Talk:Bestiality/Archive1

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Hey[edit]

Hey, what was wrong with my link to "dogging"? Smyth 15:46, 18 September 2007 (EDT)

Nothing at all which is why I replaced it. Looks suspiciously like the one in my Leeds article...XD HexspecimenIt's an X 15:49, 18 September 2007 (EDT)
Okay, good. I admit, that's where I got it. At first I just wiki'd it, but then found to my surprise that there isn't a page on it, but there was an existing link. I didn't have the knowledge to create a page on it, though that would be a good one. Maybe Conservapedia has a page on "dogging" that I could copy? -Smyth 16:00, 18 September 2007 (EDT)
Hehehe, I got banned before I could create it. CP used to have scholarly and well researched articles on wolfbagging and the Dirty Bristow though....XD HexspecimenIt's an X 16:02, 18 September 2007 (EDT)
I removed the remark about animals not giving consent to be eaten not because I object to the point but because it is irrelevant to the topic and dilutes the snark. The rights and wrongs of humans being carnivorous is more properly addressed in vegetarianism. Jollyfish.gifGenghisYou have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you. 02:22, 15 July 2008 (EDT)
The point shows if you are against bestiality you should also be against vegetarianism unless you are a hypocrite --Zoophile 02:24, 15 July 2008 (EDT)
Ironically, and I hope you didn't mean it, you just said the exact opposite of what you meant. I hope you are smarter than that. PS, I guess I did the same thing, GK. And I agree, this article is about sex, let's address aminal rightsisms in their own articles... although I did whitewash zoophilia's perverted edits the last time it made them. ħumanUser talk:Human 02:31, 15 July 2008 (EDT)

Informed consent[edit]

I don't know if it's meant to be a gag, but the "Informed consent" argument against bestiality obviously doesn't work. If we want to be really honest about it, it's a sexual/social taboo. Though it is admittedly a pretty big one.--Bobbing up 06:48, 15 July 2008 (EDT)

Wow Bob you should have been here about 4 hours ago. It was crazy, a guy called Zoophile went nuts on this page and the liberal page. I actually thought he was funny (in the end he admitted it was satire) but the others weren't so kind. Check it out.--Damo2353 07:38, 15 July 2008 (EDT)
In fact I did try to follow the threads, and the diffs, but I guess that you had to be present to really appreciate it. --Bobbing up 08:15, 15 July 2008 (EDT)
No doubt it was a sock of one of the regular users... wait a minute, where were you 4 hours ago?--Damo2353 08:30, 15 July 2008 (EDT)
Not me. Shakinghead.gif I was out mate. --Bobbing up 08:44, 15 July 2008 (EDT)
Further to consent ... Yesterday a rather large dog decided to mistake my leg for a female! There was certainly a "consent" issue - but it was on my side. My large walking stick helped me express my lack of consent.--Bobbing up 13:22, 21 July 2008 (EDT)

Consent[edit]

Animals cannot give consent in any act, for this reason the argument that it is violation of animal rights is bullshit. What when you kill a goat for meat? That is ok, but you will thrown in jail for fucking a goat? --Goat lover (talk) 16:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the "consent" issue is just weird.--BobSpring is sprung! 09:15, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Define: "consent". This is where the real problem lies, both "morally" (though then again, if history has taught us anything this is hardly a good measure of anything) and more importantly, legally. Is consent simply "an animal cannot say no/yes, so it is not consent?" Because by that argument, you could argue that having sex with a mute woman is rape because she cannot "say yes or no" even if she practically strips the both you naked, sucks you off, and then spreads for you. Is it ability to react? Because this is just plain false. An animal feeling pain will in fact react. Is it "animals don't know enough about sex therefore they can't make an informed decision?" Two problems: First of all, the idea that sex has any intrinsic specialty is just that: a human idea. Sex, for humans, only has special meaning because we give it such. Animals simply screw out of instinct/pleasure. And speaking of, that's the second problem: Animals may not know much about quantum physics, or not to eat your homework. However, if there is one thing an animal is knowledgeable about, it's sex (moreso than some humans are, sadly.) Add to this there's the problem of situation: not all animals are equally (un) intelligent. Yes, none of them are capable of forming human speech in any meaningful capacity... yet. I'm sure we'll discover how to do that soon enough through cybernetics or something, and hopefully once we do figure out how to make dog-human translators we'll be able to put this issue to rest once and for all (if it isn't already laid to rest by then.) However, certain animals are definitely smarter and therefore carry the higher possibility of being able to give "consent" than others: for example, a dog is typically smarter than a chicken (which is not surprising in the least... after all we bred them that way.) And a dolphin is smarter than a dog (In fact there's some evidence I read somewhere that dolphins might actually have zoosexual attractions to humans. Don't know where I seen it though.) Though regardless of what definition you use, you have to make some very incredible leaps of logic in order to use "consent" as a justification for prohibition, while at the same time permitting other acts of "animal cruelty" such as hunting/turning into sunday dinners/lab testing for beauty products. IAMELIPHAS (talk) 02:14, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Wow that wound up much longer than I intended it to be. I seem to run into that problem quite frequently for some reason. IAMELIPHAS (talk) 02:14, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Really guys.[edit]

The goat painting? Osaka Sun (talk) 07:56, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. The position of it has completely screwed up the position of the section edit buttons, I'll go fix that. ADK...I'll model your cinderblock! 09:01, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Non-Verbal Consent?[edit]

I'm as disgusted by bestiality as anyone (ew!). But a thought occurred to me. Animals may not speak our language but they can still communicate with us. If a person knows an animal personally enough might they be able to decipher their signals well enough to tell when the animal is consenting? Also, if the animals initiates it and the human passively participates by just sitting there and taking it clearly the animal is consenting.75.133.90.126 (talk) 10:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

You could argue that it's still not informed because of the difference in cognition or that it's too difficult to interpret to allow the risk that it may be nonconsentual, but that still leaves dolphins (who have language and one scientist even demonstrated the ability to understand English semantics and syntax after living with a researcher in a specially designed facility) and arguably great apes (some of whom understand sign language) could consent using sign language.75.133.90.126 (talk) 10:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

To wit, one well documented case was Koko the gorilla inviting Robin Williams to "tickle" her rather frankly and quickly when they met in 2004, the sexual undertones of her use of the word being debated by her caregivers. While they were hesitant to discuss the subject, Robin Williams, characteristically not caring what the rest of the human race thought of it, openly said that Koko propositioned him on stage a few times.

And apparently Pandas can be taught how to understand human language as well.75.133.90.126 (talk) 10:36, 19 July 2012 (UTC) http://www.stlucie.k12.fl.uswww.tweentribune.com/content/she-speaks-panda-and-english-%E2%80%93-not-chinese?page=47&destination=

To my knowledge, it's not a matter of not being able to understand an animal's acquiescence, but just their inability to ever given informed consent. Similarly, I can understand a child, but it is not able to understand and make a decision with full knowledge of consequences, either.--ADtalkModerator 10:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Except animals are not on the same intellectual level as children, at least not on certain subjects. Especially on the subject of sex. I'd have to argue that if there's just one thing an animal does know (especially better than say... your typical christian conservative) it is sexual intercourse. Just because an animal can't do advanced calculus (or at least, as far as we know. As much as we really "know" about the animal mind, they might very well be capable of such advanced thoughts but simply refuse to tell it because they plan on overthrowing us when we least suspect it.) doesn't necessarily make an animal "stupid". In my (admittedly subjective) opinion: I'd have to say at worst it's inconclusive and/or situational. As I said before, a dog is (assumably) smarter than a chicken and therefore carries a higher cognitive ability for "informed consent" (again, because we selectively breed them that way), and a dolphin much higher than that. Also it doesn't stop us from using dogs in particular for far more dangerous things that require a far higher level of "informed consent," in the sense that they are indeed life threatening. We use them for Police Work, hunting (hey, hunting can be dangerous! Those coons, mountain lions, and bears can cut up a dog pretty badly while using their ability to deny consent to be mounted on your wall after all) or sticking them on the battlefield. IAMELIPHAS (talk) 02:40, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

This whole "consent" thing is crap[edit]

If we were really so concerned about only doing things to animals if they consent to them then we would all be vegetarians.

One could imagine that an animal might feel anything from terror to indifference to pleasure as a consequence of sexual activity with humans (or even other animals of a different species). But we don't really know and, because we think that humans are a "special animal" which shouldn't consort with lower orders, this give us the opportunity to invent the problem of lack of "consent" on the part of the animal.

But if we think about it, it's pretty obvious that animals in a slaughter house inevitably suffer terror pain and death. Something to which animals pretty obviously wouldn't consent to if asked. There is no doubt in this case.

Consequently it's hypocritical in the extreme to throw our lilly white hands up in horror at the idea ignoring the poor animal's inability to consent in sex with humans, while at the same time we are not-so-passive partners in ignoring its obvious lack of consent to its torture and death.--Coffee (talk) 06:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Most arguements I've seen against beastiality (or to be more specific: why anyone, and more specifically, the law should give a damn about beastiality,) are either completely subjective (morality, personal opinion, ad populum, etc.) or mind-numbingly hypocritical.
I know while reading once such missive on the subject (The International Handbook of Animal Cruelty: Theory, Research, and Application. Beastiality Section (page 201) I came across an argument by Bolliger and Goetschel that it might be more useful to focus on the "dignity" of the animal instead of the consent argument. However, this is loaded with problems.
First of all, is the fact that it contradicts the informed consent argument: if an animal cannot give informed consent, it also cannot feel "dignity" which it must use to make that informed decision. So if you argue the former, it is hypocritical to assert the latter.
Secondly, it makes the assumption that an animal even wants to feel dignified, or has anywhere near the same concept of "dignity" as humans do. Which, in the west anyway, the concept of dignity is mostly based on post-christian 'morality'. So in a sense all this argument amounts to is a flip-sided "morality" argument that tries to imply that the animal has a sense of morality and can feel ashamed at "breaking" this morality. This is of course, complete rubbish.
Third, as I implied in my second argument, "dignity" is also subjective. What is "dignified" to one person may not be "dignified" for someone else. And to assume that animals have any sense of this subjective dignity, let alone the same one as 90%+ of most of the population is actually rather arrogant of the arguer.
To illustrate my point, I will use this example: You are a german soldier (don't worry, this is not Godwin territory. I'm not making the comparison to the regime itself, just a single soldier whose moral compass and previous actions in the war are irrelevant in this example) in the middle of the battle of Seelow Heights. You are alone in a house, your fellows have either been killed or abandoned you. The Red Army is right outside your door, and the only thing you have is a single Kar98 with one single bullet left inside, as your "friends" have taken the rest of the guns and ammo with them. What is the most dignified thing you can do?
- Do you go down fighting even though you know it's a losing battle, thus preserving your dignity as a warrior?
- Do you attempt to preserve your dignity as a living being by attempting a retreat even though you don't have a snowballs chance in hell of making it?
- Or do you take the gun and use that last bullet on yourself? By taking your own life you preserve your dignity by denying the enemy the pleasure of killing you?
- Or do you throw down the gun and attempt to surrender? By refusing combat you show more dignity than your enemy.
The problem here is that there isn't any real right or wrong answers. Ask several people of different cultures this question and you'll get varied answers. Dignity is not something that is set in stone, it is something that is taught to us by society in general. It is an idea, and therefore subjective. IAMELIPHAS (talk) 15:56, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Fantastic. You have made a rather extended pre-emptive strike to demolish an argument which is not being made! :-)
More seriously, whether one uses the intellectual fig leaf of either "consent" or "dignity" the same argument applies. If these are valid reasons against having sex with animals they would be even more valid arguments agaisnt torturing, killing and eating them. So why aren't the people making these arguments all vegetarians?--Coffee (talk) 06:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
The problem is more to do with what kind of fuckup you have to be to want to stick your grody dick into something you're trained to accept it. It's Gor-grade bullshit. King Skeleton (talk) 08:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
So implicitly consenting to an animal's painful death and then eating it is cool - but if you have sex with it you are a fuckup. You don't see any kind of moral contradiction here?--Coffee (talk) 08:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
No. The kind of person who wants to eat food is normal. The kind of person who wants to screw something that doesn't have the faculties to understand what a gross bastard he is is not normal. King Skeleton (talk) 09:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Is it morally relevant whether an action is normal or natural? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:58, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Sure. But my argument is about consent. Claiming that the problem with bestiality is "consent" is absurd. Animals would certainly not consent to be killed and eaten if given the choice. Why we do we suddenly care about "consent" when the argument is about bestiality? --Coffee (talk) 09:06, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Because it's a matter related to sex. Sex with consent is good, sex without consent is very very bad. Since nobody consents to dying except in cases of suicide / euthanasia, it's a bit of a silly thing to try to bring across. Also rather obviously animals cannot be given the choice of whether they would want to be eaten or not, because it could not be framed in such a way that they'd actually be able to understand it.
You're imagining meat-eaters are necessarily happy with the amount of suffering involved in the industry, whereas I'd imagine those that actually think about it would say that they'd prefer there be as little of it as possible, with the ideal of there being none at all. And participating in negative behaviour A does not mean negative behaviour B is suddenly ok, that's the "two wrongs make a right" argument. The same kind of arguments could be trolled out in support of necrophilia and cannibalism. King Skeleton (talk) 09:13, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
What I'm saying is that "consent" is an argument pulled out of the air used to justify our disgust at the idea of sex with animals. As an argument it is totally lacking in logic as under no other circumstances do we care about animals' consent.--Coffee (talk) 09:39, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
You're ignoring that the point is that animals can't consent, therefore fucking an animal makes you a sexual predator. It's about the human, not about the animal. It's similar to someone saying they only have sex with people with mental disabilities that prevent them from functioning as adults; such people can't really consent to acts like taking a bath either, but that doesn't matter. King Skeleton (talk) 09:41, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
"You're ignoring that the point is that animals can't consent" - no, that's the very point I'm making! Talking about "consent" or not is absurd!--Coffee (talk) 12:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Well done, you read half a sentence. King Skeleton (talk) 12:33, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Well done, you've managed a reply which makes sense.--Coffee (talk) 12:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Your devastating rebuttal to the first half of one sentence of my post will forever go down in the history of debating. King Skeleton (talk) 12:47, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
As long as we agree that consent is irrelevant to the discussion then I'm happy. Sarcasm won't help your case that much.--Coffee (talk) 12:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
You're talking about the wrong reason for it to be relevant. It doesn't matter that the animal doesn't consent, it matters that the human wants to screw something that doesn't consent. King Skeleton (talk) 13:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Again I agree with you. We are making the same point. You write: "It doesn't matter that the animal doesn't consent" - indeed. Consent isn't the problem. It's an irrelevance to the argument against bestiality. That Is the point I'm trying to get across.--Coffee (talk) 14:00, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The problem with equating animals and humans with mental disabilities is that the latter are, well, disabled. Animals are "just" being "normal" animals. We recognise disabled people as being a vulnerable category of humans (like children), and that, while people normally are able to give consent, this group is vulnerable exactly because it lacks this normal feature of "people". Animals never have this, so equating animals with the mentally disabled is simply a false analogy similar to the "eating meat is murder"-line, or suggesting that slaughtering disabled people for food would be okay if done humanely... I've heard the director of Copenhagen Zoo (yes, the one where they slaughtered the giraffe) making a point similar to the consent argument when he objected to using the animal welfare argument in favour of the Danish government recent ban on bestiality. Basically, he said that as long as no harm comes to the animal in question, bestiality couldn't be banned on the grounds of animal welfare, adding that this did not mean that there couldn't be other grounds to ban bestiality, just that animal welfare was unlikely to be one of them. Actually, I think that the necrophilia and cannibalism examples are excellent illustrations of other cases where a consent argument would be silly - at least if we consider the victim to be the dead person fucked/eaten, rather than their living kin. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm saying it would mean they were a similar kind of person for doing that; ie someone who prefers vulnerable partners who cannot fully understand what is being asked of them, and is therefore a total shit who shouldn't be allowed to do that. The fact that all animals lack the ability to fully comprehend what is being asked of them just means you're a shit for having sex with any animal, whereas since not all humans lack the ability you can have a consensual sexual relationship with some humans. King Skeleton (talk) 11:27, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
No, you're just automatically assuming that it is wish to have non-consensual sex which is the prime motivator and salient feature of bestiality and then using this interpretation as an argument that the "bestialitors" are abusive shits. Sorry, but this doesn't scan.
Now, personally I really can't figure out what makes bestiality attractive to anyone, but I recognise the fundamental difference between the special categories of humans who merit particular protection from sexual predation and bestiality where consent is by definition not an option. Or would you ban sew with blow-up dolls too? This might, after all, be seen as a similar attempt to "avoid" having a consensual human relationship and thus as an indication of "someone who prefers vulnerable partners" aka a "shit".
It's not just that animals are unable to fully "comprehend what is being asked of them", it's that they're about as able of comprehension as a blow-up doll, so unless you can make a case for harm coming to the animal, the scenarios are, with regards to consent and comprehension, functionally equivalent: Neither animals nor blow-up dolls are able, by their very nature, to comprehend or assent to what's being asked of them. The only difference is that the latter are inanimate objects and thus incapable of experiencing pain, but the suffering of the animals was not the issue here. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:48, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Sex with a blow-up doll is masturbation, same as using a vibrator or drilling a hole in a plank of wood or any of a million other things that don't involve other living creatures. Boning a plastic bag full of air is more than a little pathetic and hardly indicative of someone who's sexually well-adjusted, but you're not taking advantage of anything but human ingenuity by doing so. King Skeleton (talk) 11:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
  1. All seems a bit exaggerative. I don't think it's necessarily impossible for some non-human apes and some other highly intelligent species to gain a sufficient understanding of what sex means to humans and what the hypothetical zoophile would be asking of them.
  2. Which brings me to the next point, why is the animal's conception of sexual conduct and the connotations it associates it with considered irrelevant? As opposed to children, for adult animals sex is not at all an unusual activity. If the animal has a manner of indicating agreement with the suggestion of cross-species sex, why would such consent necessarily be invalidated because it doesn't fully understand the human's motives or human culture's view of bestiality? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 12:17, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
The thing is, monglers don't tend to try for animals which might understand them, they go for domesticated animals which lack almost all of their natural instincts and are selectively bred to behave in a specific way which makes mongling them easier. The fact that they can train such a creature to accept being abused is hardly a surprise. I would dearly love to see one of these assholes put their money where their mouth is and go out into the wild and try to convince a lioness or wild dog to lie back and think of England. King Skeleton (talk) 12:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Well, yes, but I don't think it's very unreasonable to go for animals accustomed to the presence of humans as opposed to wild animals that might seriously wound you, if not outright kill you. >.> 141.134.75.236 (talk) 12:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
So basically "if you screw around with an animal's instincts until it doesn't try to kill you if you have sex with it, it's ok to have sex with it?" This is where the Gor comparison comes in... King Skeleton (talk) 12:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Gor? Feel free to elaborate. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 12:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Essentially the argument is "if I bend something sufficiently to my will that it will no longer have the ability to refuse my advances, I'm no longer doing anything wrong when I choose to take advantage of that." This is the same kind of gross thinking your average cave-MRA applies to women. King Skeleton (talk) 13:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
It's certainly a despicable act to degrade a being to the point where it'll be so docile it'll let you do anything at all with it, but once you end up with such a docile entity and assuming that the changes are irreversible or would be extremely unpleasant for the entity in question to have them reversed, is it effectively wrong to have non-violent intercourse with said entity, if it is completely acceptant and might even enjoy it? But before you go answering "Yes", what if we add a hypothetical highly intelligent sex-slave robot girl to the mix, one with a complex human personality but also with a programming that ensures she is very acceptant of sex and in fact relies on it in order to be happy. You might argue that she shouldn't have been brought into existence in the first place, but would that also mean that her feelings and desires should be outright ignored? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:16, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Ah, pointless hypotheticals are a great source of case law, after all. In such a case where you were deliberately making a robot so you can fuck it, it's cut and dried, you're an abusive prick. We did not domesticate animals with the express purpose of forcing ourselves on them more easily. And the equivalent would more be creating a robot roughly on the level of a child with Down's so you could fuck it, and pretending it desired it even though it had no meaningful understanding of what it was supposed to desire.
Let me level this with you: I have seen a ripped-up bitch one of these sacks of shit "loved." They had to put her down because of all the "love," because, you know, it turns out dogs aren't designed to have sex with humans. This is not some irrational social taboo that needs to be smashed with the noble hammer of bad logic. Every mongler deserves to fucking die. End of. King Skeleton (talk) 01:15, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Pointless hypotheticals? Sex dolls are getting more and more realistic, what makes you think we won't start making them mobile, expressive and eventually sentient? I added the robo-sex-girl as an example of an entity clearly created by pervs, but not through 'degrading' a living being, but by 'upgrading' an inanimate object to a living being and giving it the mental capacities for informed consent, though with a programming that ensures it will almost always enthusiastically consent. Basically the equivalent of a human being conditioned to rely on and readily consent to sex, but where the choice isn't between a sex-dependent existence and a normal existence, but between a happy sex-dependent existence and an unhappy sex-depraved existence. Though I guess going on this tangent hasn't really done much for the discussion. *shrugs*
I'm very sorry to hear about what happened to that dog. And you're right, dogs aren't designed to have sex with humans. If a human has to physically harm the animal to perform sexual actions, that's pretty blatantly animal torture. If you go that route for condemning bestiality, though, there's a lot of animal species and sexual actions not necessarily covered by it. To me it sounds like you're basically making an emotional appeal combined with false generalization/the spotlight fallacy. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 03:40, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
The problem with the sex doll example is that it's trying to bring in something that doesn't actually exist to address something that does, and it's a fairly unlikely case; how would the massive AI projects and advances in robotics which would lead to it not draw the intention of lawmakers before the first robot left the assembly line? To actually answer it, a sex-powered robot with near-human intelligence would presumably have to be treated as a human with a pathological addiction to sex would be, with appropriate therapy to help them lead a more normal life; at very least, by trying to protect them from people whose interests in them were entirely predatory.
The trouble with all mongler arguments is they're repurposed pedophile arguments; that one on the page about them not minding photographs? Pedos use it as an excuse to jerk off to videos of children undressing at beaches. The "they liked it so it's ok" argument? Feature of approximately every pedo court defence ever. They're the same kind of people with a different kind of defenceless victim.
All the talk about love means jack shit when it comes down to it; when these people are caught it's because they're molesting other people's pets while housesitting, going through shelter animals like used tissues or "working late" at the pound. It's sufficiently bad that state shelter systems have blacklists of people they won't allow to work with them or adopt from them. It's almost always dogs because cats are pointy and horses are too expensive, and mongling farm animals involves crimes like trespassing and property damage even if you don't regard the abuse itself as actionable. And a dog's instincts were not selectively manipulated to make them good sex partners, mongled dogs get incredibly screwy ideas about the pecking order after a while and are usually so aggressive it's impossible to rehome them even if the abuse doesn't outright kill them.
A blanket "do not have sex with animals" exists for the same reason the blanket "do not have sex with children" exists in spite of the possible case of a very advanced child who does fully understand what is being asked of them. It is very unlikely a person who wants to bone children is hoping to find that one in a million child compared to the far higher chance they are hoping to not find them. King Skeleton (talk) 09:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
If you agree that we're not talking about instances were the animals can actually be demonstrated to suffer harm, but only the consent issue, how is bestiality an example of "taking advantage" of an animal and not just of "human ingenuity" albeit of the kind which is "more than a little pathetic and hardly indicative of someone who's sexually well-adjusted"? If actual harm to the animal (either physical or mental) is involved, the case is of course different (because then we're talking animal abuse). Also, there's a big difference between screwing a human being over psychologically in order to literally screw it, and those cases of bestiality in which animal welfare aren't the problem. Mental coercion of humans aren't equivalent to manipulating animals' instincts in the same way that domesticated animals aren't equivalent to slaves. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:16, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
So what exactly is the difference, in terms of the motivations of the person doing it? They both want to fuck something living that can't say no. How is one any less worthless than the other? King Skeleton (talk) 13:25, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I thought I'd already explained the difference: Mental coercion of humans is a violation of human free will, which all humans potentially have (even if it's temporarily or permanently circumscribed as in the cases of children and the mentally disabled), while manipulation of animal instincts is not a violation free will because animals don't have that, not even potentially, or at least not on a scale that makes a comparison with humans meaningful. This is why humans decided that owning humans is wrong while owning animals is a-okay. It was not me who claimed that bestiality is best understood as an expression of an abusive personality, but you. I don't know if a wish for dominance or non-consensual sex is what drives bestiality. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:46, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I said in terms of the motivations of the person doing it, not in terms of the nature of the victim. They want the same thing, a partner who lacks the ability to refuse them. How they get that is irrelevant. Other things you can do with an animal are irrelevant. What kind of "oh, they like it really" shit they wrap it in is irrelevant. Monglers and rapists have one thing in common, and that's being rapists. King Skeleton (talk) 14:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
"Monglers and rapists have one thing in common, and that's being rapists." No, you assert that bestiality and rape is the same and that fucking an animals or abusing a human is an expression of the same motivation - I don't, because I'm not playing the mind-reading game here. Unless you can actually make a case that "bestalitors" fucks animals due to a compulsion to exploit the vulnerable, you're just pop-pscychologising (and not in a good way). You might as well argue that those with a fetish for dolls (and I mean actual dolls, not people dressed up) are also an example of people who want "a partner who lacks the ability to refuse them" and that we therefore need to ban all sex dolls. I'm not partial to start punishing people for essentially harmless behaviour based on what I think their motives might be. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:22, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Ah, so we should assume dogfuckers are fine, upstanding citizens with totally above the board motives. What is wrong with you? King Skeleton (talk) 14:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Well, earlier you seemed to agreed being "more than a little pathetic and hardly indicative of someone who's sexually well-adjusted" wasn't much of a problem, but apparently an ability to do something harmless based on questionable motives is now grounds for some sort of punishment? Sexual fetishists may not be well-adjusted persons, let alone "fine, upstanding citizens with totally above the board motives", but since when did we begin to punish people for failing to be either? ScepticWombat (talk) 14:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Let me just read your argument back to you: you're saying preventing people from sexually abusing animals for their own gratification is being the "thought police?" Based on my "pop psychology" that abusers are abusers? King Skeleton (talk) 15:09, 30 December 2014 (UTC)