Furries-help me to understand and explain to Dd please

[CervixSampler]

She's 13 and has a friend who posts furries TikTok's. My brief knowledge is from this board years ago. I understood it to be something very dodgy but Dd says it's weird but just people who like anthropomorphalised animals. Anyone dressed up as anything that masks their face totally freaks me out but I understood it to be a fetish. I could be wrong though.

Why are you letting your daughter engage with people on the internet who get off to having sex with/imagining themselves as humanised animals?

TikTok is an absolute cesspit. I imagine by now your daughter knows full well what furries are and is trying to downplay it to you, believing you are ‘too old/uncool’ to know what it truly is.

It's her school friend who is the same age, not strangers on the internet.

There is a big youth subculture for whom it's about dressing up and play acting, a bit like cosplay. Seems to be lots of slightly awkward 13-15 Yr olds - emo types, cosplayers, gamers etc.

Yes, there is also a group of adults for whom it's a sexual fetish.

I've mostly seen the former, harmless, group. Seems to me like goths back in my day. Lots of panic about violence, fetishism and satan worshippping, but in reality mostly anxty teens who don't quite fit in.

It's not solely a fetish although that's certainly the most notorious element. Lots of people just like creating an anonymous fantasy persona to live as someone else online - it doesn't have to be sexual.

Does it need explaining to her in detail at 13 though? Isn't it enough for her to know that some people enjoy drawing or dressing up as anthropomorphic creatures? I certainly wouldn't be trying to explain a sexual fetish to a 13 year old. As long as she's not being shown sexually explicit content then I would just keep the usual eye on her internet use.

In my days of watching Eurotrash I used to be very 'live and let live' about this kind of thing. Now I have learned that anyone who sexualises any aspect of childhood is an immediate red flag. If autogynephilia is a thing, then why not autopaedophilia or autozoophilia?

Some people are weird/easily influenced. Tell her to ignore it.

It's mainly the odd kids larping as their favourite animal, but hovering around the edges are weird sexual subcultures, such as vore. There's BDSM stuff in there too, and skat fetishism.

Several prominent (within their community) furries have been done for beastiality.

Allegedly the fragrant Aimme Chandler went through a furry phase.

There used to be an annual convention called Rainfurrest. The last one was held in 2015 and there hasn't been another since. This is why:

As others have said, "furry" doesn't mean one thing and there are kids into it for a bit of fun in playing around with identities, and adults, typical male, having an interest that's sexually motivated. The problem is that these two groups intersect, and particularly do so on the Internet away from parents' knowledge and in a safeguarding-free environment.

Just go to Twitter and search for baby fur or ABDL. It will all make sense from there...🤢

I can’t imagine anyone who looks at furry stuff on Tik Tok hasn’t stumbled across any of the above.

I don't know what they are either. There are some things you don't actually need to know especially at age 13.

(best effort explaining for a 13 year old)

Some adults like to pretend things when they're having sex. One of the things some adults pretend to be is animals. There is no real problem when this is done by consenting adults in private but can become a problem if the adults are creating sexualised material of real kids cartoons and then they are sharing them where kids can see them. Or indeed involving kids in their sex life at all.

Such adults should be avoided and /or reported where appropriate.

Oh, FFS, I went off and googled "vore" thanks to this thread! My therapist would like to say thanks for the brand new Porsche!

On a more serious note: I'm in Tech! And, look, if we're going to be perfectly frank, this whole "get your kids off the internet" spiel is never going to work. Not realistically. Everyone and their grandmother is on the internet these days - as is your smart fridge! It's just not realistically going to happen!

Therefore, I'd argue for giving kids a firm sense of reality, fostering critical thinking, and teaching them healthy self-esteem and boundaries. Because you won't defeat the internet!

Depends what she's looking at.

For teenagers, and probably most adults, fursonas are just a variety of cosplay, either OCs (original characters) or animal character cosplays, mostly harmless - unless the weather is really hot!

However, for some adults, it's a sexual fetish, for some it's a way of concealing who they really are. Just warn her that some furries are dodgy, just as some people in any group are dodgy, and to make sure she knows who is in the suit. :)

An example of how an adult person*, who has a high profile and is lauded by many, operates within the world of furries:

www.womenarehuman.com/trans-comic-strip-creates-diaperfur-kink-based-on-real-babies-frames-backlash-as-transphobia/

Children explore these kinds of fluid identity play differently, but that's because they're children.

* To be kind, I've gone for a gender neutral description

I'm not gonna lie it looks like a lot of assumptions have been made by some of the posters in this thread, that or they've watched too much CSI

I'm not sure of your location OP so I will base my answers on the UK Fandom specifically as I have worked security at their events for over a decade now.

Furries, at their core are no different to sci-fi nerds/trekkies/any other Fandom with the exception being a lot of furry content is self-created rather than being of a specific set of characters from a show.

Now is there a section of the Fandom that is into the adult things? Yes. As there is in any Fandom.

Are there people who take it too far? Of course.

But a lovelier, more friendly and accepting bunch of people I have never met.

If you are truly worried it may be worth sitting down with them and rather than making assumptions, ask them what /they/ find interesting about them, is it just the cute costumes or something else?
In the UK the age of attendance at most meet-ups is 16-18 so maybe in a few years if she's still interested and it's not just a phase, take her along to a local meet.

If you have any further questions feel free to ask

• Matt

What seems pretty clear to me is that investment in these kinds of alternate identities to this degree is very likely to play into these adult cross-overs.

Over the course of my lifetime we've gone from a place where doing things like dressing up at comic cons, or SCA type events, when from being a fun thing to do on occasion, or even a serious hobby that involved developing real skills and historical expertise, to "cosplay" where people become significantly invested in alternate identities, be it anthropomorphic animals, fantasy or comic book role-playing, or anime.

And then check out Etsy for where they get everything

My first awareness of all this was thanks to challenor.

My first awareness of all this was thanks to challenor.

Was going to say the same!

Anyone claiming that furrydom is mostly non-sexual is talking nonsense. Scratch the surface and it's 100% fetish. There is zero chance the friend isn't reading or viewing furry porn. It permeates every single furry space and group. I apologise to the mums who think that it is just the adults involved but the horny teens are complicit too!

It's actually very similar to another group we talk about here in that it is a very welcoming and seductive community to confused teenagers looking for a sense of identity. Beware!

If all people are going by is what they've seen online and it's dodgy, then they will think that anyone into anything furry is dodgy.

Anyone whose knowledge of furries is a normal bunch of people who choose a fursona as their cosplay at conventions will think that they're just normal geeks.

Obviously the truth is both, depending on what you're seeing.

OP, depending on where you live, there may be conventions local to you you can take her to and actually meet and talk to furry cosplayers, and make your decision from that.

Did the posters saying to go along to a convention a tidally read my OP?? I have no interest in going within seeing distance of anyone dressed up in an animal costume where their face is covered. Dd has no interest. It's her classmate that does.