History
History
Sex between humans and animals has been taking place since at least the Paleolithic Era (before the domestication of animals), so this likely took place between animals in heat and observant humans who were unable (or unwilling) to resist their sexual overtures, whether due to the heady scent of oestrus in the air or perhaps the animal’s beckoning gestures and visibly-swollen sex organs.
‘Cave paintings’ are imagery produced by early humans (and sometimes, apparently, Neanderthals), and the earliest known image featuring human-animal sex as a theme was created in what is now Portugal, although there is some debate as to whether the human was added to the image at a later date than the goat his dramatically engorged erect penis is juxtaposed against.
These images were apparently important to early people, as the imagery in Sweden (including one zoophilic depiction of a man about to penetrate a horse with his erect penis) were actually found inside of a grave, with each image turned toward the center – presumably providing the interred human with the best possible view of these images throughout the remainder of eternity.
When it comes to classical antiquity, bestiality was achieving a height of popularity which has perhaps been unmatched, before or since. In Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome women with high sex drives (called ‘nymphomaniacs’) would be locked into rooms with dogs for several days in the hopes that these animals would have sex with them frequently enough to leave the women satisfied and no longer ‘suffering’ from their ‘sickness’.
The famous Ruins of Pompeii included imagery of human-animal intercourse.
One of the most infamous works of art from antiquity is a statue of a man (the god Pan) in missionary position with a female goat, holding her hind legs while he penetrates her! It was found in Herculaneum – and in the presence of a king, no less! He was not amused, the tale says… perhaps Pan grabbing the goat’s beard and staring into its eyes while completing the act was just too much for the man.
Hittites were the people who preceded the Jewish (and thus all Abrahamic) culture. Their laws ruled for 500 years and while human-animal sex acts were prohibited with most species, it was permitted to have intercourse with a horse or a mule, just not in front of the king and the zoo would be prohibited from becoming a priest later. Assuming one is not a member of the royal house and has no intention of becoming a priest, this is hardly any deterrent at all.
Later Jewish people would prohibit sex with any type of animal in an attempt to differentiate themselves from their pagan neighbors, who often had animal gods and engaged in sexual activity with real animals. Christians and Muslims kept this prohibition due to heavily referencing the Jewish Old Testament for their historical and religious instruction. Apparently the Jewish people were known to engage in sex with animals anyway, at least on some occasions, because they found it necessary to forbid widows from owning dogs – presumably because the women would be tempted to give themselves over the hounds.
There was a long period during which bestiality was equated with witchcraft due to the ‘unnatural’ union of man and animal, leading to the deaths of many zoos as well as their animal lovers. The dark ages truly were dark; for zoophiles perhaps even more than the average individual.
Eventually came the French Revolution and along with it a relaxing of the religiously-motivated laws against bestiality, as well as many other victimless crimes such as homosexuality, oral sex, and other non-procreative sex acts. Even countries which did not fall under French rule were revising their laws to prohibit sex with animals for legal reasons rather than due to some divine order.
This eventually caused outrage among anti-zoos who recruited members of the recently-developed animal welfare organizations to petition for laws against interspecies sexual contact. In recent years there has been a widespread re-criminalization of bestiality, when only perhaps a decade before there had been many safe-havens for zoos in America, Europe, and elsewhere.
References
http://beastiality.club/beastiality-club-extreme-animal-sex-content/the-encyclopedia-of-zoophilia/
