using the rectangle dog as an example:
^ this? this is not designed to be horny. this is a rectangle. ofc this doesn't stop people from being attracted to the rectangle dog dad, primarily for more abstract reasons like his personality, voice, characterization, fatherhood, etc. when describing him without describing his visuals, he would be an attractive person to a lot of people, up until you mention that he is a rectangle, which aren't very sexy to many people. which then leads them to externalizing this idea of him, this more abstract attraction, to something more tangible, like this:
^ this is just an extrapolation of the conceptual ideas that would be the original source of attraction. a rectangle shaped dog does not visually convey "a stocky, early middle age father with some extra body fat who's sweaty," all traits used to describe the rectangle in the show at some point. people like those ideas more than they like the rectangle. so they manifest it visually in art like this, art that is designed to be arousing and lusted after. i feel like i should not need to explain how obvious this is, given the image, the perspective of him being taller than the viewer, the focal points of the composition being the shirtless masculine torso and the hairy armpit, the exaggerated tufts of body hair throughout, the extremely short shorts, adding nipples to the design. it is not insane to see this as sexually appealing
the issue is that both of these images are "Bandit, the dog from Bluey." and people will unironically and very seriously say that these two images are the same thing. because they show the same subject. which feels purposefully obtuse and stupid. they are the same subject but it's abstracted to the point where the second image may as well be something completely different. this is like, an entry level understanding as to why people are into seemingly completely unsexual characters in things, especially furries.
when people go "how is anyone even attracted to Animal Crossing characters they're like toy dolls" no one is going to disagree, but it feels purposefully obtuse to act like most of those people are jerking it to the models directly from the games. you give one of those animal guys a personality that people are attracted to (ie they're haughty and snooty and a bit domineering toward the player), some people are going to extrapolate that and translate it to works of art that could better visualize their "idea" of the character in a sexual way.
[SIDENOTE: this is not to assert that no one could find these original designs sexual in their own right. there are many people who are plushfuckers or just otherwise very much into imagery that's almost entirely "unsexual" to most people's eyes. and they are #valid for that, ofc. also also many times this sexualization was there from the start. it's a meme to hear furries go "they knew what they were doing with this one!!" but they actually do, very often. artists are horndogs. like they absolutely knew what they were doing with Rouge the Bat or any female lead character in a Disney animal people movie.]
and once that art's out there, it's can start a cycle of people seeing this sexualized art, which then informs their ideas and perspective of the original source character, which could then lead them to making art themselves, also to be part of a trend or community (aka how fandoms work, generally). but the statement "i wanna fuck the rectangle dad from Bluey" still sounds insane, because people think you mean the first image, and not the second image, likely because they haven't seen the second image
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