Fringe Florida: Travels Among Mud Boggers, Furries, Ufologists, Nudists, and Other Lovers of Unconventional Lifestyles (20 page)

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know her customers’ motivations.

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Although no one can definitely say why the Sunshine State has a

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large furry community, it’s no coincidence that central Florida thrives

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on the industries of anthropomorphic characters—theme parks and

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computer animation. Furs tend to be guys under thirty who are into

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video-game marathons and comic-book conventions. They sometimes

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work in the industry. Disney World is a favorite outing. And yes, some

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do work there.

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In his book
Cast
Member
Confidential:
A
Disneyfied
Memoir,
former theme-park photographer Chris Mitchell wrote that Dale of the Chip

and Dale chipmunks once teased him with her bushy tail. He claimed

two cast members, Mickey and Minnie no less, sneaked their costumes

home for furry sex.

Many Florida furs seek companionship online. In fact, the state also

has more furries per capita registered to the popular fur personal ad

website, Pounded.com, than any other state in the union—nearly two

thousand. Only California and, oddly, Texas have more.

Furry personal ads are not fundamentally different than Vanilla per-

sonal ads. Some Florida furs seek fellow furries to simply hang out with

in fursuits and play video games. One Orlando fur wants to take furry

motorcycle rides. (Finding a mate who shares a passion for baseball is

tough enough. Just imagine how hard it is to connect with someone

who likes riding a Harley dressed like a squirrel.) And yes, some admit

they are blatantly searching for a quick yiff, which in the politest of

terms is a one-night stand. Furries into BDSM advertise for a fur slave

or pet. One Florida fur couple with a hip-thrusting pony avatar wants

to swing.

That said, a furry’s presence at a fetish convention implies he or she

gets off on it. But since you can’t trust appearances in Wonderland, I

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stalk a beagle in an attempt to learn more.

The Snoopy dog with long, floppy ears bounces from the exhibit hall

like a plush toy that’s come to life.

“Excuse me, can I ask you a few questions?” I ask the beagle, who, by

shape and stride, is clearly male.

He nods his muzzle up and down, then points to his mouth with one

paw.

“You can’t talk in your suit?”

The dog shakes his oversized furry head side to side, implying “no.”

“Maybe I can ask you some ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions?”

The beagle waves his paws in a doggy version of “bring it on.”

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I ask if he’s from Florida.

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The beagle waves a paw back and forth as if to say, “no, no, no.”

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“You’re not from Florida?”

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He coyly shrugs his shoulders.

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“What?” I ask, wishing I spoke fur.

He shrugs and cocks his head to one side in that cute way dogs do.

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Realizing that two-way communication with a human-dog is as

futile as trying to converse with my biological golden retriever, I thank

the beagle for the attempt. He lopes off to the men’s room. How ir-

ritated can you get with a cuddly-looking dog that doesn’t bark, bite,

hump your leg, or lift his leg by a potted plant? At least, not in this

setting.

It’s not until after leaving Fetish Con that I discover that the most

bizarre aspects of furridom and pony play—or any fetish for that mat-

ter—aren’t recognizable by costume. Like most things sexual, the turn-

ons are psychological. To see how strange, yet organic, the fetishes

really are you have to do more than try on a horse bridle or watch a

giantess superhero stomp on toy cities.

The pony play herd and their furry friends let me peek inside the

fetish psyche in the following months. After a little cajoling, Ponyg-

room Tim and Ponygirl Lyndsey agree to an interview at their home in

Deland, a quaint college town between Orlando and Daytona.

A Well-Rounded Pony

Sitting between an auto repair shop and a dilapidated house, Tim and

Lyndsey’s tiny rental home with weedy landscaping and tattered win-

dow screens is about as inviting as a barn on a dark country road. I have

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traveled 150 miles to come into the home of two people whom I know

nothing about other than they get sexually aroused by either pretend-

ing to be a horse or controlling someone who dresses like a steed at

Pompano Park. As I stand on a small, makeshift stoop of landscape

timbers and question my judgment, the door opens.

Tim, dressed in slacks and a dress shirt, greets me like a deacon at

the church door on a Sunday morning. He could pass for a rounder and

gentler Bill Maher with a similar receding gray hairline and knotted

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nose. His skin is pink and fair, and his voice is filled with the giggles of

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a child.

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Lyndsey is dressed like a deacon’s wife in black size-13 pumps, sheer

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black nylons, a flowing black skirt and matching white sleeveless poly-

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ester top. A silver pony pinned in the center of her chest adds a femi-

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nine touch while her foghorn “hello” belies her lingering manhood.

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Their living room is neatly arranged and clean with modest fur-

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nishings. Shelves of faux-wood bookcases like you find at Wal-Mart

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are lined with novels and accented with stuffed animals. Bridle head-

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dresses on Styrofoam heads are stored on top. Disassembled wooden

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pony hurdles are stacked against one wall. An upright piano holds an

antique family Bible heavy enough to knock out a horse. The only seat-

ing is a cushioned garden swing hanging from a metal stand and red

dining chairs arranged around a dining table covered with a fresh table-

cloth. A poster of a giant black boot against a red background hangs on

the wall behind the table, one of the few hints of their BDSM lifestyle.

Tim and Lyndsey turn around a couple dining chairs and sit. I take

the swing that doubles as their couch and a pony play/BDSM hitching

post.

Tim is loquacious and eager to educate me on the background of

pony play and his evolution into it. Before that, I learn more about

their lives outside kink.

They are both Christians and active in a local United Church of

Christ. Lyndsey is an ordained minister, plays the organ and piano

at church, and sings the lead operatic role in the church’s Christmas

musical.

Tim’s active in politics and is conservative with a libertarian bent.

He engineers implements for paratroopers, but doesn’t want to share

too many details, implying it’s classified. Lyndsey was a school music

teacher for twenty-five years and also taught at a college. She has two

master’s degrees in music, has completed doctoral courses, and she’s a

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trained opera singer, hence her nickname—“the singing ponygirl.”

They don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs.

Tim says that a large concentration of pony people live in the Ocala

area, which not coincidently claims to be the “horse capital of the

world.” More than two hundred farms there produce Kentucky Derby–

winning thoroughbreds and some of the world’s finest Arabians, warm-

bloods, quarter horses, and numerous other breeds. Perhaps it’s only

natural that the county also fosters a prominent herd of human ponies.

International Champs Foxy and Sherifox live on a farm with real horses

outside Ocala.

Tim explains that pony play competition ribbons go a long way to-

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ward establishing a trainer’s reputation and an area as a pony play hot-

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bed, much like winning the Kentucky Derby does for a bio-horse farm.

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Florida pony couples have claimed international titles three out of the

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past five years, with Foxy and Sherifox being the reigning champs. Foxy

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has a stable of four ponygirls, including Sherifox.

Florida’s perpetual warm, sunny weather also makes the state at-

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tractive for human ponies. They like that they can be whipped into a

gallop year-round in the outdoors. Trotting through beach sand to the

sound of the ocean’s roar is a particular treat. For emphasis, Tim shares

a photo of Sherifox and another filly wearing bridles, tails, hooved

hands, and little else as they cart Foxy along an empty Florida beach.

“Ponies like to work up a sweat,” Tim says. “A lot of them like to

work and like to feel something is going on. I get e-mail contacts fairly

frequently from people who want to come to Florida to train because

they imagine the harsh environment and heat.”

Tourist ponies are sometimes in a mixed relationship, that is, their

partner is a Vanilla. While vacationing in Florida, a pony spouse will

hoof around a private farm with a trainer for a day while his or her

Vanilla mate suns on the beach. “That’s their idea of a great vacation,”

Tim says. “Then they go home and it doesn’t happen much there.”

As Tim launches into his kinky background, Lyndsey, like a good

submissive, keeps an invisible ball gag in her mouth. He tells her we

will get to her story later.

Tim didn’t become a pony master until he moved to Florida in 2004,

but he’s been a kinkster since puberty. He started with self-bondage

and moved on to role-playing with his then-wife. Their cosplay grew be-

yond the bedroom, and they started traveling to other states for small

BDSM gatherings. proof

By the time Tim moved to Florida, he was bored with the standard

tie-me-up-and-whip-me scene. “I’ve done a lot with kink,” Tim says. “I

began to think, ‘What do I want to do?’ Do I want to retire? Just give it

up?”

Tim met his first ponygirl through his then-wife at a BDSM party.

“She was getting tacked up, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is an ac-

tual ponygirl!’” The young filly was having trouble fitting her harness.

“I bent over and said ‘would you let me adjust that, and adjust this,’ and

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it was just as sexy as all get out. It was the sexiest thing I had ever seen

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in my life.”

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During the course of the party, Tim and Ponygirl Anna made a con-

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tract, which in the BDSM world involves partners agreeing to fulfill cer-

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tain roles in a relationship. “Keep in mind, I’m still married while this

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is going on and I have her (his then-wife’s) consent to do this and she

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introduced us. It’s kind of spicy ’cause it seems a little weird,” Tim says,

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referring to his bond with a woman other than his wife, not training a

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human to act like a horse.

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Tim immersed in pony play. He taught “Pony101” at munches, which

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are informal gatherings of kinksters, often newbies. These fetish prim-

ers are held in nonsexual environments such as a restaurant or a park.

People might bring cookies, homemade casseroles, potato chips, and

Cokes. They share tips like how to whip safely or tie a square knot.

Florida has more advertised munches than any state except California.

Tim and his former ponygirl schlepped homemade rope bridles to

these kinky meet-ups all around Florida searching for other human po-

nies and trying to recruit new ones. “Sure enough, here and there, we

found this one and that one,” he says. “They were all across the state.

We had people drive from Miami to Ocala so they could meet a pony.

Gradually we accumulated a group of about two dozen people. That’s

how Florida pony play has developed.”

While Tim was building his credentials in pony world, Lyndsey was

beginning her public life as a woman. Lyndsey is a transsexual, a person

who feels he or she was born as the wrong sex.

Lyndsey explains her gender and sexuality, which are a lot to pro-

cess: Lyndsey is physically still a man. She feels she’s a woman and finds

comfort and arousal pretending to be a horse. She is what the BDSM

world calls a “switch,” someone who can play sadist or masochist, al-

though she prefers to only perform sadistic sex acts on others at Sir

Tim’s command. She has been bisexual her entire life. These layers may

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seem interconnected, but she emphasizes they are not. Transsexualism

is not a fetish, not a kinky sexual fantasy. Pony play and BDSM are.

Transsexuals can be bi, straight, or gay.

Before she met Tim and got into pony play, Lyndsey planned to have

sexual reassignment surgery. She continues to take hormones, hence

her large breasts and softer lines, but decided not to surgically change

her penis into a vagina. She says their pony play has made her more

comfortable with herself, and she’s resigned to the fact that surgery

can’t fully give her a woman’s body. “You are never going to have every-

thing a genetic female does.”

Like Tim, Lyndsey got into BDSM at an early age. She saw her first

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photo of a human pony as a teen. “I was one of those kids who liked