! And they kissed!!! Ahhhh!

I: I mean, they were so gay up until that point. It just had to happen.

J: I've been queer baited so many times. It did not have to happen. Typekit and Rhys Darby did not have to be.

I: There was a leather daddy!

J: There was. There was. Wait, which one? There were several leather daddies.

I: That's true.There are many leather daddies. So, like, no matter what, it's gay. Blackbeard is my favorite leather daddy.

J: See, I love Blackbeard as a leather daddy, but I also love Blackbeard having a daddy kink on the other side of things. And I'm like, Let's play in this space and I don't have to play in this space. Someone on AO3 has done it already, so I receive the goods I don't have to create and it's great.

I: Yay!

J: I don’t have to write any content for this fandom. There's already like a ga-billion fics. It's beautiful.

I: Thank God. I know. I literally just finished it an hour ago and I was like…

J: Oh my God! There's so much meta. Oh my God, I'm so excited for you. Actually, fun fact, the same friends that I watched it with were doing like a read through of the pilot script on Thursday. It's just like a fun thing we do as friends. And guess who gets to be Lucious?

I: Nice!

J: Thank you. I told my roommate if she didn't cast me as Lucius, I would cry. So…

I: I was so sad when the bird got whipped. That was devastating for me.

J: That was crushing. And also, just like Calico Jack was already really well set up as like an asshole. Every little thing they did is really like further emphasized, especially when you go to the twist. Sorry, spoilers for Our Flag Means Death, I guess. If you haven't seen it already, why are you listening to this podcast? Go watch Our Flag Means Death and then come back to this podcast.

I: This podcast will not always be Our Flag Means Death.

J: Unfortunately kinky queries has been canceled. This is now in Our Flag Means Death fancast.

I: Oh gosh, I need to rewatch the first half of it because I'm going to be really honest. So I had a bunch of friends who visited this past weekend. We decided to get really fucking high and watch Our Flag Means Death. And that means because I had double accidentally the amount that I normally do, I'm only really remembering snippets and it's not making a ton of sense. But thank God for Tok because it kind of gave you the baseline of what the fuck was happening anyways.

J: Yeah, no, it took time. The TikTok fandom has been very, very good.

I: Yes, please send me lots of TikToks.

J: Yeah, I will, I will send you the Our Flag Means Death TikToks. I am obviously getting most of my content from archives of our own or tumblr. Oh boy. Someone an archive of our own. Took a look at Izzy and said That's a fucked up little man. And then wrote at least two fics every day for two weeks about him being a fucked up little man and getting stepped on. And I maybe read all of them don't at me it's this this fandom has been a gift and I'm normal about it anyway so unfortunately we're not actually an Our Flag Means Death fancast. We are Kinky Queries a podcast where you send in questions and we work out the kinks or more often than not, work in the kinks. And today's prompt, I guess adjacently we can probably associate it with Our Flag Means Death. The fandom sure does think we need a lot of pet play so…

I: That is fair.I feel like it's just we should have a conversation at some point about like kink in media.

J: Yeah, Blackbeard got his balls whipped and I was like, mmmmmmm, I'm interested. Yeah, no, I would love to talk about Our Flag Means Death in terms of like kink in media. It's not trying to be like a perfect representation, nor do I want it to be because this is a rom com. I don't want anything to be serious in this rom com except for when it steps on my heart, which it did very effectively.I think of all the like media portrayals I've seen that even like tease up the concept of BDSM. This is one of the least shitty ones because there's actually a hold on our segway totally makes sense of what we're about to talk about because we're talking about media and like kink and identity and stuff. And that's that's exactly what we're about to talk about. Today's question is, “What is the furry pipeline?” And we're going to talk about how that actually involves a lot of media as. Well, anyway, I'm. I'm James. Hi. My pronouns are him. And my favorite animated movie is The Rose Eldorado, which decidedly does not make me a furry. It does, however, make me bisexual.

I: I'm Iris. I use the g pronouns. I received a full body massage today and finished Our Flag Means Death. So I'm doing stellar.

J: Oh, you have had an excellent day. I got a schedule on this website.

I: It's great. Big fan, lovely human being. Parts of me…I didn't realize we're in pain. That's how fucked I was.

J: Oh, that's always fun. That's always fun. Well, I'm glad you're feeling better. That's a delight.

I: Thank you.

J: So there's, like, kind of two phases to this question, right? Like, A) how does one become a furry? That's the pipeline component. But then also we've kind of extended this question into defining the furry fandom, especially in conjunction with another kink that has a lot like on the surface when you look at them, they have a lot of similarities, which would be pet play and Oh my gosh, I thought I had done some good research. And then you came in and just like knocked this document out of the park.

I: Sorry, I went to

J: No, don't apologize. This is great.

I: There's not a lot of like great sources, should I say, other than like Reddit forums and other. I want you to read it.

J: Yeah, the Wikipedia article barely had any sources either. Like it's a long article, but there's maybe ten sources throughout the entire Wikipedia page, which was really weird to see.

I: Right? And so I was specifically looking for content that was coming directly from the furry fandom. On how they define their community Because I don't really identify as a furry. My experience is going to be a lot of conferences as a sex educator and doing STI testing as well as being an avid pet player and enjoying that aspect of it seems like a great community, but I don't think it's part of like my identity and my experiences. I can't speak from that standpoint, but I can do a heck of a lot of research and hopefully communicate what is happening in the fandom.

J: Also, same hat, definitely not in the furry fandom, which I love the nomenclature of furry fandom as opposed to furry community. I think that speaks a little bit to just the concept of it as well, which I find really interesting. But yeah, in terms of like definitions, I found this very interesting that the first time furry as like a concept was really documented was in the 1970s in a bunch of underground comics. So in the sense of it being, you know, relatively new in mainstream media and, you know, relatively new on the long lens of kink history, it's not as new as I think we would assume it to be. It's been around for I mean, my goodness, at least 50 years now. And that kind of origin of existing in an underground space is a very common thing, both in the community and the queer communities.

I: Basically, the furry fandom is the subculture that's interested in the intersection of like anthropomorphic animal characters that have human personalities and characteristics. So this can mean like exhibiting human intelligence or facial expressions or speaking or walking specifically on like two legs, wearing clothes or hats, etc., like that kind of anthropomorphic component. And then a fursona is that definition, but it's a personalized identity for an individual. So their fursona is how they view themselves as their animal person.

J: Yeah, the linguistic root is very clearly persona as in like the name you would go by or possibly alter ego mixed with furry.

I: Right. And then being a furry or and having a fursona can be considered a fetish, it can be considered a kink, and it can sometimes be considered a lifestyle. Each person is their own and similar to like sexual aspects that we've talked about, kink, BDSM and fetish. Not every person who is a furry has a sexual component to it.

J: I've heard it can be pretty polarizing in the community to the concept of sexual aspects. While, in one's persona it seems like it can be a hot topic throughout different like schisms of the fandom.

I: Yes. And that's why I wanted to note that, because it's important to know that not everybody views their fursona or being a furry or being a part of the furry community as inherently sexual, similar to what we've talked about with kink and media segment fetish, it doesn't necessarily have to be sexual to be part of that community. We often see like these blanket misconceptions that in kink, oh, kink is inherently sexual and that's clearly not the case. And that's goes the same for furries. Being a furry isn't inherently sexual, so we need to stop having this misconception of the community

J: If anything too. I know a lot of people like to joke about like, Oh, having sex in the fur suits. Those first suits are like ten grand. Sometimes they are insanely expensive. I mean, even if a person had sexuality associated with their fursona, I imagine you would probably not be in the very expensive costume for that, or at least not all of the time. So like even just from a logistics standpoint, it is not always about sex.

I: Yes, that's super true and fair. And I think that's where like the art aspect of the community really comes in. As well. And I think that's also important to note that like the the furry art community is just this beautiful, lovely community that's like creating fantastic art. Some of it is more on the pornographic side, some of it's not, but it's really cool to see how everybody visualizes themselves.

J: Definitely, yeah. There's a huge art component tying that back into the history, too, given that it has its origins in comics too, it has just a lot of art tied to it. We also see the terminology getting some traction at science fiction conventions, which, as someone who has recently been to a comic convention, there is just so much art to be seen at these conventions. It is just people showing their art is people doing commissions. And to this day, furry artists who take commissions tend to do very well for themselves. From what I have heard, it can be a very lucrative market. Yeah, I think I think the art component is a huge part of it. And if if not like a defining trait, usually because I think the fur suits and the costuming themselves can have budgeting limitations to it. There's also a physicality limitations to it. If anything, it seems like it might just be really hot in there. So the art is, I feel a lot more accessible as well as just a little bit less physically taxing. Yes.

I: And then earlier, we talked a little bit about pet play. I just want to point out that pet play is animal role play. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's anthropomorphic, but it's role play in where at least one person is playing a non-human animal. That's the huge difference, the difference of anthropomorphic versus a person playing an animal.

J: I would argue that's definitely one of the main differences is that they like approach the concept and the direction of the transformation almost from opposite perspectives. I would get me if I'm wrong, but I feel like Pet Play takes a human and has them become more animalistic, whereas the furry fandom takes an animal and has them become more human.

I: Mmhm, yes.

J: yeah. I feel like it's— well, it's fun for me too. When I know people who are transfeminine and I'm transmasculine, it's like we are doing the same thing in opposite directions. And again, I don't think Pet Play and the furry fandom are the same, but they are doing very similar things in opposite directions

I: And there's quite a bit of overlap as well. When I've held munches for the Pet Play community, I've had a lot of people ask me on Fetlife before being like, Hey, are furries invited? It's like, of course furries are invited, we have a very similar realm of experience. We're just approaching it differently. I'd love to have you there, and there are some divisions where like that is not accepted, but there is enough overlap that between the two that you see a lot of people who are experimenting with pet play and furry, often at the same time or engaging in both cultures. And that's totally cool.

I: So I'd be curious if in terms of the sense of identity as well as the long term nature of things. Obviously with Pet Play you can have short term pet play. We're just like, Oh, let's just do this for like one evening in the bedroom.

J: And then there's, you know, longer, more intense forms of pet play as well, ordering into 24/7relationships, which and those 24/7 style relationships definitely have a component of identity to them. But I feel like your average pet player is not going to be in that 24/7situation. They're going to be somewhere in the middle. I imagine it's connected to identity, but I feel like the furry fandom has. And again, I imagine it's a sliding spectrum but a larger connection to you. This is who I am, as opposed to like being a pet player can be part of identity, not so much necessarily the animal itself. I might be wrong there because I'm I don't have a lot of experience in that realm.

I: I want to clear a couple of things up because people who engage with the furry fandom don't necessarily have or not every single person has a fursona,

J: Oh interesting.

I: So the identity aspect can be there. And for many people it does occur. But there's also the experimentation of trying to figure out if there's a fursona or multiple fursonas as well. And as a pet player, I actually find that I when I talk about ducks, I don't talk about being a duck on this podcast quite a bit, so I apologize for going in that direction again. But like…

J: From what I've heard of the people I know who listen to our podcast, they find it fascinating. And at some point we're going to have to do a whole episode of just what? Talk about duck space, talk about duck pet playing. And I will come with questions and possibly a squeaky toy.

I: Like I literally have a box of little rubber ducks in my room because my housemates for my birthday one year hid 300 rubber ducks in my bedroom.

J: So it's so funny… But yeah. So you again, I am well aware that this is not my domain of experience. You definitely have more of a connection to the pet play community. So I'm I'm curious where if there is a difference between the sense of identity in the furry fandom, in the sense of identity in pet play spaces?

I: I did not see this in what I saw online from the furry community. This is just kind of my thought process and it could be completely inaccurate. And I want to point that out now. There's actually just so much overlap between furries and pet play that it's actually incredibly similar and it's actually how one is originally engaging with it.

J: Okay.

I: And I find that pet players find pet play through kink and furries find the furry fandom through the Internet. Interesting. And I guess specifically Internet forums about art, persay

I: About art or like wandering through Tumblr or like swiping enough on Tik Tok at one point or like just really loving a particular movie or TV show and like finding a subculture of it that intersects with furries. That's what I've noticed as a trend might be completely inaccurate, but I think there's a lot more in common between Pet Play and furries than we necessarily see a lot of discussion about. And I think it's just based off of what terminology does an individual feel comfortable with and what community do they find themselves a little bit more aligned with or comfortable being in?

J: Yeah, I think that totally makes sense, especially because like while the communities do have similar end results, which is, you know, human animal directional shifting. Yeah, I think the way in which the communities interact with each other and the way in which the communities have expectations of each other are very different. So that makes sense that like it would, you know, a person's individual identity may be pretty similar in one or the other, but their experience is going to vary. But yeah, I think it's definitely interesting to look at these two groups and trying to find differences between them does eventually feel like splitting hairs. I do love a significant part of our planning for this was not only the definition and differences between the furry fandom and pet play, but also very specifically this sort of joke terminology of the “furry pipeline”. And I think the joke originates from like, well, you know, if you watched Disney's Robin Hood at a formative age and you grow up into a furry, that's just what happens. That what's that one meme where it's just like the cow and it's like the illusion of choice or whatever. I love that meme. I think it's very good. I had listed originally like Robin Hood as the big one, very classic when you think of someone's introduction of the concept of anthropomorphized animals, but also Zootopia. It’s got sexy tigers or lions. And I actually remember…

I: And Gizelle!

I: I wasn't really paying attention. Yeah. It's got it's got a sexy gazelle. It's got a bunch of I mean, I have notes from like a feminist perspective on the sexualizing of animals that shouldn't have titties. Don't give reptiles titties, but whatever. Actually, Zootopia was pretty good about that. But there's, there's some other movies that it's like, we're going to slap boobs on this alligator. So, you know, the alligator is a woman and I'm like, do the alligators don't have that, but okay, go off to Zootopia was my modern example, but. Oh, my God, Iris, you just went off here, huh?

I: Yeah. Oh, I wanted to give a clarification because we actually didn't talk about the scaly culture, which is basically the subsect of furry culture. But for animals that are not actually furry.

J: Yeah, I do. There's a lot of interesting linguistic delineation within the overarching furry fandom that I actually very, very much enjoy just from a linguistics perspective. It was I was in a discussion with someone about the difference between like scaly eyes in reptiles, but like, what would you do if you were identifying as like a fish? And what do you do if you're identifying as like a mammal that isn't furry, like a whale or something? The the linguistic nuance can be very pedantic in a enjoyable way if it hasn't been glaringly obvious throughout this podcast. I love being pedantic about linguistics for funsies.

I: Going back to what you're pointing out, yes, I may have added a few others, but I remember watching the Great Mouse Detective as a child and really falling in love with The Cat Returns and like Chicken Run is just a classic. And then She-Ra, like Scorpia and Catra got my heart.

J: Oh, I literally did not even consider that I love She-Ra, but you're so right.

I: And it's just like these are a few select examples that I pulled out of my head. But like literally content of anthropomorphic animals is such it's so submerged into our consumption of media. We don't notice it.

J: Definitely. Yeah, it's a very common.

I: It's incredibly common. And then there's this huge weirdness about the furry community. How dare you? And there's all the stigma which is like very strange and uncomfortable and doesn't make a lot of sense as to where that stigma is coming from.

J: I'd be fascinated to hear like the the qualitative research of like what kids see, what movies and grow up into, what types of adults. Just because like every, every furry that I have ever encountered absolutely jokes about, like the furry pipeline of just like you watch Robin Hood and then it it just happens. Or I do have a good subsection of my friends of like, yeah, I really like Robin Hood as a kid. It was like a near-miss for me, like, I think. I think that'll be really interesting to delineate the difference, I guess between those two as well.

I: Yeah. And there's like a fair amount of research happening on the furry fandom in the furry community. I actually didn't think to look at peer reviewed journals before this, but I'm just like skimming it now and there's a nontrivial amount of research.

J: Oh, that’s kind of exciting.

I: So even just articles published in 2022, it looks like there's been 11 articles just this year, so far.

J: Wow. Oh, my. Okay. We're recording the last week of April. That's. That's like an article every other week, basically.

I: Yeah. And there's ten pages in Google Scholar just from 2021.

J:My God, that's incredible

I: for the term specifically “furry fandom”.

J: Oh, interesting. So there's a lot of research to be had out there that we were distracted by the concept of the Lion King and Balto. But yeah, that's fascinating.

I: And it's cool of the science is out there and exists and people are studying the community and maybe we can do like a second episode, just like looking at some of the research highlights.

J:Yeah, I think that'll be really, really cool.

I: Okay. Stay tuned for a second episode on the furry fandom research highlights and what Iris can find through their research networks and maybe find one of these researchers that I, I might know some of these people.

J: It is so cool. The people you know, by the way, I just find that absolutely iconic. If you want us to do that episode sooner rather than later, shoot us an email DM us on Twitter. There is a form on our website. We've got kinky queeries dot com, and if you go on there on the bottom of the homepage, there should be a Google form to fill out and just put your questions there or just scream at us in the comments. Scream gently, be nice. We're we're human beings. All right. Now, after this episode, we might not be 100% human beings.

I: I mean, as we talked about cat, duck, horse.

J: Fun fact. By the way, the earliest published images of Pet Play is pony play it more often than not and it's..

I: I know!

J: Yeah from like the 1940s even going so far back is that it's the history of pony play is extensive it is obviously like when you think of pet play, the first thing that tends to come to mind, at least from my colloquial perspective, would be like putting on the cat ears or like puppy play. But I think in terms of percentage and visual history, I think pony play has a undeniably significant impact. Could the argument be made? Could the argument be made that as foxes are to the furry fandom and pony play, it could be to pet play. Because all I know is that when someone asks like, Hey, what's your favorite animal? And I have to say, Oh, it's foxes. They're like, Oh, that's like really cliche in the furry fandom. I'm like, Can you get off my dick for like 5 minutes?

I: Historically, yes, there's still a huge pony play scene in certain geographic regions, but I feel like cat play as a whole, like cats and pups have definitely taken over and are the wider majority that currently exists, but the ponies have created the history.

J: It makes sense too. There's a very physiological aspect to that beyond just like rolling over and being very cute.

I: Well, there's the, the dressing up and then there's the different competitions that pony players participate in. And then there's like very clear who is the rider and who is the pony dynamic within roleplaying.

J: Exactly. And the fact that like as someone who is dressed up as a horse wearing the like clippity cloppity hooves, you can be attached to a cart and pull someone.

I did that in a pride parade one year.

J: Did you really?

I: Yes, I did.And I pulled within the kink like all the leather daddies. There was just me pulling my friend in their wheelchair in the pride parade for all two miles.

J:That makes sense. And that's brilliant, by the way, also. Oh, my God, your feet. I don't even want to think about how much that would hurt.

I: Can we talk about the kids loved me and their parents hated me because I'm just like I'm clickety clopping in my trans colored pony play outfit and I have coconuts for hoods because any Monty Python references I am here for and I'm making the clip clop sounds and the kids are like, Oh my God, it's a pon! And then the parents are like, Look away!

J: Should I even mention that drama class we did in high school?

I: Oh, my God. That's the furry pipeline. Yeah, that's the furry.

J: So we went to high school together, and we were both in the theater program. Because obviously you were in the theater program. I decided to skip lunch and…

J: Oh, wait yeah, you weren't even registered for that class, were you?

I: No!

J: So part of it was like an exercise in physicality and like embodying the physicality of different characters. And I don't know what possessed our instructor to think this was the best way to do it, but she was like, OK for the next six weeks you're going to pick an animal, you're going to research everything about this animal and give a presentation on them. And then we are going to do like live improv sessions of these animals in their various biomes interacting with each other.

I: Then we had to create human characters based off of our animals characteristics.

J: Did we really?

I: Yes, we did.

J: Whole ass. I don't remember that.

I: For context, I was a hedgehog and my hedgehog was a librarian by the end of the six week assignment.

J: God, that's so cute. I don't remember that at all. I remember you teaching us that the term for baby hedgehogs is hoglets. In fact, that will live with me until I die. And then I remember after, like, because I. I was a red fox and everyone informed me how very cliche that was and that's fine. But I was like pouncing because foxes do that thing where they like dive into stuff basically like face first. And I was doing that for like a full class period. So my wrists were like all fucked up because I was landing on my hands. And my biggest takeaway from that class was immediately afterwards, like in between like class periods, another friend of ours would like massage my hands. And that's, that's where my memory resides, because I'm a touch starved idiot. But I, I don't remember turning them into people at all. This was literally a fursona like class. We took a fursona class. How did this happen?

I: I don't know. Theater is fucking weird.

J: I don't know where my notes are. I have no idea what my little Fox character was.

I: I can't confirm that. But my sister, because she's a theater dork, she took the same class and did the same fucking assignment. And I can confirm from her that they did the same fucking thing.

J: No, I. I don't doubt you for a second. I just. I cannot believe I completely forgot about that. So redacted high school name here, they're just churning out furries. That's what they're doing. Their students, they're using their taxpayer money for. I'll check one more Google thing, but it's got I'll just be like on like the old school emails or like a computer that's long since died. Oh, what a bummer.

I: Yeah, that sucks. I'm so sorry.

J: That's fine. If I was less of a coward, I could just make a new persona. I'm not going to do that though. I love it. Still marinating in the fact that you're a hedgehog fursona was a librarian. That's really cute.

I: Thank you.

J: That's really, really cute and good. I think..

I: Like you can see her, right?

J: Oh, hundo percent. I also like the stereotype of the sexy librarian is bad in the sense that it causes stress and harm to actual real life librarians. Moving that aside, the concept of sexy librarians is great like or a librarian that's like not even sexy during business hours, but is just like secretly very kinky, bespoke, brilliant, delicious. Do I know someone who has a D&D character based around that entire concept? Yes. I think a fursona D&D would be not a bad idea. I think they'd be like, Oh, hold on. I do have a fursona, actually.

I: [loud gasp]

J: I do have a fursona. My current D&D character that I play every Wednesday is a tabaxi fighter. And for those of you who aren't familiar with D&D, a tabaxi is basically a cat person. They're just anthropomorphized cats. His name is Calcifer Reed. He is like six foot something. He's big and stupid and he's orange. He's a big, dumb orange cat. And then when I made his Pinterest board, Pinterest was convinced I was a furry. And it was interested in like Pokémon fan art for like a week. So, yeah, I guess I do have a fursona.

I: Congratulations.

J: I don't know how I feel about this.

I: You don't have to feel anything about it. Like, Oh, no, another furry. It's not like there is millions.

J: Well, thank you so much for listening as we talk about our favorite things. If you've got a kinky question, send us your queries at kinkyqueeries@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @kinkyqueeries.

That's k i n k y q u e e r i e s. We will have our next episode ready for your eager ears in two weeks. That is May 17th, 2022.