I hope I’m not giving offense, but isn’t people dressing up as comic book or other characters just “cosplay” when it is a fandom and “furry” when it is a fetish?

I’m not saying that everyone who dresses up in a fursuit is a fetishist, but I think that the “fandom” as you call it would be better served to address that aspect more openly. There’s no harm in coming out with a fur fetish any more than there is coming out with respect to any other fetish.

Any purported linkages between furries and child abuse and exploitation are BS, just like how many jerkwads purport to link homosexuality with pedophilia.