In 2003, right before I had kids, I watched an episode of CSI called Fur and Loathing. That’s when learned that there were a bunch of grown adults who dressed up in plushy outfits and go to conventions to have a sex binge sprees while making animal noises. Of course CNN will tell you something different. They will tell you its NOT about sex, but the when the endgame is to sign up for a group orgy convention, its definitely about sex.
Lets fast forward to 2017, my daughter was in the 7th grade (Catholic School) and was drawing a lot of animal art. She was an incredible artist already at the age of 12, and had been commissioned by a few of her peers to draw their “animal persona - fursona.” She was able to capture her subject’s facial features with the animal of their choice. When I asked her about what who these kids were, she said,
“Friends from public school and they invited me to their online group on aminos. They call themselves Furries.”
I could feel a lump form in my throat as I recalled exactly what a Furry was from 14 years ago. My first instinct was to burn my child’s laptop. Instead I questioned her about what they were doing on this group. Her answers were innocent enough. I tried to engage my girl in a conversation that this really wasn’t what it seemed and there is a darker side. However, she insisted that there was no untoward behavior among the friends and the online group. The kids were just sharing art of themselves as animals.
I joined the online group to monitor the interactions. And what I found seemed mostly innocent, except for the fact that some of these animal bodies were a little too much on the sexy human side. Keep in mind, she didn’t draw any of this, she only did neck up facial drawings.
I just wasn’t comfortable with it. So I showed her the images that I didn’t like and had her leave the Aminos group, but she still interacted with the local furry public school kids. I also called those parents to try to warn them. Of course, their kids could do no wrong and I was wrong… it was all innocent according to them. There was nothing I could do to convince these parents that this wasn’t going to end well. And it didn’t.
I tried to stop my kid to have any parts of these other kids. Their parents are naive and I knew the truth. The truth is, adults formed these Furry groups with the single purpose to groom kids. If your kid hangs around Furry culture, they will eventually be lured to engage in the true purpose of this group.
I called on my cousin who is a prosecutor for the Navy to have a conversation with my child. My cousin had seen everything, including the Furry culture. She told daughter,
“There is no innocent side to Furries” and “Stay away from those kids.”
Of course, you know, 7th grade girls don’t listen. She continued to be friendly with the local Furry kids despite my objection. But how does a middle-schooler really ‘unfriend’ peer groups in real life? I knew the parents of these kids so its not like she was online with strangers. I didn’t want her engaging with them at all and I tried so hard prevent them from interacting. I also tried to continue to encourage the parents to please stop their children from engaging in these furry groups. Everyone insisted it was all innocent..
..all innocent until the day a local 13 year old boy send my 12 year-old daughter a series of cartoon furry porn images which featured group sex. I had never seen anytbing like this in my life. It was weird. It was disturbing. It was disgusting. It was traumatizing.
I took screen shots and sent it to the boy’s mother. She couldn’t apologize enough.
But it was too late. Her lazy parenting robbed my child of her innocence.
My daughter never talked to those kids again because now she understood what I meant and what my cousin meant when we said “There is no innocent side to Furries”.
Fast forward to last night 2022, I get a call from my friend, She tells me there are 2 kids who are Furries in the first grade in her daughter’s school.
Another story that won’t probably end well.
This is disturbing on so many levels. There is a child in my 8 year old daughter’s class that has identified as a cat since kindergarten. 3 years and counting. This child crawls around the classroom on all fours, meowing, hissing, scratching at the other children and then in the cafeteria she will groom (lick) herself. It’s ridiculous that the school allows this type of nonsense as not only is it a distraction to the other students, it’s downright wrong in so many ways. The other children are reprimanded for making comments or saying it’s weird. It is VERY weird and I will never allow my child to be a part of such a thing. She isn’t allowed to bully this “cat kid” but she doesn’t have to accept her as normal either.
Omg I have never heard of this. First grade!? I’ll be asking my kids about this today. Thank you so much for sharing this- I honestly would have had no idea.