Children wearing tails?

[ShepherdMoons]

Dd's friend at drama club has recently started wearing a tail.She sometimes wears ears.It looks quite cute but I also find it a bit odd (they are 11).Dd hasn't asked to wear a tail (yet) but wondering if this might be her next question.I appreciate there's a bit of a trend for this at the moment and seems relatively harmless but I do find it odd.AIBU?

🦇

My daughter doesn't think she's a cat or a fox or the demon she made the mask for for Halloween. She loves the craft side - a new mask takes her weeks to make. She has to buy the materials, she dyes a lot of the fur herself, she has to learn new techniques. She will eventually make a mask she is happy with and then pop it in a bag with a tail and her paw gloves and go off into the woods or fields and play in her costume. I know she is alone or sometimes one of her friends (who is also a teenage girl) hangs out with her. She doesn't walk on all fours in Tesco! She is harmlessly enjoying a craft / dress up game. I know most 13 year old girls don't do this but most 13 year old girls aren't so stressed out by school that they can't speak when they get home. I monitor her online access and her liking a clip on tail is the least of my worries about her to be honest!

Is it only me- If I had worn a tail my siblings & class mates would have 'sent it home in a bag' which although probably not PC better than playing along.

Of course there is no harm in kids playing dress-up, experimenting with clothes -- but this is a bit different, I think you have to consider where it has come from. It seems to be following adults who are 'furries', i.e. they have a paraphilia, a sexual fetish, included in the TQ++ in LGBTQ++ and part of the queer community.
Furries get their kicks from dressing in furry animal costumes and having sex. (And possibly more.)
As a fetish it also seems to have links with BDSM, exhibitionism and even bestiality, judging from recent Pride marches.
I suspect many adult furries would be absolutely delighted if it catches on among kids, even if the kids have no idea what it's actually all about.

You let your 13 year old child go to the woods, alone, dressed as an animal?

Uh yeah, this happened...

The people saying it's similar to being a goth/emo/skater - just no. I grew up in alternative circles, and I can tell you furries would not have been welcomed. At all. They were seen as creepy and not in a good way.

I remember the fashion for emos wearing ears and saying "rawr/miaow". That was as far as it went. It wasn't anything like this nonsense that goes on with these people.

I went to college with a boy (about 17) who thought he was a wolf. It was entirely sexual, the class found his freewebs page where he was writing about rutting and knotting and all of this completely inappropriate stuff. It's not normal.

One of my children's friends older brothers (13) is into this furry/therian shite. His mother allows it. He turned up to a gathering this summer replete with tail, mask, paw things, and kept growling. It is exactly the same behaviour I saw in the boy I went to college with, and I find it disturbing. Both DH and I have made the decision to cut contact with the family because we don't want our DC around it. Any parent who is allowing this really needs to stop being so naive and put their foot down.

It's not a fetish it's just weird people on the internet. Sure it's a fetish for some people but so are most things.
and its not new.
teenagers are weird, always have been, they'll do a bunch of weird things, then they will grow out of it.

The schools are in a really difficult position though for fear of doing wrong. It needs to come from the parents.

There was disruption in my son’s class one day when the PE teacher told the class to separate, girls on one side to play netball, boys on the other to play football. The fox stood in the middle and complained there wasn’t a side for them. PE teacher said if you are a girl fox play netball, if you’re a boy fox, play football, quite frankly, don’t care just pick a side. Fox started kicking off saying there should be a separate category. PE teacher had to go and get one of the deputy heads as he has no idea what to do. All this took up the first 15 minutes of a half an hour PE class!

I would not be happy about my teenage daughter going off to the woods like that!!
Can you encourage her to make contact with the local amateur dramatic society to see if she could make some for them?

Actually laughed out load at this 😂

I'm sorry but this is madness, you may think you're helping her but you're really not.

You need to help her to develop a different coping mechanism. Allowing her to go off to the woods, especially alone, to pretend to be an animal is not healthy or safe.

This describes my daughter exactly even down to the grudge clothing and wearing the tail playing in the fields and trampolining and making her own masks.

I think it’s harmless and it makes her happy.

This! Aside from the madness of allowing a teenage child to go off and play in the woods...why not channel this creativity, if that's truly all it is?

Get her involved with drama groups, if she's into cosplay there are absolutely groups for under 18s out there. Anything online needs to be monitored totally. Costume workshops, designing items of clothing or props, not just animal masks and tails!

It baffles me that anyone can have an inkling about furries and still think this is a normal and innocent hobby. Maybe that's where it begins, but the wider community and what it can lead to, nevermind what must be going on in a teenagers brain to want to do this?! Parents need to step the hell up.

Do their parents take them to the vet or GP? It must be difficult if a child with autism choses this as a special interest. But as it's anti social behaviour parents and teachers really shouldn't encourage it. It's socially inappropriate behaviour. Is not possible to redirect this interest to caring for animals?

@Pookerrod ,

‘The schools are in a really difficult position though for fear of doing wrong. It needs to come from the parents.’

I don’t think schools are in a difficult position at all. I don’t think a head would get in any trouble from banning animal costumes to school.

Teachers, on the other hand, could be in a difficult position if the head and SLT don’t give good clear guidance, or go the wrong way and say animal identities should be respected.

I suspect the vast majority if schools would just enforce normal uniform, and (human) PE kit for PE.

I don’t think you fully understand the situation here.

I actually saw this the other week. Child of about 11/12 wearing fox ears, a fox mask and a fox tail. Was a bit by it

"It baffles me that anyone can have an inkling about furries and still think this is a normal and innocent hobby."

The people who are fetishists actively rely on the children dressing up aspect to normalise what they do. That way they can claim that they are being 'childlike' and having an innocent time.

There was a thread where two males walked in with their 'master' into IKEA. Complete with butt plug tails (not clip on but the ones that are inserted into the anus for sexual gratification) and there were many posters who dismissed this as 'just a bit of fun'.

@Sartre
Another one calling you out on your utter bullshit.

I work in a school and I'm involved in a number of other schools as I'm a safeguarding lead.
This training absolutely doesn't exist.

People complain about kids growing up too quickly, then when they try to act like kids, they still complain.

It's normal for kids to want to use their imagination and dress up. 11 year olds are still kids.

Let them wear it if they want, it's harmless.