Everyone Overreacts to Bestiality
Devil’s advocate series #2
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(See the series intro here.)
People lose their minds at the idea of someone having sex with an animal. It’s gross. It’s dangerous. The animal can’t consent to it.
Is it gross? That’s up to you I guess. Life is pretty gross in general and we all have to decide how to engage with that fact. We also get to decide whether we want to risk contracting diseases through our sexual activity.
Bestiality seems gross to me, too… but, honestly, there are some animals I’d rather fuck before some people. I’m sure I’d rather have sex with a dolphin than with a nasty old man. If that overlap happens to extend a bit farther for some people, well, that’s none of my business. People do a lot of gross things and I can only shrug.
The animal has to want it too, of course. I’m not saying it’s fine for people to rape animals. That is abuse for sure. Don’t rape your dog, OK? It’s not cool. Even if Dying Fetus compels you.
“But Dana, having sex with an animal is always rape because they can’t give verbal consent.”
Animals can’t give verbal consent to anything we do to them, can they? What dog wants to be tied up or left in a yard, fed unhealthy kibble its whole life, neutered or spayed, or left in a crate for an entire workday? When did they say any of those things were OK? We impose all kinds of things on our pets that can be miserable for them, but we don’t consider them abusive enough to be illegal.
Obviously, the way we determine acceptable interaction with an animal has nothing to do with verbal consent. Anyone who has a pet knows there are clear ways to tell what it likes with its body language, though.
There’s no reason an animal couldn’t happily choose to have sex with its human. Especially if you’re a woman having sex with a male animal, it’s a pretty clear sign of consent if he mounts you and starts getting busy.
Of all the things that happen between pets and their owners around the world on a daily basis, mutually-desired sex is far from the worst. Most animals would rather have sex than be castrated and celibate. It’s a normal biological function of which we deprive the vast majority of our pets. It’s not like they’re going to feel regret or shame about it later.
If you’re really worried about the well-being of pets, a more productive thing to address would be the neglect that so many animals endure. You hardly ever meet a dog that truly has its needs met. They don’t get the exercise, stimulation, or training they need, so they act crazy, and then the owners punish them for having bad behavior even though it’s their own fault. Life must be a living hell for a huge number of pets. It’s probably safe to say that most dogs suffer under conditions like these.
And if you’re really worried about animal well-being, you should question why we distinguish between pets and food animals. How many billions of animals suffer miserably every year because we think they taste good? A staggering number of animals are tortured regularly, legally, and they’re every bit as intelligent as a dog or a cat. Just because we don’t value them in the same way as pets doesn’t mean their desperate misery is any less real.
In light of the massively grotesque meat industry, how does anyone have time to care if some eccentric lady and her Great Dane get up to a good time? With any realistic look at the world, we should realize it’s a complete non-issue.
