Why NOT Zoophilia?

There has never, in history, been a civilization that has normatively or officially approved of overtly romantic or sexual interactions between humans and animals.  There have been times where it simply wasn’t punished, or was practiced for less-than-everyday reasons, such as ritual – certain practices involving kings and horses in certain European cultures during the Bronze Age come to mind – but it was never normal, and never considered a viable romantic orientation; in above example, the horse was afterwards devoured.  Why is this?  Extending this question, why today do we have, if anything, only an even more negative attitude towards zoophilia?

This seems like a silly question to most: when asked to rationalize an attitude towards this question, the first reaction tends to come from the gut, along with their breakfast.  Although we’re more tolerant today of that woman who just likes her cats a lot, bestiality at least is still simply gross.  But grossness, in a serious discussion, is not enough to warrant arresting or even killing someone; at least it’s not today.  Nor, for most – at least in the developed world – is religion. (And besides, the Bible only condemns bestiality twice: once in Exodus, once in Leviticus, which are two books often hummed and hawed over, and not once is it called a sin.)

People will cite health reasons too: that one can catch all manner of illnesses and infections from animals.  However, this is provably false: as I discuss briefly in my last post, the number of zoonoses – diseases that can be transferred from animal to human – are extremely small in comparison to the number of STIs that can be transmitted between humans.  As for infection, so long as an animal is well-cared-for, there is little risk.  Most infections you read about on the “lol” section of your favourite news site arise when someone sneaks onto farmland to bang X ungulate, which obviously isn’t going to be as sanitary from an anthropocentric viewpoint as an animal kept with people.  And of course, the same individuals support freedom for practices that are inherently self-destructive, such as drinking, smoking, or the use of light drugs such as cannabis.

The debate about bestiality typically boils down to animal rights: the idea that animals cannot consent.  This argument, I find, is indicative of an individual who has spent little time with animals in their life.  Indeed, I attended a lecture a few weeks ago in which the lecturer asked a room of two hundred or so people how many of them had pets.  Maybe ten percent raised their hands.  When he asked off-handedly how many felt attached to their pets, only half of that figure did.  The assumption, then, that someone who believes that animals are so unthinking and unfeeling that they are not even able to articulate a very basic desire actually has no experience to back this reasoning seems to be a fairly solid one; indeed, when I end up in a debate with such an individual, I can usually flabbergast them by showing them some random video of an animal in heat.  I beg your pardon, sir, but does your girlfriend scream and brandish her genitalia in front of you when she wants something?  Oh, but it’s not verbal consent, therefore it’s not legal.  Well, does your significant other ever even ask you if you want to have sex, or does it just happen – clothes start falling off, as it were – because it’s a natural thing to do?

This debate and the health debate are both hypocritical veils for that original, gut-driven objection.  So we’re still left with this original question: why, when so many other taboos based on nothing but faith and proximity discomfort have been abolished, is zoophilia still illegal in most parts of the world, and is despised by the majority of the population in every nation?  I believe the reason is two-part: adherence to old values, which is a hallmark of culture itself and has retarded such progressive thought, such as gender equality and religious tolerance, from manifesting; and our view of animals in general.  We, as modern humans, see animals at once as lovable, animated creatures, and as inferiors to be exploited by tools.  Hospitals employ cats and dogs to visit their patients because, as a species, we adore them, while at once administering to the same patients medications that were discovered only through cruel experimentation on, yes, cats and dogs.

What does this mean?  Simply, our animals are objects: we may dispose of them, so long as we don’t have to see it happen.  We don’t have to learn about them, because there are more important things to be attending to that involve us.  They are, in short, slaves, only without the non-crazy emancipation movements, so those who do become attached to them in some of the ways we generally reserve only for humans are treated as though they are willingly lowering themselves to the level of the slave – something we have always found distressing.  Couple this, of course, with the foreignness of non-human anatomies – as foreignness almost always produces an instinctual withdrawal – and you have a great deal of distress regarding the situation of the zoophile.

From this, we can glean a solution: although we cannot eliminate resistance to social or cultural change – nor, I believe, should we, for too much change at once can be harmful – we can work towards reconstructing the bond between humans and other animals, showing people that, apart from our ability to speak and produce culture, there is very little difference between ourselves and other species.  Following this is perhaps the more difficult imperative: we, as zoophiles, must come out in force, so that the concept of a human who desires romantic relationships with non-humans is not so bizarre to the common folk.  I believe that it is actually up to us to achieve both of these goals: with the failure of such movements as PETA and the ALF on account of being batshit insane, we are the best individuals for the job to show the world just what animals are capable of, and how similar we truly are.  Only once this is accomplished will our world take that one giant step closer towards rationality and equality, and will we be allowed to live without fear.