Last Updated on December 2, 2019
A ‘furry’ couple has been arrested for having sex with a 15-year-old boy they met online playing Dungeons and Dragons, according to police.
The couple had allegedly treated the underage boy like a goat before the boy’s father stumbled upon the alarming Facebook messages.
Emily Javins, 22, and Jacob Becker, 26, have been charged with corruption of a minor following an online effort to gain the minor’s trust.
The couple, from Pennsylvania, who partake in the “furry fandom” community began engaging with the boy–now sixteen–when he was fifteen over Dungeons and Dragons.
The boy told police, after his father discovered shocking Facebook messages, that Javins is a furry who has adopted the fursona, or animal persona, of a cat, and he had role played the fursona of a goat.
On one occasion, the boy was allegedly made to eat a birthday cheesecake out of a bowl as part of his ‘pet training’ where he was made to wear a leash.
According to court papers, the boy had shared nude pictures, videos, and sexually explicit messages with the couple.
Javins had allegedly courted the boy, requesting he sit on Becker’s lap and kiss him, before sleeping with him just before his sixteenth birthday.
The pair are currently held in jail on $20,000 bond, a piece.
Furries are people who often adopt an animal identity and dress up as such. There is often a sexual element to the furry fandom.
Costumes are anthropomorphized, with users reporting a feeling of liberation when wearing their costumes.
On the demographics of those who partake in furry fandom, The Daily Mail reports:
More than 75% of furries are younger than 25
About 84% identify as male, while 13% are female, and 2.5% are transgender Most furries (83.2%) are white
About one-third identify as ‘exclusively heterosexual,’ but research has shown furries ‘are about five times more likely to identify as exclusively homosexual than the general population’
Furries have recently been subject of negative public exposure on social media after a ‘furry’ reportedly destroyed his hands to force a medical amputation as part of a niche sexual fetish.
On a live stream to her fans, Lana Del Ray called furries ‘gross,’ prompting a small cancel-culture-inspired outrage on social media.