How long until the taboo on Bestiality is broken?

An Editorial on Bestiality.

--By Daniel Grant Wilks--

About as long as speciesism and denial of humans being in the animal kingdom or being animals and therefor zoosexual by nature because of your attraction to a human animal.

Zoosexuality is a sexual orientation in which humans are sexually attracted to animals. Although people have been having sex with animals for centuries, it has largely been condemned, ignored, and marginalized by society. The reason for this negative attitude towards sexuality is due to ignorance and bigotry, which has led to zoosexuality being stigmatized by society and made a taboo subject. But what exactly does it mean for something to be “taboo”?

Taboo is a word which means “[being] proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable”; it is also defined as “exclusion from use or practice, to ignore or ridicule”. Compare this with the definition of “controversial”, which is “subject to controversy; debatable”. Taboo subjects and controversial subjects often overlap.

Because of this, some subjects in society are publicly debatable, controversial, and easy to bring up (such as abortion or health care reform) – nobody is ashamed of bring up their point-of-view. However, taboo subjects (such as bestiality, nudity, and subjects which have to do with sex and death) are considered unacceptable by society, stigmatized, and ignored as thoroughly as possible. They are irrationally censored. I refer to this as “social erasure”; the collective artificial amnesia created by a society to attempt to eradicate a way of thinking. This has been common throughout history; for example, blacks prior to key moments (such as the Civil Rights movement) were often ignored.

Another group of people that have suffered from “social erasure” are gays. In the 1950s, for example, being gay wasn’t even debated; it was “brushed under the table”, ignored, stigmatized and considered taboo. However, through the 1960s and onwards, gay rights eventually became more mainstream and began to become OK to talk about; in the year 2000, there were zero U.S. states that allowed gay marriage; there are now 7 (and DC) — and that number is growing. The social attitude towards the taboo of homosexuality has changed over the years; in a sense, it has gone from being “taboo” to not being a big deal.

However the same cannot be said for zoosexuality; it is a group which have not made the progress that gay rights has made; it has remained in the darkness, locked up by society; this is largely due to the fact that our culture is based on certain moral values derived from Christianity and other religious sources.

Whenever the “hidden” subject of zoosexuality is brought up by someone, no matter how articulate and rational the argument may be, the chances are high that the resulting reaction will involve social stigma, disgust, or a non-rational knee-jerk response. Why are certain things considered taboo? And why is zoosexuality so taboo? Surely, one could not pick a more taboo subject. It is so taboo that it could almost be considered analogous to homosexuality in the 1950s. In my 15 years (and counting) of education, I have only heard the subject mentioned once or twice, and in those cases, it was only mentioned briefly and negatively. I have never seen a television show about it. It is apparently even too taboo for National Geographic’s “Taboo” series to show.

SECTION 2: ADDRESSING ZOOSEXUALITY

According to the Internet, zoosexuality (also known as zoophilia) is defined as a human sexual attraction to a non-human animal; this has been viewed as being its own unique sexual orientation known as “zoosexuality”. Meanwhile, the term “bestiality” refers only to actual sex acts with animals, whereas “zoophilia” and “zoosexuality” refer to the broader sexual attraction to animals. Because the term “bestiality” has negative connotations and is associated with antizoosexual bigotry, the politically correct term for bestiality is “zoosexual act”. A zoosexual act is an act in which a human has inter-species sex with a being who happens to be non-human (including, but not limited to, sexual intercourse, oral sex, etc.) Here is a quote by a zoophile describing it further: “Zoophilia is best described as a love of animals so intimate that the person (and the animal) involved have no objections to expressing their affection for each other in the sexual fashion. This is not to be confused with bestiality, where a person forcefully mates an animal, without their consent, and with no mutual feelings whatsoever. This is something that I would never do to [an animal], since I love them dearly, and treat them with the same respect that an honest husband would have for his wife and children.” — Anonymous, http://www.zoophile.net/dolphins... The group of people who have sex with animals can be divided into two categories: > Category #1: The majority (people who love animals romantically and would never harm them — they are known as “zoosexuals”) > Category #2: The minority (people who only use animals as objects in order to have sex with them — they are known as “bestialists” — people who are “bestialists” [aka "zoosadists"] don’t care about the animal’s welfare). Most people who have sex with animals are not in category #2. Most people who have sex with animals are called zoosexuals (they are the people who love animals, would never harm animals, and treat animals as sentient beings with their own rights). Sometimes zoosexual people are called “zoos” (an abbreviation). Unfortunately, the media tends to disproportionally report cases involving “bestialists”, and this harms the reputation of innocent zoosexuals, as well as the public’s perception of zoosexuality. When people see these media reports, they come to the erroneous conclusion that all people who have sex with animals are “bestialists”, which isn’t true. The Internet seems to be the only source providing information about zoosexuality; due to its taboo and stigmatized nature and its “social erasure”, you would never learn this type of information in school or on TV (I didn’t, and you probably didn’t either). If something is stigmatized and ignored, it leads to a mass ignorance. For example, normal sex between humans is generally considered taboo in most cultures (it is censored on TV and only done in private); because of these restrictions, people end up becoming more reckless because they have less knowledge. This has led to the widespread transfer of the HIV virus from one person to another. Why was the virus spread? Because people weren’t informed; they weren’t educated properly. Why weren’t they educated properly? Because the issue was ignored. The result is a massive pandemic. The general sexual stigma brought on by centuries of religious dogma has inadvertently resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. It is mass ignorance which has caused zoophilia to become taboo. Because it is loathed, feared and poorly understood by people, it is not included in school curriculum. It is also excluded from religion, excluded from popular culture (except for humorous remarks), and often condemned by the law. This is based on long held irrational traditions and beliefs that date back many, many years. Fear seems to be a driving force behind the condemnation of zoosexuality. As Bertran Russel said, “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd”. If a person stands out for any reason, there is apparently something wrong with you. If you face the wrong way on the elevator, for example, there is apparently something wrong with you. And it is this conformity, which is responsible for the persecution of smaller, minority groups such as zoosexuals; because their ways are not similar to the majority, they are condemned. This was (and to a degree, still is) true of homosexuals, bisexuals and people of other orientation, but hasn’t caught on with zoosexuals. An article on Science News, Articles, and Information(see link at bottom of Blog) says the following: “This individual, who shall go unnamed unless he wishes to identify himself in the comments section, was a self-professed “zoophile” (Greek for “animal lover”) with a particular romantic affinity for horses, and he was hoping that I might devote one of my column pieces to this neglected, much-maligned topic of forbidden interspecies love. “The politics of acknowledging zoophilia as a ‘legitimate’ sexual orientation,” wrote this reader, “often mean that zoophiles are either ignored as a class or subject to what can only be described as the most vicious, sustained, and hateful attacks by mainstream society.” I have my own viscerally based, unreasoned biases and—I confess—on first reading this email I promptly mentally filed it away in the untouchable “Eww…” category. But [a story], combined with my sympathy for human underdogs, inspired me to go back and reread it, and I saw a rather intriguing scientific question lurking there. Is it really possible for an otherwise normal, healthy person to develop a genuine sexual preference for a nonhuman species?”–http://www.scientificamerican.co...) This is an example of how even “normal” people are beginning to question at a basic level what it means to be zoosexual.