The Anthrosexual Questionnaire

I came across again a piece titled, "The Language of Sex: The Heterosexual Questionnaire" by one M. Rochlin.  It made me giggle, so I thought I would adapt some of it for use here, as well as add a few of my own things.  1-18 are from the original questionnaire, which was obviously meant to highlight heterosexism, turning on their head a lot of questions that, at the time, were being asked of and about homosexuals.  Please note that, although it may seem like it sometimes on this blog, I'm not trying to pick on or appropriate the LGBT movement; I simply admire their ability to make an entire culture stop and think for a moment about their ideals pertaining to sexual morality.  I am also not trying to "convert" anyone to exclusive zoosexuality.  I do not even believe this is possible, nor, in our current cultural climate, is it particularly desirable.  I simply hope that you find this list entertaining and perhaps a little thought-provoking.

1. What do you think caused you to be attracted to men and/or women?
2. When and how did you decide you were only attracted to humans?
3. Is it possible that your anthrosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?
4. Is it possible that your anthrosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of animals?
5. Is it possible that all you need is a good non-human lover?
6. If you've never slept with an animal, how do you know you won't prefer that?
7. Why do you insist on flaunting your sexual attraction to humans?  Can't you just be who you are and keep it quiet?
8. Why do anthrosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?
9. Why do anthrosexuals feel compelled to force others into their own lifestyle?
10. Nearly all child molestors are primarily anthrosexual.  Do you believe it's safe to expose children to anthrosexual people?
11. Men and women think very differently.  Can a hetero-anthrosexual relationship really work?
12. With all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiraling.  Why are there so few stable relationships among anthrosexuals?
13. Disease transmission from animals to humans due to sexual activity is much lower than that between humans, due to the lack of cross-species STIs.  Is it really safe for someone to maintain an anthrosexual lifestyle and run the risk of disease and pregnancy?
14. How can you become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive anthrosexuality?
15. Considering the menace of overpopulation, how could the human race survive if everyone were anthrosexual?
16. Could you trust an anthrosexual therapist to be objective?  Don't you feel he/she might be inclined to influence you in the direction of his/her own leanings?
17. Have you looked into methods, such as aversion therapy, that can be used to cure your anthrosexuality?
18. Do anthrosexuals hate animals?  Is that why they are anthrosexual?
19. How can you be certain that your human partner is consenting to sexual intercourse?
20. Humans fake enjoyment of sex with great frequency: 60% of women and 25% of men state that they have faked orgasm.  How likely do you feel it is that your human partner is not getting anything from your sexual relationship?
21. Are you attracted to humans because animals do not find you attractive?
22. If your partner does not explicitly say, "Yes, I want to have sex," it is rape.  Do you consider yourself a rapist?
23. Some people are, let's face it, pretty stupid.  Do you believe it would be wrong for you to have sex with an intellectually inferior individual?
24. With rape being this common in the human world -  one in four women are raped at least once in their lifetimes (Greenberg, Bruess, Haffner, 2000) - is it fair to say that humans do not have a real idea of sexual consent?
25. Do you think that, during a woman's "time of the month," she is capable of giving proper consent?
26. You can injure your human partner during sex: roughly one third of American adults being injured during intercourse every year (according to medical insurance companies).  Is having sex safe for both you and your partner?
27. Power differences are commonly large between human partners: many marriages include only one spouse who works to keep food on the table.  Is it wrong for such a couple to have sex with this power difference?
28. Humans are notoriously unconcerned about nature.  Don't you think it's better to become more intimate with the non-human world?
29. In South Carolina and Michigan, oral sex, even between heterosexual married couples, was illegal prior to 2003.  Do you feel that couples who practiced oral sex in these states prior to 2003 were perverts or criminals?
30. Anthrosexual intercourse is disgusting.  Why would you ever want to do it in the first place?

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.

Sex with Animals Causes Cancer?

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