Agnapostate

What are your opinions on (objections to, most likely) zoophilia?

I believe that the majority of objections to it simply don't meet the mark. Objections that such behavior is "unnatural" does not take into account that homosexual acts are also biologically unnatural, because they are not naturally procreative. And, at any rate, masturbation and protected sexual intercourse are not procreative sexual acts either. What is the objection to those? I agree that cruel forms of sexual interactions with nonhuman animals should be prohibited, but I do not see any logical reason for prohibiting noncruel forms of sexual interaction between humans and other animals.

I understand that the idea of informed consent being required for any and all forms of sexual activity is defended by the large majority of the population, but its true merits are rarely debated objectively. Sexual relationships that are not perceived to include informed consent are widely regarded as inherently deviant. Several years ago, Peter Singer, the controversial Princeton bioethicist, wrote a review of Dearest Pet, a book by Midas Dekkers. In the essay, Singer argued that human-animal sexual relations ought not to be prohibited if the animal is not harmed. He correctly points out that taboos have existed in the past against other non-procreative sexual behaviors such as homosexuality, masturbation and oral sex., and he argues that as those taboos fell, so should this one.

I fully agree with Singer on this issue. In part because of the speciesism that he pointed out, and in part because of the demonizing of sexual expression that religious conservatives are largely responsible for, any sort of sexual contact between humans and animals is immediately condemned without any further considerations. In the vast majority of “rebuttals” to Singer’s essay, no logical arguments were presented in opposition to his own. In Slate magazine, William Saletan did attempt to issue a logical argument in objection to Singer’s essay, but I believe he failed also.

Saletan’s objection to Singer’s conclusions rests on the fact that the animal does not offer “consent” to sexual activity, because an animal is at a lower level of mental functioning, and is unable to offer informed consent to sexual activity. But informed consent should not be a relevant factor in this scenario. It is certainly not a relevant factor when animals engage in sexual activity with each other. But Saletan’s objection would undoubtedly be that humans are supposed to treat lower animals in a more humane way than they treat each other. But it would be more prudent for him to adopt this as the primary factor in deciding the ethical rightness of human-animal sexual activity than to rely on the standard of “informed consent.” Does he believe that dogs offer informed consent when a leash is placed around their necks and they are dragged about on a “walk,” with their human masters deciding when and where they go? Wouldn’t that be kidnapping? Does he believe that they offer informed consent when they are kept inside the house when they want to go out? Wouldn’t that be false imprisonment? If Saletan cannot come to these conclusions, then it would be logically fallacious for him to come to the conclusion that sexual activity with an animal is “rape” of the animal.*

The fact of the matter is that any moral objections to human-animal sexual interactions should exist only if the interactions are cruel or inhumane. If mutually gratifying activities are occurring between humans and animals, then these activities are not biologically natural or procreative, (as is the case with homosexuality) but they ought not to be prohibited. Informed consent should not factor into this issue because informed consent is not a standard used to judge the morality of other human-animal interactions, and is only used in this case because of the demonizing of sexual expression.

*In fairness to Saletan, I doubt that he considers sexual interactions with an animal to rise to the level of rape of a human. But then again, having read an article he wrote about age of consent violations, when he acknowledged that they might be biologically natural, but are still morally wrong, his definition of rape leaves much to be desired.

P/N

Are you really arguing that zoophilia is OK? Seriously?

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"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan

Agnapostate

United States 1835: Have you heard that some people are saying that niggers should be freed? Seriously?

P/N

Black people are human beings and what they endured was inhumane. Slavery, segregation and human rights violations are a completely separate issue than having sex with an animal. The fact that you even tried to make that comparison is simply disgusting.

Agnapostate

Yes, I was waiting for it. The comparison was for the sake of pointing out that arbitrary rejection of societal changes has been proven woefully inept in the past. Racism is an unfairly discriminatory element of American culture, as is speciesism.

P/N

So let me get this straight - you are for having sex with animals or you are against it?

Agnapostate

I am not for it, as I personally find the prospect disgusting. But I cannot see any logical reason to criminalize it.

kamino

I was going to answer this one, but darn, this is just to raunchy of a subject lol

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RightinNYC

You went to all the trouble of writing an elegant OP, but all I took away from it is that you want to have sex with goats.

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Agnapostate

Do you oppose anti-miscegenation laws? If so, I'll take away that you want to have sex with black people.