I think that even if one used a condom, many people would still have that “ewww” factor. But you may be onto something; many of our most ingrained taboos and customs (such as incest and the disposal of the dead) seem to be connected to primitive recognition of some hygenic and genetic dangers.
But we live in an era where all such taboos are coming down, being recognized for the artificial social constructs that they are. It’s now offensive to suggest that any suggestion that some irrefutable facts of nature should dictate how humans behave. Fundamentally, bestiality may currently be no more wrong than mixing meat and milk products, engaging in bigamy, implanting a man with a baboon’s heart, operating gay bathhouses, or using dead people in art exhibits.
BTW, the more I think about it, the more I realize I really have been hypocritical. There’s no excuse for taking an idea and pushing it to its logical extreme, and then effecting a pretended sincerity. That’s one reason Jonathan Swift–that dishonest fucker–has always been held up to such scorn, right? A modest proposal, my ass.
To answer you’re question, goboy, you’re being oversensitive. I have enough gay friends (and vague gay tendencies) that I don’t think to post an official disclaimer every time I tell a story about something a gay man did. The point is not that he was gay, but that he had what I view as consensual sex with his dog. Multiple dogs, in fact. As I recall, he rated different dogs on penis size and warned that St. Bernards’ penises get a big knob at the head when erect and can get stuck.
My language was perhaps a bit rough (“a gay guy who got his dog to fuck him in the ass” might have been more politely written). I’m sorry if I mislead you.
As for having a loving relationship with an animal…doesn’t “love” vary from person to person and species to species? As long as the human being gets what he/she wants from a loving reltionship (sexual gratification and warm furriness) and the animal gets what they want from a loving relationship (sexual gratification, fancy feast or gravy train, and the occasional belly rub), who is to say that this is not love?
I know it’s rude to post when I’ve only skimmed the thread, but I don’t have time to read it now and I want to make a few points before I forget:
What about sex between two sentient but grossly different species? Say, humans and the Horta?
Suppose I had a special, very realistic shooting gallery in which babies (indistinguishable from the real thing) were the targets. Would it be immoral to play in such a gallery?
What if there were a holodeck in which you could have sex with simulated animals, corpses, or children. Would it be immoral for someone to use such a holodeck? After all, no one gets hurt, and there is no potential for transmission of disease. Nonetheless, I would maintain that it is still immoral to use it, and I’d like to see what other people think.
I’m baffled. Do any of you have pets? Comparing animals to inanimate objects is just…boggling. Does spoken language matter so much to you, that you cannot understand anyone or anything without it? It’s like we’re coming from two different worlds - you people talk as if it’s an obvious fact: animals are just moving rocks, and here I think it’s just as obvious that they’re more than that. I just don’t see where y’all are coming from.
And a hearty chortle goes to Superdude. " very few animals have sex for any reason other than procreation." Get out of the house more
The difference, of course, is that we humans have traditionally (and continually and IMO justifiably) exploited animals in any number of ways – without any concern regarding consent and without even really caring what is objectively best for the animal, as opposed to best for us. (I mean, I support medical testing on animals in certain cases, but you can hardly say that’s in the animal’s best interest. I eat meat, and not because I think it’s good for the chicken, fish, or cow.) We tend severely retarded people for exactly the opposite reasons – not out of selfishness but out of a societal expectation that such people ought to be taken care of, because they are human. By extension, they should not be exploited, sexually or otherwise. No such rationale for not exploiting animals exists. To me, the situations are not even comparable.
I respect this as your viewpoint, but I don’t really understand it. I mean, I do not generally concern myself with the abilities of my fellow humans to form relationships, to the point of wishing to limit their ability to act freely in their better interests. If the closest (non-sexual) relationship a person has is with an animal, that doesn’t bother me in the least. If a person is so into animals that it interferes with their ability to interact with humans – no skin of my nose, so long as the relationship is not sexual. It’s the sex that makes it wrong, IMO, and that is the point at which I personally think society continues to have the right and ability to say “nope; that’s beyond the pale.”
It seems to me to be very artificial to have an “ew” reaction to something based solely on the absence of a possibility of a meaningful relationship, and further based on the chance that the participant might be deluded in believng such a possibility exists. (So masturbation, with no chance of even believing there might be a relationship, is okay, but bestiality, because a small chance of delusion exists, is not – regardless of whether a person really does suffer from that delusion or not.)
Why not? The majority of adults understand the difference between a casual hook-up and a relationship. Some are perfectly able – and even happier – having only a series of casual hook-ups without any sort of “strings” at all. I frankly find it a little paternalistic to condemn a practice based on the assumption that a person who is sexualy exploiting, say, a poodle, will not realize that no true relationship can ever blossom between them and Fifi. I think it far more likely that people who engage in bestiality are knowingly exploiting animals for their own gratification, with little if any concern for the animal and few illusions that they will have to follow up the date with a call the next day.
And I either give people far more credit than you do, or far less. I love my dog very much. I do not value her as I do a human – any human. My interaction with her does not cloud my understanding that I cannot have a platonic “relationship” with her like I can have with a human – even though I love her more than most humans. If I can draw this distinction in a non-sexual context (a pet is not a substitute for a human friend) – and I think most people can – then why couldn’t a person draw the same obvious distinction in a sexual context (a pet is not a girlfriend/boyfriend/lover/spouse)?
Why have any sort of human relationship if your dog is always there and loves you? Because interaction with a dog, sexual or not, does not constitute a “relationship.” I think where you don’t give people enough credit is by assuming they would not realize that. I assume they do; I assume they know full-well that using an animal for sex is just that – using it. Where I run in to trouble is in attempting to articulate why that particular use is wrong, especially in light of the myriad other ways we use animals, many of which I have absolutely no problem with.
I respectfully suggest that to elicit an “ew” reaction, it may well be more than that. There are lots of things that people do that are very bad for them, from not wearing helmets to smoking to having unsafe sex. Do all of those make you go “ew”? If the “ew” is that it’s sexual, does the thought of unprotected sex make you go “ew”? It’s not very smart, and indeed often is borderline delusional, as well.
Again, I think this is a huge assumption of self-delusion, when I think it’s far more likely that people who have sex with animals do so knowing full-well that it is not a relationship; they do it, I suspect, because it scratches some innate itch, or is convenient, or is thrilling in its taboo-breaking naughtiness.
No, I’m pretty much serious. All these folks are saying bestiality is cruel because it’s “non-consensual” and may cause damage to the animal’s psyche. Well how can you allow an animal a capacity for consent and consciousness and deny its capacity for affection? Animals don’t care. Not dogs and cats, anyway. The male of those species will take it wherever he can get it.
I find the differences between the level of discourse in this thread and the other current one on anal sex being wrong, wrong wrong!!! pretty interesting.
A visceral “ewwwww” reaction is what I think all judgments against it come down to–in both threads. “Consent” issues are window-dressing over the fundamental ew, just as “unnatural” issues are window-dressing over a fundamental ew (with the difference that the arguments around the consent tack tend to be a whole lot more coherent and credible than the unnatural tactic).
As far as I’m concerned, people have the right to feel ew about whatever, and the right to feel yum about whatever, so long as they’re not hurting anyone besides themselves (I honestly, callously if you will, don’t give a damn if someone’s inflicting emotional harm on themselves by shutting out people to instead make Fido an even happier dog) and whatever they’re yum about isn’t in my space. If they’re torturing the animal for their jollies, it’s a different story; I think penalties for animal cruelty should be much higher than they are.
If I read Drastic’s and Kyomara’s arguments correctly, then we seem to be approaching a consensus that one should go with whatever floats one’s boat, as long as no sentient being is hurt.
So this is where moral relativism brings us. Once we deride and reject the “eww” factor–that is, the deep-down, in-the-guts knowledge that something is wrong, because that’s not what nature intended–for one type of behavior, then we open the door to rejecting the “eww” factor for all other types of behavior where it applies. And it looks as if any remnant of the “eww” factor in regard to bestiality–or at least the knowledge that others still harbor that feeling–causes some posters to go through amusing rhetorical contortions in an effort to assert that no, bestiality and homosexuality are not justified on rather similar grounds.
Oh, I dunno I’d call my position moral relativism, at least not by rejecting the eww factor. My position against animal cruelty, for instance, is, when I look honestly into it, merely an ew as well–after all, I’m certainly not going to become vegetarian, even though the meat industry does some undeniably cruel things. It just happens to be an eww I feel more strongly about. I can’t justify it by anything other than, treating an animal cruelly just for the enjoyment of it is wrong.
Having sex with animals is OK simply because we eat them?
Ask yourself this, if the pack of starving dingoes could ask you, “Jolly good day, sir. We’ve been traveling these here plains for quite a long time, and we are a bit famished. We’d like to inquire or you a favor. Could we rip your flesh from the bone, as so we could dine on it and not perish?”
Predators would not ask the permission of their prey, for no sane, healthy animal would give consent to their own demise.
That said, there is a fundamental difference in the relationship between predator-prey and sexual partners. Same goes for vegeterians (that wheat didn’t ask to be baked into bread).
Of course with that said, I don’t have an answer as to what I think of sex with animals or sexual relationships with animals. This is the first time I’m thinking about it, and I’m in the “Ewwwwww!!” phase. But I do not think eating:shagging is a very good analogy.
I looked over this statement four times before posting and saw nothing wrong with it. Yet the instant I make it permanent on the board, I see I need to revise it.
I wanted you to ask yourselves this:
[ul]
if the pack of starving dingoes could ask you, “Jolly good day, sir. We’ve been traveling these here plains for quite a long time, and we are a bit famished. We’d like to inquire or you a favor. Could we rip your flesh from the bone, as so we could dine on it and not perish?” would you let them?
[/ul]
I think the point is why is it wrong to “shag” them without their consent, but not to kill them without their consent? Surely, killing is more harmful than a bit of a tickle (so to speak). So let’s ask you a modification of your own question: if the pack of dingoes gave you the option of being shagged or killed for food, which would you prefer?
Except when the ‘eww factor’ does not occur. A taboo is a result of social/cultural brainwashing, thus, taboos are not universal. And even if the person is raised in a society where the taboo applies, I don’t think it’s necessary that the result be that the person is disgusted by it.
There are always people on the margin of society. I’m not implying that we should accept them, simply because they are there, but the least we could do is be tolerant, assuming it hurts no HUMAN being.
Also, the consent of a pet? Come on. The argument seems to be that if the dog does not express willingness in a coherent manner, then it should not be done. In other words, there’s no chance you can fuck your dog, sorry. This is ridiculous. I’m not saying the dog can’t communicate that it doesn’t want something to be done, but consent? That’s a bit extreme. If we accept that to be reality, then we’ll have to wonder if the dog is just allowing you to have sex with it because it doesn’t want to hurt your feelings, or it felt compelled.
The most common objection I have read so far in this thread (apart from the Bible tells me so one, which is meaningless to anyone who isn’t a Christian) is the lack of potential for an ongoing emotional relationship.
You guys are kidding surely. In Western society we form very deep emotional attachments to our animals - to the extent that they have their own clothing ranges, cemeteries, and hotels.
I’m pretty neutral in the bestiality debate, but I object to anyone using the “emotional relationship” argument to defend theit particular viewpoint.
Maybe YOU can answer my question, then. If your son or daughter expressed an interest in gettin’ it on with the animal kingdom, would you discourage them? And why (or why not)? And don’t be glib, tell me honestly–would you accept the idea of one of your children having sex with an animal, assuming they were old enough to make such a decision? How about you other guys, esp. those with kids?
And more generally, if you knew of someone who allowed their Doberman to penetrate him anally, do you think any kind of therapy could help him stop? Or should he even be encouraged to stop? What if he wants to stop but feels he can’t help himself?
OK, that’s elaborated into a couple of questions, but I’m really interested to know the views of you and other posters here.
