Joe Random pretty much said what I was trying to say. There are certainly cases where the animal initiates the actions. Dolphins and canines are especially well-known for it.
And it’s certainly not “human imagination” that came up with the concept of inter-species sex. Many animals do so in nature. Where do you think ligers come from?
“Basic physical incompatibility” seems to be completely false. They seem perfectly able to do so…
I think it’s reckless to assume that when a dog humps a human leg, it is giving “consent.” Dogs have been known, after all, to hump inanimate objects, so as to stimulate their own genitalia. This may be self-stimulation, but that’s not the same as an invitation to sex.
Quite simply, there is no reasonable way to determine what’s going on in the animal’s mind. It may sound reasonable, on the surface, to assume that the dog is asking for sex, but that’s an assumption that I wouldn’t care to defend.
I’m not talking about construing leg humping to be asking for sex. I’m talking about the situation where a dog physically mounts a person and has actual intercourse with them with no prompting other than being presented with the oppurtunity. If having sex isn’t asking for sex, then what is?
For all we know, actual canine/canine sex could be a result of the animals simply attempting to stimulate their own genetalia. After all, isn’t that what drives sexual reproduction?
It is humans who have given sex meaning other than pure physical pleasure. Based on a purely naturalisic viewpoint, it would be safe to say that the human concept of “consent” is the aberration, and the norm would be the attitude of “take it if you can get it” prevalent in the rest of the animal kingdom.
I was wondering about this very question the other day, but from the other perspective; if it is considered morally OK to have sex with another human, why is it morally wrong for me to butcher a few humans and eat them?
Oh, and why didn’t anybody mention it was wrong until after I’d got the freezer fully stocked?
No. Sorry to burst the lurid fantasy. No need “uhs” on this.
Working hypothesis is that the Simian virus was blood transmitted in the process of butchering “bush meat” i.e. simians. Or perhaps raw meat consumption. It is highly unlikely anyone was having sex with a female chimp, insofar as that would be physical risky (chimps and so forth are quite physically powerful and generally hostile to humans insofar as they tend to eat them) and insofar as in the region in question (Congo Basin) the simians are regarded as lunch.
Well Mangetout, there’s your answer. We wouldn’t want you to get AIDS from butchering simians, would we? 
I wouldn’t think so. Animals have whatever rights we decide to grant them. They can’t earn rights by and large. If we decide to give animals a right to life free from rape, we grant them that. If we decide not to grant them a right to life, we have no obligation to do so.
No, but dolphins wil rape other species of dolphin.
Unless you are arguing that a gerbil can give consent while a 12 year old human can’t then when we discuss bestiality we are discussing rape.
The trouble is that a 12 year old boy or girl would also actively go at it if conditioned and encouraged to do so. That does not stop people being charged with rape for having sex with 12 year olds. Animals and children can never consent IMO.
Based on a purely naturalistic viewpoint I don’t buy that. Animals, at least the females, go to great lengths to avoid being raped. They do not just ‘take it where they can get it’ any more than human women do. There is little evidence as to what male animals think about being coerced into sex so we an only extrapolate from the effects on human males can’t we? Although boys may actively participate in sex at a very early age it is almost always horribly destructive.
If you are suggesting that being an active partner after being trained to perform in that way constitutes consent, then most child molestation is consensual.
I see nothing morally wrong with eating a human being that is able to consent to same. Conversely it is immoral to have sex with a human that can’t consent.
In all fairness, neither can sex toys, and that doesn’t stop people from having sex with them. If we presume that animals don’t have a right to live their lives un(sorry)molested, as evinced by the butchering of cattle and the swatting of mosquitos, then why should we care what Fido and Sally do in the privacy of their own home?
Well, if we assume that if an animal- even if clearly enjoying the act- is being “raped” because it can’t say “Yes, I want to thave sex”- then all pets are slaves, as the animal hasn’t given its “consent” to be “owned”.
Nor can an anmil “give its consent” to being used to do work, like drafthorse, or racehorse, or sled dogs.
Nor can an animal give it’s consent to being butchered & eaten- nor do we have a court order allowing us to “execute it” after “due process” for its’ “crimes”. :rolleyes:
The “an animal can’t give it’s consent” arguement is dead out of the chute- sorry.
Nor is “public health” a good rerason, as there is FAR more chance of spreading disease while having sex with a human. And I will point out- the chances of “unwanted pregancy” are virtually nil.
No- the only reason that bears close examination for the banning of beastiality is the “ewwww” factor- or the “it’s just not right” factor- which amounts to the same thing. And, we had the same feelings about homosexual sex a few decades ago, and oral & anal sex a century ago.
I have no idea why anyone would want to have sex with an animal, but as long as they don’t mistreat it, it doesn’t bother me.
Collounsbury-whew! That’s a relief! I knew we somehow got it from monkeys/apes/chimps, but I couldn’t remember exactly what happened.
Hey, some of us look pretty damn good. * preens while looking in mirror . . . - until the mirror cracks *
It never occurs to me to care whether or not my cats want me to pick them up and cuddle and pet them.
I know for a fact that the larger of the two cat’s HATES being picked up and gives me the “I’m too big and tough to be cuddled and HEY QUIT SCRITCHING MY BELLY” on a daily basis.
I’m sure if I made a habit of picking up people and scritching their belly and messing with their ears that I’d be a world of trouble, but I seriously doubt that PETA is going to lynch me for petting my cats.
It’s absolutely an “Ewww” factor that keeps bestiality taboo.
Which still doesn’t explain why we grant them one of these “right” (not being raped) and not another (not being killed).
I share the opinion of ** dr Deth **. The only real reason I can see is the “ewwww” factor.
I think it’s bizarre to assume that bestiality is frowned upon because it violates the rights of the animal. Bestiality is frowned upon because it is considered to be deviant human behaviour. The rights of the animal have absolutely nothing to do with it.
The whole, ‘The animal can’t give consent’ argument is a very new invention, as is the whole animal rights movement as a whole. Bestiality, on the other hand, has been frowned upon since the dawn of recorded history.
And I think equating it to ‘rape’ is anthropomorphising. ‘Rape’ is bad not because of physical damage, but because of the psychological damage it does to a human female. Sex carries all sorts of emotional and cultural baggage in humans which do not exist in other animals. I doubt if the sheep on Bubba’s farm goes around thinking, “My god, I’ve been violated! How will I ever face the other sheep again?”
As to why bestiality is considered deviant, that’s a more complex question, but once again the answers are tied up in the emotional and cultural baggage we carry around involving sex. No doubt there have been good solid physical reasons for it as well - cleanliness, risk of taking a hoof in the nads, etc.
Well, that prompts me to ask, why? Why allow animals to be free from rape, but not free from murder and slave labor?
The difference is that the animals in question are adults, and able to “give consent” to others of their own species by way of, well, trying to have sex with them. So why is a dog attempting to mount a human not giving consent? After all, it is the excact same behavior that the animal would use with one of its own species to initiate intercourse.
So if a farmer decides to get friendly with a sheep, and the sheep doesn’t try to get away, then it’s not rape, is it? After all, you just stated that female animals go to great lengths to avoid rape, so if she’s not avoiding the farmer, then it can’t be rape, right?
But the male animals are adults. You can’t extrapolate mental damage to a child onto an adult of another species.
Also, you keep bringing up animals being “coerced” into having sex. Has it ever occurred to you that many animals are not being coerced? Can you still call it rape if the animal has not been trained and is not being coerced?
What about animals that attempt to be an active partner without training?
My point is that animals can give consent. Not to the same degree as humans, but to the maximum degree of which they’re capable.
If that level of consent is sufficient to allow them to have sex with each other, then why not with humans?
If I may modify the OP:
Why is it perfectly illegal to butcher and eat a person, yet we don’t have laws against having sex with a person?
So as to illustrate Marley23’s first point, that it is a false parallel. Killing and sex are nothing alike and so we have different laws regarding them. The only way to connect them is to come from the whole animal rights perspective which, as Sam notes, is a recent phenomenon.
Which of course Mangetout already brought up, curse my poor thread scanning abilities. Though as a socialist I’d have to qualify this:
Once someone is dead his body becomes communal property and should be sent to the nearest soylent green factory. He wouldn’t be allowed to give specific consent for any particular person to eat him.
PS- I saw a nature show where an elephant with a bad childhood serial raped a young rhino over the course of weeks. Most disturbing, I think I prefer the beaver dam episodes.
Malkavia, you have cats in your house because, in the long distant past, cats made it clear they were willing to accept what they don’t like about living with us in return for what they do like. That’s the deal. This isn’t some idea I made up, it’s generally agreed upon. The details are debated (exactly what is the benefit to the species, who made the first move, etc), but it’s not controversial.
And, by the way, PETA did go through a phase where they championed the “having pets is wrong!” position. I assume the dropped it because most of their donations come from pet owners.
I would pretty much agree that giving the animal the benefit of consent is faulty because if humans allow animals to have “rights” or consent, then we would not be able to use them whether for food or forced labor.
CarnalK almost had it right on his modification of the OP. Allow me to put it in this perspective.
"why was it legal to physically abuse, have sex and force black human beings to work for white people and even kill them but not to eat their flesh? These were human beings. They talked, expressed emotions and looked like all other human beings except for skin color.
Consent is a legal creation. It is a right that is given by decree by an authority that everyone (in question) follows. You cannot give the right to consent to an animal that doesnt understand its implications. Which is why when blacks proved they were capable of understanding the law as well as any other human being, the right was given to them.
I will however, disagree about the health issues. Some of the most virulent strains that have ever plagued mankind come from innocous bacteria and viruses that have mutated to adapt to human physionomy. The ability of diseases to move from animal to humans is what stymies contagen control. Influenza, a killer just a hundred years ago comes from pigs as does SARS. Rhinoviruses come from chickens, BovineSpongiformEncephalapaty comes from sheep prions. AIDs come from monkeys. These mutagens normally stay in their own environment as harmless bugs to animals until a human interacts with them. What might be a harmless bacteria in the rectum of a dog might someday be the Black plague of the future. All its waiting for is some yahoo who cant wait to dip his dick into Fido.
Speaking of which, any advanced lifeform willing to have sex with humans has got to be some kind of Sicko Evil monster. They will take our women and then when they are all done, they will take our men. They will dress the men in short skimpy sailor suit outfits and ravage them endlessly with their multiple penises that look like tenticles. Not looking forward to that.
Well, maybe this is the long distant past for zoophiles. These animals are making it clear what kind of sexual activities they are willing to engage in. The start of a new deal, the Zoo Deal.
To those who hold animal consent issues:
If someone wanted to bone a chicken before he de-boned it, would it be okay for him to have sex w/ it after he wrung its neck but before he made it ready for eating?
If not, would it be okay for him to buy a chicken from the grocery store and have his way with it? What about just some boneless, skinless breasts?
Praise Bob I’m saved.