How to Do Animal Rights

Chapter 8

Zoophilia

Zoophiles are people with a sexual orientation for animals and zoophilia is about having sex with animals. Possibly the most popular beast partners are dogs, horses, cows and sheep, probably because of their prevalence and relatively submissive behaviour as domesticated animals. Zoophilia is from the Greek zoon - animal, and philia - lover.

Illustrations from early history depicting sexual acts with animals indicate that some societies accepted bestiality at least to some degree.

An old name for zoophilia is bestiality and an alternative modern name is zoosexuality.

Many people today would view zoophilia as abhorrent, take strong exception of it and see zoophiles as sick or sexually impaired. Until recently zoophilia was widely considered a mental disorder and in some places it still is.

Sex with animals is illegal in some countries, such as Canada and a number of European countries; bestial acts in Britain carry a jail sentence of up to two years. But elsewhere, as in half the states of the USA and in other European countries, there is no specific legislation against it.

The animal rights debate has not attracted as careful or heated a discussion on zoophilia as it has on animals in other circumstances. This may be partly because zoophilia facts and figures are difficult to come by. Sex with animals is a concealed activity with little research on the subject. However, one celebrated guess put the number of people involved in sexual activity with animals at eight percent of men and four percent of women. But opinions vary wildly and some people make out that over half the population have indulged in some form of zoophilia, if only in fantasy.

Some people can be zoophilophobic much like some people are homophobic. This attitude is based on subjectivism and emotivism - subjective and emotional feelings - not on rational consideration. Zoophiles, however, maintain that they have loving relationships with their partner animals and do not feel that what they do is immoral. Zoophiles insist that zoosexuality is no different from human-human relationships, can last years and go beyond bare sexuality. They claim that many animals of both sexes can experience pleasure from human-made sexual acts, can solicit sexual pleasure from humans and show their appreciation.

Most people would surely agree that it is immoral for self-interested sexual gratification to cause an animal distress or pain, impair a young animal's development or coerce an adult animal into unwilling acts. But responsible zoophiles would surely care for their animal partners, who must be consenting, and insure the well-being of their animals partners as part of their love.

For & Against: argue your case

Coercion or Choice

Claim: Animals are like children; they cannot make choices or consent to sex with humans. Humans manoeuvre and coerce animals into sexual acts

Claim: Animals can make choices and consent to sexual advances from humans. Animals not wanting sex will say so with body language and fight back.

Immaturity

Claim: Immature animals are not ready for sex and their healthy development will suffer if they have sex with humans. It is as wrong to have sex with them as it is wrong to have sex with underage humans. They cannot fight back.

Claim: Zoophiles acknowledge that immature animals could suffer. Responsible zoophiles do not have sex with immature animals and forbid sex with them.

Degradation or Dignity

Claim: Having sex with animals sullies animal dignity.

Claim: Neither humans nor animals are superior that one side can degrade the other.

Harm

Claim: Zoophiles harm animals; they bind, abuse and injure them.

Claim: Sexual abuse is wrong in human-human and human-animal relationships. However, sometimes a zoophile partner can suffer, as can happen in human-only relations.

Compatibility

Claim: We should seek partners we can relate to on the same emotional and intellectual level. We cannot do this with animals.

Claim: Sex is an expression of many things, not just egalitarian relationships, and can bridge the species barrier.

Anomaly

Claim: Zoophilia is a mental disorder and perversion that needs curing.

Claim: Zoophilia is as much a part of the normal mind as other forms of sexuality, such as heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Pregnancy & Disease

Claim: Either party might get pregnant or pick up a disease.

Claim: Different species cannot make each other pregnant. Sexual diseases are mainly specific to each species, so are unlikely to be caught from an animal-human sexual partnership.

Injury

Claim: If there is a big size, strength or behaviour difference then either party could easily injure the other, for instance a dog or horse vs a human.

Claim: There is a risk of harm but this also applies to man-woman relationships.

Naturalness

Claim: Inter-species sexual activity is unnatural, so should stop.

Claim: We do not know the incidence of inter-species sexual activity among wild animals. So we cannot knowledgeably say that zoophilia is unnatural.

Prejudice

Claim: Zoophilia is as wrong as paedophilia.

Claim: Condemnation of zoophilia is an example of speciesism, discrimination against other species based on human prejudices.

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