Sex With Animals: The Blurred Lines of Bestiality

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

discomfort and disgust to moral outrage and
ethical condemnation.

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

public discourse.

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

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

and enjoyed by the vast majority of society.

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

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

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

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

humans and animals.”

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

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

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

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

probably cost me a couple viewers…

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

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

on the blog post linked in the description
below.

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

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

of story.

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

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

lives.

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

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

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

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

criminal distribution of pornography.

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

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

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

stimulate a pig.

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

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

criminal becomes largely a matter of cultural
context.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"buggery."

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

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

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

of The Connecticut Superior Court in January
of 1800.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

an unpopular bill.

(Will ideally list the states and date enacted
onscreen)

Yay, moral integrity…

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

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

years (Rhode Island).

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

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

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

an animal.”

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

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

granting non-human animals “victim” status.

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

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

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

bestiality so objectionable.

All bestiality legislation includes exceptions
for accepted animal industry practices.

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

of bestiality.

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

the legal benchmark for sexual violation:
penetration.

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

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

involving penetration.

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

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

farming practices involving penetration can
and do cause harm.

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

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

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

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

bred via artificial insemination.

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

the flow of milk for human consumption.

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

after birth.

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

shot.

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

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

that most inseminations are performed by non-veterinarians.

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

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

to be slaughtered on the training day.”

Perhaps the objectionable element separating
routine farming practices from bestiality

is the deliberate use of force during penetration?

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

as he describes standard industry practice:

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

Breaking hens was hard, fast, dirty work.

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

in one hand.

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

pushed up her tail feathers and exposed her
vent opening.

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

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

which opened the vent…

Into this, he inserted the semen tube...

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

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

every 12 seconds.”

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

are subjected to a constant cycle of pregnancies.

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

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

be chained in place.

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

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

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

the body part(s) involved.

Take the following account:

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

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

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

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

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

one of the best in the business.”

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

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

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

If so, what changed about the account itself?

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

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

of families and people.”

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

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

them prior to insemination.

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

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

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

may be an exercise in futility.

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

of an artificial vagina, electroejaculation,
or transrectal massage.

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

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

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

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

anus and delivering electric shocks to stimulate
ejaculation.

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

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

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

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

resources of the Pork Checkoff program.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

bit frustrating…

Moving on…

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

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

committing the act.

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

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

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

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

animal cruelty classification, and establishment
of animals as victims.

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

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

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

and forcefully penetrated for her next round
of heartbreak.

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

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

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

to victim to profit margin, depending on our
needs.

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

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

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

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

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

of a license that has already been taken.”

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

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

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

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

gestation crates.

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

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

electric prod, among other offenses.

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

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

when snipped”—all without any anesthetic.

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

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

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

were piled on top of them in giant bins.”

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

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

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

“atrocious animal abuse.”

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

the “atrocious animal abuse.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

it totally wrong!

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

dissonance complete with ample blind spots.

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

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

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

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

Nothing about the dog herself has changed—only
her geographical location and, more importantly,

the perception of her role and value by the
humans deciding her fate.

Such subjective shifting of assigned worth
is the very basis of anthropocentrism, a belief

system that “regards humans as separate
from and superior to nature and holds that

human life has intrinsic value while other
entities (including animals, plants, …and

so on) are resources that may justifiably
be exploited for the benefit of humankind.”

Our anthropocentric worldview explains many
bizarre displays of human doublethink.

An example I covered in my speech “The Best
We Have To Offer,” which concerns legislative

issues pertaining to animal cruelty, was when
the European Union signed the Treaty of Lisbon,

recognizing non-human animals legally sentient,
deserving freedom from hunger, thirst, discomfort,

pain, injury, disease, fear, distress and
mental suffering—and then use this very

recognition of their capacity to feel the
same emotions and sensations as we do to design

the exact manner in which humans may legally
violate, imprison, cut, burn, alter, and murder

them.

A preliminary report for the new legislation
compared the financial cost of gassing verses

grinding alive the estimated 335 million unwanted
day-old male chicks born into the EU egg industry

every year.

Finding live grinding, or maceration, to be
far more cost-effective, it was codified as

the method of choice in the resulting groundbreaking
animal protection legislation.

In her article “Pets or Meat,” Professor
of Law Marry Anne Case highlights the complications

arising from the condemnation of bestiality
on the grounds of incapacity to consent.

Citing how even the training of one’s pets
is a form of persuasion difficult to “differentiate…with

reference to consent,” Case concludes that:

“If we think there should be more strict
or rigorous legal controls on having one's

pets trained to do what would violate the
bestiality laws than on other stupid pet tricks,

we should acknowledge straightforwardly that
it is our attitude toward sex, more than our

concern for animal freedom of choice or animal
welfare, that motivates us.”

Far from having the animals’ interests at
heart, it appears that, as Dr. Davis wrote,

“the primary mainstream objection to bestiality…is
that sex between humans and nonhumans, regardless

of the circumstances in which it occurs including
rape, is ‘an offence to our status and dignity

as human beings.’”

That’s the power of human perception.

That our violation of their bodies is an affront
to our “dignity.”

Davis describes how, in regards to bestiality,
some animal advocates advanced the argument

that “nonhuman animals are not in a position
to give informed consent…by virtue of [their]

presumed inherent intellectual inferiority
to humans.”

Even in their supposed defense, we insult
them.

This is why, in “Rethinking Bestiality,”
one of the few essays focusing on the issue

of bestiality from an animal rights standpoint,
criminologist Piers Beirne calls for “a

concept of interspecies sexual assault,”
independent of moral outrage, empty allusions

to victim status, and lack of consent through
idiocy.

Referencing Carol J Adams, Beirne lays the
foundation for a truly victim-centered approach

to the sexual assault of animals:

“...in seeking to replace anthropocentrism
with an acknowledgement of the sentience of

animals, we must start with the fact that
in almost every situation humans and animals

exist in a relation of potential or actual
coercion…

For genuine consent to sexual relations to
be present…both participants must be conscious,

fully informed and positive in their desires…

Bestiality involves sexual coercion because
animals are incapable of saying yes or no

to humans in forms that humans can readily
understand…

If we cannot know whether animals consent
to our sexual overtures, then we are as much

at fault when we tolerate interspecies sexual
relations as when we fail to condemn adults

who have sexual relations with infants or
with children or with…[others]—who, for

whatever reason, are unable to refuse participation.”I
hope this rather intensive analysis of bestiality

gave you some food for thought.

Please share it around.

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I wonder how long this will stay on YouTube...