Sex with Animals

From The New York Times, April 22, 2015:

“Denmark passed legislation Tuesday banning bestiality, toughening a law that animal rights activists feared was encouraging animal-sex tourism. The bill amends a previous ban on intercourse that harms animals. Farm Minister Dan Jorgensen argued that the previous ban was inadequate, saying in an opinion article, “It’s hard to prove that an animal suffers when a human has sexual intercourse with it, and that is why we must give the animal the benefit of the doubt.” Those voting for the bill said Denmark did not want to remain the last northern European country where bestiality was legal, as this was attracting animal-sex tourists. . . A 2011 Justice Ministry report surveyed veterinarians and found that 17 percent of them suspected that a human had had sex with an animal they treated.”

It has been around for as long as we’ve been etching our stories into rocks. It can be found in far corners of the world. It goes by many names: buggery, bestiality, a crime against nature, paraphilia, zoo sex, sex with animals. Yet for a practice that is so prevalent and that has such profound implications for animals, bestiality gets surprisingly little attention. To be clear: We are not talking about a few isolated incidents that catch the media’s attention. Nor are we talking about the small number of violent sexual assaults on animals that get reported to the authorities and prosecuted.

It is much, much bigger than that. A whole sub-culture of people are engaging in sexual activity with nonhuman animals (they call themselves “zoos”); there are Internet forums dedicated to sharing stories and exchanging advice; there are organized bestiality events and animal sex farms where, like a whore house, a group of animals is available for the taking. There is an entire Zoo World out there, right outside your window or behind your neighbor’s curtains. Although there are no precise statistics, each zoo likely knows, on average, about 90 other people engaged in zoophilic activity.*

My teenage daughter reports that one of her classmates is a zoophile: He tells people that he has sex with cats and he wears a costume cattail to school every day. The existence of erotic farms and animal brothels tells us that animals are being trafficked for sex, just like young women. The fact that Denmark has passed legislation to stop animal-sex tourism tells us that it is not an insignificant issue.

It is important to understand that there is a huge spectrum of zoophilic activity, from what some people see as loving, monogamous human-animal bonds that happen to include sex, to forms of torture and zoosadism that will give you nightmares. You may be squirming a little even at the mention of this taboo subject, but no matter how hard we try to squeeze our eyes shut, it’s still going to be there. And the implications for animals are huge. Bestiality or zoophilia—whatever we call it—is one of the most pressing issues for all domesticated animals, including those we keep as pets. We have an entire population of vulnerable creatures there for the taking, and many people are taking.

Among the few scholars who have approached the subject of zoophilia, there is disagreement about whether it is a crime or a lifestyle choice. Some argue that sexual attraction to animals is a sexual orientation, just like homosexuality or bisexuality. It is not, in this view, either perverse or morally wrong. People exhibit a wide spectrum of sexual attractions, and for some, this attraction extends to nonhuman animals. Psychiatric texts, on the other hand, tend to categorize sex with animals as a “paraphilia,” where sexual gratification is obtained through sexual practices that are atypical or extreme or, by some definitions, perverse. Pedophilia and sadomasochism are also generally considered paraphilias (though Fifty Shades of Grey has “normalized” S & M to a considerable degree).

The majority of those writing about zoophilia (a number of whom are veterinarians or veterinary forensic experts) consider any form of sexual contact with animals as per se abusive. Often the argument hinges on the issue of consent. Can animals consent to interspecies sex? Do they ever? It is relatively easy to know, from behavioral cues, when an animal does not want to participate (attempts to escape, cries and howls, facial expressions of pain or distress), but in the absence of overt “no” behaviors, how do we interpret the animal’s willingness or lack thereof? Is silence or absence of refusal to be taken as an indication of consent? What if the animal shows signs of pleasure, interest, willingness? Or what if, people who practice bestiality train animals to comply with and participate in sex acts?

This is not just an academic question. Much of what transpires on zoophilia Internet chatrooms have to do with what participants seem to think of as “gaining consent.” On one thread called K9 Anal, this kind of language is peppered throughout the how-to’s: “Let the animal tell you what he or she wants.” “Don’t force it.” “Go slowly and get them used to the idea.” “Train them to like it.” This blurring of the line between consent and coercion is, in my opinion, deeply problematic.

The fact that Denmark has made bestiality illegal is a step in the right direction. It suggests, though, that animal-sex tourism is a real problem. And most people don’t want to talk about it. If I so much as mention that such things are happening, most of my friends clap their hands over their ears and say, “I don’t want to know.” Indeed, these are difficult things to think about, if you love animals. But we need to start talking more openly about zoophilia—not to demonize those who practice it because not everyone who loves an animal too much is a sexual predator. But we do need to challenge its appropriateness, for the animals involved. If you care about animals, you should care about all of the diverse forms of violence and exploitation that we exact upon them.