I noticed in your carrd, you mentioned you were out to a few IRL people? And I'm curious how that went with each of them if you're open to sharing. Not a zo0 as far as I'm aware (clarifying mostly for my own mental state because I sometimes get my curiosities and what that means for what I am mixed up and it bothers me a lot) but I like learning about different things and hearing experiences and learning.
Hello there, and my apologies for getting to this so late! I'd love to share my experiences! :D
Head's up in advance for my expressive language here. I'm a passionate writer, and find that if I don't express myself with flowery language and overly descriptive paragraphs then I'm not getting my point across properly, lol. If that kind of stuff gives you a headache then my apologies in advance. Anyways on to the story!
I'm out as a zoo to three people in my life: My former therapist (I say former only because I grew out of her services when I turned 18), my ex-partner/best friend, and my mother.
The first one I told was my therapist. Before her, I'd planned on taking this piece of myself to the grave. At the time I was convinced my life would be ruined if anything ever got out (And I still do worry about this), so I'd pretty much had my mind set on never telling anyone except internet strangers behind an alias.
But after spending some time in an anti-contact pro-para discord server and seeing how positive of an impact therapy had on them, I got a spark of courage to talk to my own therapist about me being a zoophile. I was 16, and I was seeing said therapist virtually, so in order to prevent family from accidentally listening in I took my phone to the car to speak to her. I was riddled with nerves, and at several points I nearly gave up telling her entirely, but she seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say, so I swallowed my fear and pushed on. I think at that point, I was just tired of having this baggage in my life. I was tired of being scared that I may let something slip. I was tired of feeling like no matter what I did, no matter what I accomplished in life, there would always be this piece of myself that could be used to hurt me. And I think at the time, confiding in a therapist felt like a way to get rid of this deadweight that had been crushing my back for all this time.
I started out by asking her how qualified she felt in delving into the subject of paraphilias. I don't remember her exact answer now, but I remember feeling as though her answer was satisfactory, and that she wasn't a danger to my wellbeing. So I opened up a bit more and told her that I consider myself to be a paraphile. I didn't specify what I was attracted to at first, but I did tell her it was one of the more "taboo" ones. As the session went on, I went deeper into my struggles, and she continued to hold an understanding, albeit curious demeanor, I grew less and less nervous. Towards the end of the session I finally confessed that I was a zoophile. Despite this, her calm demeanor never changed, which was a huge relief.
After hearing of my struggles she immediately started recommending ways of expressing this side of myself, like "Well have you heard of furry? Do you think that would work for you?" "When you're older there are also more adult things you can try with a human partner if you'd like, like role-play!" and more. I thought her recommending the furry community was hilarious at the time, but I still appreciated her willingness to help. It was just cathartic to actually hear someone speak so nicely to me about this subject for once, to hear someone who actually seemed to want to help. I was lucky to end up with a therapist that actually cared about my needs and wellbeing, and from that point on she became a crucial figure in my journey of self-acceptance. She was helpful to me in a lot of aspects in my life, not just zoophilia, and admittedly I've had trouble wanting to find another therapist again. After her, I don't think I could ever have a therapist that wasn't as invested in my journey as she was. And I definitely know that if they weren't willing to speak to me as a zoophile, I simply couldn't tolerate that. Call it a personal "Therapist litmus test" if you will.
The second person to find out was my ex-partner, whom I still consider to be my best friend. We'll call him Joe to make things easier.
I'm not exactly sure on the precise details of how, but Joe actually knew I was a zoo long before I formally told him. Apparently there had been signs, some things I'd said.
The killer was when I was around 14 or so I'd started reaching out to the internet for help- ie. I wanted to know a way to "cure" my zoophilia. One of the places I asked was reddit of all places. And at the time I was NOT very internet savvy, as I technically wasn't allowed internet access till I was 16 and I'd been sneaking onto it without much knowledge of how it worked. In short: I didn't realize you could put someone's username into google to look up their posts.
At some point during this time, he got a glimpse of the account handle I'd been using to look for said help, and when I hastily told him to leave it be, he looked it up anyways out of curiosity and found the posts I'd made. And despite the content there exposing me as a zoophile, he never said a thing about it.
So fast forward to about three years later, and I'm ranting to him (over text) about my issues with my family. At some point, I started going off about how there was something "abnormal" with me, something so taboo that if my parents ever knew they'd disown me. I'd been talking about me being a zoophile of course. And he made a comment along the lines of, "Yeah, I think I know what this 'Taboo thing' is". Which made my blood go cold the second I read it. While I do love Joe, at the time I couldn't trust that he would be cool with me being a zoophile. I've seen some of the sweetest people become downright bloodthirsty over the subject, and with my therapist I figured I just got lucky. I didn't want to risk losing someone who I cherished so deeply over something that was so ingrained in my very being. So when he said that simple little sentence, my stomach churned. I didn't ask him about it initially, but I spent the rest of the day obsessing over that single passing phrase, wondering what he meant by it and if he actually knew what I'd meant by "Taboo thing".
Eventually, the anxiety made me so sick to my stomach that I called him in the dead of night and straight up asked him "Hey, when you said you knew about my 'Taboo thing' what did you mean by that?". He then proceeded to tell me about an old reddit post he discovered that I'd written about my attraction to canines. The immense cringe of him of all people seeing that post made by a desperate 14 year old me was enough to make me die inside, but the fact that my fears had been confirmed completely overwhelmed me.
I started to cry, which shocked him because I'd never cried in front of him in the decade we'd known each other. Hell even my own family struggles to get a tear out of me, which just went to show how much I was freaking out. I exclaimed, "Why didn't you say anything?!". And he replied "I dunno, I didn't really think it was that big of a deal."
Frantically I asked, "You haven't told anyone, have you?"
"No, I wouldn't do something like that".
"Well...do you have any questions about anything?"
"No, not really."
"And you don't see any problem with dating someone who's into dogs??" (We were still in a relationship at this point in time).
"I don't see why I should. I still love you the same. You're the same person and I know you're not actually gonna do anything to any dogs. If you ever want to talk to me about it I'm here, but other than that this doesn't change anything. Like, unless you were to go around killing people I don't think there's anything you could do that would make me love you any less".
From that point on he was more in awe with the fact that I was crying than the fact that I just admitted to being a zoophile.
Even after we broke up, he never used my zoophilia against me. As far as I know, he's kept my secret all this time. We don't really talk about it, although occasionally he tries to make friendly jokes about me being into dogs and I pretend to ignore it. Mostly because it's still awkward for me to talk about casually in real life. We're still on good terms, and even if I'm still shocked by his nonchalance, I'll forever be grateful for his acceptance. He's an odd duck for sure, but I am too, so I guess that's how we've managed to remain so close for so long, lol
The last person I told was my mother. As of right now, she's kind of the last person I ever plan on telling.
It came up in the midst of a nasty argument. Just for some background info: My parents have always been authoritarian type. I don't hate them for it, but it was difficult. I was 17 and finally starting to break after 17 years of dealing with their shit, so one day I snapped, really let them have a piece of my mind. I was so enraged at the time that I don't really remember everything I'd said, but at some point something came up that was along the lines of them disowning me if they knew how "fucked up" I was, and how I wished I had parents I could trust to love me even if I didn't fit in to the norm. This got them confused. Aside from mental health issues, I'm practically their golden child. Perfect grades, never gotten in trouble with the law, a good obedient poster child they can flaunt to all their buddies. They questioned me on this, and I told them it'd be better to drop it, but they refused to. They pushed and pushed, and even though I was ready to throw everything away to give them a piece of my mind, the words just wouldn't come out. Eventually my dad spoke "If it's better for me to not be here, you can tell your mother about it". Which I agreed to, as while I do have my qualms with my mother, I know she's more open-minded than he is. My father can't even accept the fact that I'm queer, so I could never imagine him accepting me as a zoo.
My mother took me to the backyard, away from his ears, and told me to explain what I'd meant. I didn't really want to, but I figured that if I was already coming out with all my frustrations I may as well let this cat out of the bag too and deal with the consequences later. So after some skirting about the subject, I did. She did take a sharp breath when the word "Zoophile" came out of my mouth. And of course she had questions like "How long have you known?" ( Since puberty) and "Are you attracted to our pets?"(No) and "Does anyone else know?" (Joe and my therapist). But after I answered her questions, explained to her what being an anti-contact zoophile means, and she gave it some thought, she finally said, "Atticus, you don't have to worry about me disowning you or kicking you out or anything...Human sexuality is weird. Everyone has their kinks. Just as long as you know you can't act on those feelings, I'm not gonna make a big deal out of this. And yeah, definitely don't tell your father.".
While it was (and still is) clear that she's not exactly well-researched on the subject, hearing her reassure me that I was safe, that my life wasn't going to fall apart, was highly cathartic. And while our relationship is still rocky, I feel as though sharing this part of myself with her gave me a lot of insight into her as a person, which made me have a little more respect for her. In short, things have gotten better with her. It's like there was this wall with us before to where I refused to let her in out of fear that I would lose my livelihood, and while that wall is still there, it's a more transparent wall.
She's continued to be a beacon of support in rough times regarding paraphilias. Hell, there was a time just recently were I had some qualms with a human sexuality class of mine and its treatment of the topic of pedophilia, and she agreed with me that the way my classmates spoke of pedophiles was atrocious. While I wouldn't exactly tell her about this account or this community at all, I know that if I ever needed to rant about anything regarding the subject of my zoophilia, she's someone I can talk to about it, if just on a surface level.
To sum all of this up, I'm lucky to be surrounded by kind, understanding people.
Granted, I don't want this to be seen as an endorsement of just coming out recklessly. There are some people I just will not tell. My father is one of them. Another is a "friend" of mine who got genuinely mad at me for making a joke about finding lamias attractive because "That's zoophilia and zoophiles are degenerates who deserve to die". Those are people who have clearly indicated to me from past responses that they're not people I'll be sharing this with. And I think that's ultimately for the best, for my safety if nothing else.
I'm privileged to be able to talk to others freely about this in my life. But not everyone is. And I think it's important to keep in mind that you never truly know how someone's gonna react to this subject until they're directly faced with it. If you ever do plan on telling a loved one: Please test the waters first. Hint at the subject to gauge their reaction. If it's negative: disengage. But if it's positive or neutral there may be hope yet. My best advice is to always exercise caution. Support from loved ones is awesome, but it's not worth bringing harm to yourself.
Stay safe :)
(Also if anyone has any stories of their own please do share! I'd love to hear them :) )
