Why is sex with animals considered wrong? Is this something to do with
the rights of animals, the moral duties of man or the nature of consent?

I strongly suspect that there are a lot of ideas here that have been
thoroughly mixed up for years. People do not want to face up to the
issues, partly because showing an interest in the subject makes a person
a suspected animal abuser. I think it is right that I declare here the
nature of my interest in the subject. I have no interest in having sex
with animals myself and I am not a consumer of animal pornography, I
have looked out of curiosity but I certainly have never paid to look. I
am fascinated by the grubbiness of the subject because of my habit of
scouring the logs to see what people have been looking for when they
come to my site. A disconcertingly large number of people seem to be
attracted by the possibilities of looking at obscure animal sex related
issues. Through the simple tactic of reporting those failed searches and
allowing them to be indexed by search engines I have started a positive
feedback loop which brings in a constant stream of very curious if not
downright bizarre visitors. How many of those people who arrive on the
site looking for images of dogs, horses, apes, whales, elephants, frogs,
small rodents and people in unorthodox juxtapositions subsequently go on
to engage me in debate I have no idea. I can only guess. On the basis of
the quality of the debate from a few people who drop by I suspect a few
have slipped in via that route.

Surveys do suggest that a small number of people do actively seek
gratification of sexual urges via contact with animals. But I suspect
that the vast majority of searches for animal sex related material comes
from simple curiosity. Who could fail to be at least a little bit
curious about such a curious subject?

Pornography that features animals and women obviously brings up the
issue of degrading women. I don't buy the idea that this is the whole
story. If it was then there would be no such images featuring men, but
there are. I have not seen any images that look like the primary
function is to show women being degraded and humiliated, although the
humiliation motif is in evidence in sadomasochist, anal, oral and
inter-racial pornography which is pitched as fairly mainstream American
market. In fact I would go further to suggest that all the women in such
images seem to be wearing the sort of expressions you might expect to
see in advertisements for office furniture, there seems no hint of
acting degraded, abused, in pain, humiliated or overcome with desire.
They look just like professionals doing their job. Which I suppose they
are. On the whole they look better company than most actresses in
“regular wholesome pornography”, who often seem to be deliberately
portrayed as being abused or humiliated by the whole process, an
impression often reinforced by the accompanying text which calls them
sluts, whores or bitches.

Are the animals raped? This is a rather difficult point to clarify. In
the case of male animals in the active role there seems very little case
to be made that there is coercion. If the actors involved were human the
matter would not arise, they appear to regard the whole procedure as a
form of masturbation, while obviously they would give preference to
members of their own species in the absence of such opportunities they
seem quite content to take part in the activities and show no more
distress than animals involved in other unnatural acts with Homo sapiens
such as dressage, show jumping, being carried around in a handbag,
jumping through a hoop or guiding a blind person to the shops. If we do
not regard all unnatural acts which humans entice animals to take part
in for their own selfish motives as abuse how can we really draw a hard
distinction between one activity and another?

In the case of female or passive animal participants of acts of sodomy
there is obviously more potential for regarding the activity as rape.
But we don't charge animals with rape, even in cases which are rather
clear cut rapes and gang rapes so why does it make such a difference
that the perpetrator is human? Does it matter to the animal? I suppose a
lot depends upon the relative size.

I would be in favour of prosecuting people who rape animals for the
crime of animal cruelty, with the sexual element being recognized only
as it applies to the treatment of the offender and the likelihood of
them re-offending.
Other forms of animal sex can involve (at least in fantasy and rumour)
inserting animals whole into human body cavities. This has to be
regarded as likely to be a form of animal cruelty and if it happened
would be punishable as such.

"Medical literature, which covers examples of items retrieved from
patients' rectums in extreme detail, has never recorded a case of an
animal being removed from a patient, nor of damage inflicted on a
patient's insides due to rectal insertion of an animal."
- source Wikipedia

In what way is having sex with an Animal worse than eating it?

We use animals for our own purposes all the time, most obviously by
eating them. Would an animal prefer to have its penis sucked or its
liver made into pate? Which would you prefer? Tough call? I don't think so.

As long as we regard eating animals as legitimate behaviour I can see no
good reason why there should be any automatic rejection of all forms of
sex with animals as being beyond the pale, certainly on grounds of
animal cruelty alone. Buggering a small animal like a cat or sticking a
gerbil up your bottom is obviously cruel to the animal and should be
punished as such, but there should be no automatic assumption that any
juxtaposition of animal and human genitalia is always cruel. If it is
cruel it is, and laws exist to punish such cruelty, if it isn't cruel
then what is the problem?

Obtaining a semen sample for artificial insemination is not regarded as
animal cruelty so what difference should it make if human pleasure
(direct or vicariously via pornography) was obtained during what is
fundamentally the same process? For many the answer is that it is wrong
not because it causes the animal pain or distress but because it gives
the human pleasure and that is a sin. Puritans don't care about pain,
but pleasure is sinful. It must surely be time to rid our penal codes of
this nasty small-minded Puritanism. It is not the law's concern whether
something the private citizen does is fun or not. What matters is
whether or not any harm is caused to other individuals, society, the
nation, animals or the environment. With no harm done the law should not
get involved. Enjoying an activity does not make it bad if it isn't bad
in and of itself.

Does sex with animals degrade those who take part? I should say yes it
probably does, but if it is a free choice made by an adult then who has
got an obligation to interfere? I say nobody. By all means express your
revulsion and condemn the activity but it is fundamentally illiberal to
prevent somebody doing something that victimizes nobody else. That does
actually seem to be the way the law treats the subject, police forces
really don't want to know, they only take an interest when they have no
alternative.

Should animal pornography be illegal? My answer to this is that if the
activity depicted is itself illegal then such depictions should be
illegal, and if not then not.

Do people who look at animal pornography actually carry out their
fantasies? Do they even have fantasies? I think not on both scores for
most consumers. In large measure this is a victimless crime, volunteers
make pornography to make money from people with prurient curiosity. As
long as the stuff is not made by being cruel to animals or by exploiting
powerless people and the result is not promoted or made available to
children then it is just another of many bad taste products that a free
market will produce.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////
A Rottweiller, a greyhound and a poodle are waiting in the vets.

Greyhound: What are you here for? I had puppies last month and they said
never again, off to the vet.

Rottweiler: Funnily enough the labrador across the street had puppies
last week and my owner said never again you're off to the vet.

Poodle: Last week I caught my mistress bending over the bed so I mounted
her and gave her a good rogering.

Rottweiler: So you're here to be castrated too?

Poodle: No. Just getting my claws trimmed.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////


--

Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org/