Furries here at Castleton

Here is an article, dated November 16, in the Castleton Spartan, the student newspaper of Castleton State College in Vermont, USA:

http://www.castletonspartan.com/furries-here-at-castleton-1.3120059

It describes the furry fandom, with input from furries Scott Santamore, Amanda "Pine Cole" Green, and Meghan Hakey.

Typical hobbies for college students often include blogging, drinking or playing a sport, but for Scott Santamore, his hobby is a little furrier.

“A furry isn’t just the fur suit part of it, but it’s somebody who enjoys the furry fandom. It could be the art aspect of it or just enjoying the idea of anamorphic animals,” Santamore said.

Each fur suit is unique and represents a different personality. Santamore’s furry is a purple and orange Husky. He says he picked those colors because they’re like a yin-yang. Where one side of the husky has orange in a spot, the other side mimics with purple.

“My furry is a pygmy goat. I chose a goat because I'm stubborn, playful, vegan, and I like to head-butt my friends,” said Amanda Green, a Lyndon State student. “My character is male because I tend to relate to male characters more than females.”

Greens’ furry’s name is Pine Cole and his colors are gray, black, and white with lime green accents.

“His right ear has a white accent on it to reflect my own natural blonde patch that is on the right-back side of my head,” Green added.

However, a furry isn’t just a hobby to some; but a sexual fetish. Yes, some like to take it into the bedroom.

“I think it’s a little weird. At the same time I don’t want to judge people. They like what they like. It’s definitely nothing I’m interested in,” Santamore said.

Though, sex is just one small aspect, there are some die-hard furry fans out there. Some that will go far enough like Green, and make their fur suits.

“I’ve been making fur suits for 2 years. I’ve made 11, so far,” Green said.

Green explains that making the fur suit is quite the process and that she’s still learning.

“The first thing you need to do is to study the animal you wish to create. Draw it out and make sure you have a design. It's very necessary to have the design to look back on throughout the entire process,” Green said. “To generalize the actual construction, I start out by carving foam into the shape I want. I then make my own patterns, and fabricate the foam base. The last thing I do is add the eyes.”

Green and Santamore are just two people interested in this large fandom. Like super heroes, Doctor Who, and Harry Potter, furries, too, have a convention. Luckily for Green and Santamore, they were able to attend FurFright recently.

“I was absolutely in love with the fact that I could see in person the fur suits I had admired from pictures on the internet,” Green said.

Though, Green and Santamore are huge fans, they both don’t wear their fur suits as often as they would like.

“I’ll wear it maybe for two or three hours absolute max for a few different reasons. It’s very tiring and it also gets really hot in that suit. Your average fur suit gets about 110 degrees in about twenty minutes,” said Santamore.

Seeing a furry on campus is something new to many. Some run away with fright, while curious others stay and ask questions.

Theater major, Meghan Hakey, took it further and did her own research on the unique hobby.

“I think it’s actually good that people have an outlet like this,” Hakey said. “I mean, Comic Con is a really huge thing and people go dressed as super heroes and comic book characters, so if people want to dress like animals, that’s cool.”