Furries, sit down. We need to talk.
This past weekend was a record-breaking convention. Over ten thousand attendees at Midwest Furfest!
It showcased everything I love about the furry community. Fursuits that blow Halloween out of the water, unique arts and crafts, original comics, and friendship with fun people.
The furry community harbors the best the world has to offer.
...And the worst.
Roaming that same convention, mingling with the attending children, was convicted pedophile Sangiune Nativus, ‘Sangie’.
Worse, convention staff knew he was attending.
Worse still, they knew about his convictions, about the fresh allegations currently spilling out, and his history of abusing children.
And then they gave him a dealer’s table.
Great job!
But wait, it gets worse.
This was no isolated incident. In the furry community, nurturing monsters is business as usual.
Meet Kero, your happy-go-lucky guide to all things furry.
If you’re unfamiliar with the zoosadism chat leaks, and you have a strong stomach, watch Mr. Metokur’s videos for context.
(How strange, it’s the ‘problematic’ internet personalities who stepped up to spotlight and document these abuses.)
Tl;dr: Thousands of furries have been exposed raping dogs, sharing detailed plans to molest children, and trading videos of animals being mutilated to death. When caught, they cry ‘fursecution’ and get their social media followers to play interference.
Furries gotta stick together after all! OwO
These crimes, and the furries rushing to cover them up, are fueling white-hot hatred and disgust broadly directed at the entire community. Do you think this scandal will fade like a polite ghost? Kids and animals are being abused. Perhaps we shouldn’t be eager to brush them under the rug. And if you think The Internet is suddenly going to start forgetting, think again. Furries flailing to minimize the scandal are only fanning the flames.
So, silly David, I thought I’d do something to help.
First off, what have people tried in the past? One brilliant strategist by the name of “Squee Rat” thought it’d be clever to tell furries that sex is wrong, and spearheaded the infamous “Burned Furs” campaign.
It went really super well.
But I decided to set my sights a little lower.
What if- now, stay with me here, this gets crazy-
What if all-ages conventions didn’t mix convicted child rapists with child attendees?
https://www.change.org/p/https-twitter-com-mephitfurmeet-ban-convicted-sex-predators-from-furry-conventions
When I started this petition, I had an intermediary in touch with convention staff. Staff who were VERY public about just how much they hated that gosh-darned zoophilia! For real, guys!
So I had an expectation they would take the absolute bare-minimum level of action, and discuss our petition.
They refused to speak to me… But discuss it they did.
Behind closed doors they concocted flimsy objections:
*What if a convicted child rapist sued the convention for depriving him of children? That’s discrimination! Legitimate legal risk there.
*Conducting background checks on all furries would be expensive- and this proposal doesn’t require that, but what if we pretended it did?
*David drew Milo as a snow leopard so we have no choice, this proposal must be discarded.
These ‘popufurs’ and staffers want everyone to think their house is clean, while garbage reeks in the corner. They make some tweets and toss a sheet on top to conceal it. When a naive person points out the stench and explains the garbage is still there, well, staffers don’t remove the garbage.
Boneitis has been one of the more vocal artists shedding light on this whole zoosadism debacle. Lo and behold, his previously packed panels are now being rejected with a smile by convention staff.
So much for my petition.
I can’t help people that don’t want to be helped- and if the institutional gatekeepers of the furry community insist on harboring sex predators, I can’t stop the world from hating them.
“Yiff in hell furfags” is experiencing a resurgence in popular use. Online figures with massive influence, like Null on the Rekieta Lawstream, are declaring that any decent person must flat-out quit the furry fandom.
Well my comic is fun, and I’m not going to quit making it. But after furries rejected my petition and rewarded Sangie with a table, I’m ready to draw some distinctions between what I do and what they do.
So this year, I’m giving the greatest holiday gift of all- a Venn Diagram.
The problem is “LiFurs.”
LiFurs are sex predators who use the furry lifestyle as a lie to camouflage and defend their kinks & abuse. Zoophiles (animal abusers) pedophiles (child abusers) and pozzers (individuals who deliberately spread STDs at conventions) are examples.
Alternatively, Lifestyle Furries are people who express part of their identity by developing an animal or cartoon persona.
And, last but not least, The Furry Genre is fiction that uses animal characters as a main focus. The Rats of Nimh, Blacksad, and Redwall are examples.
Sexuality can be involved in some furry fiction and lifestyle identities, since we’re humans and not robots. But healthy, balanced sexuality has nothing to do with the all-consuming demented obsessions of LiFurs. LiFurs are using the furry lifestyle as a cartoonishly innocent mask while they indulge in criminal paraphilias. When they’re caught, they use your community to shield themselves and disperse the blame. And you’re letting them.
Conventions are blossoming, artists and vendors are becoming more skilled and polished, and the community is emerging into a brighter light than ever before. It is tragic to see so much goodness stained by the deliberate stonewalling of a handful of bad people.
If you think that CSI episode was unfair, and you want the broader culture to accept the furry lifestyle- then I’d advise you stop defending LiFurs, and stop orienting your events to cater to their appetites.
But since when does anyone listen to me? “Just Don’t!” Let’s see if that does the trick.
At this point I’ll content myself to define the problem, quarantine it, and wish lifestyle furries all the luck in the world at dealing with it.
I admire the friendship, costuming, and fun of the furry lifestyle. That’s why I’m giving you this linguistic tool. So you have a shot at saving yourselves from being fatally tainted.
The world is watching. I’ll be drawing.
Readers who enjoy Redwall, or Dreamkeepers, or Blacksad? They can do so from within and from without the Lifestyle aspect of the community.
Allied with a coalition of talent, I’ll focus on creating spectacular comics, games, and content to ignite the imagination, bring readers together, and bring new worlds to life.
We’ll see what the furry community at large chooses to keep.