WEBVTT

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Bestiality is a topic so taboo, the word alone
is enough to elicit reactions ranging from

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discomfort and disgust to moral outrage and
ethical condemnation.

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Despite its relevancy within a wide range
of fields, bestiality is largely absent from

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public discourse.

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But what if these much-reviled acts aren’t
some rare perversion of human sexuality relegated

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to the darkest corners of the Internet, but
actually common everyday practices supported

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and enjoyed by the vast majority of society.

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Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome
to another vegan nugget.

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The definition of the term “bestiality”
(or bestiality, for any non-Americans wishing

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to pronounce it as it’s actually spelled)
has evolved overtime, from its origins signifying

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depraved conduct befitting an animal, to the
modern denotation of “sexual relations between

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humans and animals.”

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I wanted to note that for the sake of clarity
and expediency, I will mostly be using the

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term “animal” in place of the more accurate
“non-human animal,” a decidedly awkward

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afterthought attempting to rectify a false
division addressed in this very video!

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And rest assured, I won’t be showing any
images or depictions of bestiality today…which

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probably cost me a couple viewers…

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Additionally, you can find detailed citations
to everything I state, as well as a bibliography

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and loads of additional resources and things
I didn’t have time to fit in this video

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on the blog post linked in the description
below.

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With that out of the way, time to take on
this timeless taboo!

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Bestiality may seem like a pretty black and
white matter: sex with animals is wrong, end

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of story.

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But such a quick dismissal, hastened no doubt
by the discomfort of the subject, neglects

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to account for the cultural permeation of
bestiality throughout history and our everyday

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lives.

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Ancient mythology is rife with gods taking
the form of animals in order to copulate with

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humans, among many other bestial themes we
readily teach children in middle school.

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But were a teacher to hand out a story involving
sex between humans and animals written in

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the modern-day, suddenly a cultured appreciation
of the Classics would become a potentially

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criminal distribution of pornography.

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And while many states in America have strictly-enforced
laws against as much as photographing a child

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posed with an animal in even a remotely suggestive
manner, kids in America’s farmland can participate

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in wholesome afterschool programs with lessons
in boar semen management, and how to sexually

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stimulate a pig.

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If we attempt to evaluate these examples objectively,
which the subject matter admittedly makes

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challenging if not impossible, the division
between the educational and the immoral or

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criminal becomes largely a matter of cultural
context.

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Which begs the question: what, exactly, is
so bad about bestiality?

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Criminologist Piers Beirne points to the Mosaic
commandments (Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 18:23

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and 20:15-16, and Deuteronomy 27:21) as “the
earliest and most influential justification

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for censures of bestiality,” with “the
prescribed penalty [of[ death.”

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Remnants of this moral origin are evidenced
in the language of some of today’s secular

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legislation, with several states in America,
for example, retaining terminology such as,

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"crime against nature," "unnatural," "perverted,"
"abominable," "detestable" and, my favorite,

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"buggery."

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Astoundingly enough, bestiality remained punishable
by death throughout the early modern period,

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with Sweden executing up to 700 people between
1635 and 1778, along with the non-human animals

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involved, and the last known hanging for bestiality
in the United States carried out by order

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of The Connecticut Superior Court in January
of 1800.

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Given it’s even pre-biblical censure, it
may be surprising to hear that many countries

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still lack any laws addressing sexual contact
between humans and animals.

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In 2015, Denmark was the last northern European
country to ban bestiality, leaving Finland,

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Romania and Hungary as the only holdouts in
the European Union.

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In the United States, bestiality remains legal
in at least eight states, and Washington D.C.,

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with about seventeen of the remaining 42 having
only enacted legislation since 1999—though

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technically Ohio’s brand new legislation
signed just last month still won’t take

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effect until March of this year…and only
included a ban on bestiality as a way to pass

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an unpopular bill.

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(Will ideally list the states and date enacted
onscreen)

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Yay, moral integrity…

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Of the states with laws already enacted, penalties
and sentencing range from a misdemeanor with

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no set minimum (Nebraska) to a felony with
imprisonment of no less than 7 and up to 20

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years (Rhode Island).

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The modern resurgence of legislation has revealed
a shift in the conceptualization and legal

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classification of bestiality from “a crime
against public morals,” to an act of animal

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cruelty, with California and Oregon even going
so far as to call it “sexual assault of

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an animal.”

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Attorney Rebecca F. Wisch of the Animal Legal
& Historical Center proposes that this terminology

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“may reflect these states' assessment that
animals are incapable of consenting,” essentially

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granting non-human animals “victim” status.

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With the extreme variation from state to state
(much less country to country!) of not only

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the criminal classification of and penalty
for bestiality, but also the very definition

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of what the act entails, we’re once again
left with the question of what precisely makes

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bestiality so objectionable.

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All bestiality legislation includes exceptions
for accepted animal industry practices.

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So by eliminating any permissible actions,
we can hopefully hone in on the root wrong

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of bestiality.

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Why don’t we start with the rather inadequate
parameters of what was traditionally considered

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the legal benchmark for sexual violation:
penetration.

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This may appear to offer a clear-cut line
in the sand, until we consider the long list

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of farming practices, not to mention animal
experimentation and fur “harvesting” methods

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involving penetration.

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So if penetration itself isn’t the issue,
what about harmful penetration?

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That can’t be the issue either, as animal
experimentation and fur harvesting and common

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farming practices involving penetration can
and do cause harm.

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Animals in the fur industry are routinely
killed via genital and anal electrocution.

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And we don’t even have time to list all
of the bizarre manners in which animal experimentation

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in various fields of research involves an
infinite array of harmful and painful penetration.

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Even in the food industry, for example, the
vast majority of farmed animals today are

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bred via artificial insemination.

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Cows in the dairy industry are repeatedly
impregnated through AI in order to maintain

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the flow of milk for human consumption.

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Like us, they only produce milk for their
babies, who are taken from their mothers immediately

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after birth.

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Females are kept as future milk producers
and males are either sent to a veal farm or

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shot.

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Aside from the psychological and emotional
impact of having their babies taken time and

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again, the insemination process itself can
be physically damaging, especially when considering

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that most inseminations are performed by non-veterinarians.

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Since AI training involves practicing on live
cows, some courses are held at slaughterhouses,

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though one UK vet advised that “novice inseminators
should not practice on cows unless they are

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to be slaughtered on the training day.”

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Perhaps the objectionable element separating
routine farming practices from bestiality

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is the deliberate use of force during penetration?

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For this I turn to author Jim Mason’s account
of his time working in a turkey breeding facility

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as he describes standard industry practice:

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“They put me to work first in the pit, grabbing
and "breaking" hens…

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Breaking hens was hard, fast, dirty work.

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I had to reach into the chute, grab a hen
by the legs, and hold her, ankles crossed,

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in one hand.

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Then, as I held her on the edge of the pit,
I wiped my other hand over her rear, which

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pushed up her tail feathers and exposed her
vent opening.

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The birds weighed 20 to 30 lbs., were terrified,
and beat their wings and struggled in panic…

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With the hen thus "broken," the inseminator
stuck his thumb right under her vent and pushed,

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which opened the vent…

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Into this, he inserted the semen tube...

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Then both men let go and the hen flopped away
onto the house floor.

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Two breakers did 10 hens a minute, or each
breaker broke 5 hens a minute — one hen

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every 12 seconds.”

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In the pig meat industry, piglets are the
product, so mother pigs, much like dairy cows,

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are subjected to a constant cycle of pregnancies.

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Even in the EU, where tethering stalls in
which pigs were chained in place were outlawed,

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artificial insemination is one of a number
of built-in exceptions wherein pigs may legally

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be chained in place.

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So, if forceful penetration of an animal’s
vagina, anus, or cloaca resulting in physical

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and/or psychological harm and eliciting clear
signs of distress is not what’s objectionable,

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maybe it’s when the action performed upon
an animal is itself overtly sexual, not just

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the body part(s) involved.

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Take the following account:

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“Each boar had his own little perversion
the man had to do to get the boar turned on…

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He might have to hold the boar’s penis in
exactly the right way that the boar liked,

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and he had to masturbate some of them in exactly
the right way.

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There was one boar, he told me, who wanted
to have his butt hole played with.

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“I have to stick my finger in his butt,
he just really loves that,” he told me….he’s

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one of the best in the business.”

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Without context where would you place this
on the line between the pornographic and permissible?

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Would your answer change if I told you the
passage was written by an internationally

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renowned and well-respected specialist in
livestock handling and animal welfare?

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If so, what changed about the account itself?

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That excerpt comes from Dr. Temple Grandin’s
book, “Animals in Translation,” wherein

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she’s described in the “about” section
as “a role model for hundreds of thousands

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of families and people.”

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Grandin continues her tour of porcine breeding
practices, describing how unlike cows, female

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pigs have to be sexually excited in order
to conceive—so workers must manually arouse

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them prior to insemination.

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Okay…if the highly individualized, manual
masturbation of male pigs to completion and

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sexual stimulation of females prior to the
insertion of boar semen are acts openly recounted

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by a respected professor and role model to
families, I fear our common sense assessment

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may be an exercise in futility.

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Especially when we take into account semen
collection methods for bulls, namely the use

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of an artificial vagina, electroejaculation,
or transrectal massage.

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The first method often uses a “teaser”
bull, “usually a specimen of low breeding

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value,” who is retrained—sometimes painfully
via a ring through his nose—and functions

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as the “mount” for the “donor” bull,
since the force can injure females.

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The most troubling technique, electroejaculation,
involves inserting a probe into the bull’s

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anus and delivering electric shocks to stimulate
ejaculation.

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It’s widely known to be painful and has
been banned in some EU countries.

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Yet you can watch footage of electroejaculation
on the Irish Farm Journal’s YouTube channel,

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as well as—across the platform–hundreds
of semen procurement and insemination videos,

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including how to sexual excite a female pig,
a topic covered in-depth in the youth education

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resources of the Pork Checkoff program.

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In my video “Do Animals Want to Be Eaten,”
I provide examples of the sexualized portrayal

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of animals in advertising, often seducing
the would-be consumers of their carcass.

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Even mainstream television shows feature footage
that, were the context even slightly altered,

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could result in the network losing its license
and inviting a wave of lawsuits.

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As a quick personal aside, I find the fact
that YouTube’s wide array borderline bestiality

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videos remain unrestricted and even monetized,
yet the video of one of my speeches remains

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age-restricted, despite it’s censure violating
YouTube’s own polices, just the slightest

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bit frustrating…

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Moving on…

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I have to say, I think our comparative evaluation
has hit a dead end.

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The only element we’ve yet to assess, is
the intention and experience of the human

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committing the act.

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This is the determining factor in several
state bestiality laws, like Delaware’s,

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which specifies the contact be “for purposes
of sexual gratification.”

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But if that’s really the root of our objection
to bestiality, then we’ve essentially gone

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full-circle to the original moral basis for
its censure, despite the modern shift towards

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animal cruelty classification, and establishment
of animals as victims.

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How exactly does the intention of the person
involved, or whether the act is part of their

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job description, or carried out in a medical
context, help the individual being violated?

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I would imagine that someone’s job title
would be of little comfort to the cow restrained

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and forcefully penetrated for her next round
of heartbreak.

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And the enjoyment or lack thereof derived
by the worker operating the anal probe wouldn’t

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do much to dull the painful electric current
shocking a bull’s pelvic nerves.

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Such absurdities are the result of our arbitrary
shifting of animals from property to family

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to victim to profit margin, depending on our
needs.

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And as their roles shift, so too do the kinds
of harms we may inflict upon them.

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In her response to philosopher Peter Singer’s
controversial book review essay Heavy Petting,

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Dr. Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns
addresses this progressive commodification:

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“Historically, animal agriculture has facilitated
bestiality, not simply because of the proximity

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of farmed animals, but because controlling
other creatures' bodies invites this extension

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of a license that has already been taken.”

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In one of the unfortunately numerous cases
of extreme sexual abuse of animals within

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the food industry that fall so far outside
of the prescribed norms they lead to criminal

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charges, undercover footage and detailed notes
from the investigators showed routine abuse

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at a pig breeding facility in Iowa, where
thousands of mother pigs are kept in cramped

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gestation crates.

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Workers beat pregnant pigs with blunt metal
objects, kicked them in the stomach and head,

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forced rods into their vaginas and anuses,
and attacked lame and injured pigs with an

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electric prod, among other offenses.

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The video also captured workers cutting off
the tails and tearing out the testicles of

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piglets, “including some with…scrotal
hernias, whose intestines would fully protrude

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when snipped”—all without any anesthetic.

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And, in one of the most-cited offenses by
the media, workers were shown slamming sick

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or deformed piglets against the ground, leaving
them, according investigators, to die slowly,

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their “skull[s]-crushed, paddling their
legs and twitching, gasping for air, as others

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were piled on top of them in giant bins.”

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An article on NBC News includes comments from
none other than Temple Grandin, described

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as “a leading animal-welfare expert,”
who “said that while those are standard

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industry practices, the treatment of the sows
on the video was far from it,” calling it

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“atrocious animal abuse.”

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Just to clarify, in case it wasn’t obvious,
beating and violating the mother pigs was

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the “atrocious animal abuse.”

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The “standard industry practices” Grandin
refers to are the unanaesthetized mutilation

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of newborn piglets and brutal slamming of
“defective” babies against concrete.

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Not only are these practices legal, they are
government-sanctioned methods within, but

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not limited to, the United States, Canada,
and European Union.

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See, that's the great thing about standard
practices—I don't know about you, but if

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I was shown that video and asked what was
abuse and what was routine, I’d have gotten

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it totally wrong!

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When it comes to our relationships with non-human
animals, we posses a remarkable level of cognitive

00:15:38.170 --> 00:15:41.240
dissonance complete with ample blind spots.

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One need only observe how we designate individuals
as “friend or food,” by such arbitrary

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factors as geographical location or possession
of a human-given name.

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In one country, a dog is viewed as a “pet”—even
a family member.

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Yet born in a different part of the world,
the very same dog would be viewed as “dinner.”

00:15:59.529 --> 00:16:05.209
Nothing about the dog herself has changed—only
her geographical location and, more importantly,

00:16:05.209 --> 00:16:10.029
the perception of her role and value by the
humans deciding her fate.

00:16:10.029 --> 00:16:15.959
Such subjective shifting of assigned worth
is the very basis of anthropocentrism, a belief

00:16:15.959 --> 00:16:20.180
system that “regards humans as separate
from and superior to nature and holds that

00:16:20.180 --> 00:16:25.490
human life has intrinsic value while other
entities (including animals, plants, …and

00:16:25.490 --> 00:16:31.170
so on) are resources that may justifiably
be exploited for the benefit of humankind.”

00:16:31.170 --> 00:16:36.490
Our anthropocentric worldview explains many
bizarre displays of human doublethink.

00:16:36.490 --> 00:16:40.980
An example I covered in my speech “The Best
We Have To Offer,” which concerns legislative

00:16:40.980 --> 00:16:46.399
issues pertaining to animal cruelty, was when
the European Union signed the Treaty of Lisbon,

00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:52.250
recognizing non-human animals legally sentient,
deserving freedom from hunger, thirst, discomfort,

00:16:52.250 --> 00:16:57.600
pain, injury, disease, fear, distress and
mental suffering—and then use this very

00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:03.560
recognition of their capacity to feel the
same emotions and sensations as we do to design

00:17:03.560 --> 00:17:10.510
the exact manner in which humans may legally
violate, imprison, cut, burn, alter, and murder

00:17:10.510 --> 00:17:11.510
them.

00:17:11.510 --> 00:17:16.480
A preliminary report for the new legislation
compared the financial cost of gassing verses

00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:24.280
grinding alive the estimated 335 million unwanted
day-old male chicks born into the EU egg industry

00:17:24.280 --> 00:17:25.410
every year.

00:17:25.410 --> 00:17:31.350
Finding live grinding, or maceration, to be
far more cost-effective, it was codified as

00:17:31.350 --> 00:17:37.140
the method of choice in the resulting groundbreaking
animal protection legislation.

00:17:37.140 --> 00:17:42.150
In her article “Pets or Meat,” Professor
of Law Marry Anne Case highlights the complications

00:17:42.150 --> 00:17:47.000
arising from the condemnation of bestiality
on the grounds of incapacity to consent.

00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:52.120
Citing how even the training of one’s pets
is a form of persuasion difficult to “differentiate…with

00:17:52.120 --> 00:17:54.790
reference to consent,” Case concludes that:

00:17:54.790 --> 00:17:58.750
“If we think there should be more strict
or rigorous legal controls on having one's

00:17:58.750 --> 00:18:04.130
pets trained to do what would violate the
bestiality laws than on other stupid pet tricks,

00:18:04.130 --> 00:18:08.679
we should acknowledge straightforwardly that
it is our attitude toward sex, more than our

00:18:08.679 --> 00:18:13.610
concern for animal freedom of choice or animal
welfare, that motivates us.”

00:18:13.610 --> 00:18:18.750
Far from having the animals’ interests at
heart, it appears that, as Dr. Davis wrote,

00:18:18.750 --> 00:18:24.670
“the primary mainstream objection to bestiality…is
that sex between humans and nonhumans, regardless

00:18:24.670 --> 00:18:31.220
of the circumstances in which it occurs including
rape, is ‘an offence to our status and dignity

00:18:31.220 --> 00:18:32.620
as human beings.’”

00:18:32.620 --> 00:18:36.080
That’s the power of human perception.

00:18:36.080 --> 00:18:43.340
That our violation of their bodies is an affront
to our “dignity.”

00:18:43.340 --> 00:18:48.309
Davis describes how, in regards to bestiality,
some animal advocates advanced the argument

00:18:48.309 --> 00:18:53.080
that “nonhuman animals are not in a position
to give informed consent…by virtue of [their]

00:18:53.080 --> 00:18:57.860
presumed inherent intellectual inferiority
to humans.”

00:18:57.860 --> 00:19:01.380
Even in their supposed defense, we insult
them.

00:19:01.380 --> 00:19:06.050
This is why, in “Rethinking Bestiality,”
one of the few essays focusing on the issue

00:19:06.050 --> 00:19:11.280
of bestiality from an animal rights standpoint,
criminologist Piers Beirne calls for “a

00:19:11.280 --> 00:19:16.900
concept of interspecies sexual assault,”
independent of moral outrage, empty allusions

00:19:16.900 --> 00:19:20.610
to victim status, and lack of consent through
idiocy.

00:19:20.610 --> 00:19:25.360
Referencing Carol J Adams, Beirne lays the
foundation for a truly victim-centered approach

00:19:25.360 --> 00:19:27.320
to the sexual assault of animals:

00:19:27.320 --> 00:19:32.100
“...in seeking to replace anthropocentrism
with an acknowledgement of the sentience of

00:19:32.100 --> 00:19:37.711
animals, we must start with the fact that
in almost every situation humans and animals

00:19:37.711 --> 00:19:41.130
exist in a relation of potential or actual
coercion…

00:19:41.130 --> 00:19:46.800
For genuine consent to sexual relations to
be present…both participants must be conscious,

00:19:46.800 --> 00:19:49.820
fully informed and positive in their desires…

00:19:49.820 --> 00:19:54.780
Bestiality involves sexual coercion because
animals are incapable of saying yes or no

00:19:54.780 --> 00:19:57.720
to humans in forms that humans can readily
understand…

00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:01.900
If we cannot know whether animals consent
to our sexual overtures, then we are as much

00:20:01.900 --> 00:20:06.850
at fault when we tolerate interspecies sexual
relations as when we fail to condemn adults

00:20:06.850 --> 00:20:11.101
who have sexual relations with infants or
with children or with…[others]—who, for

00:20:11.101 --> 00:20:18.460
whatever reason, are unable to refuse participation.”I
hope this rather intensive analysis of bestiality

00:20:18.460 --> 00:20:20.580
gave you some food for thought.

00:20:20.580 --> 00:20:21.580
Please share it around.

00:20:21.580 --> 00:20:26.130
I would like to thank my $50 and above patrons
and my whole Nugget Army Patreon family for

00:20:26.130 --> 00:20:30.870
making it possible for me to conduct this
research, deliver speeches all over the world

00:20:30.870 --> 00:20:33.490
and create hundreds of free educational videos.

00:20:33.490 --> 00:20:37.049
If you’d like to help support Bite Size
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00:20:37.049 --> 00:20:39.940
the support links below or the link in the
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00:20:39.940 --> 00:20:44.410
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00:20:44.410 --> 00:20:52.549
Now go live vegan, question your perception,
and I’ll see you soon.

00:20:52.549 --> 00:20:53.049
I wonder how long this will stay on YouTube...