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Naked Furries! (UPDATE)

5 years ago2,567 words

What defines nudity, exactly? Or furries? Is Sonic the Hedgehog a discomfitingly naked furry? Is Memody?

There've been a few comments over the course of the development of Sindrel Song suggesting that sindrels are 'furries', and that Memody is 'naked' in the intro (and trailer) in a way that would make people uncomfortable to share with others, for fear that they might be seen as some kind of deviant. I'm curious about the psychology behind this, as I don't see the sindrels as 'furries' and I didn't mean Memody to appear 'naked'. But what creates that impression for some people?

(I actually wrote this a while ago but didn't post it because I thought if I didn't draw attention to it, maybe nobody will have any issues with it. A couple of comments on the previous post about the trailer motivated me to rethink that.)

Is Memody a Furry?

While doing a bit of research about this, I learned that to most people, the term 'furry' is explicitly equated with a sexual fetish. This is surprising to me, since I spent my formative years on deviantART, where a lot of young artists drew what was usually referred to as 'anthro' art (perhaps to avoid these connotations), or even had fursuits, but I didn't get the impression that any of it was sexual for most of them. It seemed to be drawn at least partly from feelings of not belonging in the ordinary world around people, so they found a sense of identity in this specific kind of differentness, perhaps inspired by thoughts like "other people treat me badly, but my dogs love me, and I feel more at ease around them". The sexual stuff definitely does seem to be a part of "furry culture" for some individuals, but to link together anything anthropomorphic with deviant sexuality seems irritatingly small-minded. No different to assuming that anyone non-heterosexual must be some kind of deviant rapist who's unsafe to leave your children with, which is a belief that definitely has been widely held before such things became more culturally acceptable to support.

I suppose I feel like I'm unusual with things like this though because I regard them with open-minded curiosity about their underlying psychology, whereas other people seem quick to put things into small boxes, which they then judge negatively based on the worst connotations. Another example is incels; they're all murderers-to-be, no less bad than ISIS, right? There's no nuance, just dehumanisation. Anyone who shows anything other than revulsion towards these outgroups is a weird, potentially dangerous Other, not a member of the tribe, who must be shunned to reinforce the safe certainty of our group membership. It's all social psychology, and it's the root of so much misery in the world. Condemnation over compassion, to protect one's own status.

But what exactly makes something a 'furry' in the eyes of the judgemental? Is it anything that's humanoid without being human? Does it have to be clearly based on an existing animal? Which of these would be considered furries?



The na'vi are an interesting example there because I've seen those referred to as 'furries', but they stray further from the definition of "anthropomorphic animal" than, say, Mickey Mouse, who I've not heard widely referred to as such. If you take 'furry' to specifically require mammalian fur (so Doctor Zoidberg, despite being an anthropomorphic crustacean (sort of), wouldn't be a furry), the na'vi clearly don't qualify. Chewbacca has fur but isn't explicitly based on an Earth animal, but I've not seen him referred to as a furry.

Sindrels don't have fur (at least not obvious fur), but they're not based on Earth animals either. Still, something about them registers as 'furry' to some people rather than simply 'alien'. Perhaps people only interpret things as 'alien' if they look like monsters or greys. That says a lot about mental categorisation and perceptions of 'others' too, I think. I'm assuming with sindrels it's the snouts and big ears that lead to this categorisation.

I'm really interested in the cognition of categorisation, and it's something I covered while studying a cognitive psychology module at university. It's fascinating how people with neurological deficits experience deterioration of their ability to categorise objects, so for example what they'd first call a 'duck', they might with further degradation see only as a 'bird', then as an 'animal', then, bizarrely, as a 'vehicle', in the latest stages of their withering mind. I wonder what reality looks like to someone who sees ducks as vehicles. I could write a post about just this, but I don't really have the time to go into proper depth right now, unfortunately! (I tried to find some studies, but don't have the time.)

I do wonder which of these you'd consider to be a furry though, and why.

Is Memody Naked?

Nudity is taboo, obviously; it's associated with feelings of shame and sexual interest. There's nothing inherent about it that would elicit this response, though, and there are other cultures - mostly tribal - where it's not a big deal at all, much as the baring of arms or navels or cleavage is culturally okay in the modern West in a way it absolutely wouldn't have been just a century or so ago. It's interesting reading about ∞ the history of perceptions of nudity ∞; humans went around naked - just as animals do - for most of the time homo sapiens has been around. Covering ourselves - and feeling ashamed of naked bodies - is a very modern concept.

In Sindrel Song, Memody starts off without clothes, like a pure, blank canvas, on which life later makes its mark. The alternative - having her start off wearing something, even a loincloth - would mean that someone would have covered her unconscious body, which to me seems worse and weirder. Is she supposed to be ashamed of it? Why? Sindrels don't have human anatomy; they have no genitals, and the equivalent of females, owas, each have a single spherical 'gem' on their chest rather than breasts. They don't have anything to cover.

There are plenty of characters who don't wear clothes, but who don't seem to register as 'naked'. Why is that?



Is it something about body shape? Memody has a feminine figure, with wider hips and defined buttocks. I've never been sexually attracted to bums - I always thought "everyone has one, where's the interest?" - but it's obvious that a lot of people do sexualise them. I talked before, ages ago, about making this sindrel model, and feeling particularly happy with the bum not because I think it's sexy or anything, but because I like how the modelled topology turned out. It's a tricky area to model well! Sonic doesn't have anything going on down there shape-wise, perhaps because of this; I wonder whether much of the negative perceptions of that recent movie Sonic were because the shapes were more defined. I think I read something to that effect somewhere.

There's this Sonic character, though:



I remember seeing this a few years ago, and being surprised that she did have all the female curves, but still no clothes. If anything, the jacket she is wearing just draws attention to the fact that she's not wearing anything else. But does that register as naked? While googling for that image, I noticed that there were a few variations, with the oldest-looking ones being the least clothed and what seemed the most modern being fully covered. An interesting case of something being treated more puritanically as time has gone on. Or maybe it was just a response to the masses of very questionable fan art that the Sonic franchise seems to have bizarrely inspired. Something made with innocent intentions can very easily be warped into something disturbing by the twisted minds of the masses.

I'm particularly curious about things like this:



Mystique is as female-bodied as you can get, in terms of curves; the only differences between her and what we'd clearly see as a naked woman are the lack of nipples and genitals and a change of skin colour. No doubt some people would fetishise this, but that's true of a lot of things. (I once came across someone on deviantART whose gallery was full of eroticised drawings of characters based around the Pokemon Magnezone, if you can imagine such a thing.) I suppose Mystique has those black dot patterns though. Are they what make this acceptable? Or were the sorts of people who'd be uncomfortable about Memody's 'nudity' also uncomfortable about this character?

Back to bums, though:



Is that image uncomfortably inappropriate, or just silly? Obviously it's meant to be silly, and they got away with including it in a children's cartoon (though Ren and Stimpy got away with all kinds of weird stuff). Is it entirely because they're male buttocks? Would it be a different matter if they were female? Would you see female cartoon characters portrayed like this? I can't think of examples myself, so perhaps it is the case that we culturally fetishise female buttocks but not male ones, at least not in the same way?

It's not really something I've given any thought to before. I'm imagining a situation in something like a cartoon or a sitcom, where a character finds themselves naked due to some zany antics or whatever, and they're standing with their legs together, their shoulders hunched, and their hands over their genitals, embarrassed. They waddle off screen, and as they do so, you get a look at their bum as the laugh track plays, because showing the genitals is an absolute no-no, but showing the bum is a cheap laugh. Would this be the case if the character were female though? Would she waddle off screen, hands covering her crotch and chest, as the laugh track plays at the sight of her bare bum? I feel like I've seen this a few times with male characters, but can't recall seeing the same with a female one. Strange.

Speaking of cartoons, here's something I remember seeing a few years ago, which stuck with me because I've been wondering about these perceptions for a long time. It's from a series of modern Mickey Mouse shorts, which I watched a few of because I found it fascinating that that character was actually being used for something beyond being a mascot. The very first episode draws attention to the fact that Mickey goes around topless and Donald Duck goes around pantsless; they combine their clothes so that Donald is fully dressed and Mickey ends up naked.



I find it interesting that his 'nudity' is treated as something he's ashamed of and has to hide from others, though it's in full view of the camera, with nothing obscuring him from the viewer's eyes at all. It's so odd seeing Disney's cherished mascot portrayed like that. Unsurprisingly, the male characters are the ones who end up naked, but the female ones aren't subject to such humiliation.

I imagine it's because being found naked is more of a real cause of distress for women, because of how sexualised and objectified they've typically been? So a woman ending up naked isn't comedy, it's drama. Is that it?

I remember seeing a weird episode of Spongebob Squarepants years ago, though, where Sandy finds herself 'naked' and locked out of her house, or something. I can't remember the details, other than that her 'nudity' is depicted as a loss of fur, though she's still wearing a bikini over the top. I think people point at her and laugh at how she's 'naked' regardless, though? I found it odd at the time that they'd chosen the female character for this wacky story meant for children, and wondered if any of the creative team had issues with it, whose idea it originally was. (As an aside, her name - Sandy Cheeks - is a bum joke, on a female character.)



Perhaps the feelings of nudity arise from the contrast between Memody and the other sindrels, especially Hearth, who's wearing pants when he meets her. If he wasn't wearing clothes either, perhaps Memody wouldn't register as naked. Perhaps it's like a power thing, where the 'nudity' suggests a lack of power compared to Hearth. Perhaps males are assumed to have a natural kind of power or dominance anyway, so seeing one naked is funny because he's robbed of that, but seeing a woman naked isn't because she was already assumed to be lacking power to begin with, something like that? In this, Hearth being clothed while Memody isn't during their first meeting was meant to show a contrast between him being experienced with life and her just beginning, but obviously there can often be a gulf between intention and interpretation due to a whole lot of different factors.



As with many things, I'm curious about the psychology behind why people perceive some things as nudity but not others, though I imagine a lot of people aren't interested in that mental exploration and just stop at reactions and form judgements. Annoying.

I don't particularly want Sindrel Song to be seen as a pervy furry thing, or for people to be hesitant to share it with others because they're worried about being perceived as such. But I do wonder what about it is actually causing these perceptions at all.

What do you think? And what do you think could be changed to change this interpretation? Would having her wake into the world wearing clothes be the only way, or could the nudity perceptions be nullified by altering the shape of her body?

Even if I don't actually change anything, I think it's interesting to see how people interpret things like this.

UPDATE

This has provoked some really interesting comments, which I'd like to reply to but probably can't today because I've pretty much crashed due to tiredness! I've been getting around 4-5 hours of sleep for weeks, and I really need to correct that because it's got to the point where it's incapacitating...

Anyway, this is just a quick update to say that I edited Memody to give her a loincloth whenever she's not wearing pants. I don't like this at all, because it makes no sense in-universe, and it suggests there's something to be ashamed of when there's not, or that there's something to cover (I don't like the idea of people assuming there are genitals under there), but it seems as if most people felt discomfort at least to some degree about seeing her 'naked', and it didn't seem wise to release the game with that included. She's still 'topless', because I wanted to make it clear that owas have a gem on their chest, though I've edited the look of it a bit, and I wonder if that makes it 'feel' like she's not topless? To me it does, but then again I never saw her as inappropriately naked.

∞ Here's an updated version of the trailer. ∞

(Some of the footage hasn't been re-recorded though so her gem changes appearance between clips. I'd like to fix this, but as I said, I crashed!)