Zoophilia and Veganism

It's been some time since I've really involved myself in any sort of zoophilic community, the only good one I've ever found still being at knotty.me, but one thing I recall people discussing in places is whether it's moral or not, especially as people who prefer the company of animals over people in matters that go beyond mere introversion, to eat meat and consume other animal products.

The argument has been made that we as zoos don't just love certain animals, but all animals, and we understand them better than the general population due to both our interest and our proximity to them that we try to maintain, both physically and emotionally.  It's been said that anyone who can do that and still feel that they are not morally in the wrong for consuming animals cannot be doing it right.

I would argue, however, that if we understand our animals the way we say we do, we also understand our own animal nature, which historically has included eating meat as a crucial part of our lifestyle and our development as a species.  It may be today that we can exist on certain proteins, synthesized supplements, all from non-animal products, but to me doing this denies some of my basic nature, the same as just giving my cat beef-flavoured supplements would deny hers.

Morality goes beyond floaty pieces of philosophy, though, and it would come down to whether or not I feel a sort of sympathy for the animals I consume.  And I do.  Ideally, we would live in a world in which animals and humans are free to live their own lives without interfering with one another without consent.  Wild horses would never have gone extinct everywhere outside Mongolia.  Bears would leave alone campers.  Birds wouldn't get sucked into jet intakes.  Unfortunately, that isn't a world we live in, and isn't a world we can live in; humans are taking over and I don't believe it will even be a possibility without a literal apocalypse for us to stop it.  So to me, there are two options: The first is that we press the philosophy that animals need to be protected, away from humans, and be allowed to live free lives without our meddling.  And this has merit, morally; freedom is good, but unfortunately it often is juxtaposed against safety.  If animals as a whole were allowed, and made, to live without human interference, that would also necessitate that they're living without our protection.  We already of course see this when we compare the lives of animals within human society versus without; despite our consumption of them, cows, pigs, chickens are not in danger of going extinct, because we measure our consumption.  Meanwhile, even though consumption of them has been made completely illegal, many endangered species are only dwindling in number, and continue to dwindle apart from within reservations specifically set aside for them.  Imagine, for a moment, if rather than insisting they are wild animals, we managed to domesticate the Amur tiger.  They're bred, selected for docile behaviour, and sold as pets.  Suddenly they're a business, and now the tiger is nowhere near the brink of extinction.

But we're talking about slaughtering animals here, not simply keeping them as pets.  Let's disregard for a moment the fact that most of the animals consumed in the United States are kept in pretty horrible conditions, and this, I agree needs to change.  And it can change, it has changed in other parts of the world, with greater regulation of animal welfare in farming and a decrease in the immense amount of waste that requires the United States to slaughter so many more animals than they should.  Let's pretend that we have done that, because it will happen, and that every hamburger is raised free-range, hormone free, and so on.  We're still slaughtering these animals, but in the wild, these animals are naturally prey animals as well.  Yes, they may perhaps live longer lives out there, but they more often will actually live shorter ones, riddled not only with the promise of eventually being eaten by a predator but also sickness, injury, accident.  It's arguable that the ideal possible artificial habitat for cattle is more humane than the wild that would be the only alternative.

To me, the PETA-style notion of animal liberation is silly.  If all animals were free of human influence, we would also be free of theirs, which would be an absolute tragedy, I say not just as a zoophile but as someone who benefits from the fact that dogs were domesticated for hunting, that cats were first used in agriculture, that horses were first bred and raised for not only riding but meat and milk.  Cows don't make the best pets in my opinion, having raised them before, but I'm happy nevertheless that they're in it with us, guaranteed survival (at least as their modern, selectively bred incarnation), rather than being bulldozed by the relentless tide of industrialism like the rest of the wilderness.  I'd like to see every animal included in human society, humanely, alongside us, and I think if we manage this, we ourselves will become more human in the process, more understanding rather than neglectful or fearful of our nonhuman fellows on this planet.

So as a member of a historically rather carnivorous species, I will continue to eat meat, but I will also be conscious of where that meat comes from, and how I, as a carnivore, might impact the humanity in the raising of that meat.  Am I getting chicken from a factory farm, or is it local, free range?  Just how far can the dairy cows who produce my milk move?  Do you know the answers to these questions?  Eat meat or do not, but if you do, be responsible about it.

Equus

Equus is a play that was composed, like many strange and controversial pieces of media, in 1973.  It follows a troubled teenage boy, repressed by his overly dogmatic upbringing, with his feelings for (or about) horses being central to the story and what it represents.

Like most fiction that deals with individuals with zoosexual proclivities, it primarily uses the attraction as fuel for metaphor.  In this case, it's not so much about the perversion, as Alan, the protagonist, never does interact in a sexually explicit way with any horses, but as a representation of something that he has been prevented from, and ultimately an object of worship (as these two things are consistently linked in the play).

I don't want to discuss the literary elements of the play, although they are definitely here, because I feel it's very dishonest in a lot of ways.  It's dishonest scientifically, being one more piece to add to the heap of ones that depict hypnosis for enhanced recall as a valid practice.  And it's dishonest in its message, as it opens with the psychiatrist, Dysart, giving the audience the very 70s notion that we perhaps should not be treating troubled teens for fear of giving them "boring" lives in place of their disordered ones, and Dysart remaining a positive and moral figure throughout the play, even to the mutilation in the end.  The message is clearly throughout the play meant to be about how Alan has it right, and is just the victim of the tug of war between militant atheism and fear-based evangelism while trying, and being prevented from, finding his own spirituality and worship, naturally tied into sexuality.  But it ends with the real-life inspiration for the play, in which he mutilates the object of his worship, and still our benevolent psychiatrist laments that he may yet cure the boy, as if his insanity may still be preferable to a healthy life.

It's dishonest, of course, about zoophilia as well.  Although it is a play meant for a then-modern audience, and its depicted zoosexuality is meant only as a literary element, it still insists upon depicting those with similar feelings about horses as troubled monsters just beneath the skin.  The constant shouts and whooping of Alan whenever he comes into contact with them, be it during the nude moonlit ride or the actual blinding of the stabled horses, gives us the impression that while the human side of his sexuality is troubled, and he's socially inept, and he has a horrible, mentally abusive relationship with his parents, the most salient disturbance about him is how he feels about these animals.

I don't believe anyone who knows how the play ends would see this play as a good one to suggest to a zoophile anyway, but as it was quite successful and even has a modern film adaptation, to me its dishonesty is worth noting here.  And we as the zoo community can use this dishonesty to open up a window into the minds of those who don't quite understand us, perhaps don't even realize we exist.  That's important when we're looking into acceptance.

It's Now!

Lots of interesting human rights things surrounding sexuality and gender have been going on in the western world, particularly its high seat in the United States.  In the last two years, more gender options have appeared on many official documents, same-sex marriage has been legalized, bills passed to protect transgender people from discrimination, and of course the issue with bathroom rights in the US is ongoing.  Now more than ever we have a large liberal community, a global community, who are united behind these issues and the liberation of the people they affect.

My question is, why not us?  Perhaps it is a huge leap to go from saying people with penises should be allowed to use the women's washroom, or that mothers should be able to breastfeed their children in restaurants, to the suggestion that perhaps those who have intercourse with animals may not be sick or abusive.  But the wonderful thing about this day and age is that we have the internet, and people read what they see on the internet.  And if there is vocal support in their camp — if other Bernie Sanders liberals are giving things their Like and sharing on Facebook with a captioned #damnright — people follow.  It's what people do.

But the issues are flowing like cheap beer on campus, and if we want to ride this train of social libertarianism in the most conservative country in the English-speaking world, we need to start acting now.  Communities of people who want their rights acknowledged, who don't want to be worried about blackmail or arrest for the love they share with their animals, need to start popping up and going public on the internet.  I'm not talking about names; we can use handles, just as we have done for decades now, and we can continue using our security so that if someone creates #zoogate we needn't worry about being leaked.  What we need isn't organization, although that's part of it; what we need is numbers, and to get the word out to one another so that people can see what those numbers are.  That, and reasonable dialogue, using phrases like "safe space" and "government out of my bedroom" will draw the positive attention we need.

And there will be negative attention.  A lot of it.  What needs to be done is to simply ignore it, and acknowledge any allies we might receive very strongly.  It's the allies that will make the difference here, and as soon as we start alienating them, we cripple any movement that might be started here.

Think about it.  Talk about it.  Our timing is right, and it's time to organize.

Bear

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.

Hello!

It's been over two years since I've updated this thing.  My life has been quite hectic during that time, and I've just had more things to do in developing myself than paying attention to the side of me that's wont to fall in love with quadrupeds.  But I'm going to stockpile some posts, so stay tuned, tell your friends, as at least some of them should be quite interesting.

This one, however, will have no content at all but to let you all know that I'm alive, and tell you what being me has been like for the last little while.  I'm going through something of a career change; anyone in mental health who's making less than six figures will tell you that it gets very draining when done for years, not necessarily because of the clients but because of your fellow professionals.  Nothing is remotely set in stone yet but I may have to take out the "mental health professional" bit on that sidebar!  Perhaps a little academic credit lost when it comes to the nature of the blog, but to me, certainly worth it if I can find something that won't see me losing so much hair.

Something has occurred that has helped me keep that hair in, however, and that is this: I've gotten married.  To a human, even.  In fact, my beautiful genius of a wife's interests swing very much in the same way as mine, so you may be hearing a little about her end of things in the future.

So the next few posts will be about entertainment and media, as although I've been on a blogging hiatus I certainly haven't been on a reading one.  After that, who knows?  See you soon.

JD