The Secret Life of Zoophiles

  You are going to study what ?" Some concluded there was something wrong with
me, that I needed therapy and/or that I myself was having sex with animals. The
man I was dating at the time could not even handle discussing the topic and we
ended up going our separate ways (it wasn't a good relationship anyway). But,
there were others who admired me and encouraged my controversial investigation
and I was set to be (maybe) the first researcher to study this virtually unknown
phenomenon and to conduct a large scale, professional study on
bestiality/zoophilia.

  With greater focus and effort, I spent days at the library of the Institute
for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, at the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C., and at the library of the National Institute for
Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Maryland. I found a specialized magazine, The
Wild Animal Revue, which provided me with much information about this topic and
its editor was so kind as to lend me several rare books to help with my study. I
bought other rare books in a little store in New York, and the Internet was a
source of abundant information about bestiality and zoophilia as well.

  I ended up finding many books and articles whose authors mention and sometimes
even discuss bestiality and zoophila. Many authors suggest that human beings
have had sexual relations with animals since the dawn of history and throughout
the world (in some countries more than in others). These authors assert that
sexual relations with animals has been practiced, thought about, dreamed of and
has emerged as myth, fairytale, folklore, literature, painting and sculpture
(Cauldwell, 1948; Dumont, 1970; Kinsey et al, 1948; Kullinger, 1969; Masters,
1962). None of them, however, provides an in-depth picture into the lives and
behaviors of the people who engage in sexual relations with animals. Many
authors volunteer their opinions and discuss humans' sexual relations with
animals as though they are an authority on the subject. Their opinions, however,
are often conflicting and cause much confusion to the reader.

  Conducting this extensive literature review diminished any lingering doubts
about the necessity for a study on bestiality and zoophilia. As my literature
review reveals, scientific studies on the motivations for engaging in
bestiality/zoophilia and studies describing the sexual, social and mental health
profile of individuals involved are very scarce. The few related studies
described above (Kinsey et al., 1948; Kinsey et al., 1953; and Hunt, 1974)
proved outdated and limited in their findings since they did not focus on the
issue of bestiality/zoophilia. Peretti Rowan's study (1983) was more focused but
did not distinguish between bestiality and zoophilia and only six variables were
explored. Donofrio's recent study (1996) focused on zoophiles, however the small
number of participants (8) limited his findings.

  The major void of knowledge regarding bestiality/zoophilia bothered me. I
believed, and I still do, that as clinical sexologists and psychotherapists, we
need to be equipped with a carefully researched base of knowledge in order to
understand the phenomenon and the individuals involved. As professionals helping
those who struggle with and experience ego-dystonic feelings about bestiality
and zoophilia, it is important that this research be available and on-going.

  To this end, I decided to conduct an exploratory study in an attempt to gather
data on a sexual behavior under-studied and misunderstood. I also wanted to
better understand the people who engage in sexual relations with animals and
their motivations for doing so.

  The idea that some people may be sexually attracted to animals, to the point
of preferring animals to humans as sex partners, fascinated me. The new term,
coined by the "zoo" community ("zoo" is basically a shortcut for "zoophile") on
the Internet : "zoosexuality," implies a sexual orientation towards animals.
Stasya (1996), Tanka (1995), Shepherd (1996) and Fox (1994) on the Internet
agreed with this definition. And Donofrio (1996) reports that the concept of
zoophilia, being a sexual orientation, was supported by his doctoral study. He,
therefore, suggests using a scale resembling Kinsey's sexual orientation scale
which was also offered by Blake (1971). Donofrio's model suggests that those who
have no interest whatsoever in sexual contact with animals would appear at the
Zero point of the scale. Those individuals whose sole sexual outlet and
attraction are animals would be assigned the Six position. Along that continuum,
between these two extremes, would be individuals who include animal sexual
contact in their fantasy, or have had incidental experiences with animals, have
had more than incidental contact with animals, place their sexual activity with
animals equal to that involving humans, prefer animal contact but engage in more
than incidental contact with humans, and those who engage primarily in contact
with animals with only incidental human sexual contact.

  I therefore conceptualized my basic research question to be : "Is there a
sexual orientation towards non-human animals ?" I adapted the definition of
"sexual orientation" from Francoeur (1991) in his discussion of homosexuality,
heterosexuality and bisexuality. According to this definition, sexual
orientation consists of three interrelated aspects :

(1) affectional orientation    -- who or what we bond with emotionally;
(2) sexual fantasy orientation -- who or what we fantasize having sex with; and
(3) erotic orientation         -- with whom or what we prefer to have sex.

  Now I had to find subjects. I had no idea where to begin. I had my client but
that was definitely not enough. I started talking to anyone willing to listen. I
placed an ad in The Wild Animal Revue. I posted an ad on a message board at the
Institute for Advanced Study for Human Sexuality. I sent a letter to Mark
Matthews, the founder of the Zoophiliac Outreach Organization. I placed an ad in
Sexual Science, the Society for Scientific Study of Sexuality newsletter. I
placed an ad in Contemporary Sexuality, the American Association for Sex
Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) newsletter. Most importantly, I
posted an Internet ad on the alt.sex. bestiality bulletin board.

  When I went to AASECT's annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, in June 1996, I
posted an ad on the message board. A prominent figure in the sexology field
(from another organization) was offended by the ad and ordered it down. This sad
incident, however, ended on a positive note : The president of AASECT at that
time, Dr. Judy Seifer, formally apologized and became one of my doctoral
advisors. Also, before the ad was taken down, it was photographed by a
journalist and ended up in the Baltimore City Paper June 19, 1996 issue, as part
of an article by Motoyama about the above conference.

All the ads had the same message :

"I need volunteers... Anyone who has ever had sexual relations with an animal...
To fill out an anonymous questionnaire. I am a doctoral student who is doing her
dissertation research on bestiality/zoophilia. I believe this topic is
understudied and that it is important to shed some light on this phenomenon.
This will be especially significant for people who struggle with this issue and
for their psychotherapists. Please call me at (my phone number) weekdays and ask
for Hani. I appreciate any help I can get. Thanks !"

  One day I received a phone call from a woman, I'll call her Beverly. She told
me she heard about me and my study from a friend on the Internet and she would
like to help. I was elated. We had about a 10-minute conversation and I was very
impressed. She was divorced, had a daughter and a boyfriend. She sounded very
intelligent. And she was a zoo. She also told me she has many connections with
the zoo community and would ask everyone to give me a call. I could hardly
contain my excitement.

  The next day I got a phone call from a man, I'll call him Jim. Jim was a
college professor and a close friend of Beverly. They lived about 20 minutes
away from each other. We talked for about an hour. He sounded like a really
nice, smart guy, and I enjoyed our conversation very much. Then Ted called. He
was a Biologist and a friend of Jim. He was a zoo too, and I was in heaven.

  I then met with Beverly for lunch. She came with her daughter so we could not
talk about my study, but we talked about everything else. I really liked her.
Since I did not have access to the Internet at that time, she offered to come
with her boyfriend to my place with a lap top and connect me to the Internet on
their account. Her boyfriend was a very handsome man, in his 30s. He was
divorced, a government employee with a "top secret" clearance and a zoo. I
logged on the Internet for the first time in my life and into a chat room where
a whole crowd of zoos was waiting to speak with me. Three hours went by and I
did not even notice. I was ecstatic.

  I never expected what happened next : zoos started calling me from all over
the world. When I set up to do this study, I expected, at most, to end up with a
few brave zoos and conduct a case-study kind of research. However, more then 160
people contacted me about the study (three heard about me through the Baltimore
City Paper) and most of them were very supportive and encouraging. They
congratulated me on the idea to conduct a study about them and expressed
excitement about taking part in this research project. Some of them began
advocating for me and getting their zoo friends to join the study. One zoo,
Stasya, devoted his web-page to discuss and advocate my study and provided
information about how to contact me. After a while, everyone on the Internet zoo
community was talking about me; I felt like a celebrity.

  Some of the zoos began calling me on a regular basis, just to chat. I welcomed
these advances since I wanted to develop good relationships with them and
hopefully get more subjects for my study through them. But, more importantly, I
enjoyed talking to them and found them to be very interesting. I was fascinated
with their stories and often with their wisdom. When their annual gathering took
place, they invited me.

  I was very flattered, now I knew they trusted me. But I had some mixed
feelings. I did not want to get too close to them as people might think I am a
zoo and/or their friend and wouldn't take my study seriously. At the same time,
how could I give up an opportunity like this ? I decided to go. This turned out
to be a profound weekend. It opened the doors to a secret world populated by
entertaining, intelligent people, engaged in a sexual behavior that much of our
contemporary society views with revulsion. "Living outside the pale," they
welcomed me into their gathering. As a researcher, they shared themselves with
only the expectation that I would one day objectively report my findings to the
greater population.

  Beverly came to pick me up at the airport with three other zoos and, after a
stop at her house, we went to Jim's where the gathering took place. Jim's house
was located in a rural area. He had a couple of horses, a donkey, two llamas and
a few dogs. I met more than fifty zoos from all around the country. Some of them
came with their partners and everywhere I turned there were big dogs laying
around. Everyone was nice and polite. People were supportive and cooperative
(after they were assured about confidentiality, my intentions and that I was not
a zoo). Overall, I found myself in the company of some interesting and friendly
people, and we spent the weekend talking about zoophilia and other general
topics. We watched (main-stream) movies, played cards and other games, went for
walks, cooked, laughed and had lots of fun. When I returned home, I had a long
list of new volunteers for my study and I was much more educated about zoophilia
and zoophiles.

  While I was at the gathering, in May of 1996, I took the opportunity to
conduct two focus groups. In a focus group participants engage in an open
discussion about a specific topic, in this case -- bestiality and zoophilia.
It's sort of a brainstorming process, which I used to get ideas for what to ask
in my questionnaire.

  The first group met for an hour and included 13 men. The second group met for
an hour and a half and included 11 men and one woman. Every participant signed a
consent form allowing me to tape the discussion and use their comments
(anonymously) in my book. I would like to share some of their comments, so you
get a flavor of the way these zoos think and the issues that are on their minds.

* I started the discussion by asking : "What do you think is bestiality ? What
is zoophilia ? Is there a difference between them ? And what is the difference,
if there is one ?"

-- "I think there is definitely a difference between bestiality and zoophilia
. . . zoophiles are more emotionally attached to their animals than a bestialist
would be. A zoophile might regard the animal they're with as their significant
other. A bestialist might keep that animal as a companion, take very good care
of them, but not hold them in the same emotional sense as a zoophile would."
-- "I would say that bestiality refers to the act, any act, regardless of
circumstance. Zoophilia is everything beyond the act . . . the thoughts, many
feelings, decisions on whether to do such things. Zoophilia describes a person;
bestiality describes an act."
-- "I'd say it's the difference between having a caring relationship and just
using the animal for gratification. The bestialists, from my point of view, just
basically use the animal for sexual relief . . . they may take care of it and
that . . . but he's treating it as . . . a sex toy. You get just as much out of
it as out of what you would, as using a doll or going and seeing a prostitute.
Whereas a zoophile relationship is more. It's a marriage, in every sense of the
term."
-- "My dog, when he wants sex, I will masturbate him, and that's as far as it
goes . . . I'm not like a big sex hound or anything like that. If my dog, when
my dog really wants sex, then I'll give him that satisfaction, but it's, my
relationship with him, is love-based. It's love emotions, being with him, just
being able to cuddle up next to him, fuzzy his belly, just hearing any noises he
can make, or a cute look. Everything about him. I'm in love with every part of
his body, every action he's ever done . . ."
-- "The dog was what made me realize that I really enjoyed giving him pleasure.
Giving pleasure, not necessarily as a submissive act, but sometimes, but the
giving of pleasure I believe is a true, one of the true marks of a zoophile, and
that we enjoy making them happy. We enjoy giving them sexual pleasure, we enjoy
giving them sensual pleasure through grooming and stuff, and we enjoy, you know,
giving them the companionship that they would need if they were in like a pack
situation or a herd situation . . . through being near them and being associated
with them in that way, we can fill their needs, and being able to do that is
really a great privilege and pleasure."
-- "What's the difference between a person making love and when is a person just
having sex ? Even among zoophiles it's quite possible to have sex without making
love and so it's pretty difficult to pinpoint where zoophilia ends and someone
that's just creating bestiality, the sexual act. The only thing that can ever
define that is that person's own feelings."
-- "Right, because there are some people who are zoophiles, like myself, who
occasionally have flings or have intercourse with creatures that they may have
not met before or haven't gotten to know."
-- "These are artificial definitions. There are divisions within the community.
People want to separate themselves. One thing I just want to separate from is
animal abuse, okay ? Zoophiles generally want nothing to do with that . . . most
of us here I'm sure would define ourselves as zoo. How many of you have fence
hopped ? Are you less a zoo ? Are you now a bestialist because you've fence
hopped ?"

* At this point I had to ask : "What's 'fence hopped'" ?

-- "Jumped over the fence at night to go . . ."
-- "It's not like you can go to a farmer's door and say, 'I'd like to take your
mare out on a date'" (laughter).
-- "The zoophile thing is kind of a gradual process. When you're an adolescent,
your hormones are raging . . . and the emotional content just developed over
time."
-- "It sounds just like anyone else, though, I mean your normal, average
heterosexual junior high or high school student when they're all together."
-- "I don't feel that zoophilia has to involve sex though. Like with my dog, I
mean, I consider myself a zoo, but I really don't have sex with my dog. I love
him more than anything in the universe and I consider him to be my lover and
we're companions. I'd do anything in the world for him . . . he's just
everything in my life, so that's how I feel masturbation is all it comes to, and
the only time that I would ever masturbate him is when he would initiate it . .
. the sexual part isn't really part of my feelings; it's something he wants and
he's the one who always initiates it. And I really don't see that as my main
focus of being a zoo . . ."
-- "I think what we're seeing is an effort to kind of define ourselves. Now that
we know that there is a group of us out here, which a lot of us started three or
four years ago . . . now there's a struggle to come up with some sort of
nomenclature . . ."
-- "The greatest word to come along in a while, to be coined in a while, is
'zoosexual,' because it takes all these arguments and tosses them out the window
. . ."
-- "Every piece on the continuum is contained within zoosexual."
-- "It's a lifestyle."
-- "Part of the problem also is that . . . zoophiles are, the distribution of
zoophiles is a perfect cross-section of the entire world, or at least the
country. There are zoophiles from every walk of life . . ."
-- "That does bring up one other point : that most zoos, at least in my own case
and I'm sure a lot of others, you tend to think of yourself as a real pervert
because . . . it's next to impossible to find others. All of us here have been
extremely fortunate in finding an entire group of people just like ourselves
[through the Internet]. I really hate to think of how many people go through
their entire lives without so much as ever realizing that there are others."
-- "It's a really good feeling to find others . . . for a long time it was like,
well, I have feelings, I'm not sure how to deal with them and then I read part
of a book. It's like, 'Wow, there must be other people out there.' But then I
was presented with the problem : I have no way of contacting them. Because it's
not like you can wear a little button that says, 'Hi, I'm a zoophile' you know
(laughter). So, through the Internet . . . you can get together with people and
then talk for a while and realize that you're not alone, and it's very
comforting . . . it's very scary thinking how many people live their lives, or
even lose their lives because they can't deal with being a zoo. Cause that
happens a lot with homosexuals and not being able to deal with being a zoo could
result in the same thing . . . it's a hard time. It's kind of a rough trip to
come to terms with this sexuality. It's not easy and then all the stuff that we
have to put up with from society and just living in a closet where you can't
really come out to too many people, I mean, you're lucky if you can come out to
your friends . . ."
-- "It can be an incredible life-changing experience . . . when you first read
about other people who are like you, when you first talk to them online, when
you first talk to them on the phone, when you first talk to them in real life
. . . you're real ! You're really there ! You really are like me ! It's an
amazing revelation . . . "
-- "Luckily, because of the Internet . . . you meet people and realize that it's
really not a disorder. It's just a way of life. It's good to know that."
-- "Exactly. Finding out that there were other zoos and speaking with others
randomly, some of the most unscrewed up people I've met in my life . . ."
-- "There have been a number of, a huge number of new people, who've found out
. . ."
-- "Around 700."
-- "[Name of a person] is a gentleman who has put up a Web page that deals with
zoophilia and related issues and has some stories and facts, frequently asked
questions . . ."
-- "Web page is much easier to access . . ."
-- "You don't have to talk to anyone, it's just there. I had one set up as well
and it had, on average, 200 hits a day from all over the world."
-- "[Name of a person] got so many [hits] that he had to take the counter off.
The hits to his page were taking up 60 percent of the T-1 line."
-- "I think he said 10,000 . . ."
-- "Apparently there's a tremendous amount of interest out there, whether it's
all voyeuristic people wanting to get their rocks off, or get slicked out or,
get grossed out by it . . . but intermingled in the big chunk of people that
are, that don't know what it is, and see a casual reference someplace and go
look, there are always going to be a few people that are very serious about it,
like us, that actually are willing to go out and talk to someone or kind of hang
out in the shadows a little bit for a while, read a news group for a while, then
get up a little more courage and get on a talker and start talking to a few
people there, and then eventually come here and hang with us weirdos."
-- "Yeah, I'm sure for every one of us that's willing to come to a group like
this there's probably 40 who would never do it . . ."
-- "You have a lot to lose . . . if there were really some kind of police
set-up, or blackmail. There are so many things that can go wrong . . . if you
think about how many people could have their careers destroyed . . ."
-- "When you think about the 'Net there's kind of an illusion which I bought
into for a while. 'Cause when I got on the 'Net two years ago the Net seemed
very different then and people seemed a lot smarter. But as AOL and 'Net access
becomes easier and more, and you don't have to be smart or a computer whiz to
get online anymore, we're really beginning to see that it is a whole
cross-section of the population, that it [bestiality] isn't just a phenomenon of
smart people or computer geeks or anything like that . . . and I'm discovering
it's almost disappointing to have this illusion destroyed, that maybe we're all
smarter, or a little more creative, but the more I talk to, the more zoos I meet
online, the more I discover that we're just people, and run the gamut of what
people are like."
-- "Yeah, we were getting a skewed sampling. You know . . . a few years ago,
everyone on the Internet . . . had to be a smart person. You had to know about
computers and everything . . . I was convinced that zoophiles had a marked
tendency to be on the upper scale of intelligence . . ."
-- "I know two blacks and three Asians and all of them like to keep quiet."
-- "Drawing parallels with the gay community . . . the very first time on there
[a chat room called "bearish demons"] I met a black bear person and I asked,
'well, how come there's so few black bears ?' and they said, 'Oh, there's plenty
of black bears, they just don't talk to you.' 'And why not ?' 'Well, because
you're white.' And so there's an overlying tendency among ethnic groups to not
mix . . . so, it's possible that there are blacks out there, but . . . they may
feel so alienated that . . . they're a zoo and we're zoos, but they still can't
relate to us."
-- "It's interesting, cause I've gotten to know five African-American zoos
because everybody thinks my 'Net name, Black, [means] I'm an African-American
. . . so I hear from more African-Americans."
-- "I get a similar thing because of the 'Net name I chose . . . It's an
obviously very ethnic-sounding, very black name . . . so I get a lot of black
people . . ."
-- "I think there's almost an equal number of women, they're just much quieter"
[on the Internet].
-- "I think that by and large the case with any woman admitting to any sexual
outlet in our society they're treated far more harshly by people than males are.
They're not going to fess up to it. They tend to be far more closeted and less
willing or able to talk about it than males are."
-- "And being that most of us have known each other through the 'Net . . .
basically there just aren't that many women out there . . . a lot of women get
on the 'Net . . . and then they get scared off . . . it is extremely common on
the 'Net for people to . . . ask 'I want to watch a woman do it with an animal.'
It's so common, it's boring . . . I know that I get really offended and really
bothered. 'Well, I'll call you if there's an animal that's really sexy . . .'
None of your damn business ! Because they assume that anyone who would do that
with an animal has no problem being degraded."
-- "There are more women appearing on the net, and thus are coming to these
gatherings -- there are some here. For example, there's Goldie, who's not a zoo
at all but just likes hanging around us cause she thinks we're cool . . ."
-- "But there's still a lot of women who are there and they don't feel
comfortable talking about it . . . people will talk in chat mode, but they
[women zoos] won't talk in public. They have to be more cautious, and rightly
so, because there are a lot of horny males out there online -- 60% droolers and
jerks . . ."
-- "There are a lot more [women zoos] out there than the sample [group] will
indicate. More of us confirm that just from personal e-mail."
-- The woman participant said : "Women drop in [on the Internet] and then they
drop back out again. And I think that it's more about that women don't go around
talkin' about their sexuality, and about the sex that they have . . . most of
you guys know no personal, intimate details about my sex life, because I don't
share . . ."
-- "We think there are a lot more women out there, maybe housewives who get into
things with their family pets, that people don't know about . . . I think there
are a lot of in-the-closet zoo people who are out there, and thinking about the
people that don't use the Internet, or never will use the Internet
-- there's probably many that we will never know of, because this is so taboo."
-- "We need confirmed studies . . . something where research has been done . . .
we've got to be able to say, 'it's accepted, it exists, and it's real.' And it's
not just us trying to fool ourselves . . . and another thing that's a common
thread that I've seen, this is, we're one of the only groups I've ever seen, as
a group, that adamantly refuses to recruit. We don't reach enough people. I have
actually gone out of my way to discourage people. If I get the feeling it's just
a sexual [fantasy], I will flat out tell them, 'Go buy yourself a sex doll. Go
hire a prostitute.' You know, slam bam, thank you. And . . . if I get that
feeling from somebody, I'll discourage them, because it's not what it's all
about. There's more to it than that. It's commitment. It's a worse commitment
than a marriage because you can't walk away. They don't understand if you leave
them."
-- "And this has been tough for me, because I know I'm going back after a week
and a half to dogs that aren't used to seeing me gone . . . it's been three
years since I've taken a vacation of a week. Other than that, we've been
together almost constantly."
-- "I've never been separated from my love for a day . . ."
-- "It is certainly worth mentioning that there are just endless numbers of
parallels between zoophilia in American society and homosexuals in American
society . . . we are following exactly the same path, footstep for footstep, of
gays, except that we're farther behind . . . well, there are stereotypes . . .
you go back a few decades, all gays were drag queens . . ."
-- "Child molesters."
-- "Yeah, there you go, child molesters. I can remember in my childhood in the
'70s, I remember reading in Ann Landers : 'I just found out my babysitter is
lesbian. Should I fear for my kids' safety ?' And certainly, it may be hard for
someone who's known us to believe it, but people hear about someone who does
things like this and they . . ."
-- "For some reason, the image that stereotype . . . I seem to hear most often
is the notion of a person raping a goat. I don't know what it is about a goat
. . . for some reason people imagine this drooling maniac, clambering after a
fleeing goat . . ."
-- "Along the line of stereotypes . . . non-zoos online . . . immediately assume
that because I'm male that I'm a heterosexual zoo. So that if you're male either
you're just out there shagging sheep or goats. And I have had a lot of goats
. . . and it completely escapes them that maybe possibly . . . that we're the
one in the passive role in this."
-- "A lot of people will say how can you abuse an animal ? I mean, an animal
doesn't have a choice when you're doing it. Well, getting into the gory details,
when I bend over and he goes, he jumps up, it's like . . . I'm not holding a gun
going, 'you gotta do this'" (laughter).
-- "People will say, 'Yeah, but you're taking advantage of that poor creature.
It's just instinct.' And I've yet to have an opportunity to use this reply :
What exactly would you call it when human beings do it ? It's instinct."
-- "The only thing that I had heard, that was suggested to me during an argument
with a non-zoo was that, 'Well, you've obviously perverted the animal for the
animal to have any interest in you at all.' And . . . the individual said the
animal should be put down."
-- "I can vouch for the donkey's virtue (laughter) !"
-- "The ignorance that goes with some of this, this is one thing I would be so
bold as to say, exceeds what goes on with the attitudes toward gays. Because the
ignorance . . . in common attitudes towards zoophilia is funny . . ."
-- "Occasionally we still will get scolded in the Internet by someone who's
saying "You, crazy people ! Don't you realize that, what kind of monstrous
mutant creature can come of such an unholy union ?'" (laughter).
-- "You go back and break it down into chromosome number and genetics, and say,
'Now if any of us could have had a baby of that nature, we would now be
fantastically wealthy and starring on many TV shows.'"
-- "We wouldn't have time -- we'd have so many kids (laughter) !"
-- "It's [having sex with animals] not usual, but it is natural."
-- "It's like saying albinism isn't natural. It's unusual to happen in a lot of
species, but it does happen occasionally."
-- "The presentation of bestiality in the media tends to be always very
light-handed or, you know, humorous in nature."
-- "I think that one of the reasons for that is because nobody really believes
that anybody with any mind at all actually does this. Frequently we see the same
thing; people get on the 'Net [and say] : 'Are you guys for real ? Are you
really doing this ? I thought it was just a joke.'"
-- "You get it many times . . . they'll either say, 'Got any pictures ?' or
they'll say, 'Wow, this is really weird.' Or they'll say, 'You guys are all
sick !'"
-- "We've become the ultimate fantasy for some people, we're comic relief for
some people and some of us are really tired of it. We want to be recognized as a
legitimate sexual orientation. That's what we are."
-- "The only time I've ever seen anything presented in the media has been
whenever somebody gets in trouble. And it is always the rapists who get it --
the animal rapers . . . it is the ones who abuse the animal . . . that are most
frequently . . . who get caught and who people are hearing about . . ."
-- "Without exception . . . the media will always use the words . . . 'sexually
assaulted the animal.' Always, every single time."
-- "A zoophile is painted as a bestialist who will eventually become something
like a rapist. Will go out and shoot people at McDonald's, a pedophile. Because
they're always coming up with studies that say this person just shot 20 people
at the local McDonald's used to be a bestialist. Or you know, he's a pedophile,
he started out with animals for sexual gratification . . ."
-- "Another thing to think about too is groups such as the Humane Society, the
SPCA, PETA. Dealing with them, they'd probably like nothing better than to see
our heads in a fish tank or on a platter . . ."
-- "Their goal is to turn the entire United States and get laws passed that
require every personally owned pet to be castrated. Literally. That's their
stated goal . . ."
-- "There's another aspect of that, too, that's not uncommon for the Humane
Society . . . in the interest of the animal, they will say, 'The animal has
learned to have sex with a human. It can never be rehabilitated as a house pet.'
So they kill it. Pure and simple, they kill it."
-- "I think there's also another aspect to it where it's viewed as a little bit
more acceptable. It's, oh, one of those things that adolescents do and then you
grow out of it. And it's okay when you're young but then, as you get older,
suddenly you become a social menace . . . I remember waiting through the years I
was 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, until I was going to grow out of this phase I was in
(laughter)."
-- "Well, I don't know what's wrong with Kinsey's study, but it's the only study
I know of . . ."
-- "Yeah, Kinsey, that was the part that they had a problem with because that's
how he got his data, from interviewing child molesters."
-- "Whenever you see an article about the problems and evils of the Internet,
what do they always talk about ?"
-- "Bestiality and pedophiles."
-- "One observation I've made is that we consider our animal partners mature
adults, which says that it's contact between adults . . . basically pedophilia
is abhorrent, if not more so than it is to the average person, because of the
immaturity involved."
-- "My two horses, for example, I have tried to do . . . things sexually with
them that they did not like and they told me they didn't like it. I mean . . .
their ears went back, you know, they were uncomfortable, they fidgeted.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is, I tried to be a top with both my horses.
My horses don't care for that . . . there was a time, years ago, I would admit
that I would have just gone ahead with it any ways. The older I got, the more
mature and more acceptance I got in what my lifestyle is, I was very sensitive.
I became more sensitive to my animal lovers' needs . . . I didn't try to do
anything, I never tried to do anything to my animals that I'd feel harmed them
in any way . . ."
-- "Also, the dog has the ultimate way to say no and that's with two rows of
very sharp teeth . . ."
-- "[When] they're not interested, and it takes an understanding person to not
proceed then. Because anyone could proceed, you know . . . exert enough force on
the animal, but that'd be a bestialist. A zoo would see that the animal did not
want to continue and stop. And that can be frustrating, 'cause you're all
excited, but it really takes a strong person to say, 'OK, the animal says no,'
and if they did continue it would be rape."
-- "The fact that if the animal is really feeling strong about it, they'll be
more than merely indicative that they're not overly interested. There's always
the matter of, as you say, with a dog, two rows of rather sharp teeth. Horse has
a good, a healthy set of choppers and mighty sharp hooves, not to mention it
outmatches you by at least four to one, 400 pounds, you know . . . I got kicked
in the thigh by a . . . gelding . . . if I'd put my head down he would have
clocked me right in the noggin and I would have been brain damaged. Yeah, yeah,
I would have been toast . . ."

* I asked what's the difference between kids and animals when it comes to sex.

-- "Kids are not mature."
-- "For me, it's dealing with, literally dealing with, a mature adult of another
species who is my equal. I don't view an animal as inferior, or me as superior
to him . . . and a kid, any immature adult, be it a kid, an [immature] animal,
the mental equipment, the nerve paths, whatever you want to call it, they aren't
well enough conformed to make . . . a good decision . . ."
-- "I agree that animals are, I see an animal as my equal . . ."
-- "How can you sexually consider a child to be an informed equal ? If they are
not capable of making what has been called an informed decision, then, no, they
should not be involved in any way whatsoever. Whether they're four or 40."
-- "Back to the Humane Society thing, they like to consider animals as children,
for some strange, ungodly reason . . ."
-- "As soon as they say that, then we get all flustered . . . because it's very
difficult to express the fact that children are children, and animals are
fucking not kids ! OK ? They're not human beings . . . and people who do make
the, and do try and draw an equality there, first of all, it's really, it's
offensive in a way that, I consider that to be demeaning to the animal, because
that's like saying that it, equating a horse, a stallion, like . . . who's a
lover of mine, equating him with some kid who doesn't know what the heck is
going on . . ."
-- "Well, if we also remember, the one reason . . . to equate animals as
children, children make a wonderful political tool, media weapon . . ."
-- "The Humane Society's going to compare animals to children . . . I'd like to
see how the . . . Humane Society would feel about people eating children
(laughter)."
-- ". . . I guess I've gotten a lot more bitter, the longer I've been a
vegetarian. I don't know but it's like I, when I see a person eating meat, it's
like, not that it just could be my lover, but that was a conscious being that
could react the same way we've all been talking about, and experienced love
. . ."
-- ". . . It goes back to the assumption that people who have sex with animals
are these drooling, mentally, three-hearted people who are idiots and things, no
self-control. I was having lunch with a friend of mine and I'm talking about how
I'd like to get a job in a horse stable that was in town, and he said, 'Well,
are you planning on telling the owner that you have sex with animals ?' And I
said, 'Well, no !' And he goes, 'Well, you have to !' And I said, 'Why ?' And he
goes, 'Just warn him that you're having sex with his animals.' And I said, 'What
makes you think I'm going to have sex with his animals ?'"
-- "There are plenty of male gynecologists in the world who have female patients
. . . I got fired from my last job in an animal hospital because I was a
zoophile. The only sheep that I touched was to put beta dye on it for its
surgery. Never did anything sexual to an animal there. And I lost my job because
of my sexuality, though I never did anything sexually related."
-- "There's also that whole other issue of, you may be in a stable or other
situation with lots of animals around. That doesn't mean that every one of them
is attractive to you. I see dogs running all over the place and there are a lot
of them that I'm attracted to, but a lot of them are not . . ."
-- ". . . I'm living as an exclusive zoo, my God, almost all my life. As far as
explaining, I've already outed myself to my sister, and my God, she sat down and
smoked four cigarettes, chain-smoked them. I was like just shaking that whole
night. But she understood and said she still loved me, but never to tell my
parents. Hani, I made the horrible mistake of printing that article talking
about you, asking for volunteers, and lo and behold I was visiting . . . and
they [my parents] came to clean my house and found it."
-- "Holy shit !"
-- "I'd hate to think what would happen if somebody got into my computer."
-- "My friend was very lucky, he had a psychiatrist tell the judge there's
nothing wrong with it [having sex with animals] . . . he only got off with
probation, but he got hours of community time, he lost his federal job, his
horse and his career was destroyed."
-- "I . . . had therapy when I was 14. I initially got caught when I was 14. I
went through the court system as a juvenile and was put on probation . . . I ran
away from home after getting caught having sex with a couple different German
Shepherds. And the therapist . . . was absolutely non-judgmental . . . we worked
on the issues of why . . . it was a very positive experience. And then I had
another experience, when I was about 20, with another therapist who had a
completely different paradigm in mind . . . it was an addiction paradigm . . .
and I had a really hard time trying to apply that to myself . . . he thought I
should categorize myself in this. I could understand the dynamics of, you're
into zoophilia, it's pretty easy to feel isolated, and perhaps you can use the
sex as a way of medicating yourself, but I just couldn't. There was no reason. I
had a dog, I already had a very intense emotional bond, and he was like, 'You've
got to get rid of your dog.' And I was like, 'No way. I'm not getting rid of my
dog.'"
-- "I did therapy when I was early teens . . . I had started talking about
suicide one morning and it helped out . . . there was about 20 years or so where
basically I dealt with the guilt feelings I was having by suppressing most of my
emotions and finding people [on the Internet] to talk to was what allowed me to
open up the guilt, to feel safe to deal emotionally with [my zoophilia]"

* I asked : "What was your psychiatrist's reaction ?"

-- "I never told him. I didn't feel safe to tell him. [We talked about] a lot of
other things but I didn't feel safe to tell him [about my zoophilia]."
-- (The woman participant said) : "I told my shrink just a couple of weeks ago
actually and in the context of talking about my [human] partner . . . at the end
of [the conversation], I had to say, 'Wait a minute. I just told you that I have
sex with animals, and you just . . . it just kind of rolled right along.' And
she said, 'Is this a problem for you ?' And I said, 'No.' And she said, 'How
long have you been coming here ?' And I said, 'Way too long (laughter).' And she
said, 'I know you well enough to know that if this was a problem for you, you
would have brought it up long ago . . .' And that's the last I've ever heard of
it . . ."
-- "I was talking with one [therapist] . . . and the first thing he wanted to do
was lock me up for about a week for observation . . . I know of at least three
people... who have been locked up, treated to electroshock therapy, drug
therapy, and all that, just because they admitted that yes, they were a zoo
. . ."
-- "The one time I saw a therapist about it . . . his whole reaction was, 'You
should be locked up and will stay that way.' I got up off the couch after that
statement, walked out, and . . . personally I would not be tremendously unhappy
to see that he had lost his license . . ."

* I asked if they thought zoophilia and/or bestiality were perversions.

-- "Do I think it's a perversion, or right or wrong, or anything like that ? I
don't think that it's wrong, but what's more, it really doesn't matter. I've
come to the conclusion that it's okay to have certain desires, but what is
important is how you handle them . . ."
-- "So perhaps the question might be rephrased in terms of not perversion perse,
but . . . does it produce worries, doubts, or guilt within you ?"
-- "Is it morally wrong ? If it were morally wrong, we wouldn't be here."
-- "If you're comfortable with your sexuality and it's not damaging to your
partner, and society, then there really shouldn't be anything wrong with it. I
hope that's how modern-day psychologists see it, is that you're not hurting your
partner. If you're a bestialist, that's debatable, but if you're a zoo, you're
not going to hurt your partner and it's not going to hurt society if they don't
get out their camcorders and look through the window and get offended by it."
-- "In my case, my folks had a book, a textbook on human sexuality, in a
bookcase when I was growing up. And since the day I found that book and read
about zoophilia, I wasn't doing anything at that time, but I said, 'Whoa, okay.'
And I like Greek myths, I thought they were pretty cool, and I knew what my
inclination was at that point and I'd never really had any problem with it."
-- "I've come to the conclusion with my own self that I'm capable of responding
to many different stimuli in an erotic manner and that to apply this sort of
morality, some sort of construct of our society to that, these natural feelings
that I have, I just can't do that anymore."
-- "When I was growing up as a teenager, I was lucky enough : my parents had a
copy of Kinsey's report in the house and I looked through it and found
references to bestiality and I thought, 'Okay, I'm not alone.' And that was a
great help towards dealing with the feelings I was having. I'd often sat down
and analyzed -- is what I'm doing wrong ? You know, if you follow the biblical
interpretation in Leviticus, any person who lays with an animal shall be stoned
and the animal put to death as well, which I thought was grossly unfair to the
animal."
-- "From my standpoint, I don't see how anything I do with an animal that causes
the animal enjoyment or pleasure could be construed as wrong. And I see lots of
people who think nothing of eating an egg from a chicken that's been confined to
a one-foot cage with four other chickens its whole life, and that's not cruelty
to animals, but when I insert my genitalia into the animal's genitalia, or vice
versa, or however you want to look at it, then that suddenly is an evil thing.
And I don't understand . . . it's okay to kill animals, cause them pain, do
whatever you want to so you get the desired result from them, whether it's
pulling a cart, or providing you with food, but it's not okay to have mutually
pleasurable sexual relations."

* I asked if they would want to change and not be zoophiles.

-- "I don't know what it is not to be a zoophile, so I really couldn't say yes
or no."
-- "Yeah, if I could have from the start not been one, I think I would have
rather not been one. But would I choose to change from a zoo into a non-zoo ?
No."
-- "Yes, actually I would. This is probably going to come as a shock. I would
because facing what I am and dealing with it and learning to live with it, and
I've been in [the] position, I have also sat there and worried if it wouldn't be
better just to end it. It's caused me no end of pain . . . I would do it, change
it because, to be honest . . . I've been dealing with my zoophilia . . . since I
was about 14. I didn't have a word for it until I was 25. I know something was
different. But this has caused me more pain in my life and I've never been able
to come to grips with it. And I'm still, to this day, fighting it and suffering
a lot of pain for it . . ."
-- "If I had been given the opportunity I, in fact I lost two opportunities when
I was about 24, due to my own inexperience with a woman . . . we were at a party
and she asked me, 'Am I your girlfriend ?' And being the dumb, inexperienced
fool that I was, I was honest and said, 'I don't own anybody. That's your
decision if you want to be with me.' Six months later she wound up marrying the
man that she was talking about, that wanted to know this. It was really her
asking if I wanted a permanent relationship, but I didn't know it until years
later . . . so I would have changed for them [the two women/opportunities], but
now, and considering where it's led me, I won't, you know, don't look back. I've
been comfortable with it."
-- "For me, I wouldn't have changed. I'm 23 and I would have never changed . . .
I'm really at a crossroads in my life . . . because I have a female friend who
would marry me in a second, but, you know, for all the difficulty that it
causes, I wouldn't trade my relationship [with animals] for anything, because
it's that rich, and it's, it makes me feel that complete to have it."
-- "The bonds we have with animals are really unique . . . it's not the same as
you could get from a person. I'm married, and I would never change that . . .
but, as it is, being a zoo is really important to me, that the feelings that I
get when I'm around horses are incredible, and I'm addicted to them. There's no
way that I'm going to lose that. If I had to stop having sex with the animals
forever, I could deal with that. If I had to live the rest of my life never
knowing the feeling of a horse's hide under my hands, or the smell of its breath
in my nostrils, or the look of my face reflected in its eyes, I would rather
die."
-- "It's possible we can change. But I'll always have dogs in my life. Many
times I've asked myself the question, 'Would I do anything differently ?' And I
look and I say, 'You know, if I had to have these impulses, then maybe I
wouldn't have experienced confusion and the amount of loneliness I did . . .
self hatred for a while. But also I look at how I am now and the journey may
have been rough, but I personally like who I am now . . ."
-- "In my own case . . . I've gone out with and been involved with a number of
very great women, and I've yet to find anyone who showed any indication of
tolerance for bestiality, and I'm not going to stay involved with somebody who's
not going to be accepting . . ."
-- "How do you bring it to your date ? You know, honey, by the way, you kept
asking why I was out at the barn late all the time . . ."
-- "I've told my last two boyfriends that they cannot be everything. That my
interests are too great. They don't have hooves, a mane, tail, they can't have
paws . . ."
-- "One thing is, I believe, common to all zoos is that they won't even consider
a long-term relationship with a human being unless that human being is fully
prepared to accept the zoophilia."
-- "That's not true for me. I don't buy that."
-- "It is for me. The people here know that there are people who can't accept
them . . . I married my wife because I thought it was the best acceptable
thing."
-- "I can remember when I was 14 years old and I'm having these desires to be
with the goats and the dogs and the horses . . . and at the same time thinking,
'How am I ever going to hide from my wife that I'm out, you know, having sex
with the horses ?'"
-- "I was at my grandparents' house and they're like, 'When are you gonna bring
your girlfriend over ?' so I said, 'I'll bring my dog next time (laughter).' And
then next time I brought my dog, and they're like, 'You actually brought your
dog.' And I'm like, 'Well, he keeps me warm at night . . . (laughter) and if he
starts snoring, I put him in his house outside.' That killed the conversation
for pretty much the whole day (laughter)."
-- "My wife said she hoped I got doggie AIDS and died (laughter) . . . what she
specifically told me was I was not to bring any of my weird Internet friends
home, because they will get AIDS on her furniture (laughter)."
-- "There's only one thing about zoophilia that I'd like to change and that's
the fact that I can outlive everybody who I fall in love with. I'm on my fifth
regular canine lover because the previous ones, by one means or another, have
passed on. And that's one of the hardest things about being a zoo. It's the only
thing I don't like."
-- "When I was with my first love (a dog) . . . I was to the point that I really
couldn't concentrate on my schoolwork at college, or even, I was at the National
Guard, you know, just eight hours, lonely, having anxiety attacks to be back
with her. And that kind of gives you an idea of what I went through when I lost
her . . . I was depressed for two, three years, so deeply that I just, I
couldn't even concentrate. I stopped reading because I couldn't even stay
focused on more than a paragraph. I failed the first school that I went to in
the Army and ended up in training with drill sergeants for eight months . . . I
spent my entire income just to be able to barely afford a house to live in, to
support that lifestyle . . . my entire adult life I spent pursuing to be able to
live that lifestyle . . . I just couldn't be without a dog."
-- "I have known what I was when I was about 11 years old. My first love was on
my paper route. She was an older female German Shepherd . . . but I never had a
chance to touch her because I was so horrified of getting caught. But when she
finally died of cancer, I actually was like crying for a week because of that
. . . and when I was 18, I had my first love. My parents let me buy a dog, and
it was the happiest year of my life. And really . . . problems about, they gave
her away and (crying) . . . you don't want me to get into my story . . . (still
crying and a few of the guys sitting next to him started hugging him). I went
into a pure depression because of that and almost committed suicide . . ."
-- "The problem with losing all the lovers all the time is that every time it
takes a little piece of you, and you lose a little bit of confidence in yourself
that you'll ever be able to fall in love again . . . and the thing is, I realize
that after losing [my horse] and after losing all the other horses and after
losing the dog, after losing all of them, I was still able to feel the
connection, to feel the bond that you feel love for another animal."

* I asked "Why do you have sexual relations with animals ?"

-- "It's different for every person . . . for me, it becomes the why not
question. Because I know what it's like to wake up and be licked by a raspy
tongue in the morning after having wonderful love with my dog the previous
evening. And to deny myself that and to deny my lover the pleasure that I know I
can give him . . . why ? What good reason is there not to experience some of the
highest highs and to share those with somebody who you know loves you and who
can express that love to you so well . . . there have been a couple people who I
have fallen in love with, who haven't, have said that they loved me but did not
return that. I've never fallen in love with an animal that never returned that
love. That doesn't mean that I hold that against people. Some people just aren't
perfect. That's fine. They're not the right person for me."
-- "Dogs seem to be very compatible with people. Look at all the interactions we
have with dogs. We groom them, we hug them and kiss them like we do with people
we care about. Often, we're actually more tactile with our dogs than we are with
people. We feel protective of them and very often dogs feel protective of us
. . . it's very fun to play [with] dogs. You understand them. So, if we're
interacting on all these different social levels and it's a question of the dog
being a social unit, they why is it, you know, sex is of course the next step
. . . so you can have even more interaction . . . and you don't always know if
it's love or not. Love is a human concept. You can equate an animal actions into
what love is for us, but then humans can't even agree on what love is . . ."
-- "I think the 'why' question's pretty easy. It's because we like it and it
feels good. Another question is 'how ?' or, 'How did you get this way ?' I'm
guessing that 99 percent of the people here grew up as labeled 'odd' by everyone
around them . . . quite a few people grew up being, you know, not very popular
. . ."
-- "The environment pushes you. The environment that we were raised in pushed us
towards animals. It didn't make us zoo, but not having as much interaction with
human beings that I did, I was able to look elsewhere for companionship
occasionally. Not all the time. I still had human friends, but I was a heck of a
lot closer to my dogs than I was to any of the other kids that I hung around
with at the time. It may not be the same for everyone, but I'm guessing that a
lot of us were just kind of nudged in that general direction, you know, by our
environment. It wasn't the whole reason, but it was part of the reason."
-- "On the other side, that's not the only reason. Because I was part of, I
competed in a lot of athletic events in school, I was part of a very popular
culture within my school. I had sex with young ladies about the same time that
I, my earliest sexual experience was also with goats and with women. So I had
both opportunities, but I have slowly selected, almost exclusive at this point,
I've turned 40, and still single, it's almost exclusively animals at this point
. . ."
-- "Yeah. See, I was married for five years . . . I'm out of that marriage, I'm
divorced now, but out of that marriage I did have a child. But although she
never did it [sex with animals], my ex, she and I had sex that was different sex
than my canine sex. That is real sex, real love."

* Why ?

-- "Because (laughter). I really can't explain why. I was 11 years old when I
had my first fantasies, so I don't know why, or where I even got them from, you
know . . . I don't have a clue . . ."
-- "I started having sex with animals when I was 8, and at the time I didn't
really have any tolerant sense of right or wrong as to what I was doing. I knew
that if I got caught by my mother I'd be in trouble, but I didn't really know
why I would be in trouble. I knew that it felt really good and I really liked
doing it . . ."
-- "I don't know about hereditary, but I feel like I was born this way. I've
always been close to nature and animals and everything else like that and I just
guess I never felt like it was really wrong. I couldn't see that if I loved an
animal this much, why not take it an extra step ? I just feel like I was born
this way. There wasn't anything that happened in my childhood to turn me off
from women or anything like that. I wasn't an anti-social kid. My parents even
told me that I was a normal kid (laughter)."
-- "I was always emotionally attached to animals . . . but I was also physically
attracted to animals on the street, you know. It was just like, I guess heteros
see a hot woman and they're like, 'look at that woman.' And I see an attractive
animal and I'm like, 'Whoa, that's a really attractive animal.' And it's always
been that way and I think it's hereditary . . ."
-- "I don't feel like I really had a choice, I guess. That it's just the way I
am and there's no way that I could say that I'm not a zoo. It's not like I
decided to have sex with animals or I decided to have this attachment or love
for animals. It's like, I can't ignore it. It's part of me and I can't, I
couldn't possibly have a normal relationship without that . . . this is just the
way I am and if I'm going to be true to myself, then this is the way I'm going
to have to live -- it's not an option . . ."
-- "Another aspect perhaps of 'why' is I've always had problems dealing with and
interaction with people and it created a lot of tension when I had to do that in
school and work and all. And the time I spent with my companions [animals] was
relaxing and helped me deal, and unwind, and deal with tension . . ."

* I asked about the need for intellectual stimulation for those who prefer
animals as sex partners.

-- "I have a social group, social peers I hang out with, that satisfy my desire
for deep meaningful conversation if I choose to engage in it."
-- "I don't think any of us here are total recluses to the point where we only
interact with the animals and don't really have any interest in other humans.
-- "I'm sure there are plenty of people who are married to paraplegics or people
with various motor nervous disorders that can't speak, can't talk back to them
. . . I'm saying that there are people who are married to companions, or have
companions that, they are not capable of having high-level, intellectual
conversations."
-- "I know humans who you can't have high-level conversations with (laughter)."
-- "And animals can be intellectually as challenging on their own . . ."
-- "It's intellectually challenging to take care of a horse, you know, to
understand it and understand its needs."
-- "We all have to interact with society and we have our jobs, or school, or
your family life . . ."
-- "It's a separate thing. You go one place for one thing and you go to the
other place for the other thing and it becomes a natural part of your life where
you don't even think about it anymore . . ."
-- "I think that there's something definitely missing in a zoo relationship
. . . everything about my dog is, I think is fabulous. But I can't get the kind
of, you know, private communication, and the kind of, you know, like spiritual
type communication that you can get from another person . . . it's a completely
different style of, it's completely different. I mean, I can't even describe it.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. The two aren't the same . . . I think to
be, or at least for me, to be complete, I need both of those . . ."

===============================================================================

                The Joy Of Beasts

The Independent on Sunday (The Sunday Review (magazine insert))(UK),3 December
2000

by Michail Bird

  Trey the golden retriever edges his snout closer to my steak and chips. The
table is the right height for him to rest his head upon, and he sticks his
tongue out for any scraps that may fall from my plate.

  His owner, Brian, a 42-year-old engineer, ticks him off : "You're not getting
any." Trey cocks his head in disappointment. "It will only end up in the car and
you'll lose the benefit of it nutritionally," adds Brian, who bought Trey four
years ago from an animal shelter. He tells the dog that the leftovers will be
put in a bag and fed to him at home. Trey whinnies and shakes his head.

  We are having lunch in a pub garden. Above grey clouds threaten rain, but it
is better for us to be outside. Brian is explaining to me that he is in love
with his dog. Anyone who finds this idea deeply offensive is advised not to read
on. "I would lay down my life for him without thinking," says Brian. "He is
always there for me. We sleep in the same bed, he occupies the pillow area
normally, and he wakes me in the morning with a kiss. The sex," he adds, "is
great."

  Brian defines himself as both a Bestialist - someone who has sex with animals
- and a Zoophile - someone who has loving relationships with them. He has had
several "relationships" with dogs over the past three decades : male and female,
other people's and his own. He first masturbated a dog - a friend's - when he
was 12, and he says that he gained pleasure from giving the animal pleasure. At
school, in a northern suburb, he was not attracted to girls, nor has he been
since.

  Brian has kept his sexual preferences a secret until his mid-thirties, when he
told his father and brother about it. They were shocked and now do not mention
the subject. "I realized that it was something I had no control over. It wasn't
a conscious decision, but it wasn't an obsession. I had other things in my life
to be getting on with." These included motorcycling and flying - which gave him
regular contact with people.

  His work often required him to travel, so he did not think it practical or
fair to keep a dog of his own. Instead, he had relationships with dogs owned by
friends or relations, carefully choosing times and places, indoors and out, when
he could be unobserved. One such dog was a collie called Glenn, who belonged to
a cousin living nearby. Brian says that he was in love with Glenn for seven
years. He visited him once or twice a week and looked after him at weekends or
when his cousin was on holiday When Glenn and his owners moved out of town,
Brian became depressed and bought a puppy But the physical side of that
relationship was not a success. "He was very submissive, never showed any
mounting behavior towards me..." (Brian's preferred modus operandi, in case you
were wondering, is to be penetrated by his canine partner, and to perform oral
sex on him.) Eventually, Brian began to feel that he was betraying Glenn, and so
he had his dog castrated and sold him as a pet.

  Brian searches in his wallet and brings out a photograph of a collie lying on
a lawn. This is Glenn. The picture is worn and covered in Sellotape. Stuck to
the back is a lock of black fur.

  Glenn died suddenly one morning of a heart attack before Brian could say
good-bye to him. Glenn's owner knew how strongly Brian felt about Glenn - though
not about how he expressed his feelings - and had said that if the dog ever had
to be put to sleep, Brian could be there to help the animal die. "They said that
when the time came..."

  Brian fails to end this sentence and covers his face with his hands. I reach
out my arm to him, but he turns away, falls to his knees and embraces Trey His
mouth buried in the dog's fur, he tries to hold in his tears. Bestiality - or
Zoophilia, as its apologists prefer to call it - has never been more acceptable.
In recent months there have been glossy photo shoots involving models in
suggestive poses with animals in such fashionable magazines as I-D, Arena and
Bizarre. A recent television commercial for ice-cream appears to feature sexual
inter-action between a man and a dog and between a woman and a horse. Brian
O'Doherty's Booker- short-listed novel, The Deposition of Father McGreevy, has
several sex scenes between a man and a sheep - one of which was short-listed for
last week's Literary Review "Bad Sex" Prize (which was awarded after this
article went to press). And last year Channel 4 screened a documentary on the
subject, Animal Passions, on which an American interviewee, Mark Matthews,
married his pony, Pixel, in a special ceremony.

  This last cultural event prompted Ulster Unionist MP Ken Maginnis to file an
early day motion in the Commons calling on the Government to "take decisive
action to ensure that such depraved and corrupting programmes are not screened
on British television in future."

  But the fact is that, for most people, bestiality is far from being the
horrifying taboo that it once was. Recent decades have seen such "perversions"
as S&M drift into the mainstream, and some people believe that bestiality should
be next. In Germany and the Netherlands, and in 28 states in the USA, sexual
relationships with animals are legal, while in Hungary magazines dedicated to
animal sex are sold openly in garages and book- shops. In Britain, on the other
hand, it is an offense punishable by life imprisonment. But the Home Office
report, Setting the Boundaries, published last year as part of a general review
of sex offenses, recommends reducing this to five years. The report, which aims
to come up with a set of proposals that are "fair, just and fit for the 21 st
century", argues that sex with animals offends the dignity of the animals
concerned, and cites a link between the abuse of animals and the abuse of
children. But it is not entirely unsympathetic to those who engage in inter
species sex, attributing their behavior largely to "loneliness and propinquity";
and invites the public to send in their own suggestions before March 2001, after
which the Government will prepare to introduce revised legislation.

  There is no reliable research as to how many Zoophiles there are. The most
detailed analysis is still that in Alfred Kinsey's reports on sexual behaviour
in the 1950s. Dr Kinsey asked 20,000 Americans about their sexual preferences.
Eight per cent of men and 3 per cent of women admitted to having had sexual
relations with animals; in rural areas, the proportion among men grew to 50 per
cent (although these were mostly teenagers with raging hormones and little
access to girls, who stopped when they reached their twenties).

  Today, however, new research is finally being done on the subject, partly
because - thanks to the Internet - new information is becoming available. The
proliferation of web sites and news groups devoted to every possible subject has
encouraged Zoophiles from around the world to "come out" and discuss their
sexual identity.

  This in turn is providing academics with material and leads for serious
research. Andrea Beetz, for example, a Ph.D. student at the University of
Erlangen, Germany, is undertaking an exploitative study of Zoophiles to discover
if there are any patterns in their development and background. This includes
tests to see if they are introvert or extrovert or display signs of aggression.
She is compiling the results from around 150 interviews and questionnaires given
to Zoophiles worldwide. Clearly, some of these may be fantasists; but Beetz says
that she is being rigorous in cross-checking all the evidence she is given, as
well as meeting her subjects in person.

  "I want to see whether 'zoos' are different from the average person. The
prejudices that most people have are that they are very violent and dangerous."
Psychiatric studies have previously classified Zoophiles with sex offenders such
as the serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, who had sexual experiences
with animals in his childhood. Beetz wondered if this was true : "I set out to
see if they were strange - or different because they did not have access to
human partners."

  So far, her interviewees have displayed levels of average to above average IQ.
All but four are men (although this may reflect the fact that women are less
likely to use the Internet - or simply less likely to "come out"). Their tastes
cover most species of animal - fantasies involving dolphins and big cats are
common - but their relationships are most commonly with horses and dogs, whose
sexual organs are relatively compatible with humans' in terms of size and whose
domestication makes them both available and relatively likely to reciprocate
sexual advances.

  Many of Beetz's subjects have university degrees or work in information
technology; some own companies or work in libraries or schools. A few have jobs
which allow them to be close to animals - in zoos, for example. Many contribute
to animal welfare groups. "They do not always have sex with the animals," Ms
Beetz adds. "They just like to care about them."

  This leads to the contentious issue of whether Zoophilia is about "love" - or
just about sex. "Zoophilia is the phenomenon of humans having an emotional
and/or sexual attraction to an animal," says Dr. Hani Miletski, a Washington DC
sex therapist who wrote her doctoral thesis on the subject and is now finishing
a book about it. According to Dr. Miletski, Zoophiles do not necessarily have to
live with or have sex with an animal. They love animals and often care for them
as others would a child or a partner. Sex is an option, but not the sine qua non
of Zoophilia.

  Most of the Zoophiles I have spoken to - in Britain, the USA and Europe - seem
to share this view. "The best part is when she falls asleep in your lap or licks
your face," says Ed James, a New York Zoophile, of his dog. "I have sexual
contact with my dog because it makes her happy, and it makes me happy to make
her happy "

  But Martin Daily of the RSPCA scorns such thinking. "Anyone who has sex with
an animal whether they think they are in a loving relationship or not, is
abusing that animal," he says. "It is a premeditated form of abuse."

  Daily and Barry Fryer help run the Special Operations Unit (SOU), a branch of
the RSPCA whose duties include investigating the worst excesses of bestiality
The SOU - in common with the Humane Society in the US - categories all sexual
liaisons with animals as abuse - and considers Zoophilia to be inseparable from
bestiality "Because they have no regard for the animal," says Fryer, "I would
put them in the same category as dog fighters."

  The SOU encounters all sorts of abuse. In 1994 it assisted in the arrest of a
man who had sex with a Staffordshire bull terrier; in 1996, another man was
charged with indecent abuse of a pony But it often finds its hands tied when
attempting to prosecute Bestialist. To gain a conviction, the SOU must produce
evidence from a vet that the animal has suffered, and be able to prove
penetration of the animal, either by a penis or a damaging implement.
(Bestiality in which the animal penetrates the human is not a crime in England
and Wales; Daily is keen that this should be changed.) Such evidence is hard to
find : the victims cannot speak, and forensic proof is difficult. As for other
evidence, the recent case of a youth in Gateshead who was caught by a security
camera having drunken sex with a horse is a rare exception. More typical is the
case of the man who was alleged to be in the habit of buying chickens from a
local market and then having sex with them in a variety of situations, notably
in the bath while being beaten by another person. The SOU's attempt to prosecute
him last year failed.

  The SOU also attempts to convict people for distributing obscene material
involving bestiality, and its experiences in this field confirm the impression
that there is growing interest in such pornography Animal sex movies are
particularly popular, many with a sadistic bent (eg, crushing small rodents for
the viewer's arousal).

  But the Zoophiles I spoke to were adamant that what they practice is quite
different from such violent attacks. "There are many cases of spousal abuse in
heterosexual relationships," says Ed James, who masturbates his female dog. "But
it is downright offensive to suggest that all heterosexual relationships are
like that."

  Andrew Bukowski, a Zoophile from Florida who owns two dogs, Kayzee and Scamps,
is equally dismissive of Bestialist who "say to hell with the animal, tie it up
and just have sex with it... more or less like rapists." And non-Zoophile
researchers such as the anthropologist Barbara Noske, who wrote about boys who
had sex with she-asses in Algeria - have made a distinction between "Bestiality"
and "inter species rape".

  Certainly the Zoophiles I spoke to were adamant that they were not rapists.
Brian, for example, believes that dogs dominate him. He is always the passive
partner in the relationship and has never penetrated a dog; it is usually Trey
who makes the first move, by rising on his hind legs to show his desire to
mount.

  Another Zoophile, a German schoolteacher called Kurt who "fence-hops" to have
sex with horses, insists that horses can make unmistakable sexual advances,
which include turning around, directing their rear end towards him and tilting
their tail to one side. Clearly, an animal cannot give verbal consent, but, as
Dr. Miletski points out, pet and animal owners can usually determine what their
animal does and does not want. "You caress your neighbour's cat in response to
obvious cues from the animal. The cat tells you it's OK by not running away or
by pushing its head against you, or by purring. When the cat has had enough, it
leaves. And if you try to continue caressing the cat, you are in big trouble."
According to Ed James, it is the same with sex. "If it appears as though the
animal is disinterested, I, like any responsible and loving Zoophile, would
immediately stop."

  Conversely, Beetz points out, many dogs are patently over-sexed by our
standards, and male dogs in particular enjoy rubbing themselves against
strangers' legs. Beetz adds that many "ordinary" pet-owners choose to interfere
violently in their animals' sexual existence by neutering them : a denial of
sexuality which is - at least arguably - less morally justifiable than giving
the animal sexual pleasure. (Also, of course, we eat animals, cull them, hunt
them, leave them alone in the house all day and put them on leashes...)

  Dr. Miletski confirms that such sexual pleasure is real from the animal's
point of view "An animal can be pleasured by a sex act with a human because the
animal does not care, as far as we know, who it has sex with," she says. "An
animal can orgasm through its sexual relations with a person." Which leaves us
with the question : can "responsible and loving" Zoophiles exist ? And, if so,
should society tolerate them ?

 Simon Andreae, executive producer of "Animal Passions", does not believe that
Zoophilia is a question of choice, any more than homosexuality or
heterosexuality are questions of choice. "But I think it takes someone who is
scared of regular sexual relationships and, in the heterosexual domain, scared
of women, and who is somewhat removed from the world, to be able to slip over
that border. It's a mixture of isolation, fear, a different mental template,
some of which may be hot-wired from birth... Not that there's a gene for
fancying animals, but if you imagine someone born with a tendency to be an
outsider, it will contribute to a whole constellation of effects which determine
a Zoophile."

  If this is the case, argue the apologists, can Zoophiles really be blamed -
let alone criminalized -for the way they are ? Are their "relationships" really
so different from the highly intimate relationships that many non-Zoophiles have
with their pets ? Their sexuality may be obscure - bizarre, even - but it is not
harmful, immoral or antisocial. As Andrew Bukowsky-who defines a responsible
Zoophile as "anyone loves their animal enough to engage in good quality sex,
without hurting or abusing the dog" - puts it : "I'm just a human like everybody
else. But what I am and what I do society does not seem to think is normal."

  There are echoes in such arguments of the reasoning that used to be advanced
by the apostles of "peadophile liberation", and opponents of bestiality argue
that they are equally specious. The RSPCA insists that bestiality - with
whatever level of assumed consent - breaks an absolute moral code governing our
behaviour towards animals. Barry Fryer argues that although we breed and kill
animals for food, we must campaign for better welfare up until the point of
their death. Although we keep them in captivity, we must ensure they suffer no
psychological torture. "We want to see every stage of an animal's life treated
with respect and humanity," he says.

  He and his colleagues do not accept that this happens in "loving" zoophilic
relationships. The absolute devotion displayed by animals in such relationships
might just as well be interpreted not as love, but as a loyalty or dependence
based on the need for food, affection and protection. "They are abusing the fact
that human beings have a power over animals," says Martin Daily. He claims that
animals cannot control their actions and are not aware of their implications
within the realm of human experience. "If you try and get a dog to have sex with
a woman, the dog will, because it is a natural biological function. The dog
doesn't see anything wrong in what it is doing. We know better," he argues.

  Not everyone who believes that animals should be protected from Zoophiles is
entirely unsympathetic to them. Nicky Radcliffe of the US Humane Society, for
example, believes that Zoophiles need therapy rather than punishment. (Nine
years ago, in her Maryland catchment area, she rescued a Bestialist from a
lengthy criminal sentence and placed him on a course of therapy, similar to the
12-step addiction program for alcoholics; as far as she is aware, he now no
longer has sexual relations with animals.) Martin Daily remarks that he would
rather see Zoophiles spending the contributions they send to animal welfare
groups on psychiatric treatment for themselves.

  If Zoophiles can be said to have anything in common, it is perhaps that they
find relationships with animals less forbidding, or less frightening, than
equivalent relationships with humans.

  The unequivocal love a dog shows a Hunan is rare in a balanced heterosexual or
homosexual relationship. Does this mean that animals make easier and more
willing partners ? "Zoophiles do not have to engage in courtship," says Andrea
Beetz, "to invite a partner out on dates or to the cinema and still not know
whether or not it will work." Animals are consistent and sincere in their
affection and are not tainted by human prejudice or societal expectations. "They
show love very openly," continues Beetz. "It doesn't matter if you are poor, do
not have a house or are unsuccessful."

  This takes the irregularity out of love, some would say the fun of
uncertainty, and replaces it with emotional security. Beetz has never come
across a case of an animal falling out of love with a human. In other words,
this is the easy option : anyone who does not want the responsibility of coming
to terms with the complexity of human emotions will find it simpler to engage in
a relationship with a dumb and submissive creature.

  Brian - Trey's owner - confirms the picture of the Zoophile as a pitiable
rather than contemptible person. His current "relationship", he says, is not
perfect, and he is longing for a human companion. "At times I feel lonely I
would like a friend or a partner, someone to share my life with. As the years
have gone on, even though I had friends and part-time dog partners, I felt the
need for human companionship. In some ways I would have liked to have had a
family. But there would have been serious problems." He says that living with
another Zoophile would be the best compromise.

  Among other things, he regrets the fact that, in past relationships, the dogs
he had sex with were other peoples', which meant that he was never in a position
to say good-bye. "That's the worst thing," he adds, "the short life span."

  But he still believes that Zoophilia has its compensations. There are many
things about humans - such as hypocrisy, deceit and ignorance - that irritate
him, he says : "I don't think dogs do that, dogs aren't like that. Dogs are very
direct with their feelings. They're good judges of character, and they're not
easily fooled. You're not easily fooled are you, Trey ?" The dog barks at the
sound of his name. "You always know where the food is."

Names of Zoophile's in this article have been changed.