Do you know what a furry is mummy?

[FridayForever]

Asked my ten year old.

She proceeded to tell me it's where adults pretend to be animals and they'd played it at school cos they thought it was funny.

How do you explain to a child without much concept of sexuality what a fetish is? And that it's not the same as kids pretending to be animals, which is of course perfectly normal play.

@AdamRyan would you accept an "argument from authority" as legitimate.

https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/ni-pupils-identifying-furries-harmless-27571354

According to this article, Jim Gamble of the Department of Education in RoI, has had to advise schools on the dangers of furry fandom.

Now if there were no kids in schools identifying as furries, and there were no overlaps with the adult furry world, would Jim Gamble have had to give advice?

Would Jim Gamble, who has the time and inclination to research this stuff not have just said "It's all just a silly conspiracy!"?

Is that enough evidence of these safeguarding concerns, or do we need 10 more Jim Gambles saying the same thing? Do we need evidence of child abuse happening within the furry fandom? (Sorry but you're going to have to look that one up yourself as I don't have the stomach for it).

DD reckons she's a cat therian, picled up from social media and all the rage in her friend group. I think she just really likes cats, crafts and dressing up and it will fade 🤷‍♀️ but I keep an extremely close eye on what she gets up to on her phone/online because theres some nasty potential crossover on this/furries yada yada and she would NEVER be allowed to go to school as a cat. I do not indulge the idea of it as an 'identity'.

Did you read the article?

But he says children dressing up and creating make-believe personasis not the issue. The problem lies, he says, if the interest develops into a fixation or when it invariably moves online where anonymous contact is made with others claiming to be furries offering mutual interest and trust.
Mr Gamble said:“Children have always been involved in make-believe and dressing up as part of growing up. It’s harmless, it changes and passes and we shouldn’t get stressed about it.

I think that's exactly what I'm saying.

Also that article says nothing to prove kids are miaowing in lessons and eating from bowls as if they are cats, with full permission from teachers. That's the bit I don't believe.

Literally everything Jim Gamble says is the same as the "myth debunking" article I posted upthread.

The fact is that paraphilias cluster. And predatory men are always on the look out for loopholes.

If someone wants to see real-life evidence of the overlap between furries and 'nappy play' then look up Aimee Challenor on Kiwi Farms. There's plenty of evidence there.

Aimee's profile on Fetlife from the age of 14 was 'dirty pup'. And yes, sadly you can imagine where the 'dirt' in question came from.

I assume that's aimed at me so I'm reporting as a personal attack. I certainly don't come on to "all these threads" and never used those words, you are projecting.

I'm not denying furries exist or that schoolkids are part of the fandom. I am pointing out that children acting as animals in school with consent of teachers is a well known conspiracy theory.

Did you know that convicted child rapist David Challenor was also a furry?

Well then we agree. My child is only two, so I have no experience of children with animal identities being allowed to realise said identities in schools.

But I don't think every single one of the numerous posters with direct experience of this are lying? That is also very unlikely, or are we only allowed to accept hypothesis with no evidence that support our own narratives?

They don't have "direct experience". They have third hand experience through what their children said happened at school.

Ever heard of Chinese whispers? Teenagers constantly gossip and exaggerate stuff 😂they aren't that reliable as information sources. Especially when it comes to hoaxes.

A child-torturing, nappy-wearing rapist.

Bullshit she does!

It's utter madness. Schools should be making the DC wear school uniform. Any ears and tails confiscated and returned home with a stern letter to parents do not allow X to bring to school again.

Hopefully women on here won't be dissuaded from speaking out by a random on the internet attempting to shame them out of challenging the leakage of a fetish into schools.

From the Challenor case through to the most recent Scarlet Blake murderer, there is no doubt that the furry fetish has deeply sinister connotations including open links to paedophilia. I've no doubt the number of schools who've failed to establish boundaries about this is small - but one school failing to tackle it is one too many.

Dismissing legitimate evidenced concerns about safeguarding as "conspiracy theories" displays a concerning lack of concern about children's safety. Which is why mothers, parents and responsible citizens won't be shamed into shutting up about this or any other threat to children.

My 9 year old has learnt about Therians from a group of girls at school. One of them has an older sister with access to all sorts of inappropriate content.

The younger sister (age 10) is completely obsessed and makes YouTube videos and listens to adult-themed music about Therians and furries.

My daughter is now wanting to do the same (I don’t let her) and is believing that she is a cat in a human body.

All the dressing up seems innocent enough (although slightly young behaviour for y5s) but actually believing you are a cat is just another level.

I’ve had lots of talks with my daughter trying to encourage her to see that just because she really loves cats, it doesn’t mean that she is one too.

All the Therian chat seems to have died down a bit in the last month, I’m hoping she is moving on a bit and not just hiding it from me because I don’t agree with it. It’s definitely a huge worry.

The best way I've had it explained to me is the furry fandom is like the anime fandom. It attracts similar demographics of marginalised and chronically online kids. For many in the fandom, it's a way of expressing themsleves through art and dress up,it's a bit of escapism. It especially attracts kids who are ND or not quite ready to move into teenage trends. For some, it has a sexual element.

The most disturbing thing about the fandom in my opinion is that young kids get drawn to it because if the innocent side, and adults for whom it's a fetish use it to groom them.

Exactly.

And of course paraphilias cluster, so you have adults like convicted rapist David Challenor who used to dress up like a bear to attract children.

He also had a nappy fetish and a sissy fetish. He worse a dress and forced his 10 year old victim to refer to him by a female name while he tortured her.

And those who challenged what was known in the community about Challenor & Aimee Challenor were dismissed as bigots and transphobes. Aimee left the Greens and was welcomed with open arms by the Lib Dems & Stonewall, despite knowledge of their inability to understand safeguarding. Stonewall promptly gave Aimee a place on their Trans Advisory Group whom were busy "advising" schools about trans issues.
That was when I understood how little safeguarding children mattered to the Lib Dems, Stonewall & other activist groups and saw how easy it was for completely unsuitable people to be feted and empowered to work with schools because they identified as trans.
Which is why we mustn't be conned about all this any more.

The most disturbing thing about the fandom in my opinion is that young kids get drawn to it because if the innocent side, and adults for whom it's a fetish use it to groom them.

Yes. It's an online problem, not a school problem. And the safeguarding schools need to do is education and reporting, not banning cat ear headbands. Imo.

The online safety bill would be the most helpful thing. Anywhere there are children online will attract paedophiles.

I'm honestly unbothered what you think @ilovebreadsauce - it really happens in my daughter's class.

I find it so odd that people think I have skin in the game to the extent that I'd just make shit up. If I didn't have a concern in my own life about it I likely would never have opened the thread.

Read the thread? There's plenty empirical evidence on here as well as reputable links which are worth reading.

Just because it's rank and weird and disturbing, doesn't mean it's not real unfortunately.

This.

Just a reminder that troll hunting is against talk guidelines and MN take a dim view of it. If you believe someone is a troll, report to MN.

"Internet randoms" posting their stories is not "empirical evidence". Empirical evidence means it can be tested and verified by others. When people have tried to verify these Internet stories about people eating like cats at school and requesting litter trays, they have been found to be a hoax.

If you think Internet anecdotes are empirical evidence, I strongly suggest you avoid the David Icke forums.