Blogs Mar 30, 2010 at 11:49 am

Comments

1
The "animals can't consent" argument has always bothered me. Come up with a better reason because I don't see why having sex with animals is any more disgusting than killing and eating them. I don't do either.
2
Question: how much of this is nurture, not nature? I am guessing we can distinguish between a sexual preference (that is, a preference for a particular sex) and an object of arousal, and I would suspect zoophilia may in part come from how people relate to animals as kids.

(It makes no sense to me that the human brain, without any internal representation of the wildly differing kinds of animals out there, would just "pick" a rabbit without previous sexualized exposure to rabbits, for instance. How could you be born with an attraction to rabbits? What if you were born on Antarctica, with no rabbits? If someone showed you "Lagomorphs Today", would you get swollen?)

Dan, where do you think fetishes come from? Sexualization of normal everyday objects, right? Couldn't the same thing happen with animals?
3
There was an awesome episode of NYC's Radiolab recently about Lucy the chimp who would masturbate to Playgirl.
4
WNYC. Sorry.
5
Hey, what happened to my comments? I posted two of them. Well, if they magically reappear, sorry for the redundancy...

Animals may not individually consent to being eaten, but there's a case to be made that, as a matter of species survival, many animals have entered into a symbiotic relationship where people feed, shelter, and care for animals, then kill them in a manner that is much swifter and less painful than what they would suffer in the wild.* And of course, everyone knows the role of hunting in the natural order anyway - everything eats something else that lives, and some animals are meant to be food for others. Based on that, I'd say that it's a logical fallacy to bring this up as an excuse for bestiality.

* Modern factory farming is, of course, far from this ideal, but that just means that factory farming is an aberration, not a valid argument against preying on animals.
6
#5 Wow, seriously? Well if you've convinced yourself of that nonsense and it makes you feel better about killing and eating animals, I guess that's very convenient.
7
@ 6, thanks for projecting your feelings on me. Now go along and play, you little scamp. Grownups are discussing grownup things.
8
#5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_n…

Really?
9
#7 - Yes, that was a very grownup response. I know it doesn't feel good when somebody calls out your bullshit. Sorry, dude.
10
aren't all chaps assless?
11
Here's the difference:

* When you're in a food relationship with an animal, the animal doesn't get to consent because you are preying on it. Nobody expects consent from prey. You eat it because you CAN. It's a one-way relationship.

* When you are in a sexual relationship, the norm is that there is some mutuality: that you consent and your partner consents; that you are each fully capable of giving and receiving this consent. The mutuality is the hallmark of this kind of relationship.

So: first scenario, consent is not even part of the context. Second scenario, content is the ENTIRE context. If you believe, as I do, that animals are incapable of consenting to a relationship--sexual or any other kind--on the same level as, and to the same degree that, a human adult is capable, then you think zoophilia is predatory at worst and masturbatory at best.
12
Meh, I should have clarified to say that the difference is that in Situation 1, morality is beside the point for many people (food is about ability) and in situation 2, morality governs most people's sexual relationships. SO that's how a carnivore feels that eating animals = OK but sexing them up = something's wrong.
13
In this context, the "Further Reading" addendum to the text version of the SciAm article cracked me up:

The Hidden Life of Truffles
Boundaries for a Healthy Planet
Recommended: Amazing Animals... And More
14
@ 8, you have to register to post links. But if you're trying to post "appeal to nature," then sorry, but there's nothing about this case that's an appeal to nature. I'm summarizing an argument that evolutionary biologists and zoologists have developed to explain the rise of animal husbandry and the survival of species. They'll be the first to tell you to avoid the appeal to nature fallacy.
15
@5: I would agree, and there is a mounting body of evidence (sorry, bad pun given the topic), that lots of creatures -- pigs, cows, chickens, apples, corn -- are maybe using humans as a tool for propagating more than humans are using them for food. But even the word "using" implies that there's some intent on the animal's part there, and your verbage of "animals have entered into symbiotic relationships..." implies it even more. It goes against everything we know about evolution to believe creatures would knowingly offer themselves up for slaughter to further their species' numbers. I think it's safe to assume that farm animals would not stick around if they had any way of conceiving what would happen to them.

I think we need to be careful about how we judge the "pleasure" animals get in acts of bestiality. Not to get too far off on a tangent, but talking about animals as a whole group is ridiculous -- lumping a dog and a horse into the same group is a million times sillier than lumping humans and orangutans, or even, chimps, into one pile. But regardless, all humans know exactly what you mean by animals. Oftentimes human victims of rape, particularly those who are victimized as children, are guilted later in life by their attackers because they enjoyed it or even achieved orgasm. We are just another type of mammal, and our genitals are set up to respond to stimuli. I don't know if we can say "oh but they enjoy it" when animals respond positively to sexual stimulation from humans, because there are many humans who enjoy their abuse. I don't really know the answer to where this question leads, because I agree that if you cage and eat animals, or even just parade them around on a leash (as I do), fucking them is probably a lot less damaging. At least logically. There's still something viscerally gross about it, but then there's something viscerally gross about homosexuality to a large portion of this planet's human population.
16
@ 15, that's why I said it was a matter of survival of species, not individuals of that species. Such things do not seem to be settled in any sort of conscious fashion at all.
17
The conservatives warned y'all about the slippery slope. First gays marrying is OK, then bestiality is OK!

18
I'm with #11 (sort of). If the point of this whole debate is to establish if bestiality should be a crime then obviously it shouldn't (because fucking an animal is less cruel than killing it and killing it is legal). If we're trying to establish whether zoophiles should be given "relationship rights" or other legal protections in the same way that gays are, then the consent issue is relevant. Your gay boyfriend can consent to being fucked in the ass (even if it's "against nature") but your dog can't so it's impossible to establish if it's even a relationship.
19
Children can act out sexually; that doesn't mean they're capable of giving meaningful consent.
21
#5 factory farming is an aberration? what century are you posting from?

1
22
@ 21, try debating your point. Are you saying that it's not?
23
Animals are not on the same level as humans. They cannot read or understand a ballot, so they cannot vote. They cannot read or understand contracts, verbal or otherwise, so they cannot consent. They will not grow into beings who can do theses things.

As part of the food chain, we eat other animals. We've learned to grow and maintain animals for such purposes. To paraphrase from the recent "Life" series, "Life thrives by killing and consuming other life." Eating animals for sustenance is not the same as having an ongoing non-consensual sex relationship with one.
25
The food chain argument is crap when applied to humans, because we have one characteristic no other animal has: the kind of self-awareness and capacity for moral abstraction that allows us to evaluate our actions as right or wrong. We are not a part of the natural order of things in the same way that tigers, dolphins, or chimpanzees are; we have the ability to see ourselves in a context guided by ethics and purpose, which is what gives us the ability to do things like create civilization and technological progress. We are not simply guided by instinct and basic conditioned behavior like other animals are.

We can choose to not harm animals, and our society is sufficiently advanced that there is no need to use them for food or any other purpose, we shouldn't harm them. It's a basic ethical principle: we CAN choose right over wrong, therefore we SHOULD choose right over wrong. Animals shouldn't be fucked, and they shouldn't be eaten.
26
Thank you for the post Dan. I know its a subject that grosses many people out, but it must be addressed with compassion and an attempt at understanding. I'm happy to see that you may be coming around in your thinking on this.
27
And @vegan (since you weren't logged in and I can't send a message, sorry everybody else)... I know you really care about this a lot. I do too. I know you're trying really hard to get other people to do the right thing in the face of enormous hostility, and I think that's awesome. But please, please, please, don't resort to name-calling and snide sarcasm. There was a calm and rational case to be made against @5's points (which were themselves calm and rational points, not attacks, even though we disagree with them), but insulting him A) doesn't do any good toward changing his mind, and B) makes us look like a bunch of emotional idiots. Credibility is already our biggest mountain to climb, so please be a good ambassador for our image. (The thing is, logically and rationally, we are right - so always fall back on reason, because eventually we'll win with it.)
28
@ 25, tell that to all the people with health issues that arise from vegetarianism, who then have to go back to eating meat for their own good. Such individuals might actually make up a large portion of our population because not a lot of people try a vegetarian lifestyle (and thus we don't find out if they, in fact, must eat meat).

I appreciate your effort at keeping the discourse elevated. You should know that I was a vegetarian for 14 years, including two as a vegan, and I've thought long and hard about this issue because I believe in the ethical treatment of animals. I simply can't agree with any arguments that state that, in and of itself, it is unethical to eat animals, not knowing what I know about the cycle of life, our nutritional needs, and the effectiveness of depending on vitamins to make up what a vegetarian or vegan diet lacks.
29
I think 11 brings up a valid point, and I'd add that domesticated animals can be raised and harvested humanely, and without undue stress and suffering. Animal rape really isn't comparable.
30
MsLeading - seems a bit pretentious to presume to know what goes on in the minds of every other species of animal on the planet.

Humans have one characteristic that truly distinguishes them as a species - they are the only ones who play with fire. No other species plays with fire.

Since we cannot know what goes on in the minds of other species, we cannot really know if they consent or not. We can probably tell whether or not they are enjoying themselves though. Any dog humping away on your leg probably wants to be there, and is probably enjoying himself.
31
I, too, was a vegetarian for 17 years, I still believe that vegetarianism is a superior stance, if possible, but many of us cannot. If you are someone that can be healthy on a vegetarian diet, then congratulations, but if you cannot, I can't suggest that staying alive (through eating meat) is inherently unethical.
32
@25

Perhaps animals lack the reasoning capacity for moral abstraction in a rather theoretical sort of sense, but certainly, animals either by nature or by happenstance placed into social groups will nevertheless learn behaviors that place them into some sort of effective relationship with the social unit, or face exile or slaughter by that social unit. Human, moral behaviors, at least in part can be characterized as learned more for the ability to function within social units than any desire to conform to some out-of-body Judeo-Christian moral standard.

You see it everyday; people, by necessity, who might otherwise consider themselves to be very moral people, engaging in behaviors that seem far to the contrary, but perhaps do not disrupt a social unit. Maybe you fail to speak up when a friend of many decades flies off the handle about wily oriental gentlemen for fear of alienating him; perhaps starving in the aftermath of a stranded ocean-going vessel you stalk into the crews quarters and slay several of your cohorts for sustenance, as certainly they could have done to you. The latter here more being an example of how extenuating circumstances seems to void the apparently important "moral sense" you seem to be pontificating about; after all, a moral person might choose to give up his own life for the sake of his comrades in the same.

It seems simply--wrong--to postulate that humanity exists outside of some natural continuum; it also speaks of a certain amount of homo-centrism; animals exist along that vein, on a lower order than we enlightened blond-beasts.

That said, I have no disrespect for a noticeably more frank contempt of the animal world, perhaps fueled by a rigidly applied form of the "morality of distance;" that is, look at the obvious disparity between that one and I, in terms of intellectual, moral, spiritual, and perhaps even physical powers; therefore, being better, that thing is mine to exploit as a hawk may sparrows. But honesty, in speech and convictions, is always a beautiful thing, even if we may disagree with the message itself.
33
@10

YES! All chaps are assless by default. Saying "assless chaps" is redundant at best and confusing at worst. Later in the entry Dan referred to rubber chaps without saying assless. Does this mean he was talking about assed-chaps? AKA Jeans but with no crotch?

Time to go register allchapsareasslessbydefault.biz
34
@28, based on published data and opinions from the American Dietetic Association, the Physician's Committee on Responsible Medicine, and even the USDA, a vegetarian diet is appropriate for all people at all stages of life. These statements are based on a large contingent of data, which is then analyzed in terms of the likelihood that the results are due to chance; in other words, there is a very low chance that the overwhelming number of people who experience health benefits when adopting a vegetarian lifestyle all just happened to not be people who have a dietary need for meat. It implies that there is not a significant population of people who need to eat meat.

While I definitely recognize that there are individuals with abnormal diet needs, like yourself (and many others with allergies, sensitivities, etc. to otherwise healthy foods or illnesses that require abnormal intakes of certain nutrients), these are anecdotal cases that don't effectively counter the overwhelming evidence in favor of the healthfulness of being vegetarian. My personal opinion, though it is in no way scientifically supported, is that the majority of people who have "failed" on a vegetarian diet did so because they were eating a poorly planned and improperly balanced vegetarian diet.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that being vegetarian is not the natural way for humans to be, and therefore it requires a lot more work to do correctly than just going with the status quo - though I will say that much of the difficulty comes from the fact that we've depleted essential nutrients from our soil in conventional farming practices, hence the necessity to take supplements. But we have laws in place restricting a large number of things that are "natural," including rape, physical assault, murder, and slavery. These are all practices that have been a part of human history until, at some point in our cultural evolution, we decided they were immoral and prohibited them. It's time to do the same with eating meat. It's almost always more difficult to do what's right than to do what's easy, common, or instinctual. But we are a civilized species, so we must do it anyway.
35
Every time I bite a carrot, I hear its tiny scream.
36
If you are physically hurting the animal (i.e., bunnies are small, most dogs are small, etc.) and having sex with it, IT'S WRONG.

If you have to subdue or force an animal, IT'S WRONG (just as it would be with a non-consenting adult).

If what you do will make the animal behave abnormally around other humans (try to get the human to perform or receive sex), IT'S WRONG.
37
It's interesting; there are really 2 arguments for vegetarianism. The first is that we humans are better than animals, therefore we should know better than to kill and eat them. The second is that we humans are the same as any other animal, therefore we have no right to kill and eat them. In the same fashion, both those two premises can be used to argue against vegetarianism, too. It really depends on how you frame those concepts within morality: where morality comes from, and in what way it compels us to act.

It's not "homocentric" to assume that humans have cognitive capabilities beyond animals, it's the best information we currently have based on science. Lots of people study this, and while it certainly is the case that animals form social groups and are capable of interpersonal relationships and limited emotional range, it doesn't come close to the kind of cognitive abstraction necessary to oppose your instinct for the sake of ethics. And I think it's rather silly to suggest that we couldn't possibly know what we're smarter than, say, foxes; in any other forum, having any other argument, I'd be utterly shocked to hear any of you make that point.
38
Every animal will die. Whether we eat an animal or not after it dies does not inform our treatment of the animal while it is alive. And just because we condemn a heinous criminal to death doesn't mean we permit that person to be raped prior to the sentence being carried out.
39
You know, I really try to be open-minded, but there are still some things that squick me. Lack of basic hygiene is one of them. Sorry, but animals (for the most part) aren't very good about cleaning up the feces around the playground area. Um, yuck. Moral implications aside, I don't see the appeal. But maybe that's why it's a specialized fetish.

I agree with @2, though - there has to be something in the individual's socialization that leads to an attraction to other species.
40
Damn, you people. Straight into the veg. vs. meat gutter with you guys, every time. Back on topic, please.

@11 - I think your points are well made. However, the natural world provides some fairly messed-up exceptions to your rule, which raise questions about it. For many animals, sex, while not about exerting power for its own sake, is exerted through power. (Mudede will love this.) Baboons. Some beetles, which rove around searching for buried virgin females, fight for them, dig them up, and carry them off. Many birds.

The issue, then, is that in your example, the second relationship is between humans, while the first is between a human and an animal (unless, as these vegans would have, we start discussing cannibalism, and why that's wrong, too). If we hold ourselves to the human standard, what standard is that? Is it the human standard for eating (I CAN) or the human standard for sex (wait for consent [which can never be given])?

The trap Dan has laid is "what if they like it? why is it still bad?" This, in my opinion, is what still needs to be explained. I find the idea completely repellent, but I'm somewhat at a loss as to why.

Also, vegans, for fuck's sake, please discriminate between suffering and death. Both are natural, but Jesus, admit that suffering is worse.
41
As a vegan with canvas shoes and only non-leather fetish gear, am I still allowed to be against fucking unconsenting animals?
42
@ 40, this post explicitly brought up the morality of meat as an argument that our alleged callousness there makes the notion of consent with bestiality hypocritical. That made meat a legitimate topic for discussion, because if it can be shown that killing an animal for food is either a) ethical or b) of a completely consideration than using it for sexual gratification, then that argument collapses.
43
Don't believe any shit that the asshole Temerlin says about Lucy. He treated that poor chimp as an experiment and abandoned her in the end when she no longer suited him. He tortured her and that's it.
His sick and twisted attempt to make her human just fucked her up - and side note - AFTER he abandoned her, a dedicated DECENT human reintroduced her to chimp companionship in a semi-wild setting. Lucy eventually became a chimp again. Oh, and then was probably murdered by humans who took advantage of her. Terermlin was a fuck.
44
Marc @41: Sure. But do us all a favor and go shoot yourself anyway, you fucking pompous hipster asshole.
45
39 - actually, given that animals don't have toilet paper, soap, generous supplies of running water or hands, they do a pretty amazing job at cleaning up the playground area. What if we took away all those things from you? I actually call for a moment of reflection upon just how relatively clean Fido's ass really is.
46
yikes. Dan, you might have just jumped the shark. ...Or horse, I suppose, or chimp, or whatever. But seriously.
47
and 40 has a point with the suffering vs. death thing - if your concern with meat-eating is simply one of killing, it is not totally comparable to concerns about beastiality, bc with beastiality one is worried about suffering, not death.

But if your concerns with meat-eating are that the animals suffer as they are raised for consumption, then the comparison works.

death and suffering are different.
48
http://www.theonion.com/video/scientists…

"We may be able to teach a gorilla how to resort to alcoholism, or even to commit suicide within a decade." Ah, the legacy of our interaction with animals!

(Yes, I know it's a joke report.)
49
Animals can consent. To suggest otherwise is condescending anthro-centric bullshit.
50
To address the "What if animals like it?" argument, I think we're ignoring some of the context of, say, a dog humping someone's leg. That dog is *horny* and being horny is different from being genuinely attract to someone/thing. You see this in humans, too. Certainly when I'm really horny I'm attracted to people I would not normally be interested in, and my understanding is that this is quite common. Now, if the dog ignores the presence of other dogs (and thus the opportunity to hump them) and *only* goes for humans, that certainly implies that something about humans turns they're crank. However, in my experience (as someone who has owned three dogs) that's not the case. A dog could be humping my leg like there's no tomorrow, but as soon as another dog gets close they stop and go hump the dog.

Which is all to say that the dog might well be totally into your leg, but only because it's horny and you're there.
51
#40, it doesn't matter if they like it. They're still unable to give consent; they're constitutionally incapable of being in a human sexual relationship the way humans define a sexual relationship. It doesn't matter what beetles, frogs, snakes, etc. do in their reproductive lives. Sex between humans isn't all about reproduction; we have different expectations for a sexual relationship than beetles have.

A human being's claim to be in a sexual relationship with a horse is repellent because it perverts the paradigm of reciprocality. I think it is immoral to claim the relationship is a mutually sexual one because it is impossible for the animal to reciprocate your intentions, whether it enjoys humping your leg or not.

Whether or not it's moral to fuck a horse has, in my humble opinion, no bearing on the argument of whether it's moral to eat a horse. (Or whether it's moral to eat another person.) If you think any of those is wrong, it will be for different reasons.

I'm still trying to figure out for myself if it's immoral to approach an animal as sexual prey without any regard for its consent. I think this is a bad idea for many, many reasons, but since I can't figure out the distinction between treating animals' bodies as nonreciprocal food objects (which I find acceptable) and treating them as nonreciprocal sex objects (which I find repugnant, but morally indistinct). Can anyone thread this needle?
52
I've never thought that arguing against bestiality on the grounds of "animal cruelty" made any sense (except, of course, in cases where it obviously IS animal cruelty, as opposed to the those where the animal is clearly a willing participant); it's always seemed pretty clear that the disgust we associate with the act is directed at the humans involved and what we think of their mental state.

For this reason, you might make the argument that it's really no different from an object paraphilia, just with a higher degree of personification, and ultimately, I think it probably is. However, I also think there may be an instinctual sense of disgust that goes a step further when it comes to animals; after all, preferring sex with something lower on the food chain, or something with whom we cannot reproduce, isn't exactly good for the perpetuation of the species, is it?
53
Ultimately, I think bestial relationships are something that *should* be frowned upon by society because, as Mr. Jealous Horse Lover demonstrated, they seem to involve delusional thinking, ascribing human motivations and expectations onto an animal. And as this guy also demonstrated, that kind of thinking can lead to cruelty down the line in that kind of unbalanced person.
54
what 53 said.
55
The horse in the photo is eye candy from my equestrian-sport-enthusiast-POV...
56
The argument that animals can give consent through obviously enjoying themselves is bogus in its entirety. My cat would love it if I filled his bowl with treats instead of his prescription cat food, and is incapable of understanding why that's not a good idea, which is why I have to choose for him. Consent that cannot be informed consent is not really consent; this is the same reason why we have such a thing as age of consent laws. If at some point there was an animal capable of informed consent on the issue of inter-species sexuality (that is, capable of understanding, in advance, the potential ramifications and weighing the pros and cons involved in a rational matter), it would be a different matter, but no known nonhuman animal can do so, so to treat them as if they could is ultimately a form of abuse of a similar nature to, though by no means on par with, an adult treating a child in a similar manner.

As far as veganism goes, a cousin of mine was on a strict and meticulously-planned vegan diet for a while. His health went continually down until his doctor convinced him to move back toward a conventional diet. You want to end the use of animals for food, look into the technology currently under development to grow meat from stem cells, meat that was never part of an animal but retains the proven health benefit of the omnivorous diet, and can be grown in any building in any climate zone. Perfect the technology and make it widespread and cheap, and there's your solution to animal cruelty and world hunger in one.
57
also, you must know the prof. Lalumiere is a sexy sexy man. Damn I loved his class.
58
gosh people having sex with animals spreads diseases don't you know AIDS jumped to humans because of homosexual pygmies fucking monkeys?
59
What the fuck am I missing here?

1 morbidly jealous convict is sexually aroused by mares + 1 female chimpanzee with 'apparent' sexual preference for human males(possibly pernicious imprinting by the good Mr. Temerlin, anyone?) = zoophilia is a "legitimate sexual orientation?"

Most ambiguous use of the word 'legitimate' I have seen. Today.
60
@58: Whatever you're smoking, can you smoke more of it? I want to learn about the COLORS...and I want you to tell me.
HIV (which is what spreads, not AIDS) almost certainly crossed the species barrier by blood from an infected chimpanzee getting into a bite or scratch on a hunter.
http://www.avert.org/origin-aids-hiv.htm
Monkeys, by the way, have nothing to do with it.

But yeah, screwing animals is just plain immoral, as animals really are incapable of consent.

@56: I agree with the whole steak-growing idea, and hope that it can become feasible within a few decades. But there are still going to be vegans whining about how the animals that the cells were taken from were being oppressed. Feh.
61
"But yeah, screwing animals is just plain immoral, as animals really are incapable of consent."

Here's the thing. 'Sexual consent' is a legal term. That's why a willing 17 year old can give consent in one juristiction, but not another; depending on the 'age of consent'. Legal consent is NOT in any way a reflection on measurable intelectual capacity to give agreement to an act, or the actual presence of agreement, but the basic legality of an act.

Hence the statement 'animals can't give consent' is simply a rephrasing of the blindingly obvious statement that 'bestiality is illegial'. It defaults to circular reasoning.
*Bestiality is illegial because animals can't give consent.
*Animals can't give consent because bestiality is illegial.

This is I suspect why the anti-bestiality crowd likes 'consent'. It lets them pretend they are actually concerned for the animal's welfare. It's also why you will never hear them use the term 'agreement' instead. The latter term allows for genuine investigation of the concept, and is lesslikely to be reguarded as an instant I-WIN button.
62
I thing #11 made the best argument here, but I'd also like to point out, since no one has, that if we accept that we can have sex with an animal on the basis that we do other things to them against their will or consent, then why frown upon having sex or using infants for masturbation?

Anything done sexually to an infant is not going to be remembered by that infant, so in some ways it could be considered less harmful than what is done to an adult animal that could remember. We do things to infants against their consent all the time, we dress them in clothes they may or may not like, we inculcate them in our religions, slap their behinds for behaving badly.

This is chiefly why I will never support the idea of having sexual relations with animals. For we humans, our sexuality brings to it the component of recipricocity. There is a reason its considered wrong to have sex with comatose patients or those that are severely mentally disabled. They can't give meaningful consent. Even if that person (the one in a coma) would never know what happened, you've put yourself in the place of exploiter.

I'll admit that there are gray areas in some animal/human relationships--namely that of the animal that comes on to the human. However, if a 4 to 5 year old child comes on to you, do you reject their advances? Based on what? Consent.

There is no reason to have sex with an animal or infant, and it can never be truly reciprocal.

I have no problem with most of the sexual behavior of people, so long as its inanimate objects or other adult humans, but if it involves someone living and of much lowered intelligence than you, it is exploitation.
63
61, that's not the argument at all. Animals can't give consent because they can't comprehend the concept, nor do they have the ability for human thought and emotion.
64
63, I wasn't making an arguement, I was making an observation. The observation is question is that 'consent as an issue is misleading circular logic because willingness is often (deliberately) confused with legality'. The evidence in support of this was laid out in very clear terms. If you want to point out a logical error, then you are welcome to try.

As to the rest of what you said:
"Animals can't give consent because they can't comprehend the concept, nor do they have the ability for human thought and emotion."

You have it the wrong way round. Mammals don't have human emotions, humans have mammal emotions; with a few fish and reptile ones thrown in for good measure. That part of our mind is ancient. It's been there long enough that we can say with confidence it's pretty common across the entire mammal kingdom. In the same way all mammal eyes work pretty much the same way, all mammal emotions do too. This is a part of evolutionary psychology, and is not a new idea. Claiming otherwise shows a critical lack of understanding of where humans, dogs, horses, and their minds came from.

And which 'concept' are you refering to? If you mean informed consent (as opposed to mere agreement, or legal consent) then I assume you realise that informed consent only applies about relevent items of interest. If you are applying for a bank loan, you need to know the interest rates, pay back schedual, and a few other items. you don't need to understand the obscure laws of quantum mechanics, or ancient hebrew, or the history of american baseball. These facts, interesting as they might be, have no relevence to your ability to give informed consent to a bank loan.

Which that in mind, what RELEVENT information does a dog or horse NOT understand about sex that you believe might prevent them from giving informed consent in some non verbal way?
*Pregnancy? No, sorry. Really not an issue.
*Fedelity? Again, not really an issue for the animal. Dogs don't get jealous when you play with other dogs. This also is not relevent to informed consent. Willing sex doesn't automatically become rape if after the act you find your spouse has cheated on you.
*Disease? With a tiny list of exceptions, diseases are species specific. Dogs and horses can't catch human AIDS for example. Nor does the virus last long outside the human body. So for the most part, not an issue.
*Human pleasure? Maybe not fully, but I would be confident that they'd know you were enjoying it. Domestic pets aren't that dumb. I'd also say not it was not relevent to their ability to give informed consent. Just like the bank's exact profit margin is not relevent to your side of a loan agreement. I'm sure a cat doesn't understand that me rubbing its ears has all sorts of health benifits; like lowering my blood pressure. The cat's inability to understand human medicine does not prevent it from pressing its ear into my fingers and purring its little heart out.
*Their own pleasure? Sorry, but if you think animals don't know what feels good, you're an idiot. They might be surprised the first time, but then it would just become 'something else that feels good'.
*Legal repocussions? You might make a case that there are legal reprocussions for the dog if the owner is caught, but it is difficult to argue (as you must if you take this path) that the dog would with hold consent if you knew of the risks. The personalities of dogs and horses can vary, but they *tend* to be risk takers with no respect for the law. So again, in the vast majority of cases, a dog/horse's ignorance of this would make no difference and thus be not relevent to their ability to give informed consent.

So again, what don't they understand? Beyond parroting a simple phrase, can you explain your logic behind it? If indeed you have any.
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Well, I suppose ANTIcarrot wins, having had the last comment. :)

I've just come across Dan's latest comments regarding the subject of zoophilia and if this post rekindles the (ahem) debate, I will chime in on the question of morality.

Cheers!

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