I went ahead and saw The Shape of Water the other week and it seemed significant to me. Here we have a cast of protagonists: the first, a disabled individual, specifically a mute, talked down to for her disability, her humanity undermined, and her abilities underestimated. (And further someone whose socioeconomic class is discriminated against. Second, a gay man, whose social life and freedom are restricted for his sexuality. Third, a black woman, whose race is her primary limiter. And then fourth, we have a nonhuman, someone presented as an animal - who for all intents and purposes is an animal - who is the subject of all the injustices animals are often subject to.
And we have all of these people rising above, proving that they are worth more than they are given by heteronormative society in ability, intelligence, strength, and the ability to love. The Shape of Water is one of those unfortunate films that receives critical acclaim while being generally ignored in box offices, only playing in select theatres, and not even considered for annual awards (although it did take home one for its soundtrack). But if you want to point to Hollywood making one more step towards acknowledging and respecting human-animal relationships, this is a good one. Indeed, this is the first time I have seen a film glorify an explicitly sexual relationship between a human and something non-human very clearly pre-linguistic (at least expressively: he only makes single word utterances through ASL). Further, even when the protagonist describes this relationship in a rather explicit manner, no one takes issue with its interspecies nature.
Slowly, very slowly, zoophilia is peeking its way into accessible media and being portrayed as something beautiful, even if strange, and one more victim of a judgemental society. Go support this film if you get the chance, it's certainly worth it. Wonderful soundtrack, very daring depiction, well paced and with very real and flushed out characters that you can take home emotionally with you. Even for non zoos, of course, enjoy falling into, and even in love with, its weirdness.
In general, people don't bother with their cats too much. It sounds very distasteful to say, but it's true: We think of our cats as rather asocial animals, who can generally take or leave us, and when they take us they may well just leave us three minutes later, until the next time we're busy enough that we're worth bothering. Cats are assholes, we say.
I, obviously, feel very strongly against this. Cats can be very sociable, loving, even needy as any dog you might find if they're given the attention and the respect, and their communicative needs are met. Dogs, though they aren't anymore, originally came from pack animals, and are still naturally more gregarious than cats are. We, as humans, can sympathize with this, and so we have an easier time communicating with them. Cats, on the other hand, are nocturnal, less interested in consistent, close proximity, and prefer the one on one. This doesn't mean they have fewer social needs, only that their social needs are different. They're the introverts of the animal world, and a common misconception about introversion is that it means you simply don't like people. Introverts don't like crowds, don't like strangers, but the few people that they do like they become very attached to, and require them in their lives more than extroverts might rely on their own friends. Cats are like this.
So no, don't assume kitty is fine if you leave home for a week and they have no one to interact with. You may come home and they seem to ignore you, but this is because cats have a more complex social mind in some ways in comparison to dogs: they have the capability to quietly resent, they are vengeful, they can be embarrassed. Have you ever seen kitty do something stupid, like slip across a kitchen floor chasing a bug only to collide with a counter, and you laugh, and they stalk off to face away from you, licking themselves? Their humiliation looks a lot like ours, and so do their feelings of being abandoned. They haven't forgotten you when you get home after that long trip, they just aren't very happy that you left them alone in the first place. Cats isolating themselves, whether in humiliation or sickness or other upset, is a survival mechanism.
Cats also listen very attentively to verbal communication. Like the other forms of concealment or deceit listed above, they often know very well what we want them to do or are telling them, but ignore us intentionally. If one develops a strong relationship with a cat, they may well tear this barrier down, as my own has, and react to your wants and needs almost implicitly. In return, cats also have a huge range of their own verbal expressions, highlighting how important verbalization is to them. The more you talk to your cat, the more they'll talk back!
Cats have somewhere between thirty and upwards of one hundred distinct vocalizations, depending on one's source. This is actually far more than dogs have, which is somewhere in the teens. For comparison, the greatest number of distinct sounds in a human language is 141 at most. Coupled with body language, this means a cat can express an awful lot with little effort.
A content cat will have her ears forward, her eyes almond-shaped, and her whiskers down and forward in what I like to call a 'cat smile', since like a human smile it uses muscles in the cheeks. The tail will be relatively still, perhaps just flicking at the tip, back and forth like a pendulum. Content cats obviously will purr, but if you're talking to them and petting them, especially if they're pacing about while you do so so that you can get to their favourite places, they may give short little chirping noises or bubbling sounds from their throat. A very good way to see a content cat though, apart from all this, is the slow-blink. A lot of people see this as them being snobby, and in humans this is a rather self-important expression, but in cats they're telling you that they're happy where they are and they appreciate your presence. Cats will also rub against things when they're happy, and contrary to popular belief, this isn't them declaring your desk or your leg as their property, it's just communication like everything else.
An excited cat will have a more rapidly flicking tail. People usually note that an active tail in a cat generally means they're annoyed or angry, but an excited cat's tail may be all over the place as well. She'll be moving around a lot more, and may even look agitated, but the facial expression will mirror their content state, especially in the ears and the whiskers. She may vocalize much more, especially if you're vocalizing back to her, with loud purring and meowing.
An annoyed cat will be making very few vocalizations at all. She'll have her back to you, perhaps her ears back so that she can hear what you're doing. Her whiskers will be pushed back as well, and her tail will be flicking. In this state, it's best to just leave them alone; as humans, our natural response is to try to cheer them up, but they just want time to themselves.
An angry cat is easy to spot. Ears back, whiskers back, hackles raised. They'll snarl and hiss, and generally be very unpleasant.
A frightened cat is also easy noticed. The facial expression will be similar to an angry one in that the ears and whiskers will be back, but the tail will be still, and the eyes will be wide. A cat under consistent stress may actually purr, just as they do when they're injured. Some have asked me before how one can tell between a purring happy cat or a purring, and it's all in their facial expression and their reaction to stimuli. We all know what a cat looks like when she's enjoying being pet, curling her body against your hand; a frightened cat won't appreciate attention as overtly, although unless she bristles or moves away from you, comforting her is very advisable.
In general, the way you interact with a cat will be very different from how you interact with a dog or a person. People often lament that they dislike cats but cats in houses always seem to like them; this is because cats enjoy being ignored. Most cats don't enjoy intense physical attention, but even the most casual pet or ear-scritch can make them very happy; if she decides she wants to go somewhere else, do something else, don't follow her. She'll come back on her own. The petting may get more intense, and some cats love being brushed roughly, or having themselves underneath your body, making them feel loved and protected, but one way to almost always engage with your cat is just through verbalization. If you observe cats in the wild, big or small, most of their interactions are very brief physical contact, along with quite a few more vocalizations, often at long distances apart. Tell your cat her name in the right tone and you're guaranteed a cat-smile and a slow-blink.
Time for another review! And finally, it's a good one: This is an excellent book I have for some reason never been aware of until now. It's a Canadian piece written in the 70s by second-wave feminist Marian Engel about a Toronto women made to live out in the boondocks, where she meets and eventually falls in love with — you guessed it — a tame bear.
First of all, let me get the not-so-zoo stuff out of the way: It's a really well-written book. At first it may come across as a bit purple; it starts with the same tired and frustrated young city woman undergoing major changes in her life. The author does this on purpose, saying that she originally just wanted to write pornography, and then a bear came into the picture so she went with it, in typical style of writers. But it picks up, and a nice array of literary tools are used throughout the story to deliver a strong message just beneath the surface of the plot regarding the liberation of women's sexuality, and outside the sphere of feminism (or is it?) the rediscovery of what is natural and wild, beyond the scope of the niches society fits us into.
Some critics have toted it as a very spiritual book, but to me it's quite the opposite: with its length and its style, it reads like a significantly less chaste Paulo Coelho, but it actually paints a rather believable and down to earth story. If anything it's about pulling the wool away from one's eyes and just embracing the simple, almost a sort of nihilism, rather than a spiritual feeling or doctrine.
That realism extends to the zoophilic aspect, too: the bear's actions are in my experience very believable, right up to the ending, if not tragic then simultaneously disappointing and liberating in all the best ways. It doesn't ever disparage or abuse, and indeed even glorifies the zoophilic actions and feelings at hand, and really, I think some of us zoos could learn a thing or two about our relationships with animals from this book, and help bring us into a more moderate state of mind.
I really can't recommend this book strongly enough, not only to zoophiles but also to feminists, real libertarians, and anyone who enjoys good literature. It's erotic, but doesn't revel in it, and instead uses that eroticism to teach us things about our own existence and personal liberation in measure.
This film has been sitting in front of me literally for two years. Has anyone ever put off seeing something so relevant to their interests for so long? Why would I do that? Quite simply, it's because I was introduced to the film via its Wikipedia entry, and I knew, for absolute certain after reading the plot synopsis, that I would cry at the end.
SPOILER WARNING! Because this film is so very relevant to this blog's main topic, and because of my feelings about it, I'm not going to skirt around plot events, so if you haven't seen the film, want to see the film, and want things to be a surprise, read no further. That having been said, if you want a plot synopsis, I recommend mine over Wikipedia's, which is incorrect in several parts and, frankly, very cold in the rest.
Also, I totally did cry at the end.
Passion in the Desert opens with relative innocence, taking place in Egypt as Napoleon Bonaparte's armies march across it in an effort to wrest it from the hands of the Arabs. The protagonist is a French soldier by the name of Augustin Robert, who seems quite unremarkable apart from his current duty, which is to escort artist Jean-Michel Venture de Paris ("Venture"), who despite his name is most definitely from the Middle East and so is very mistrusted by the other French soldiers.
When one first sees the movie, one's inclined to think that this eccentric painter may be the focal point of the film: when the two are separated from their unit during a Mamaluk attack, he drives our poor protagonist half-mad with his obsessive depiction of the desert - the natural and cultural world of Egypt alike even as they try to survive in the desolate environment, climaxing when the old idiot uses the last of their drinking water to mix his paints. Unable to continue, Venture stays behind at a pair of dead trees and, after being assured by Augustin that he'd be picked up once the soldier had found the Nile, promptly drinks down his paints with lead-induced ecstasy.
Augustin doesn't find the Nile, and as a consequence, those who are particularly fond of horses might want to be wary of a certain scene in which he is forced to put his steed down (at the same instant a giggling Venture does himself). It's at this point the real crawling through the desert begins, until he finds a Bedouin camp. He steals water from a veiled and beaded woman, whom in his delirium he believes a sorceress and does what any of us would do in his shoes: he quickly takes his knife to her hair and jets with the whole tribe in pursuit behind him.
He finds an ancient temple and hides there as night falls, and his superstitious assailants leave him to be picked clean by the jinn - malevolent spirits who appear as anything, from humans to animals to wisps of sand. The concept of the jinn is one revisited throughout the film, particularly in animal form, to, of course, foreshadow our protagonist meeting one.
That is, as he turns in for the night, he finds himself bunking in the same sandstone room as a leopardess. She ignores him entirely as he nearly wets himself and prepares for the inevitable confrontation.
It comes, but not to him: in the morning, when one of the Bedouins comes looking for him, sling in hand, the leopardess gives the Frenchman a nuzzle and goes out to hunt his attacker. From this point on, we have a slow but steady movement from a supposed predator-prey relationship between Augustin and the cat, to the point that, in his hunger, he steals the remnants of a kill (a deer this time, to our relief) from her - which she is more than happy to share.
Before too many more cuts, we have the absolute sweetest scene I have ever seen in a film before: he's stroking this fully-grown leopard, to rubbing her ears, caressing her chest; she washes his hair and ears, then his face, and soon enough he's tossed away his inhibition and kisses her back - on the face, the lips, until he's cuddling her passionately and licking with his own tongue her head and neck. The scene starts at 56:00 on the nose in the video above.
At this point, I found three things: firstly, that this is beyond doubt an art film. Secondly, that I have just witnessed the most loving and honest zoophilic scene that I ever have in my life. Thirdly, that I just witnessed said scene on a film that is an hour and a half long, has big-name reviews, and is available on DVD.
The rest of the film - a healthy portion - is about the energetic, loving relationship between soldier and leopardess (whom he calls Simoom). For those wondering, there is never anything explicitly sexual between them, but a turning point in the film is when Augustin discovers Simoom playing and presumably mating (in what is at once a very catlike and very playful and humanly relatable fashion) and becomes visibly jealous. She runs off, and in an effort to win back his lover her strips what's left of his uniform to decorate himself with mud and sand to look like, of course, a leopard. It's difficult to say this while keeping a straight face, but even this scene is in my opinion done believably. Most certainly it depicts the soldier's madness, but it's still not a madness that's depicted as explicitly negative. It's a desperation that comes to a head when Augustin's unit enters the area, and the lovesick, rosetted soldier has to choose between his own kind and his feline companion as the former takes aim at the latter. The tension ends with a boulder hurled at the young soldier's terrified skull and a snarl from a half-dressed Augustin to a cheery Simoom: "Where have you been?!"
Fed up, Augustin cleans himself up and dresses for the first time in however long, and prepares a makeshift rope to tie Simoom to a pillar as he makes his departure back to civilization, protesting to her that he does not want to be a deserter. Simoom, however, takes offence that he'd desert her for his old comrades, breaks the rope and gives chase. In his terror, realized from all that time before when he was certain Simoom would kill him, Augustin stabs his lover in the chest as she pounces on him, and kills her. Horrified with himself and weeping terribly, he turns blankly to the desert, cradling the corpse of the leopardess in his arms, to aimlessly walk the sands until at last he collapses, thus ending the film.
There are some neat literary things done in this film. The very veiled foreshadowing of the artist Venture's mania, love of the desert, and self-imposed death against Augustin's own madness, infatuation and (near) death in the end. The dead pair of trees that they come to a second time, the use of jinn as a metaphor all lend themselves well to an art film. And like its source, its finale very nicely symbolizes one of the most prominent tragedies: that of the conflict between love and mistrust.
I also appreciate the story itself, of course. Some critics have rated it low because, as I've found in my life people are wont to do, they can't stand the idea that a human and a wild animal can get along. From both personal experience and from stories like that of Kamunyak, I know that animals can have compassion for other creatures, sometimes without any clear reason, and sometimes even for animals they would normally be the enemy of. I know at least someone is going to laugh at me for this, but I find the story to be wholly believable. (And it should be: the original short story was written by Balzac, who championed naturalism in writing).
The reason I want to talk about this here, though, is because of all the films, short and long, about zoophilia and zoosexuality that I've reviewed: A Tale of Forbidden Love, COMING SOON, and others that I haven't like Equus and Animal Passions, despite not even being a documentary it paints the most accurate portrait of zoophilia. It doesn't play it for laughs like so many do, or demonize it like Equus does, or represent it as a cold sexual fetish as do COMING SOON and Animal Passions: it's a romance, and a beautiful one. It doesn't anthropomorphize the animal but depicts the relationship in all its beauty as well as all its strangeness. Indeed, I also found it nearly unique in realistic animal films (Old Yeller, etc.) in how little it anthropomorphizes the actions of the central non-human: there's never even the classic confused head-cock. Also interesting is that the animal (and the actor) are never computer-generated (though Simoom is played by two different cats, one of whom is actually male), so there's an earthy realism there even in production that's missing from so many modern films.
What all this means to me is that it's entirely possible for one to successfully depict zoophilia for the masses and do so successfully artistically while actually being fair to individuals like us who might just fall in love ourselves with the creature on-screen. I'd highly recommend this film for any zoos or zoo-sympathizers out there; although an art film and a little slow at times, it was made with a lot of love (the director put $5 million in from her own pocket) and is truly a diamond in the rough.
And with that, here's hoping that we can find more beautiful depictions of interspecies romance out there, and that more will continue to be made. Though I'm not sure if she will or won't appreciate the sentiment, Zoopoint salutes director/producer/writer Lavinia Currier for this lovely film.
The other day, I was approached by a close friend about zoophilia. She knows about my sexuality and had a simple question for me: Doesn't it get lonely? This is a subject that comes up a lot both by zoos and allies. A relationship in which you can't communicate using language, where you can't bring up complex topics or go to a fancy dinner or even say the words "I love you" seems to many, not unjustifiably, to be hardly worth calling a relationship at all. And, looking back at this blog after a long hiatus and seeing it being almost purely read by people who I'd like to think are legitimately interested in pleasuring/relieving their female feline friends but are probably just looking for images and videos that they will not find on this blog or hopefully anywhere else ever, I think this topic is a good one to bring up.
My response to my friend might have seemed a little cynical. I've been in love both with humans and with animals in my life, and while there are pros and cons to both, I don't believe one is superior to the other, and here's why: while a relationship between two humans does indeed have all of those riveting aspects about it, and I particularly myself enjoy sweet nothings and little romantic back-and-forths, it's precisely the same capabilities humans have that make relationships between them at the same time less communicative.
When using language to communicate, there are all sorts of things that can go wrong. Grice's Maxims are, in essence, a list of things that cause communication to fail: lying, changing the subject, oversaturation of information, obscurity, etc. These things, unfortunately, also exist within love, and if anything, exist more in romantic exchanges than elsewhere due to the strong culture of taboos, expectations, implications, etc. most of the world has when it comes to love. We are actually required to deceive our romantic partners and potential romantic partners to avoid coming across as cold or oversexed, unsympathetic or clingy, to avoid commitment while still seeming committed, and so on and so forth. Examples range from "playing hard to get" to consenting to sex despite not wanting it; we're all very familiar with the deception that goes on in romance to the extent that we all do it without even thinking about it: think of the meaning behind common little deceptions like "X really isn't a big deal" or "Yes, I really enjoyed Y".
Love with an animal, on the other hand, is very forthright: from the perspective of the non-human: if they don't want to be with their partner, they don't, and they do if they do. If they want sex, they make that extremely clear; if they don't, they make that equally clear. They make both their platonic adoration and physical pleasure well-known without restraint, and won't hesitate to make you aware of the opposite either. They don't find mates to please their parents, to get revenge on an old lover, or because they feel sorry for someone. So a human who falls in love with an animal is in a very real sense freed from those, in my opinion ridiculous, cultural constraints around romance.
So when I see a zoophile and his or her lover, my heart automatically melts. I see a very happy and affectionate dog, cat, horse, and think, if I can say so without sounding sappy, that that's the purest love right there. No holds barred, no secrets kept or lies told; whether there's a sexual relationship there or not, you know for certain there's love. On the other hand, when I see a couple kissing on the street, holding hands, I can't help but look at their expressions. Once in a while I get to talk to them. Sometimes, certainly, I'm convinced that the two are very true to one another and to their relationship, and walk away feeling my heart warmed. Much of the time, though, I can only think of a candle that someone's covered in diesel: it's going to blaze bright and hot, but it's going to burn out fast and, more importantly, it's going to smell awful: it's a couple that is fundamentally dishonest with one another and is formed by two people searching for love while missing the point of love in the first place. It's a reason the divorce rate is so high in many countries, and I've never heard of a zoophile falling out of love or otherwise having emotional difficulties related to their partnerships.
This isn't to belittle anthrosexual romance at all. After all, those who are lucky enough to find that individual with whom they can share a completely open and loving relationship have found someone they can understand implicitly. As long as they're together, they'll never be lonely, while a zoophile, even one with a very adoring mutual relationship with their lover, will still of course want close human friendships to fill that gap (or, at least, they should). But just as an anthrosexual can find that truly special someone, a zoophile can make those very close friends. It's two different approaches towards the same goal. The only difference is how they are viewed by greater society.
This video, with a whopping ~1,000 views, has got a bit of attention within the zoo community. So in an effort to break semi-permanently from my hiatus, I am going to talk about it.
A brief synopsis: A man, in a voice-over, talks about his romantic love for his dog, who looks to be a golden lab for you canine aficionados out there. It's all very sweet, quite melancholy with a bit of humour to it, and though the kissing scene has been noted even by several dog lovers I know/read as really weird and awkward, its heart seems to be in the right place as this couple reclines in simple enjoyment of their secret romance. In the end, though, come the police and misguided animal welfare activists to take away the pooch, before a woman walking her dog proclaims the man a "dog fucker" followed by a cut to the credits. The film isn't long, though, so I still recommend you watch it so you can understand what I'm about to say about it.
I know I'm kind of an inflammatory guy; my harsh remarks against COMING SOON (which, by the way, does turn out to be a total hoax; the website for EFA was built after the video and the organization itself does not exist originally, so there) got me my first external links. But I'm not going to completely tear apart Forbidden Love. It does paint a picture of a scene not significantly departed from reality. It shows a mutual, loving relationship that, if a little, almost imperceptibly strange sometimes, seems legitimate enough. Most importantly, it depicts a story of romance that is inherently tragic right from the beginning: something that is misunderstood, forcibly covert, and inevitably doomed, and tries to tug at the heartstrings of the viewers and gain their sympathy. Overall, for the majority of the film, it at least resembles a piece I might show a visually-oriented and empathetic person who is critical of zoophilia.
But then there is the ending. The ending that makes you realize that this is not a film made to actually break new barriers, or challenge mindsets or educate or whatever the above might imply. It was made entirely for the sake of art, and in this case, the genre is a very dry and hollow comedy that adores its own internal irony: after all the amour, the suspense, the pleading and the heartbreak, there comes an old lady scowling and accusing with the utmost exaggerated blatancy, "Dog fucker!" while her tiny puppy hides behind her legs, and the credits roll to a strange peppy tune. The intent is to make fun of the rest of the film, and to make fun of the audience in doing so: to say, "Hey, you weren't just feeling sorry for an animal abuser, were you? Sick!" To emphasize this profanity, there are the variety of archaic images depicting zooerasty flashing on the screen as the credits roll, which nearly everyone expressing themselves in the comments noticed. As far as the irony goes, I feel that it for the most part went over the heads of the audience, although a few do catch it and even the publisher on YouTube (who was not involved in the creation of the film) places it in the category of "Comedy".
So personally, I feel that this video is not the big break that some have seen it as. Yes, it puts zoophilia on the table, but at its core, even if it goes unnoticed, it still approaches it in the same way it always is: as the butt of a joke. Between that and documentaries with nothing but lies, or the wrong sorts of people represented, we have a long way to go before zoos are ever given anything that can be called a fair chance in mass media. But that's just my opinion.
Quite a while ago, I believe when I was ranting about the online zoo community, I mentioned training in zooerasty: specifically, that it shouldn't be done. This is kind of a controversial thing, too. Controversial, I mean, even for zoophilia itself. So, once again, I apologize to my non-zoophilic readership, however few you may be at this point: judging by this blog's statistics, you're all a load of perverts anyway. ;)
So, training. First, let's define it: training is using Pavlovian or operant conditioning to get an animal to have sex with you. That is, rewarding the animal (ie with food) for participating, or punishing them in some way for not. Let me make it clear that, say, showing your dog how it's done, or sort of "warming" your horse up over time is not training. Animals do that to each other. Humans do that to each other. We don't really talk about it, because we don't want sex to seem so mechanical, and we certainly don't want to look like we're 'bad' at it, so we pretend it's an entirely natural thing which we just 'get'.
And we do, to a great extent. So do most if not all sexual animals; certainly all the animals a human could ever have a mutual sexual relationship with, in any case. That's part of the point here: animals do not need specific training to have sex, let alone to enjoy it. If they are not enjoying it, it does not mean you need to train them to enjoy it, it means you are doing something very wrong.
I'll give an example: I read a lot of people talking about putting tasty things on their genitalia so that their animal (usually a dog) will lick them. I don't have an enormous problem with this: particularly compared to other methods of training I read about, it's certainly not harmful. The human is getting a lickjob and the pooch is getting a snack, and that's fine and dandy. The problem comes up when people call this zoophilia. As I noted last month, zoophilia is romantic: there is primary interest in the desires of your partner, and in mutuality. In the case of this training, the mutuality is limited: one is getting sexual pleasure, the other is not; the latter may only be faintly aware that sexual pleasure is at all being had. The use of this method of training, therefore, along with all the others that are more explicit and intensive, are a form of bestiality.
Let's talk more about the peanut butter-licking. The people advising other people on it are doing so as an answer to the question, "How do I get my dog to blow me/eat me out?" What is not acknowledged is that for dogs, even more so than it is for people, licking another's genitalia in a sexual context, usually before or after sex, is entirely natural. It is a response to sexual stimulation, generally olfactory but also tactile. This means that if the individuals in question were simply willing to put in the time to get to know their dog and establish an understanding sexual relationship with them, they would achieve the same result without any smeared substances.
From here, it doesn't take long to look at the other ways people get their unwilling animals to have sex with them. Animals get sex. They probably get it more than a lot of people do, and are more than happy to oblige someone whom they trust and makes them feel good. Why, then, do we have people who will in the same breath talk about how they got their bitch to 'take it' and then call themselves zoophilic? This is sheer bestiality, and is part of the reason zoosexuality is looked down upon so heavily: it's assumed, because these people are too stupid, heartless, or lazy to have a real mutual sexual relationship with an animal, that a real mutual sexual relationship with an animal is not possible.
So how do you do it, then? By utilizing the empathetic skills you must have if you are zoophilic. Know your partner. Understand their body language. When they say, "No," understand that it does in fact mean no, and oblige. Experiment a little, but don't overdo it. Most importantly, love them; if you do that, just like in anthrosexual relationships, everything else will come with time.
Also, in the last couple posts, this blog has doubled its view count. This is in large part on account of Reddit (hello, Redditors!) but also because of a few links here and there that I know of on Facebook, MSN, forums and the like. So a big thank-you to everyone who's helped spread this around!
I get this question more often than one might think. In this last week, I’ve had a couple people ask me this, and my answer comes down to, basically: what does the word “zoophile” even mean in the first place?
Obviously it means a love of animals, but what is the dividing line here? If I have a dog, and I love him very much, consider him my best friend, and would rather spend time with him than anyone else, human or otherwise, am I a zoophile? On the other hand, if someone sneaks into farms in the dead of night to bone random horses, is he a zoophile? It’s a fact that most people don’t know the definition of a zoophile beyond that it’s someone who likes animals “a lot” – usually “too much”.
I don’t think this is a result of the usual stigma against zoophilia, though; rather, it may be the result of the death of a distinguished emotional relationship. A zoophile is, quite simply and at the very least, someone who has or desires a romantic relationship with an animal. Once again, though, we’re left with the question of what this means: we don’t know what romance is these days, beyond things like candlelit dinners and wedding proposals. We don’t tend to do either of these things with the animals we love, so we must provide a more personal and less situational – and less anthropocentric – definition of romance.
Romance is love beyond that in friendship. It involves a strong fixation that wants stimulation by all three basic senses, but primarily the haptic. One wants to not just be close to someone, in terms of the mental and social – like how you and your friend share all secrets you have between each other, and thus you are “close” – but also physically close. This is in preference to being physically close to any other individual. It’s also an extreme form of friendship in which one will do anything within their power for the sake of another. Importantly: this friendship and this desire for closeness are reciprocated. Feelings of romance do come and go, as they’re feelings that take an awful lot out of us, but two people who often have romantic feelings for each other are said to be a romantic couple.
Given this definition, many people do not believe that it is possible for a human and a non-human animal to be in a romantic relationship. However, it does happen quite frequently; it simply goes unacknowledged. We often hear about dogs sacrificing greatly for their human owners. We know of cats that are with their owners all the time, and are so tuned into their emotions that they seem able to sense them from the other side of the building. The reality is that it is not the animal aspect that is usually the barrier to a romantic relationship: it’s the human that is unwilling or unable to reciprocate. Our senses are just no match for theirs, and in a lot of ways because of this, we have troubles understanding them.
Some people do, however, manage this. And those who are at the same time willing to be literally in a relationship with an animal are what we call zoophiles. But that’s not all that terrifying, people say: it’s perhaps a little odd to love your cat that much, but nothing outrageous. When we think of zoophilia, we think less of someone who is mutually cuddling his or her furry companion, and seems happiest only when with them, and more of the guy who’s boning his neighbor's sheep in the dead of night. This perception is false.
Zoophilia usually does involve sexual interaction with animals. This is because, as humans, we believe that romance naturally leads to sex. Animals, as creatures without culture and thus without reverence of sex, think of things the other way around, but that’s for another time. The point I will make here is that there are people who have sex with animals without that romantic relationship, and who have no inclination to forge such a relationship. These people are not zoophiles: they are what we tend to call bestialists (although bestiality technically means any intercourse between a human and an animal, regardless of the circumstances, a better term is zooerasty). The zoophilic community will often show their disdain for such individuals.
One does not need to be a zooerast to be a zoophile, or to be a zoophile to be a zooerast, in the same way that one doesn’t need to be homosexual to have intercourse with members of the same sex, and one does not need to have said intercourse to be homosexual. However, most people who are or do one thing tend to also fit into the other group. Is this true about zoophilia and bestiality, though? I would say that it is. The people we tend to hear about in the news and other media that have abusive intercourse with animals are not zoophiles, but these people are not representative of the zooerast population: they are the people that have difficulty containing themselves, and are often disordered in one way or another in that fulfilling their sexual urges becomes top priority for them. They have little interest in the romantic. Those that do – and are thus zoophilic – tend to be more difficult to spot and less likely to sneak into their neighbor’s barn. Although this is not an area where reliable statistics are easy to come across, from personal experience I would suggest that the zoophilic population is much higher than that of bestialists and “fence-hoppers”: one study shows that fifteen percent of males have had some sort of intentional sexual contact with an animal at some point in their lives. As much as three percent have continued to do so. This is a much higher figure than we would think, given that each time another sheep-shagger is arrested, every news blog in the world has something about it. It’s on this discrepancy between the bestialists who are detained, and the more covert zoophiles, that I base my claim that the latter group is larger than the former.
What about the other way around? Are there many people who are in romantic relationships with their animals, but not sexual relationships? This may also be a higher number than we realize, but these people do not often call themselves zoophilic, due to the word’s sexual connotations. Indeed, they may not even think themselves particularly abnormal; I know many of these people. There are those, though, that call themselves asexual zoophiles: people who truly love their animals, but have no interest in becoming sexually active with them. It is a complex topic, and one that really can’t be resolved at the moment.
But really, it’s just a word: zoophile. It’s a complicated word that attempts to describe a person, like “Christian”, “democrat”, or “bisexual”; and this means that its definition is deceptively difficult to pin down. Originally, the word literally did just mean “someone who loves animals” – it was in fact used by animal welfare activists before their mortal enemy, the kitty-diddler, stole it from them. Its definition changes with how people use it, so if you’re asking yourself right now, “Am I a zoophile?” think about this: would you call yourself a zoophile? Does it benefit you to do so? Does acquiring this new label help you understand yourself better? If not, then don’t even worry about it. You are you, and, as any real zoophile knows, words are overrated: they can’t express love so easily. And isn’t love what really matters?
