neighbours swore to the donkey’s ‘virtuous’ character
September 29, 2021 11:50 AM   Subscribe

Amia Srinivasan's review of Loving Animals: On Bestiality, Zoophilia and Post-Human Love for the London Review of Books is thought-provoking. [Includes the obvious NSFW content, as well as brief descriptions of violence and cruelty to both humans and animals, child abuse, and quoted, ugly comparisons to human sexual orientation.]

(via Angela Chen on twitter.)
posted by eotvos (23 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite


 
Thought-provoking title to your post, also. Not to mention the article. The Enumclaw case is practically the only thing I've ever read or seen about the subject, so this extensive coverage is fascinating, eye-opening and, honestly, disturbing (to me) all at once.

Also, even having done only 2 half-years of philosophy at the start of university, I think once you get past the initial sense of disgust and morbid fascination, it's also fascinating and disturbing to start to consider the ethical and moral issues more deeply. I don't want to write about this very deeply but part of me thinks there's something to be said for the position that if the animal 'seems to actively invite it' then what's the problem, but much more of me wants to throw up instead, and honestly, who among us can tell, really really really, which side is actually true and right?

We can't. This is a fascinating area of life precisely because it's rare, disturbing, comprehensively violates taboo, and crosses the species - and possibility of accusation/testimony/restitution/justice - lines and divides all at once. My mind flashes to the scene in The Lighthouse where the junior keeper is having sex with a mermaid, who is practically a fish as well as a human. Grotesque, ultra-sexual because of it, and bizarre. There's a reason that film is classified as a fantasy horror.

We should not ever forget that humans write and make films about this stuff and animals can't.

I'm not sure whether I want to buy the book or not, but thanks for the post.
posted by paperpete at 12:47 PM on September 29, 2021 [3 favorites]


I've just recently read (and been thinking about) Edward Albee's 2002 play, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia (Notes Toward a Definition of Tragedy), which deals with love, desire, zoophilia, language, tragedy... it's a really good play, is what I'm saying, and very apropos of the subject.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:24 PM on September 29, 2021 [1 favorite]


I don't want to write about this very deeply but part of me thinks there's something to be said for the position that if the animal 'seems to actively invite it' then what's the problem,

I met a zoophile many, many, many years ago, and thought a lot about it. And this is what I came to: rut is not the same as consent, and a being that has no direct, shared language and who is owned - cannot be said to be able to give meaningful consent in any circumstance.
posted by Silvery Fish at 2:11 PM on September 29, 2021 [16 favorites]


Do other animals who rape (within their species) get socially ostracized for it? If so that would argue the idea of consent is not uniquely human.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:13 PM on September 29, 2021 [1 favorite]


rut is not the same as consent, and a being that has no direct, shared language and who is owned - cannot be said to be able to give meaningful consent in any circumstance

Yep, Silvery Fish, that's exactly it, hence me wanting to throw up also. But then there's the meta question too, which is where it gets into really bloody troubling philosophical and psychological territory - if we can't confidently intuit any consent or pleasure verbally from animals philosophically (for anything, mind you, not simply sexual contact), how can we intuit the opposite, and then going further, consequently how much are we projecting our selves onto animals in every aspect of how we treat them? We do so much else to them as well, don't we? And does that trouble us? And if so, why? And if not, why not?

Those disturbing questions go way way wider than those of this post, though, so I don't mean to derail. eotvos gave us a great single link conversation opener, that's for sure.
posted by paperpete at 2:27 PM on September 29, 2021 [1 favorite]


consequently how much are we projecting our selves onto animals in every aspect of how we treat them?

I would say most of the time, from David Attenborough’s extremely anthropomorphized commentary to calling our owned pets “fur babies.” (For me, I cringe a little when people call a pet their ‘best friend’ because the relationship power is 100% with the human, who can choose to feed, care for, ignore, or leave for extended periods of time solely based on their wants).

The questions you pose are interesting, and also unanswerable. Which is why I am fine to keep my immediate considerations to practical rules of how humans can treat animals. I am also pretty mentally exhausted by covid-era conversations and lately seem to just focus on flat-out behavior and side-step sweeping discussions.

((….and in writing that, I, in my 50s, suddenly have a new understanding of my great-grandmother who lost her husband and first child to depression-era related poverty. ))
posted by Silvery Fish at 2:43 PM on September 29, 2021 [5 favorites]


Do other animals who rape (within their species) get socially ostracized for it? If so that would argue the idea of consent is not uniquely human.

Depending on species, coercive sexual behavior ranges from nearly universal to very rare indeed. In general females in species where coercive sexual behavior is common (e.g. mosquitofish, ducks) learn to avoid potentially threatening males over time and engage in a variety of behaviors designed to both allow females to escape with a minimum of long-term damage--it is not at all uncommon for male ducks to drown females--and sometimes to allow females to continue to control their own reproductive choices, as in ducks, where changes in the female reproductive tract can allow a female duck to direct a male intromittent organ down a vaginal "dead end" tunnel that doesn't go to her oviducts, or can allow her to direct the organ somewhere the sperm will fertilize her eggs. (This does not always successfully work, but it's interesting that it exists.)

In terms of uninvolved observers imposing social consequences on coercive sexual behavior, that depends heavily on species, the social structures of said species, and the relative social power of the male and female in the equation with respect to observing individuals. Just as it does in humans.
posted by sciatrix at 2:52 PM on September 29, 2021 [9 favorites]


I know it's fashionable to think always in terms of "consent" as the defining moral framework for sex, but this is a good example of where it breaks down. I can kill and eat an animal, but not have sex with it? Oh, wait, can I kill it and THEN have sex with it? OK, can I have sex with a dead person who has previously consented to sex when they die? If so, can I eat them? And so on. You can get into a tizzy trying to fit it into a consistent moral framework: it doesn't work.

Sexual ethics are determined by majority behaviour, which in turn is determined by culture and ultimately by biology. Not philosophy or logic, when you look at the very core.
posted by Exercise Bike at 3:10 PM on September 29, 2021 [4 favorites]


There's a lot to think about here, thanks for posting.

I was baffled by the final paragraph, which makes it seem as if the author has a lot to think about still as well:

One thing I am undecided about is whether it was right to get Goose spayed. I have little doubt that, like most creatures, she has within her the instinct for reproduction. But I also know that Goose, like any human, is more than a bundle of instincts, that she has a sense of the good life that extends beyond the mere satisfaction of urges. When she is finally let out after a spell of confinement – for example, after finishing her first season, when she had to be kept on the lead in case any ‘entire’ male dog ‘got to’ her – she doesn’t simply romp or run: she dances. What Goose loves most of all, I sense, is the feeling of freedom. Spaying her means, I hope, that her body will remain hers, that she will not have to repurpose it, weigh it down, for anyone else. After all, Goose is no more a creature of nature than I am.
posted by chavenet at 3:14 PM on September 29, 2021


I mentioned gang rape among ducks to my partner a couple of years before we happened to be taking a walk on a local university campus where we noticed three male ducks quacking loudly and milling around on foot at the base of a shrub, and she turned to me and said 'what if there's a female in there that they’re trying to rape?' I said something like 'I don’t know sweetie, I’ve only heard about it happening on the water — do you think we should get involved?' At which she snorted loudly and contemptuously, and proceeded to chase the three males away. Sure enough, a female duck emerged from the bush and was joined by a male who was hanging around nearby but we hadn’t noticed, and they flew off together.

It felt like justice, but I don’t have any idea how to turn it into a general principle.
posted by jamjam at 3:24 PM on September 29, 2021 [20 favorites]


Sexual ethics are determined by majority behaviour, which in turn is determined by culture and ultimately by biology. Not philosophy or logic, when you look at the very core.

this wanders dangerously close to hebophilia and nambla words. the topic is fraught, I'll admit.
posted by j_curiouser at 3:50 PM on September 29, 2021 [4 favorites]


Srinivasan’s new book reviews arguments about consent— and much else. See _The Right to Sex_, or one of its many reviews (everybody with an interest in rights or sex seems to have an opinion).
posted by homerica at 6:27 PM on September 29, 2021 [3 favorites]


So I'm going to propose an interesting ethical hypothetical:

Let's suppose that there is a species that reproduces solely by rape (this is hypothesized about giant squid, also ducks are notorious rapists, as are dolphins).

Said species is endangered.

Is the ethical practice to allow the continued breeding of the rape duck, to prevent the species going into extinction? Or is it to allow a miserable species to end?

And what are the ethics of forced breeding for species preservation? Should we be forcing pandas to breed? What about other zoo breeding programs? Is animal breeding ultimately immoral?
posted by LeRoienJaune at 7:24 PM on September 29, 2021


LeRoienJaune: several species of arthropods reproduce that way, although I do not know that any of them are endangered. I just like sharing this horrible knowledge so that I can be less alone with it.

Bed bugs are one such species. I don't know that the great web of being would be torn asunder without bed bugs.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:10 PM on September 29, 2021 [1 favorite]


Ooh I can't wait 'til artificial intelligence and aliens complicate this further.
posted by dazed_one at 8:13 PM on September 29, 2021 [2 favorites]


this wanders dangerously close to hebophilia and nambla words.

Oh! I hadn't thought of that, thanks for the warning.

In fact I intended the entire opposite: clearly we accept that children are able to consent to sexual activity (at least in the UK they can access reproductive services in healthcare) and we still criminalise sex with children and this is a good thing - at the same time as being logically inconsistent from the point of view of consent.

I can't consent to working for less than minimum wage, I should also not be able to consent to sex with my father, both are limitations on my freedom and bodily autonomy, and that's fine.

Consent is a powerful and useful way to think about how we regulate sexual activity, but as this example shows it isn't sufficient.
posted by Exercise Bike at 2:28 AM on September 30, 2021


I think perhaps you are not understanding the idea of consent very well? If it is not informed consent, it’s not consent. Similarly, coerced ‘consent’ (eg. entering into exploitative working arrangements due to lack of other options for survival) is not consent.
posted by eviemath at 4:51 AM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]


Fascinating subject and a lot to think about on a philosophical level. I appreciate the thoughtful discourse here. I somehow recently started following a zoo on twitter, not sure how I came across her, but have kept following just because I wasn't aware of, like, zoo people or groups who were out?? I think (and honestly I fervently hope) that her involvement is on a fantasy level rather than a practical or literal one. I don't have a real point here except to say thanks for the post, I too am interested and grossed out by the subject.
posted by Occula at 8:26 AM on September 30, 2021


I had a roommate in college who was a history major. In an American history course, one of the books was a collection of early American texts. There was one that really bothered him and he wanted me to read it. It was an account about some Puritan guy who was caught having sex with a sheep, a cow, a pig, and a turkey. (This list may not be entirely accurate, but the turkey was there.) He was tried and banished from the village. The animals were killed and disposed of, not eaten. I guess the Puritans didn’t feel that the sinful man hadn’t done something worse than the “sinful” animals? Or maybe the animals had been contaminated by the man’s sin? My roommate never mentioned the text again, but he was definitely agitated by it.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:08 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]


Previously
posted by Omon Ra at 9:25 AM on September 30, 2021


Is rape a concept that can be extended beyond humanity to the interactions of other species, or is that anthropomorphic projection?
posted by Saxon Kane at 10:58 AM on September 30, 2021 [1 favorite]


In fact I intended the entire opposite: clearly we accept that children are able to consent to sexual activity (at least in the UK they can access reproductive services in healthcare) and we still criminalise sex with children and this is a good thing - at the same time as being logically inconsistent from the point of view of consent.

It's not inconsistent to me. The problem isn't that children are incapable of giving consent, of course they can. Consent as a concept does not apply only to sexual activity. Touching, playing, communicating, any time a person chooses to interact with another person there is a facet of consent involved. I think many adults underestimate how capable of giving consent children are, or how important it is to seek a child's informed consent for many non-sexual activities that an adult may feel entitled to perform on a child ("Can I pick you up?" "Can I talk to you?" "Can I see where you hurt yourself?" etc).

The reason why sex with children is criminalized is because there is an intrinsic and insurmountable power dynamic between a child and an adult. This is why two 14 year olds can (or should be able to) consent to have sex with each other, but a 14 year old cannot legally have sex with a 21 year old, or indeed with a 7 year old. Both instances involve a power differential. Most sexual interactions across a power dynamic, such as boss and subordinate or teacher and student, are merely unethical. Sex between an adult and child is rightly criminalized because there is no way to mitigate the power differential, nor is there a good reason to believe doing so is necessary or proper.

I don't think it's a logical leap to extend this to animals, who are also separated from humans by an intrinsic and insurmountable power dynamic. I don't doubt there are species on this planet capable of giving some form of consent, but just as with a child there is no avoiding the power dynamic.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:06 PM on September 30, 2021 [2 favorites]


(For me, I cringe a little when people call a pet their ‘best friend’ because the relationship power is 100% with the human, who can choose to feed, care for, ignore, or leave for extended periods of time solely based on their wants).
posted by Silvery Fish


Speaking as the human 'best friend' of a cat, I too believe that I have 100% of the power in my relationship with him, and can choose to feed, care for, ignore, or leave for extended periods of time solely based on my wants.
posted by Pouteria at 6:42 AM on October 1, 2021


« Older How Do We Prepare Boys for Healthy Relationships?   |   Contact Tracing On Old Town Road Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments