I'm a zoophile. And that's ok.

I, like probably most people reading this, am a Zoophile. And learning this about myself was a long and complicated process, filled with twists and turns and confusion and denial. I would like to share this process with you all, in the hopes that this journey helps reassure newer or in denial zoos, or that it just resonates with other fellow zoos, and spreads the message that even if the process of coming to terms with everything can be long, and arduous, and complicated, it's ok, and it's ok to be a zoo. 

I didn't grow up with dogs, my family always had cats while I was growing up and even still to this day. Yet I found myself liking dogs more and more as I got older, not quite understanding my feelings for them at the time, but I definitely knew it wasn't exactly what you would call normal. I first discovered the more adult side of the internet when I was around 11 or 12, I still didn’t fully understand how everything worked, but I then found a video claiming to have, well, women and some dogs. After watching the video it was just bait, and it wasn’t any of that kind of “content,” and I was honestly disappointed, although I still didn’t understand zoophilia at that time. 

When I first learned about furries in middle school I didn’t fully understand it. I thought it was more being attracted to real animals. I thought that anthro and feral animals both fell under that same kind of furry attraction. I also thought of it almost like a sexuality, that it meant I like like them. I only truly learned it was more of a hobby later, although I still enjoyed it even after that. I still did think of it like that, which looking back most likely was zoosexuality making itself known even if I didn’t know what to look for. During this time in middle school, I had a sexual education class, and as part of it there was a box where we could ask anonymous questions to the teacher. And me with all my confused zooey emotions, put in a question asking something along the lines of “Is it normal to be attracted to animals? I think it's called being a furry” (paraphrasing of course, this was years ago I don't remember the exact words I used). Looking back this was a very very obvious sign I'm a zoo, however at the time I still didn’t really understand it. I remember watching the teacher read the notes extremely carefully after that, paying attention to the handwriting of the note to see if she had gotten to mine yet. She did eventually get to mine, I saw it in her hand with my (very distinct) handwriting. She skipped it, just putting it aside rather than reading it.

It's around this time as well, that I also started to try and find actual zoo “content.” By then I was under the understanding that it was “bad,” and illegal, but still I tried to find those kinds of videos. It went through many stages of trying to find things, but eventually I stumbled across what I was searching for. I still didn’t fully understand my feelings for all of it at the time, but, it quickly became a common habit of mine to search for it, although I was terrified of the potential repercussions. I still didn’t fully understand what zoophilia was at the time, not being big on the drama scene. 

It was when I got a bit older, and much more in the furry scene, I was exposed to all the zoophile drama, all the people hating furries and calling them zoos, all of this intense hatred for it. Seeing all of it, and how people I was associating myself with hating it, I just simply assumed it was bad. Everyone is saying it's horrible, so, why would they lie about it? How would the general public be wrong? And so I never researched it, never looked more into it really. Although even still I kept on occasionally looking up zoo “content” and just hated myself for it, despite really liking it.

Eventually I ended up finding feral art, which I loved tremendously, still believing I'm not a zoo. Even still I would occasionally find zoos on reddit, or look up zoo videos, or try to find nsfw zoo spaces, trying to convince myself that I'm not “like them” despite it. Eventually I tried to force myself to stop going after those desires and keep repressing it, fearing I was becoming a zoo and still being terrified of the thought of it, that I may be one. I still saw zoos as just, bad, and evil, and horrible, because that's what everyone else was saying, and I couldn’t be one of those people that everyone hates. I also had never seen the non sexual side of it, didn’t understand that it was more than just the adult side (and probably interacted with some not good people as a result). Overall it wasn’t a good period in my life, among other issues I constantly hated that I had looked at zoo content. This then all led me down the path of being an anti.

It's ironic honestly, being an anti zoo led me to becoming a zoo. It really started when I met my current best friend. When we met she was incredibly anti zoo (and still is unfortunately) and because I was still on the whole thing of hating myself for it, I joined her in that opinion, that zoos are horrible people. Maybe part of it was self hatred, maybe part of it was me thinking it would somehow make everything I did in the past “better” somehow. But nonetheless, I became a massive anti due to this, and tried to convince myself of how horrible it is despite my attraction. This kept going for a while, us hating zoos together so much, thinking they are absolutely disgusting people, and I thought it was good what I was doing. And all of this eventually led me to trying to “invade” zoo servers, and get them taken down and the people in those servers taken out as well. I made an alt account and everything, and then, (while in cahoots with my friend) went into a... certain kind of Discord server with the intend to get it taken down. Now, as it turned out, this place was definitely pro zoosadism, with one person being one of the worst human beings I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. This all definitely didn’t help my denial, making me keep thinking zoos are horrible people. This continued for a bit, me being “undercover” here, and building up rapport with them and trying to get them to trust me, which worked extremely well, and got me invited to, you guessed it, the Zooey Dot Pub Discord server. As for that pro-zoosadist server, I actually got it taken down. I had joined on two different accounts, reported and left on both accounts but announced that I had done so on the second account, making sure that even if the reports didn't do anything people would leave out of fear. And to my knowledge it worked.

Joining the ZDPD was my first experience seeing a non nsfw zoo space, and honestly I was shocked how normal everyone seemed, how relatable and actually ok everyone was. I had always pictured and seen zoos as these gross weird people that harm animals, and kept meeting some that were like that which perpetuated this thought. So when I saw the people here it was completely not what I was expecting, people just seemed... normal, for the most part, like people I could get along with. And then it was through the ZDP that I found my first actual zoo friend. We chatted for a while and over time, that conversation was what did it. That conversation with him, where I managed to be more honest with him and myself than I had been for years, that I finally managed to understand that I am a zoo. At first I was just trying to build reputation on the account, but, I realized more and more as the conversation went on how similar we were, and how truthful the actual desire and want for a dog partner was. It was thanks to that mainly that allowed me to truly understand, I was telling the truth the entire time. And that combined with us saying about how it is actually moral, and why, all of it changed my mind. I kept up appearances to my friend as much as I could, and thankfully it wasn’t hard, and I started to truly accept this place and interact without just using it to gain people's trust, but to actually just interact here because I wanted to, talk to people because I wanted to, and I was no longer spying on this place. I belonged in this place, I was truly another member. And I. was. Happy. 

This place has helped me grow as a person, as do the people here. I see the ZDP as one big (EXTREMELY dysfunctional) family, and of course the Friends that I have made here as well just make it even better (YALL ARE AMAZING). Through all of this journey I'm now here, finally at the point where I have learned that it's ok to be a zoo. It's ok to love animals. It's ok to be myself. 

Article written by SillyLittleDoggyKisser  aka Jade (December 2024)

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