Historical and cultural perspectives on zoophilia
Encyclopedia
This article covers the historical and cultural aspects of zoophilia
(also known as bestiality), from prehistory onwards.
), sex with animals
(also known as zoophilia, or bestiality) was sometimes forbidden, and sometimes accepted. Occasionally it was incorporated into religious ritual. The Abrahamic religions by and large forbid it, and declared it a sin against their God, and during the Middle Ages
in Europe people and animals were often executed if found guilty. With the Age of Enlightenment
, bestiality became subsumed into sodomy
and a civil rather than religious offence.
Separately, Western cultures have at times reacted to other negatively-viewed sexual and lifestyle activities, with moral panic
.
Since the 1980s, many alternative sexualities have formed social networks, and zoosexuality (a more modern name for zoophilia) is no exception to this. Although society in general is hostile, several decades of research seem to form a consensus that bestiality is commonly misunderstood and mistaken for zoosadism
. Most notably, utilitarian
philosophers such as Peter Singer
and Jacob M. Appel
have argued that, under certain circumstances, such behavior should be legal.
Although there may be indications of slow changes in cultural attitudes over recent decades, bestiality is still often considered a crime against nature and remains illegal in many countries, and for that reason it is not much evidenced other than online
, in private, and in the context of prosecution.
- It is important to be aware that some of the descriptions in antiquity may have been written from a political agenda
or bias
, that is, with the intent of portraying a given target group intentionally negatively. Reader judgement is necessary when considering such source material.
, zoosexual activity was met with execution, typically burning, and death to the animals involved either the same way or by hanging. Masters comments that:
In 1468, Jean Beisse, accused of bestiality with a cow on one occasion and a goat on another, was first hanged, then burned. The animals involved were also burned. In 1539, Guillaume Garnier, charged with intercourse with a female dog (described as "sodomy"), was ordered strangled after he confessed under torture
. The dog was burned, along with the trial records which were "too horrible and potentially dangerous to be permitted to exist" (Masters). In 1601, Claudine de Culam
, a young girl of sixteen, was convicted of copulating with a dog. Both the girl and the dog were first hanged, then strangled, and finally burned. In 1735, Francois Borniche was charged with sexual intercourse with animals. It was greatly feared that "his infamous debauches may corrupt the young men." He was imprisoned. There is no record of his release.
On the other hand, other accounts are more possibly fictitious, such as Pietro Damiani's, who in his "De bono religiosi status et variorum animatium tropologia" (11th Century) tells of a Count Gulielmus whose pet ape became his wife's lover. One day the ape became "mad with jealousy" on seeing the count lying with his wife that it fatally attacked him. Damain claims he was told about this incident by Pope Alexander II
and shown an offspring claimed to be that of the ape and woman. (Illustrated Book of Sexual Records)
Clergyman and chronicler Gerald of Wales claimed to have witnessed a man having intercourse with a horse as part of a pagan ritual in Ireland.
Although thousands of female witches were accused of having sex with animals, usually said to be the Devil
in animal form or their familiars, court records available in Europe and the United States, dating back to the 14th century and continuing into the 20th century, nearly always show males, rather than females, as the human parties in court cases. (Encyclopedia of human sexuality, Humboldt University)
a variety of mixed views resulted which persisted through until around 1950, when researchers such as Kinsey
followed by Masters began researching zoophilia on its own terms.
The view of this era might broadly be described as objectified. Sciences such as anthropology and study of the psyche were in their infancy, and classical belief, categorization, and the subject-object viewpoint of study had not yet been upset by 20th century thinkers. Subjects were often studied by describing the objects of study in detail, and categorizing them into hierarchies and families. Such categories and viewpoints were often subjectively based upon writers' impressions, rather than being as objective as their authors imagined them to be (this issue impacted other fields of human study too). Zoosexuality was no longer for the most part punished by religious execution; rather, like homosexuality, it was broadly treated as a sickness or deficiency in a person, or analysed as a behavior of a social class of person. Some early researchers made the intellectual leap of considering it as a sexual variation rather than a deficiency, but these were a minority. Psychology had not yet emerged as a field in its own right, so psychological fields were subsumed within Medicine
, and zoosexuality was documented by scientists as a medical phenomenon associated with more primitive or lower class people and races. Those who were neither were assumed to be examples of rare perversion or degeneracy. The clinical viewpoint by the early 20th century was oriented around early psychology's concept of non-sexual acts as symbolic or substitutional, after Freud. Both human and animal behavior (including sexuality) were seen psychologically through the twin light of behaviorism
(John Watson
's influential view that science should reject the use of introspection in favor of stimulus-response as an explanation, and that the understanding of the conscious mind was not a valid goal of experimental psychology) and determinism
(the view that there was no such thing as free-will in behavior).
Thus, in 1927, when British sexologist Havelock Ellis
wrote Studies in the psychology of sex, science was still in the stage of describing and categorizing unusual sexual activities, largely according to researchers' preconceived notions or behaviorist observations, under a thin guise of objectivity:
Havelock-Ellis referenced Kraft-Ebbing's work Psychopathia Sexualis
(1894) which recognized zoophilic voyeurism (watching animals mate), as "fall[ing] within the range of normal variation". He identified touch and emotional closeness producing "sexual excitement or gratification" as "a sexual fetishism" termed "erotic zoophilia". Kraft-Ebbing then divides zoosexual activity into "two divisions: one in which the individual is fairly normal, but belongs to a low grade of culture, the other in which he may belong to a more refined social class, but is affected by a deep degree of degeneration," (Kraft-Ebbing named these "bestiality" and "zooerasty" respectively, stating they were different in kind from erotic zoophilia). Havelock-Ellis' view was that:
Zoophilia
Zoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...
(also known as bestiality), from prehistory onwards.
Overview
Prior to and outside the influence of the major Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and IslamIslam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
), sex with animals
Zoophilia
Zoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...
(also known as zoophilia, or bestiality) was sometimes forbidden, and sometimes accepted. Occasionally it was incorporated into religious ritual. The Abrahamic religions by and large forbid it, and declared it a sin against their God, and during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
in Europe people and animals were often executed if found guilty. With the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, bestiality became subsumed into sodomy
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
and a civil rather than religious offence.
Separately, Western cultures have at times reacted to other negatively-viewed sexual and lifestyle activities, with moral panic
Moral panic
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...
.
Since the 1980s, many alternative sexualities have formed social networks, and zoosexuality (a more modern name for zoophilia) is no exception to this. Although society in general is hostile, several decades of research seem to form a consensus that bestiality is commonly misunderstood and mistaken for zoosadism
Zoosadism
Zoosadism is a term coined by Ernest Borneman referring to pleasure derived from cruelty to animals. Zoosadism is part of the Macdonald triad, a set of three behaviors that are a precursor to sociopathic behavior.-Research:...
. Most notably, utilitarian
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
philosophers such as Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
and Jacob M. Appel
Jacob M. Appel
Jacob M. Appel is an American author, bioethicist and social critic. He is best known for his short stories, his work as a playwright, and his writing in the fields of reproductive ethics, organ donation, neuroethics and euthanasia....
have argued that, under certain circumstances, such behavior should be legal.
Although there may be indications of slow changes in cultural attitudes over recent decades, bestiality is still often considered a crime against nature and remains illegal in many countries, and for that reason it is not much evidenced other than online
ONLINE
ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....
, in private, and in the context of prosecution.
Ancient, Greek and Roman
CaveatCaveat
Caveat , the third-person singular present subjunctive of the Latin cavere, means "warning" ; it can be shorthand for Latin phrases such as:...
- It is important to be aware that some of the descriptions in antiquity may have been written from a political agenda
Political agenda
A political agenda is a set of issues and policies laid out by an executive or cabinet in government that tries to influence current and near-future political news and debate....
or bias
Bias
Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...
, that is, with the intent of portraying a given target group intentionally negatively. Reader judgement is necessary when considering such source material.
- A open-air rock engraving (photograph) probably 5000 years old in the Northern Italian Val CamonicaVal CamonicaVal Camonica is one of the largest valleys of the central Alps, in eastern Lombardy, about 90 km long. It starts from the Tonale Pass, at 1883 metres above sea level and ends at Corna Trentapassi, in the comune of Pisogne, near Lake Iseo...
"It depicts a man complete with full erectionErectionPenile erection is a physiological phenomenon where the penis becomes enlarged and firm. Penile erection is the result of a complex interaction of psychological, neural, vascular and endocrine factors, and is usually, though not exclusively, associated with sexual arousal...
standing behind a donkey. The viewer is left in no doubt that he intends to have sex with the donkey. Other people think that one cannot say if our prehistoric artist depicts himself, or something which he has observed someone else doing. What we can deduce however is that he has an intimate knowledge of the external sexual organs of this animal, and that it was made before any known taboos against sex with animals existed." - The Hittite lawsHittite lawsThe Hittite laws have been preserved on a number of Hittite cuneiform tablets found at Hattusa . Copies have been found written in Old Hittite as well as in Middle and Late Hittite, indicating that they had validity throughout the duration of the Hittite Empire The Hittite laws have been preserved...
criminalised bestiality, with the death penalty as the punishment. That is, except for sexual intercourse with horses - The SagaholmSagaholmSagaholm is Bronze Age cairn located just south of Jönköping, Sweden.The site had a large barrow from the early Nordic Bronze Age. It had a circle of slabs of sandstone, probably as many as 100. The Bronze Age graves were built in the form of a mound...
is a SwedishSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
barrowTumulusA tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
with zoosexual carvings that dates to the early Nordic Bronze AgeNordic Bronze AgeThe Nordic Bronze Age is the name given by Oscar Montelius to a period and a Bronze Age culture in Scandinavian pre-history, c. 1700-500 BC, with sites that reached as far east as Estonia. Succeeding the Late Neolithic culture, its ethnic and linguistic affinities are unknown in the absence of...
. - Instances of zoosexual behavior have been found in the Bible.
- In ancient EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, the animal aspects of the gods ensured that bestiality would be practiced both for religious and magical purposes. HerodotusHerodotusHerodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
states religious bestiality was practiced in Egypt - the most famous example being of course the copulations of women with goats. VoltaireVoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
spoke of sexual relations between Egyptian women and sacred goats, citing PlutarchPlutarchPlutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
and PindarPindarPindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
as his sources (StraboStraboStrabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
and Plutarch both confirm Herodotus' mention [Bk 2, § 46] of an Egyptian woman having public sex with a goat). The scholar and anthropologist Lang states that the Egyptian women submitted to he-goats while the "men committed the sin of impurity with she-goats." (See: Goat of Mendes). At El Yemen, trained baboons were popular sex partners with men and women alike. Similarly, in the NileNileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...
and Indus Valleys, monkeys were instructed in the art of manipulating the genitals of both sexes. It is recorded that dog-faced baboons once fornicated with women "throughout Egypt and the length and breadth of the Arab world". - In ancient Greece, XenophonXenophonXenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
records sex with goats. Norman Haire (Hymen) states "since the Greek myths contain many stories of gods who assumed the shape of animals in order to mate with mortals, we may judge that even bestiality was not regarded as revolting." - Plutarch and Virgil state of Greece, that: "it commits very frequently and in many places great outrages, disorders and scandals against nature, in the matter of this pleasure of love; for there are men who have loved she-goats, sows and mares," (Discourse on the Reason of Beasts, xvii) PlinyPliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
states that SemiramisSemiramisThe real and historical Shammuramat , was the Assyrian queen of Shamshi-Adad V , King of Assyria and ruler of the Neo Assyrian Empire, and its regent for four years until her son Adad-nirari III came of age....
prostituted herself to her horse, and VenetteVenetteVenette is a village in northern France, close to Compiègne. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.The city is located along the Oise River. Its inhabitants are called Venettiens. There are about 2800 inhabitants ....
says that "there is nothing more common in Egypt than that young women have intercourse with bucks." - Robson, in "Bestiality and bestial rape in Greek myth" (1997) suggests three points of departure for analyzing Greek myth: 1) sex with animals as pornography, 2) as part of hunting ritual, and 3) as bestial myths and/or male initiation rituals.
- MartialMartialMarcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
and other writers state that in RomanAncient RomeAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
times, women sometimes inserted snakes into their vaginas. Curiously, this is reported to have been both for sexual purposes and also as a means to keeping cool and deodorizing that part of the body in the heat of summer. LucianLucianLucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
comments that snakes were taught to suckle on women's nipples. Juvenal states in the Mysteries of the Bona Dea, that "if... men are wanting, she [the Roman woman] does not delay to submit her buttocks to a young ass placed over her." Roman society had around 12 formal categories of prostitute, the lower of whom performed with animals. - The Jewish code of law (the TalmudTalmudThe Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
) found it necessary to proscribe specifically women from being alone in the company of animals, in order to rule out suspicion (Muth 1969, Christy 1970). - The Synod of AncyraSynod of AncyraThe Synod of Ancyra was an ecclesiastical council, or synod, convened in Ancyra , the seat of the Roman administration for the province of Galatia, in 314...
(circa. 313-316 AD), the first gathering of Christian leaders since the end of anti-Christian persecution, dedicated a substantial proportion of the meeting to deciding the position of the church with regard to bestiality. Two of the resulting 25 canons address the act. The sixteenth canon describes the penancePenancePenance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Anglican Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation/Confession. It also plays a part in non-sacramental confession among Lutherans and other Protestants...
and level of restrictions to be applied to various age-groups for having previously committed bestiality, or continuing to do so. The seventeenth canon prohibits all lepers from praying inside church if they had committed bestiality (or had sexual intercourse with a leprous woman) while they suffered from leprosy.
Europe: Middle Ages
In the Church-oriented culture of the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, zoosexual activity was met with execution, typically burning, and death to the animals involved either the same way or by hanging. Masters comments that:
- "Theologians, bowing to Biblical prohibitions and basing their judgements on the conception of man as a spiritual being and of the animal as a merely carnal one, have regarded the same phenomenon as both a violation of Biblical edicts and a degradation of man, with the result that the act of bestiality has been castigated and anathemaAnathemaAnathema originally meant something lifted up as an offering to the gods; it later evolved to mean:...
tized [...]"
In 1468, Jean Beisse, accused of bestiality with a cow on one occasion and a goat on another, was first hanged, then burned. The animals involved were also burned. In 1539, Guillaume Garnier, charged with intercourse with a female dog (described as "sodomy"), was ordered strangled after he confessed under torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
. The dog was burned, along with the trial records which were "too horrible and potentially dangerous to be permitted to exist" (Masters). In 1601, Claudine de Culam
Claudine de Culam
Claudine de Culam was a sixteen-year-old girl who was tried and hanged for the act of bestiality with a dog in Rognon, France in 1601.The judge investigated the allegations by having Claudine undressed and the dog observed by his female assistants as it leapt upon Claudine...
, a young girl of sixteen, was convicted of copulating with a dog. Both the girl and the dog were first hanged, then strangled, and finally burned. In 1735, Francois Borniche was charged with sexual intercourse with animals. It was greatly feared that "his infamous debauches may corrupt the young men." He was imprisoned. There is no record of his release.
On the other hand, other accounts are more possibly fictitious, such as Pietro Damiani's, who in his "De bono religiosi status et variorum animatium tropologia" (11th Century) tells of a Count Gulielmus whose pet ape became his wife's lover. One day the ape became "mad with jealousy" on seeing the count lying with his wife that it fatally attacked him. Damain claims he was told about this incident by Pope Alexander II
Pope Alexander II
Pope Alexander II , born Anselmo da Baggio, was Pope from 1061 to 1073.He was born in Milan. As bishop of Lucca he had been an energetic coadjutor with Hildebrand of Sovana in endeavouring to suppress simony, and to enforce the celibacy of the clergy...
and shown an offspring claimed to be that of the ape and woman. (Illustrated Book of Sexual Records)
Clergyman and chronicler Gerald of Wales claimed to have witnessed a man having intercourse with a horse as part of a pagan ritual in Ireland.
Although thousands of female witches were accused of having sex with animals, usually said to be the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
in animal form or their familiars, court records available in Europe and the United States, dating back to the 14th century and continuing into the 20th century, nearly always show males, rather than females, as the human parties in court cases. (Encyclopedia of human sexuality, Humboldt University)
Asia
- Havelock EllisHavelock EllisHenry Havelock Ellis, known as Havelock Ellis , was a British physician and psychologist, writer, and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was co-author of the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and...
[note 52] states: "Among the TamilTamil peopleTamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
s of Ceylon[ Sri LankaSri LankaSri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...] bestiality with goats and cows is said to be very prevalent."
Other cultures
- Pacific Isles: Malinowski, a foremost PolishPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
anthropologist of the 20th century also cited by Masters, noted that the Trobriand IslandersTrobriand IslandsThe Trobriand Islands are a 450 km² archipelago of coral atolls off the eastern coast of New Guinea. They are situated in Milne Bay Province in Papua New Guinea. Most of the population of 12,000 indigenous inhabitants live on the main island of Kiriwina, which is also the location of the...
(near Papua New GuineaPapua New GuineaPapua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
) have no laws against bestiality (or homosexualityHomosexualityHomosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, masturbationMasturbationMasturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
, exhibitionismExhibitionismExhibitionism refers to a desire or compulsion to expose parts of one's body – specifically the genitals or buttocks of a man or woman, or the breasts of a woman – in a public or semi-public circumstance, in crowds or groups of friends or acquaintances, or to strangers...
, etc.), but that "offenders are nonetheless subjected to punishment in the form of derision and contempt [such as] 'No one likes a dog better than a woman.' ... Other primitive peoples of modern times have also been observed to disapprove, though only mildly, of such deviant forms of sexual behavior as bestiality and homosexuality - and somewhat like the Trobrianders they express their lack of approval by poking fun at the miscreant rather than by officially condemning and punishing him." He also reports of the same tribe: "a man copulated with a dog, the names of both man and dog were house-hold words in the villages. The culprit, Moniyala, apparently lived down his shame. The subject... must never be mentioned in his presence, for, the natives say, if he heard anyone speaking about it he would commit lo'u [suicide]." - Africa: Among the Maasai, it was customary for older boys to have sexual relations with she-asses. Young RiffianRiffianRiffian is a comune in South Tyrol in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 70 km north of Trento and about 25 km northwest of Bolzano.-Territory:...
boys (a MorrocanMoroccoMorocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
tribe) also had sexual liaisons with female asses (Ford and Beach, 1951, pp. 147–148). Among the Tswana of Africa, boys assigned to the care of cattle frequently engaged in zoosexual activity. It was also common in the GustiGustiGusti may refer to:*Gusti, a Cleveland area folksinger active from the 1970s to present*Dimitrie Gusti was a Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and philosopher*Gusti Huber , an Austrian theater and film actress...
tribes and considered rather harmless, but boys were reprimanded and warned against this activity. The fishermen of the East African coast "from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean" are said to have had regular coitus with female dugongDugongThe dugong is a large marine mammal which, together with the manatees, is one of four living species of the order Sirenia. It is the only living representative of the once-diverse family Dugongidae; its closest modern relative, Steller's sea cow , was hunted to extinction in the 18th century...
carcasses. - Native Americans: Such activity was also common among Native American tribes such as the HopiHopiThe Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
Indians. Voget (1961:p99-100)describes the sexual lives of young Native Americans as "rather inclusive," including bestiality. - Inuit: Ford & Beach mention the Copper InuitCopper InuitCopper Inuit are a Canadian Inuit group who live north of the tree line, in Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region and the Northwest Territories's Inuvik Region. Most historically lived in the area around Coronation Gulf, on Victoria Island, and southern Banks Island.Their western boundary was Wise Point,...
(eskimoEskimoEskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....
es), an offshoot of the Thule peopleThule peopleThe Thule or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by AD 1000 and expanded eastwards across Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region...
who used to live on the Coppermine RiverCoppermine RiverThe Coppermine River is a river in the North Slave and Kitikmeot regions of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada. It is long. It rises in Lac de Gras, a small lake near Great Slave Lake and flows generally north to Coronation Gulf, an arm of the Arctic Ocean...
and Coronation GulfCoronation GulfCoronation Gulf lies between Victoria Island and mainland Nunavut in Canada. To the northwest it connects with Dolphin and Union Strait and thence the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Ocean; to the northeast it connects with Dease Strait and thence Queen Maud Gulf. To the southeast lies Bathurst...
coast. These people apparently had "no aversion to intercourse with live or dead animals". Knud Rasmussen has recorded a myth of one InuitInuitThe Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
tribe: "There was once a woman who would not have a husband. Her family let dogs copulate with her. They took her out to an island, where the dogs then made her pregnant. After that she gave birth to white men. Before that there had been no white men."
c.1700 - 1950
The Age of Enlightenment took much that had been under the field of religion, and brought it under the field of science. As with homosexualityHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
a variety of mixed views resulted which persisted through until around 1950, when researchers such as Kinsey
Kinsey
-People:*Alfred Kinsey, entomologist and sexologist**the Kinsey Reports, a pair of books on sexuality by Alfred Kinsey**the Kinsey scale of sexual orientation, invented by Alfred Kinsey, or person's orientation as measured on that scale, as in "Kinsey 6"...
followed by Masters began researching zoophilia on its own terms.
The view of this era might broadly be described as objectified. Sciences such as anthropology and study of the psyche were in their infancy, and classical belief, categorization, and the subject-object viewpoint of study had not yet been upset by 20th century thinkers. Subjects were often studied by describing the objects of study in detail, and categorizing them into hierarchies and families. Such categories and viewpoints were often subjectively based upon writers' impressions, rather than being as objective as their authors imagined them to be (this issue impacted other fields of human study too). Zoosexuality was no longer for the most part punished by religious execution; rather, like homosexuality, it was broadly treated as a sickness or deficiency in a person, or analysed as a behavior of a social class of person. Some early researchers made the intellectual leap of considering it as a sexual variation rather than a deficiency, but these were a minority. Psychology had not yet emerged as a field in its own right, so psychological fields were subsumed within Medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, and zoosexuality was documented by scientists as a medical phenomenon associated with more primitive or lower class people and races. Those who were neither were assumed to be examples of rare perversion or degeneracy. The clinical viewpoint by the early 20th century was oriented around early psychology's concept of non-sexual acts as symbolic or substitutional, after Freud. Both human and animal behavior (including sexuality) were seen psychologically through the twin light of behaviorism
Behaviorism
Behaviorism , also called the learning perspective , is a philosophy of psychology based on the proposition that all things that organisms do—including acting, thinking, and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior...
(John Watson
John B. Watson
John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism. Watson promoted a change in psychology through his address Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it which was given at Columbia University in 1913...
's influential view that science should reject the use of introspection in favor of stimulus-response as an explanation, and that the understanding of the conscious mind was not a valid goal of experimental psychology) and determinism
Determinism
Determinism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
(the view that there was no such thing as free-will in behavior).
Thus, in 1927, when British sexologist Havelock Ellis
Havelock Ellis
Henry Havelock Ellis, known as Havelock Ellis , was a British physician and psychologist, writer, and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He was co-author of the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and...
wrote Studies in the psychology of sex, science was still in the stage of describing and categorizing unusual sexual activities, largely according to researchers' preconceived notions or behaviorist observations, under a thin guise of objectivity:
Havelock-Ellis referenced Kraft-Ebbing's work Psychopathia Sexualis
Psychopathia Sexualis
Psychopathia Sexualis may refer to:* Psychopathia Sexualis, an 1886 book about human sexuality by Richard von Krafft-Ebing* Psychopathia Sexualis , an 1843 moral psychology book about human sexuality by Heinrich Kaan...
(1894) which recognized zoophilic voyeurism (watching animals mate), as "fall[ing] within the range of normal variation". He identified touch and emotional closeness producing "sexual excitement or gratification" as "a sexual fetishism" termed "erotic zoophilia". Kraft-Ebbing then divides zoosexual activity into "two divisions: one in which the individual is fairly normal, but belongs to a low grade of culture, the other in which he may belong to a more refined social class, but is affected by a deep degree of degeneration," (Kraft-Ebbing named these "bestiality" and "zooerasty" respectively, stating they were different in kind from erotic zoophilia). Havelock-Ellis' view was that:
- "Bestiality and zooerastia merely present in a more marked and profoundly perverted form a further degree of the same phenomenon which we meet with in erotic zoophilia; the difference is that they occur either in more insensitive or in more markedly degenerate persons [...] In seeking to comprehend this perversion it is necessary to divest ourselves of the attitude toward animals which is the inevitable outcome of refined civilization and urban life. Most sexual perversions, if not in large measure the actual outcome of civilized life, easily adjust themselves to it. Bestiality [with one exception] is, on the other hand, the sexual perversion of dull, insensitive and unfastidious persons. It flourishes among primitive peoples and among peasants. It is the vice of the clodhopper, unattractive to women..."
- The UK Offences Against The Person Act 1861 (repealed) brought the act within the realm of the criminal law, stating: "Whosoever shall be convicted of the abominable crime of buggeryBuggeryThe British English term buggery is very close in meaning to the term sodomy, and is often used interchangeably in law and popular speech. It may be, also, a specific common law offence, encompassing both sodomy and bestiality.-In law:...
, committed either with mankind or with any animal, shall be liable ... to be kept in penal servitude for life ...." (In this law, the crossover from religious to civic law can be seen; the characterization as "abominableAbomination (Bible)Abomination is an English term used to translate the Biblical Hebrew terms shiqquwts and sheqets, which are derived from shâqats, or the terms , tōʻēḇā or to'e'va or ta'ev...
" being a term carried over from Canonical law and Leviticus 18Leviticus 18Leviticus 18 is a chapter of the Biblical book of Leviticus. It narrates part of the instructions given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. The chapter deals with a number of sexual activities considered 'unclean' or 'abominable'...
) - Mirabeau, in the 18th century, stated, on the evidence of Basque priests, that "all the shepherds in the Pyrenees practice bestiality". Mantegazza records (Gli Amori degli Uomini, ch. V) that a young ApennineApennine-Other places on Earth:*The Apennine or Italian peninsula*Apennins, a department of the first French Empire-Plants and animals:*The Apennine , a modern breed of domestic sheep.*Apennine Shrew, an insectivore endemic to Italy...
goatherd believed his dyspepsiaDyspepsiaDyspepsia , also known as upset stomach or indigestion, refers to a condition of impaired digestion. It is a medical condition characterized by chronic or recurrent pain in the upper abdomen, upper abdominal fullness and feeling full earlier than expected when eating...
and nervous symptoms stemmed from sexual congress with his animals. In 18th century South Italy, Sardinia and Sicily, "bestiality among goatherds and peasants is said to be almost a national custom by Bayle" (Dictionary, Bathyllus, cited by Havelock-Ellis as note 50). Warton was informed that in Sardinia and Sicily priests in confession used to habitually inquired of shepherds if they had anything to do with their sheep. In Normandy priests were advised to ask similar questions. - Jonas Liliequist, a social historian at the University of Umeå in SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, who has studied bestiality in Swedish history, observed the abundance of bestiality cases in Swedish courts during the 17th and 18th centuries (more than 1500), and the scarcity of cases of homosexual acts (appr. 20). He raises the question of whether this discrepancy had been because of a more tolerant attitude towards same sex intercourse than to intercourse between man and animal, or if it had been due to an even more severe taboo against homosexual acts.
Modern era
- "L'Etalon Doux" writes of French openness regarding zoosexuality in media and research, that "A certain acceptance of the sexual connotations of the beast has never been lost from ancient times as in other parts of the world. Even today you are much more likely to see an explicit scene of animals mating in a French erotic film than elsewhere... In 1991 a film appeared in France with a 'General Release' certificate which could only be described as 'Hard Core' animal mating complete with screen filling close-ups and slow motion ejaculations." (Also compare the almost brutally explicit and prolonged horse mating sequence in the Polish film director BorowczykWalerian BorowczykWalerian Borowczyk was a Polish film director. He directed 40 films between 1946 and 1988. His career as a film director was mainly in France.-Biography:...
's 1975 film "La bête" (The Beast) - There was much speculation that Oliver the chimpanzee was a human/chimpanzee hybrid. However genetic and other tests later convincingly proved this unfounded, and that genetically he seemed an ordinary chimpanzee and showed no significant matches of any kind with human genetics. No hybrid has ever been verified to be genuine.
See also
- HumanzeeHumanzeeThe humanzee is a hypothetical chimpanzee/human hybrid. Chimpanzees and humans are closely related , leading to contested speculation that a hybrid is possible, though no specimen has ever been confirmed.-Etymology:In spite of the usual convention of portmanteau...
- ZoophiliaZoophiliaZoophilia, from the Greek ζῷον and φιλία is the practice of sex between humans and non-human animals , or a preference or fixation on such practice...
- AnthrozoologyAnthrozoologyAnthrozoology is the study of human-animal interaction. It is a modern interdisciplinary and burgeoning field that overlaps with a number of other disciplines, including anthropology, ethology, medicine, psychology, veterinary medicine and zoology...
- Erotic artErotic artErotic art covers any artistic work that is intended to evoke erotic arousal or that depicts scenes of love-making. It includes paintings, engravings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, music and writing.-Definition:...
- History of sex
Sources
Main sources include:- Robson, Bestiality and Bestial Rape in Greek Myth, 1997, S. Deacy and K. F. Pearce (edd.), Rape in Antiquity, Duckworth, 65-96
- Illustrated Book of Sexual Records
- Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality, Bestiality entry, at Humboldt University Berlin Sexology Dept
- Voget, F. W. (1961) Sex life of the American Indians, in Ellis, A. & Abarbanel, A. (Eds.) The Encyclopaedia of Sexual Behavior, Volume 1. London: W. Heinemann, p90-109
Histories of zoophilia by non-zoophiles
- Dubois-Dessaule: Etude Sur la Bestiality au point de Vue Historique (The Study of Bestiality from the Historical, Medical and Legal Viewpoint) (Paris, 1905)
- Gaston Dubois-Desaulle: Bestiality: An Historical, Medical, Legal, and Literary Study, University Press of the Pacific (November 1, 2003), ISBN 1-4102-0947-4 (Paperback Ed.)
Histories of zoophilia by zoophiles
Note: these pages are to a degree amateurs research, written to varying standards by parties with a vested interest. However they may also contain numerous factual references and other suggestions of academic interest omitted by or unfamiliar to authors less familiar with the subject.- Source 1 - "Zoophilia and The Law -- History"
- http://internetdump.com/users/akita/zoo-history.html Source 2 - "Zoophilia / Bestiality and History"
- http://www.blasderobles.com/Varia/Kircher/legal2.htm Source 3 - "Legal History of bestiality part 2"
- The above 3 sources were written by "L'Etalon Doux" in the late 1990s and published onlineONLINEONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....
either as web pages or on zoophile newsgroupNewsgroupA usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
s.
- The above 3 sources were written by "L'Etalon Doux" in the late 1990s and published online
Culture and sociology
- Hans Hentig Ph.D.: Soziologie der Zoophilen Neigung (Sociology of the Zoophile Preference) (1962)
- Marie-Christine Anest: Zoophilie, homosexualite, rites de passage et initiation masculine dans la Greece contemporaine (Zoophilia, homosexuality, rites of passage and male initiation in contemporary Greece) (1994), ISBN 2738421466
- Bronisław Malinowski:
The Trobriand Islands (1915)
The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929)
Art
- Museum of bestial art an online museum of zoophilic representation in art (You need to click on "Map" to access the site)