(NOTE: This journal was carried over from the previous iteration of SoFurry as the updated version of the website no longer offers support for user journals. As such, some verbiage may seem out of place.)

Does Viscosisaurus is Gay?

Recently, I posted a revised and updated version of the first story I ever shared online with the furry community, Glazed. It was written some time in 1998 most likely (as I mentioned in the author's notes of the submission '98 is the earliest possible time because I did not start writing stories until I upgraded my home computer system to Windows 98). The story, which is basically a "coming out" tale of a college freshman, was something of an overnight hit when it was originally posted over 25 years ago. (Well, it was as much of a "hit" as something could've been on the very early internet.) I remember checking my email a few days after sharing it and seeing several messages from furs who'd read the story and really liked it. Positive feedback like that continued to trickle in as I assume the link to the story made the rounds to each little pocket of the burgeoning fandom. It was eventually posted to Yiffstar (under its original name on my original account, both withheld) where it remained an artifact of early gay furry erotica.

I wrote the story because something that allegedly happened at the college I attended at the time sparked my imagination. I don't actually know if this was the absolute first story I ever posted; it's been so long since then and the original file creation dates on my floppies and backups are incorrect after multiple format conversions and transfers (both of which mess with the original date information) that I'm having to ballpark a lot of these older works of mine. I dabbled with a lot of random sorts of writings on my new computer back then. Some of them I posted, some of them I did not. Some of them I only ever emailed to other people when they asked me if I had other stories I was working on. For the most part I cannot remember which was which. Whatever the case, Glazed wound up being the story that "defined" me for the first many years I participated in the fandom. (And again, it's original name was not "Glazed", that's just the revised edition. I'm not fully comfortable flashing that much of my hand at this time. I'm speaking about the story in a general sense here using its current name.)

The one pitfall that came with Glazed being my big moment was that it led a lot of furs to believe I was gay myself. I broke a lot of hearts back in the day, because I'm not. Some of the closest friends I made in the furry community were gay men, and while I loved them like brothers, I did not love them like partners. In meatspace I'm really only interested in women, but when it comes to fantasy and anthro art and whatnot I kind of go "both ways". I know I probably did a bad job of conveying my sexuality to others though because my old fursona was depicted in all sorts of situations with partners of both genders; if someone didn't peg me as gay they most certainly would've assumed I was bisexual. Technically that's not incorrect I suppose, but like I said that preference is only relevant to things like artwork and stories. I enjoy the fantasy aspect of it, but realistically it's not something for me. Case in point, I wrote Glazed because objectively I liked the idea of two college-aged dinosaurs discovering each other, with one of them coming from a troubled background where those kinds of feelings were completely forbidden and the other being able to help that student feel more confident in his identity. I didn't write myself in as either character, neither of them are based on me or my fursona. Really though, I think the way I framed the story itself is the reason why it went over so well. Gay furry smut comes a dozen to a dime in the fandom -- always has -- but most of that I feel is just pornographic content for the sake of personal gratification. Yeah, there's sex in the story I wrote but there's a personal connection between the characters too that perhaps resounded with the people who read it. I don't know, maybe I am looking too far into it. There was something about this story that elevated it above a lot of what was available though, that much cannot be denied.

For those of you who are, today, the age of the characters in the story I wrote over two and a half decades ago I hope you enjoyed a brief visit to how the fandom was in its infancy, likely perhaps before you were even born. Nothing flashy, nothing overtly kinky or fetishistic. It didn't need to be that way. Just a one-shot story about two guys played straight. Or not straight, actually. That was a bad turn of phrase to use.

Thanks for reading. I cannot remember how things panned out when I posted the original story to Yiffstar years after the fact but while looking at the page of stories that are currently popular this week Glazed made the list, about two-thirds down the first page. It is the first story I've posted as "Viscosisaurus" to reach that page on SoFurry as far as I know. I'm no stranger to the "most popular" pages as a very long time ago I was a regular face there, but it's been what feels like a lifetime. It's nice to know that perhaps I've still "got it". And I have a lot more stories to share in the future. If you're not already registered on the SoFurry X beta website (sofurrybeta.com) get on over there and join in! I feel like I'm one of the only people posting content over there, haha.