5 FURRY CONVENTIONS YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD OF PART 3

https://flooftube.net/w/rTCsc3CahmiRSQ4dKw9fmL

well that's a headline

https://channels.im/@nfl/114465425810819825

(links to: https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/30478/ )

#furry #FurryConvention #FurryConventions

A thread about social VR:

I finally exported some pictures from inside Resonite. I shared some with friends who don't play VR, and that experience really got me thinking.

Right now, the Resonite community still seems fairly small, but people seem to believe it's still growing. At any given time, I see that the online player count is ~200, bumping up against the attendance number for the smallest furry convention I've ever been to.

Socially, it feels very similar, too. I'm starting to wonder why, and how similar they really are.

#Resonite #Furries #FurryConventions #FanConventions #VirtualReality

I feel like more big projects should have someone on staff to help users contribute. I'm not sure what I'd call it, but maybe it falls under "community manager."

I am not a "developer," by which I mean I've never been paid to write executable source code, and I don't fully understand the tools that a developer needs to be soaked in before writing useful pull requests.

What I am is an engineer who has experience reverse-engineering code to find bugs. Furthermore, I'm an enthusiastic #Linux user, I pretty regularly contribute to #OpenStreetMap, and I help run #FurryConventions: I WANT to contribute to your community.

But your project is big enough that I'm not sure how to help, or whether I know enough to help. Does your wiki need to be fleshed-out? Well, if I have to reverse engineer your code to make a certain feature work, I want the notes I take in that process to go to some use...

I think, in my experience, OpenStreetMap has the best onboarding experience I've been through. I went from being terrified of breaking the map with the default editor to happily cleaning up many errors left in by previous contributions and mapping whole new areas with fancy editors on my phone and laptop.

If nothing else, OSM has been very clear that the map will never be perfect and that everybody is welcome to make any changes that they're confident will improve the map. I think that attitude is not encouraged nearly enough, especially in wiki-based documentation projects.

I have a question for furry convention goers...

How far ahead of time do you start prepping for it? As in reserving a room, buying a badge early, etc. Kinda wanted to see if that was a normal thing.

I had my eye on MFF for a bit, but considering the issues I've had lately, that might be out of the question, unless if I got a sudden invite to a room or something. Otherwise, I have been looking at FWA, which is still a ways out there. Thought about planning for that sooner rather than later.

#furryconventions #FurryFandom #furry #mff #fwa

Spoiler: It’s nothing scandalous or bad.

Every once in a while, someone posts this photo on Twitter to attempt to dunk on furries:

Over the years, I’ve seen this discourse play out several times.

The people that post this photo usually don’t elaborate on why they think this photo is meaningful, they just let it stand alone and expect their audience to fill in the blanks.

So let’s leave nothing to the imagination!

I’m going to take somewhat of a Q&A format for this blog post, which is a slight departure from my usual writing style.

But first, let’s tackle the most important point:

STI Testing is a damn good idea

If you’re organizing any type of public event–be it a gaming, anime, steampunk, cyberpunk, or comic book convention, music concert, medieval or renaissance festival, and so on–you should consider doing what Midwest FurFest does.

This is obvious to most queer people, but might be counter-intuitive at first. So let me explain.

Any large gathering of people is likely to lead to adults hooking up. This is a fact of life, especially when alcohol is involved.

Having a convenient way to know your status onsite is a great way to allow consenting adults to make informed decisions about their sexual health, especially if they’re not generally promiscuous and aren’t in the habit of getting tested regularly.

Let me emphasize: the most sexually promiscuous adults are generally already in the habit of getting regularly tested, so the onsite STI testing doesn’t actually do much for them.

This only helps people who don’t regularly visit their health department or planned parenthood to know their status.

Therefore, free onsite STI testing is a damn good idea to protect the health of your community.

Even if you hold some weird disdain for the habitually sexually promiscuous (“sluts”), this service primarily benefits everyone else, since any ethical slut already knows their goddamn status as well as the status of anyone they’re fucking that night.

Any event that can afford to offer Free STI testing and doesn’t probably doesn’t care about adults making informed decisions about their sexual health.

Furry conventions are for furries, which are overwhelmingly LGBTQIA+ compared to the rest of the population. That one of our conventions can afford to take steps to protect the sexual health of its adult attendees is a damn good idea, even if it was limited to HIV at first.

Everyone should consider stealing this idea from us.

Seriously, it’s not the 1980’s anymore. Everyone is at risk of HIV. It isn’t just us gays that need to be careful.

What are the other benefits of offering STI Testing at conventions?

Aside from the obvious benefits to public health, there are some other community benefits to offering STI screenings at large public gatherings like conventions.

Specifically, it destigmatizes sexual health and people who are HIV-positive.

It doesn’t encourage “degeneracy” (which is a word loaded with historical baggage that many people aren’t aware of).

It encourages people to know their status and ask prospective partners their status–and, if they don’t know, provides a convenient way to get tested before any sexual activity occurs. This obviously prevents the spread of STIs and is a great idea for public health.

How much does this cost MFF?

As far as I’m aware? Nothing, aside from dedicated convention space and maybe some parking passes for the hotel. This doesn’t touch the convention budget.

Howard Brown Health approached MFF years ago and, from what I can gather, continues to cover the cost of STI testing.

(HBH is Chicago-specific, though. I can’t promise there’s a congruent organization in your area, specifically. I’ll update this post if I find a good resource for finding local organizations beyond “ask your local health department”.)

What is the context behind this photo?

Midwest FurFest usually overlaps with World AIDS Day.

Many years ago, they decided to start offering free onsite HIV testing in observance:

https://twitter.com/FurFest/status/804366774699429888

Many people realized what a damn good idea that free HIV testing was for conventions, so the demand for these tests far exceeded what they anticipated.

Thus, by popular demand, they have continued this forward in the years since.

https://twitter.com/FurFest/status/1595450934410170368

In addition to being overwhelmingly queer today, the furry community has a long history of queer involvement going back to its roots.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIPk-itLl1jOlIa2wTnu-1wpivom6MTd-

The photo at the top was from 2018–the third year of this service being offered.

Unlike the other photos of the booth signs taken over the years, that particular photo was posted on a subreddit dedicated to hating furries (r/yiffinhell). This may explain why it’s the specific photo that always gets reposted by people trying to dunk on furries.

(Also: Try harder next time. This kind of dunk is self-defeating.)

This photo is proof that furries are sex freaks!

Wrong. Humans in general are sex freaks. Furries really aren’t that special here.

To wit: Ask any experienced event organizers about their experiences with Tupperware conventions, and you’ll hear stories that make furry convention antics seem tame in comparison.

Alternatively, ask about academic or medical conferences.

Furthermore, as I explained above, offering free HIV testing (or even free STI testing) doesn’t actually benefit the kinds of “sex freaks” that you may be worried about.

But sex is evil!

What’s actually wrong with sex? None of us would be alive if it weren’t for people having sex.

Rape is bad. Clearly. The difference between rape and sex is consent. So if the conduct is occurring between consenting adults, who cares? Let them fuck who they want. You’re not responsible for them.

In an environment where sexual health is taken seriously, inadvertently encouraging sexual promiscuity by making these tests available… doesn’t actually hurt anyone.

Like, stop and think about it. What specific harm is it causing, and who specifically would actually be harmed?

Furry may be a sex-positive space, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily sexualized. There’s a difference between the two terms, y’know!

Why talk about this?

There’s a tendency among some furries to promote negative peace, especially when it involves the media.

I’m not one of them.

We need to acknowledge and deal with problems that happen in our community, and hold people accountable for misbehavior. We cannot do this if we cannot talk about problems. Real problems are not “drama”.

If there was any social downside to STI testing being offered at conventions, I’d talk openly about it. But there isn’t any.

The only “problem” occurs when bigots and imbeciles try to make it seem like bad optics to do the bare minimum to prevent the transmission of STIs in their community.

Don’t fall for their deceptions. If you’re reading this page, you’re probably better than that.

Also, my blog tends to rank high on search engines, so I saw fit to write about this topic so when someone seeks to fact-check this photo, they’ll have the opportunity to learn about it.

TL;DR

Furry conventions offering STI testing is a damn good idea that everyone should copy for their own events.

https://soatok.blog/2024/09/30/why-are-furry-conventions-offering-hiv-testing-to-attendees/

#conventions #furries #furryConventions #FurryFandom #HIVTesting #publicHealth #STITesting

Furries getting featured on CityNerd! #FurryCon #FurryConventions #Urbanism
Milwaukee even featured for the Midwest! Which lines up quite well since FurSquared moved to downtown Milwaukee this year and is in the main hotel that's attached to the convention center (not using it yet).

Great to see AC's DLC also featured as well as Furrydelphia in a great spot, curious if it'll grow enough to warrant moving into con center eventually.

Everything packed and ready for the Christmas days and Furvester afterwards  

#furvester #furvester5 #furryconventions #paws #rayucandycane