So that old gag involving peanut butter, a lady's private area, and a dog's tongue is not bestiality.

Good to know! Thanks Canada!

That's bull. It's such a bitch of a ruling I don't know how Canadians can bear it. Just because someone has sex with an animal it is going to dog them for the rest of their lives now--I don't see how anyone can duck such a penalty. And do you think anyone is going to protest this ruling? Nope, crickets.

It reminds me of ancient Hittite laws, which deemed that sex with dogs and pigs was bestiality, but not sex with horses and mules.

seatackled,

I dunno. Fucking a sheep or a great dane or a shi tzu - actual penetrative, penis-in-orifice sex that is likely to require veterinary care - seems to be a reasonable thing to legislate at some level. It doesn't feel at all unbearable to me, but I guess the difference is that I don't fuck my dogs?

Or is the bit about jacking off on an animal being perfectly legal the bit that's supposed to be unbearable to me?

@ 4 - I think Seatackled mostly wanted to squeeze in as many animal names in one paragraph, and its meaning is not that important.

If it were, why would Seatackled actually ask if people are going to protest this ruling? All it says is that as the law stand, non-penetrative sexual activities are not considered a crime, but "Parliament may wish to consider whether the present provisions adequately protect children and animals. But it is for Parliament, not the courts, to expand the scope of criminal liability for this ancient offence".

as the law stands...

This decision is based on judicial restraint. Each crime has certain elements that need to be met, and those elements are specified in the criminal statute. Here, the statute on bestiality was written to require penetration. While we might all agree that's too narrow of a requirement, the fact remains that it is the requirement set forth by law, and thus the court's hands are tied. Any change has to come through the legislature.

In other word, this is a case study in separation of powers, not in some court reaching a boneheaded decision.

Only tangentially apropos: back in the late 80s, a friend of mine did a semester abroad in England. While he was there, there was a court case he told me about in which someone was arrested for sodomizing a sheep. The defendant's defense was that he had gone out into the field to urinate and the sheep backed up on him.

That became our quintessential example of the "active bottom" (the bottom who does all the work).

@8

Quite possible, since sheep are not generally equipped with rear view mirrors.

@4 Alison, I think you might be inadvertantly being sexist, if only I could work out who might be being disenfranchaised by your assumption that it has to be the human that is doing the penetration.

Too bad Afghanistan doesn't have laws (or enforce laws) like this. Can't count the number of times we saw Afghani farmers fucking their sheep/goats when we were out on patrol at night.

Then again, better the livestock than little boys.

Let us remember that anal fisting (i.e. rectal exam, used to diagnose pregnancy) is a standard part of any reproductive check on a horse or a cow. And then we often kill animals and cook and feats on their severed limbs. Oh, and enslave them for life and kill them based on our whim anytime they inconvenience us or become a bother (for example, cats urinating in the house are frequently euthanized if they can't be re-homed).

So being squeamish about the idea of humans putting their penisises in the vaginas of animals seems rather excitable rather than based on any true concern about the welfare of animals, doesn't it?

@8: can one urinate with an erection? Can one sodomize a sheep without one?

Was the defendant conducting his own defense? Or did he have the worst lawyer ever?

Since we're getting to the jokes:

A farmer asked a friend to recommend an attorney to defend him against a charge of bestiality.

"I know a great trial lawyer," the fellow said, "but he's expensive and doesn't know how to pick a jury. I know another lawyer," he continued, "who's not a great trial lawyer, but he's cheap and really knows how to pick a jury."

The farmer settled on the cheap attorney, but immediately had second thoughts when the key witness, a neighbor, began his testimony.

"I saw Jed mount his sheep from behind," he said, "and when he was finished, I saw the sheep turn around and lick Jed's pecker."

The accused farmer was devastated and had all but given up hope until a juror in overalls whispered to the fellow next to him, "You know, a good sheep will do that."

@#14: I've had to urinate with a partial erection many times and some of those times I had to be careful about how I held it to keep from going fully erect.

As for the main topic at hand: It's OK to diddle an animal in the process of getting one pregnant, it's OK to do it to make it behave better[1] but it's not OK to do it because the animal wants the pleasure[2]... um....

[1] Some police forces actually train their K9 officers to do this as a way of de-stressing their dogs.

[2] Yes, sometime it really is the animal demanding sex.

Those crazy Canadians.

This is just like the time they awarded their highest literary prize to a book with bestiality as prominent theme:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_(nove…

Baaaaaa

Are Canadians into sheep too?
.

@4, @14 - Don't forget dildos.

@19 Of course wherever men are men sheep are nervous.

@1, actually, that is exactly what this case involved. Except it wasn't a woman doing it consensually, but a girl forced to do it by her monster stepfather. The jokes are fun, but the actual case here is beyond fucked up.

@22 In the actual case, the stepfather was found guilty of several other felonies, so the fact that they didn't also find him guilty of bestiality did not reduce his punishment.

Personally, I think hurting animals should be against the law whether or not it involves sex, but sex with animals (or on animals) is not always hurting them.

And they can't feel the post-coital psychological trauma based on religious upbringing that so many humans feel after sex, since they have never been evangelized or told there are "right" kinds of sex and "wrong" kinds of sex.

It's legal to beat (for most any purpose: training, herding, defense), eat, force feed, force-ably masturbate, impregnate, or kill an animal (if done moderately "humanely"). So why is everyone (including me) skiwicked out about bestiality? I have to conclude it's about the sex, not the actual pain/harm that might come to the animal. As Dan has said: he's opposed to bestially because it lacks clear consent, but wouldn't an animal rather be screwed than stewed?

We are seeing a pattern of increased Internet porn and decreasing sexual assaults. If men are getting their rocks off online, apparently some are less motivated to risk sexually assaulting strangers. If so, has bestially long (and still) reduced the rate of rapes of women? I suspect so.

A friend from New Zealand told me they have a joke over there as why Australian sheep keep swimming their way.
I once told it to an Australian who told me they have the exact same one going about sheep from New Zealand.

Maybe Lava and BusyQuilting can help us sort this one out.