So I watched CSI tonight, as I do regularly, and it was the furry episode. A number of friends said they couldn’t bear to watch and asked me to tell ’em how bad it was.

And yeah, it wasn’t great. But it was funny.

The standard disclaimer for any readers who may not know the drill–obviously, that’s not what the furry thing is like. I’ve been several conventions selling art, and no one has ever made any kind of weird advance at me, I’ve never witnessed people in giant suits getting it on, and people generally don’t just start randomly grooming perfect strangers, because that’s a good way to get your arm broken off and inserted someplace where it would require a forensics lab to locate. And most of the people are pretty normal. I always compare it to a Star Trek convention–sure, there may be some people in Klingon suits somewhere getting it on, but you’d really have to go looking. The average run of fans are just your average geek. (And to hear my father talk, neither Star Trek or furry conventions are as weird as a dog-grooming convention. I’ll take his word for that…those things sound frightening. I mean, I may have drawn chunky tapir women, but I’ve never spray-painted the dog purple and put glitter in its fur.)

But that said, I really don’t blame the show for taking the weirdest possible angle, because if I were writing the show, I’d do it too. Why? Because a bunch of weirdos in costumes writhing around to porno music is waaaaay better for the ratings than an hour of slightly geeky people in T-shirts with wolves on them arguing about whether the Lion King was a better movie than Watership Down. That is not good television. If I were making a show about a dead guy that showed up in a Klingon suit, to extend my metaphor, I would not spend the hour interviewing the several hundred people arguing about whether Kirk was better than Picard or how exactly warp speed worked, I’d find the orgy of people in Seven of Nine outfits, and the couple of freaks who really thought they were Vulcans. ‘Cos that’s a lot more interesting and the point of the TV show is to make interesting TV, not to present a fair and balanced documentary on “Geeks who like animals.” We normal people are boring. So while we’ll probably hear a lot of bitching and moaning from the furry community about it, my opinion is basically “Who cares?” It’s TV, of course they took the sensationalist route. As my grandmother would say, not worth getting your bowels in an uproar.

However, one thing bothered me. (Just one? Well, yes…)

The fursuit thing was not presented well. Leaving aside that there aren’t nearly that many fursuiters at a convention–it’s generally only a few percent, not the whole group by any means, or I wouldn’t be there!–those things are hot. And heavy. And most importantly, if you (like the murder victim) are violently ill and vomiting, I’m pretty damn sure you would not be wearing the suit. You certainly would not be wearing the head–there are some people a little too into costumes, yes, but I don’t think anyone is going to attempt to projectile vomit through the muzzle of a giant raccoon suit. I mean, come ON. Sensationalism, fine, but this is downright idiotic. Those things have got to be hard to clean.

Almost as idiotic as the one where the chick who had porphyria was making sports shakes out of joggers. I’m still miffed about that. I mean, come ON! You can’t counteract a hemoglobin deficiency by DRINKING blood! That’s just–blagh! I’m still pissed. Sports shakes, my ass…

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