In the field of alternate human sexual practices, one that I've been watching slip under people's RADAR from some time, is that subgroup known as "Zoophiles." They call themselves "Zoos" (as in, "I'm a Zoo!"). Zoos like having sex with animals. Some have fixations on specific animals, like horses, dogs, or dolphins. Others prefer sexual experimentation with many different animals. Sometimes to the exclusion of humans, sometimes not.
You'll find web sites devoted to these folks, and Usenet news groups. Jerry Kindall recently unearthed this court decision on a man who was denied a government job due to his zoophilia. He argued that it was discriminatory, but the court didn't side with him.
In similar news, while people are fond of laughing at it, the polygamist movement appears to be gaining steam. Which is particularly controversial among women who claim to be victims of polygamy, charging a whole host of abuses associated with the practice. But polygamists charge, by comparison, that if gay people can be married, they should be allowed to be too.
The libertarian impulse is to tell people they can do whatever they want on these matters. In my soul, it's what I feel. It's none of my business. I've believed what people do in the privacy of their homes is their own business for as long as I can remember. I hate gay-bashers and other bigots who can't mind their own business.
Yet I always wonder: is there, seriously, any rational or moral basis for social or legal disapproval of such things, without being oppressive or throwing people in jail? Is there any purpose in laws which recognize certain relationships as special--such as a traditional marriage--and others as simply allowable but not embraced?
Having been bashed as a closed-minded bigot and an irrational religious jerk (ha!) just for asking this question, I'm always worried about bringing it up again. Yet the question still floats out there, and people just seem to get angry when you bring it up.
Well, there's obviously the religious arguments. Those, I think, are fairly well understood, so we don't need to get into that. I'll note for the record that I subscribe to many of the religious prohibitions, but for religious reasons; I don't pretend that my religion's precepts should affect the differently faithed.
For "zoophilia", the obvious problem is disease control. We have enough problems keeping ourselves from getting diseases when we keep sex between humans; why mix the weird diseases that animals likely could get into the mix? I have heard a rumor that sex between a human and a monkey might have been the initial infection vector for HIV.
Another factor in bestiality cases is animal cruelty. Can we ever verify that an animal is a willing sexual partner? Are all "zoophilia" cases basically cases of statutory rape?
The disease factor is also slightly relevant regarding homosexuality, given that anal sex is more prevalent among gay males, but it's very weak.
Currently, homosexuals seem to be more promiscuous than heterosexuals, which is bad for several reasons. There's some dispute as to whether the marriage ban is a cause of this, though.
Heterosexual sex should, I think, get a little more scrutiny, mainly because of the nonzero possibility of conception. Such a possibility seems like grounds to me for regulating incest, among other things.
It's widely accepted that children are not of an age to consent to sexual activity. Thus, we have laws against child pornography, statutory rape, pedophilia, and other such crimes. I'd be hard pressed to see how this rationale is flawed, especially given the power relationships involved.
I am also of the opinion that divorce should be more highly discouraged in families with children than in families without children. This results from a similar principle as the direct sex prohibitions: to protect children, although not necessarily from direct sex. Based on a principle like this, one could also justify harshness towards adultery.
Polygamy has been seen in the past to be a dangerous practice. OTOH, is it in the state's interest to push people into the arms of swinger's organizations and such as a cover for polygamy? I don't know.
Part of that debate involves whether the state has a legitimate interest in encouraging stable families. There are two sides to that coin: whether the state has a right to play such games, and whether, if it has that right, it has the need. I'm sure libertarians will tend to the negative side of that equation, and I'm not sure that there's some merit to it in certain cases. Generally, I think that state meddling in family matters is a serious thing that requires great accountability - greater than currently exists. But I won't rule it out.
Roughly, these arguments are in a descending order of forcefulness, with exceptions noted. I think, to sum up, that there are many good reasons for the government to regular sexual behavior, but there also seem to be many more bad ones.
Of course, a slightly more lax attitude towards the regulation of sexual behavior does present opportunities for taxation. Just ask the Germans, or Steven Den Beste.
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/05/TaxingThingie.shtml
In the post above, second to last paragraph, substitute "regulate" for "regular".
I'll leave it to others whether government has the right to regular sexual behavior. Maybe only during the Clinton administration?
So this guy from Connecticut walks into a bar in Texas and orders a drink. The bartender serves him and says, "So what do you do for a living?" And the guys says, "I'm a taxidermist."
"A taxidermist? What the hell is that?" says the bartender.
"I mount dead animals."
The bartender looks over his shoulder and says, "It alright fellas, he's one of us."
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The whole marriage-rights-for-XXXes is fundamentally an argument over money. For a closer look, please see: http://palaceofreason.com/CurrentEvents/a_taxing_question.html
Talk about looking for love in all the wrong places. There are true freaks who screw children, grandmothers, their own daughters, even corpses.
So I suppose any rural misanthrope can lose his virginity to some poor dumb sheep, and think himself a man by joining the herd. Literally.
But if zoophilia is how he gets his jollies, it would be more impressive to see if he can do the job on a leopard, and walk away from the encounter.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Actually, the disease vector is pretty troubling in the gay community, and was long before AIDS. AIDS hides the fact that among gay men. The rates of syphilis, hepatatis, and a number of other infections are very high in the gay community. Not so for all gay men of course, but among frequenters of bathhouses and gay bars the rate is extremely high.
As the late Randy Shilts (author of And The Band Played On) put it, gay men's sex lives is boys without girls--i.e. men are much more inclined to hop into bed than women are (you'd have to be an idiot at this point not to acknowledge that) and when they don't have women's reluctance to deal with, they wind up having a lot more sex.
Although I've known gay men who are exceptions, they are exceptions. Statistically speaking.
Not that I believe you can or should outlaw such behavior. Social disapproval? That's another matter, and much more complicated--because I don't know where "that's none of my business" and "that's something worth frowning on" collide, exactly. Having been called a hateful closed-minded bigot (by people who I thought were my friends, no less) for even asking these questions, I'm often rather tortured about these discussions.
As for consensual sex with animals: okay, fair warning, this is going to get gross, so some of you should stop reading here.
I warned you.
Masturbating animals is hard to define as abusive. If so, then people who collect bull semen or pig semen for commercial purposes are abusing animals. But of the people who do that (and yes, there are such careers--please God let me never have that job!) don't generally report that the studs react negatively to it. (Gag.)
You'll find, if you look through Googld, a FAQ on how much fun it is to masturbate a dolphin, and tips on how to go about it, among those who like that sort of thing.
One should also point out that if I can take a sledgehammer to a cow, goat, or sheap's head, chop it up, and make stew out of it, it's very hard to make the case that having sex with it is "cruel."
Given that people have begun to sue in court to avoid job discrimination on the basis of their zoophilia, I think that it's only a matter of time before these discussions make their way into the public eye, just as polygamy is increasingly doing now.
If you read the Usenet groups devoted to zoophilia enthusiasts, you'll find that some of them are firmly convinced that the gay rights movement is what will eventually enable widespread social acceptance of their sexual preferences too.
It's not, I fear, an issue that is going to simply go away, or stay underground forever.
How long the zoophreaks (?) and their great idea remain underground depends on how deep we bury them.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold, what happened to your firm Ayn Rand-style individualism? Isn't this sort of thing none of our bidness?
My only argument against "poly" marriages is that, from a contract standpoint, I don't think the odds are very good that a poly group is going to hold up their end of the bargain. As a member of society, I expect people who want some perks because of their arrangement to have at least a better than 50-percent statistical chance of upholding their end. As far as I can tell, most hippy-goth-whatever based poly arrangements are short-lived, and an alarming number of, oh, let's say Mormon, group arrangements are not exactly working for the women.
Legal marriage is my bidness, I live here and pay taxes and so forth. Handicapped parking is also my bidness, in the same way.
Dean,
"Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself." AYN RAND
(from www.DrKenner.com)
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold, would that be why the short, curvy Ayn Rand who wrote books in which the hottie was tall and willowy? I've always wondered what that said about her valuation of herself.
Dean:
Masturbating a dolphin? A DOLphin?
You. Must. Read. EVERYTHING.
I have to believe that because the alternative is....too disturbing for words.
I'm just saying.
;^)
Hmmm. Maybe that's why Rosemary has been so grouchy lately! Heh...
On a (not really) more serious note; this article has just about convinced me Dean has decided to start posting really provocative articles just to get a rise out of his readership... :)
Perish the thought.
Dean said "If you read the Usenet groups devoted to zoophilia enthusiasts, you'll find that some of them are firmly convinced that the gay rights movement is what will eventually enable widespread social acceptance of their sexual preferences too."
In Texas currently bestiality is actually more legal than gay sex.
http://www.sodomylaws.org/lawrence/lwnews43.htm
>
Soddomy laws are an odd quirk. They are very rarely enforced. When they are, it usually makes headlines. It seems to be one of those cases where the law is largely ignored.
It is, too. I can take you down to San Antonio, or Dallas, or to the capital city, Austin, and show you the gay bars, the local gay publications, etc. They are rarely harassed by the police, and gay people generally are fairly well tolerated.
Yet, there are these odd laws still on the books.
Personally, I'm not convinced that they can all pass Constitutional muster, and no one seems to want to bother enforcing them. Until some local sherrif or D.A. decides he wants to make headlines for some reason.
It's just weird.
In respect to Dean's last comment, I am glad most of these anti-sodomy laws are still on the books. I am not advocating the government peep into bedrooms (and the 4th ammendment largely prohibits this), but the anti-sodomy laws have some key benefits.
For example, Florida does not allow homosexuals to adopt children. Since homosexuals - as a group, there are many individual exceptions - are much more likely to commit crimes of sexual assault, it would be criminal negligence to place children in the hands of a statistically high risk environment. The anti-sodomy laws are part of the Florida's legal justification for preventing gay adoption. And these laws have stood up in the Florida Supreme Court and many federal appeals (I don't believe the US Supreme Court has heard a case on this recently, but they may have refused to accept an appeal on it).
Likewise, as Senator Rick Santorum recently said to the outrage of many leftists:
Strike down the laws against homosexual actions and you lay the legal framework to strike down the laws against beastality.
This subject has come up a lot recently in various guises. I have a related post here.
I have never seen so much as a smidge of evidence for the notion that gay people are more likely to commit crimes of sexual assault.
I frankly have only minor concerns about gay adoption. For the most part, while I do believe that having a father and mother should be considered the optimal family for placing kids into adoption--and yes, I suppose some will shriek that I advocate vicious discrimination against gays for saying that--I frankly think there are so many kids who are tough to get adopted that allowing gay couples to adopt them is only sensible and fair for both the children and the gay people who just want kids to love. So long as they can show that they are offering a stable, healthy environment, of course.
I AM A FEMALE AND WANT TO TRY HAVING SEX WITH A DOG. IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE WHO CAN TELL ME HOW TO GET STARTED. ALSO WHAT TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT IF ANYTHING. PLEASE ANSWER.