That's a tough one. I've never met anyone who would seriously walk up to you and state something along the lines of "I'm part wolf!" even though I know that people like this certainly do exist.
On one end, human cultures with a more shamanistic bend have been known to associate humans with animals. This doesn't mean you're creating instances of zoomorphism, but that you're instead seeing parts of an animal's professed character in a given person. Hell, even some Western cultures do it. Why do you think some people are said to be "eagle-eyed" or "weasely" in nature?
Honestly believing you've got some animal guts, though, and that you need a fursuit for your "true self" to show, however, seems like an altogether different beast. I think people who go so far as to lose normal attraction levels for their fellow humans probably need to sit down and have a chat with a psychologist, or they're forgetting that in some ways, their idealized animal lifestyle would be far less, well, human, than what they're currently going through.
Consider that in most cases, furries don't choose wolves, for instance, as the entirety of what they are. They pick and choose the appearance, the heightened senses and the fact that having fur seems appealing to them, but most of the furries I've met liberally "Disney-ify" their fursonas.
So when some of my furry friends tell me they'd sometimes rather be wolves, I'm the first to ask them if they *really* would rather be forced to live in near-constant hunger, in situations where social dynamics can turn lethal at any moment, and where for all of their noble bearing, they're actually far inferior to your average gun-wielding human.
That usually gives them pause. Furries tend to have a highly idealized view of their elected species, usually perceiving animals from that species as being free spirits, as opposed to Humanity's legion of small proclivities.
It's never quite that simple, obviously.
I, personally, find a few species interesting from a design perspective, or in how they've come to mean something to your average human culture. That doesn't change the fact that I'm pretty happy with being a Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
On one end, human cultures with a more shamanistic bend have been known to associate humans with animals. This doesn't mean you're creating instances of zoomorphism, but that you're instead seeing parts of an animal's professed character in a given person. Hell, even some Western cultures do it. Why do you think some people are said to be "eagle-eyed" or "weasely" in nature?
Honestly believing you've got some animal guts, though, and that you need a fursuit for your "true self" to show, however, seems like an altogether different beast. I think people who go so far as to lose normal attraction levels for their fellow humans probably need to sit down and have a chat with a psychologist, or they're forgetting that in some ways, their idealized animal lifestyle would be far less, well, human, than what they're currently going through.
Consider that in most cases, furries don't choose wolves, for instance, as the entirety of what they are. They pick and choose the appearance, the heightened senses and the fact that having fur seems appealing to them, but most of the furries I've met liberally "Disney-ify" their fursonas.
So when some of my furry friends tell me they'd sometimes rather be wolves, I'm the first to ask them if they *really* would rather be forced to live in near-constant hunger, in situations where social dynamics can turn lethal at any moment, and where for all of their noble bearing, they're actually far inferior to your average gun-wielding human.
That usually gives them pause. Furries tend to have a highly idealized view of their elected species, usually perceiving animals from that species as being free spirits, as opposed to Humanity's legion of small proclivities.
It's never quite that simple, obviously.
I, personally, find a few species interesting from a design perspective, or in how they've come to mean something to your average human culture. That doesn't change the fact that I'm pretty happy with being a Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
