The Anti to Zoo Pipeline

"I have been a furry for many years, likely most of my childhood, so it's clear I have been exposed to much of the adult nature of the fandom, too. I often speak of dragons very often in many of my social interactions, so I do enjoy dragons, in porn especially, which in itself is somewhat zooey. Lol; this, however, led me to feral artwork; for a while, I had it blacklisted as a tag on my e6 account, but eventually, I turned it off because "dragons are often depicted as feral," so it felt more authentic to me, in a way. However, e6 labeled any intercourse with a feral character as bestiality, so I kept that tag blacklisted, which of course, I also disabled because many of the dragons would end up with animal genitalia and whatnot. Not too long ago, I learned that many furries scorn those who enjoy feral artwork and call them zoos. It is odd because it's all fantasy artwork anyway. So here I am with a pro-feral yet anti-zoo stance. As I followed more artists on Twitter, I followed a very, very verbal anti-feral artist who would argue directly with zoophiles on Twitter. I had a morbid curiosity, so I would check the zoo being targeted's page(s) to see what they were like, usually I'd find just feral artwork but occasionally I'd find actual zoo media with actual animals, I was curious so I would view this media as well but I would be VERY morally confused and almost disgusted with myself, so I would delete any such media from my viewing history. This process of discovering and viewing such stuff would go on for two years about til finally, I looked at your magazine and realized that I probably just found animals more attractive than people in both sexual and non-sexual situations. So I nervously joined your server about two weeks back and finally accepted being a zoo; in a few days, that sense of pride had overcome my fears and doubts, and now I can genuinely say I'm proud to be a zoo."

"For a while, my identity has been a bit of a jumble. A lot of ex-anti stuff has shown up in my history. For example, I was homophobic in 6th grade while still supporting trans people only for later to identify as lesbian (which I later linked to Gynosexual aesthetic attraction, as I identify as aroace flux as I am writing this). Fast forward a bit to when I started getting involved with zoos, beforehand I never knew about or cared about zoophiles. I had a couple of Warrior Cats crushes here and there, and a crush on the reindeer from Frozen. I even remember listing off a couple of warrior cat crushes I had to my sister. She doesn't know I'm a zoo. A couple of years later the Therian videos on YouTube shorts became pretty popular. My friend, I’ll call him Carl since he is a minor, would constantly rant about how much he hated therians. I was a therian but he didn’t know. I came out to him as a therian once he stopped ranting about therians and his hate shifted over to zoos. When I told him I was a Therian, he was just speechless. If you are curious, I am a short-haired black cat and a brown tabby Norwegian forest cat. I’m also Otherkin. Carl would constantly rant about zoos, it was quite something. I’m impressed by how he even knew about the “Zooier Than Thou” podcast. I am surprised how he never found or talked about Zooey Dot Pub. One of my other friends, I’ll call them Ash, would constantly defend zoos. And I, who was anti-zoo at the time, would try to convince Ash to stop supporting them.

 

Ash would say they weren’t on any side and hadn’t yet decided what to think about zoos. Ash would also say that they could imagine sex with a horse-sized… you know… would be “pleasurable”. As someone who is feline and vulpine attracted (romantically), I still don’t fully understand as I am asexual. I’m in my junior year now and I have found out I am a zoo. I wish I dared to talk to Ash about zoos again. Maybe they are a zoo. Maybe just a supporter. But hiding their opinion about it. I still struggle with my identity as a zoo, wishing I was better off dead because I know and understand the anti’s point of view. Part of me even agrees with them. But I also understood a normal zoo’s point of view. They just want to love and be understood. They can’t control who or what they’re attracted to. Maybe one day I’ll come to terms with my identity. But for now, I’ll just stay hidden and only openly zooey on the Zooey Dot Pub Discord server."

"I was a bit of a grey muzzle when I first came to accept my animal loving self. I had been a furry for a long time, well established with good friends, having been lucky enough to go to a number of conventions all across europe. I became a furry when I was young, during the time when it was seen as much more culturally deviant. I liked the animals, and I liked the art, and I met some great people. But when I talked with other people about it, they always described it as the "bestiality" people. But I wasn't someone who wanted to do that. I wasn't a zoophile. I spent so long trying to convince people that furries were more than just dog sex addicts that it was impossible for me to consider my own feelings on the matter. I spouted a lot of hate against zoophiles, a group I knew basically nothing about, because I felt like I needed to defend a group that I did identify with. Because of course, there's nothing worse than being a zoophile.

 

But, eventually that stopped being the conversation with furries, and it turned into something a lot more positive and accepting. Over time, I started to slowly drift towards zoo-ness. At first, it was stuff like the Lion King that drew me in. I could talk about how great I thought Nala is with other people, and they would agree. That was very self-affirming.

 

From there, it went to animals that didn't talk. It was a natural transition, considering certain online images can be taken as either talking animals or not.

Eventually, I ended up seeing zoophiles in the wild, as is was. At first, I was shocked. Disgusted. The fact that these people were not only "proud" of what they were, but also that they were identifying with the furry community once again lit a lot of old fires back up in me. I immediately made a big deal of it publicly and privately in a few places that I was in. Everyone, of course, agreed. Who doesn't hate zoos after all? I even ended up dipping my toes in a few "anti-zoo" spaces, although I found them mostly to be full of children who were more interested in being against "degeneracy," something that I faced a lot of as a gay man as well as a furry growing up in an earlier time. If anything, I think that helped me to think about this differently. To hear the words that others used against me against another group gave me pause. I was still against zoos, but I found myself ostracized by others who were against zoophilia as well. And given my new interests in more animal like characters, I started seeing more and more of the other side as well.

 

Eventually, I found myself looking at a picture by a certain feral artist. It was a female dog on a bed with a man, the intention was clear, but also the lack of dialogue was as well. It was as close to "zoo" as I'd ever seen. It hit me. Clearly this was something I liked. In fact, I really liked it. I was very conflicted on my feelings, so I thought I would bring it up to a friend of mine. Their reaction was very negative. They called me a lot of words I hadn't heard directed at me for a long time. I tried to tell them that it was just art, and that it was something that I would never do in real life. I even tried to lie and say it was my first time looking at that kind of thing. It didn't matter to them. They told me if I kept looking at that kind of thing, we couldn't be friends anymore. I had a lot of those kinds of conversations telling friends back in my past about furries as well.

 

After a few drinks and a few hours of effort, I managed to put on an episode of Zooier Than Thou, a podcast other "anti-zoos" had spoken of with a lot of vitriol. And, while I braced myself for the worst, it was actually really good. I thought the hosts were very funny, and they talked about a topic that was really interesting. It was Enshittification, a problem that I really understood as someone who's been on the internet a long time. I expected it to just be talk of sex and nothing else, but it was much more educational about that, and spoke to problems faced by a minority group just trying to exist. Just like furries back in the day. I listened to a couple more episodes, before deciding I wanted to learn more about zoos myself.

 

So I decided to join a few zoo groups on Telegram, and started meeting people and making friends. And at that point I was hooked. Flash forwards a little while while and now I've never been happier. It makes me so sad that I spend so long living my life with such hatred towards a group of people undeserving of it. I feel so lucky that I was able to find this community. Sorry this is a little bit long, but I hope that this helps.