From “A Peek Inside a Furry Convention,” a letter sent by Debra W. Soh to the Archives of Sexual Behavior and published in the journal’s January issue. Soh is a Ph.D. candidate in sexual neuroscience at York University, in Toronto. “Furry fandom” is a term given to the collective subculture of furries. A paraphilia is an unusual or deviant sexual interest.

I couldn’t wait to meet a furry, someone who adopts the identity or persona of an anthropomorphized animal in social — and often sexual — interactions. Since first discovering their existence two years ago while working in a sexology lab,…