Nope, and there’s a very specific reason for that.
Shifting narratives weren’t a big part of the otherkin community or narrative until the past decade. So words like that simply weren’t needed. That we’re coming to a point when we feel they are needed in the otherkin community is a little bit tragic to me (but, that’s not what we’re here for).
In ye olden days, therianthropy was very focused on the experiences of shifting. If you didn’t experience shifting, many people wouldn’t consider you a therianthrope.
In 1997, Lion Templin wrote a series of essays on what he called contherianthropy, which wasn’t meant to be a ‘type’ of therianthropy or a way to say ‘therian but no shifting’. Contherianthropy was meant to be its own experience. And it was specifically his experience. I always want to emphasize that. This was a description of his experience of therianthropy/ being animal. That makes it difficult to translate the experience into something like conotherkinity. Certainly you could coin a word inspired by Templin’s writings and his use of ‘con’ (from ‘constans’) but there couldn’t be a direct parallel.
Naturally, new terms cause discourse and drama. So in comes sun/syntherianthropy, coined by Word Wolf because contherianthropy was rather rigid (which it was meant to be, because contherianthropy was Templin’s specific experience).
For those unaware about what suntherianthropy refers to, from Project Shift and Sonne, and also quoting WordWolf:
Suntherianthropy: This is a term defined by a single therian to describe his type of therianthropy, though it can and has been appropriately applied to other therians. It is pronounced “soon-therian” and derived from the Greek word “sun” meaning ‘with’, and used to indicate ‘with animal’ as the term suntherian. There’s also a syntherian variation used sometimes because of the two prefixes having the same meaning, though the creator of the term preferred the pronunciation of suntherian (many people, however, prefer the syntherian variation because of the more appropriate prefix). WordWolf, the creator of this term, defined it in 2005 as:
“This is similar to contherianthropy. In fact, it is what is USUALLY meant by contherianthropy.
A SUNTHERIAN is a therian whose therioside (primary or sole therioside) is integrated into his baseline personality.
HOWEVER, that integration does not prevent him/her from having minor fluctuations of mood that feel slightly more animal, or slightly less animal. He/she can feel them both at the same time, human and animal. He/she can NOT m-shift into his/her base theriotype (whether primary or sole.)”
Vacillant therianthropy followed, which has essentially the same meaning as suntherianthropy but people can bicker if they like. Vacillant was a group effort. Read Jakkal’s very salty journal for more.
Here are Templin’s essays, for the interested (they are very wordy):
Part 1: A Short View on Modern Contherianthropy
Part 2: Fun with Faith - The Fallacy of Therianthropy
Part 3: Proving Individual Contherianthropy
Part 4: Building Blocks to Contherianthropy
I find it tragic simply because I feel like con/sun/syn/ vacillant kind of served their purpose, to normalize different experiences of being animal/ animality within a subculture very focused on certain types of experience being more valid than others.
Whereas for otherkin it seemed that there was already more acceptance of a wide variety of experiences. Otherkin weren’t burdened by shifting narratives in the same way we were. Until recently, where I see newbie otherkin asking, “Do I need to experience shifting to be otherkin?” Well, no, of course not. Otherkinity wasn’t about that. And I lament that your community has been plagued by that narrative while therians slowly escape it.
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