Bestiality is Wrong and Degrading, a Response to Jacob Appel
By Wesley J. Smith
Apparently every aberrant behavior is to be normalized, including sex with animals: First it was Peter Singer claiming that bestiality was just two animals rubbing body parts. Then a movie was released sympathetic to the cause. Now, bioethicist Jacob M. Appel, who has called for allowing assisted suicide for the mentally ill and mandatory eugenic genetic screening, also defends bestiality--or perhaps better stated, opposes its legal prohibition--claiming that it might not be abuse, and indeed, "may well be neutral or even pleasurable for the animals."
I have publicly opposed bestiality as a matter of defending human exceptionalism, an issue to which Appel takes specific exception without mentioning me by name. From his column:
Opponents of bestiality often describe themselves as advocates of "human exceptionalism" and express the belief that intercourse with animals debases the dignity of human beings by blurring the lines between people and animals.? (They fail to explain why sex is unique in this manner--why playing Frisbee with a dog, or eating a corned beef sandwich, does not also blur such boundaries). [Me: Surely Appel understands the profound symbolic and intimacy differences between playing frisbee with a dog and having sexual intercourse with her (or him).]
Of course, nobody is suggesting that these critics be forced to sleep with animals, anymore than we would force vegetarians to eat lamb. However, the burden should be placed upon the prohibitionists to explain why a small minority of individuals with non-mainstream sexual interests pose a threat to our overall societal welfare. I leave open the question of how many zoophiles actually live in the United States: The research of sexologists such as Kinsey, as well as a brief survey of the Internet, suggest a considerable number. Needless to say, public animosity--and criminal statutes--likely keep them in the shadows.
Gosh, in the shadows! How cruel.
Sarcasm aside, my one serious foray into this "field," came in the Weekly Standard, in response to objections to legislation in Washington to outlawing bestiality filed in the wake of a man being killed whilst having sex with a horse. If you read the whole thing, I criticized Peter Singer's okaying bestiality and did indeed posit that the real reason for outlawing the practice--beyond the real issue of "abuse" and the surreal concern that "animals can't consent"--is that sex with animals unacceptably undermines human exceptionalism. Here's my conclusion in that regard:
The great philosophical question of the 21st Century is going to be whether we will knock humans off the pedestal of moral exceptionalism and instead define ourselves as just another animal in the forest. The stakes of the coming debate couldn't be more important: It is our exalted moral status that both bestows special rights upon us and imposes unique and solemn moral responsibilities--including the human duty not to abuse animals.
Nothing would more graphically demonstrate our unexceptionalism than countenancing human/animal sex. Thus, when [Washington State Senator Pam]Roach's [anti-bestiality] legislation passes, the law's preamble should explicitly state that one of the reasons bestiality is condemned through law is that such degrading conduct unacceptably subverts standards of basic human dignity and is an affront to humankind's inestimable importance and intrinsic moral worth.
Appel, quoting Brandeis, says outlawing bestiality violates the "right to be left alone." I say permitting it promotes social anarchy, moral disintegration, and a view of humans that is inherently degrading, thereby harming the common good.
What say you?
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Don't really have an opinion on bestiality, but this is one of the most arrogant things I have ever read. This guy really believes that something must be criminalized if it's "an affront to humankind's inestimable importance and intrinsic moral worth"?
I have never seen any evidence that humans are important to the earth, or any other species that we have not severely tampered with (without consent, please note). Anyone who argues that humans have "intrinsic moral worth" is completely deluded about human nature. Or does Mr. Smith believe that anyone who behaves in immoral ways is no longer a human?
This same arrogance is used as an excuse to destroy humans.
kind of like everyone who uncritically accepts the truthiness of Gen. 1.
God creates Man
Man creates God
Man tells Man that God tells Man that Man is a special snowflake of special unique specialness, alone and carrying the torch of His infinite benificence--and authoritarian, meddling moralizing-- out into the wild reaches of the earth.
Man decides it's immoral to fuck anything but chicks, and even then you oughtn't to enjoy it, since it feels good, which makes it a sin.
The terms are confusing because they rest on an a priori assumption that human beings are somehow special. Which is based on a very specific, very western religious doctrine. Which is a doctrine that has justified a lot of acts a good deal worse that taking a horse cock up the poop chute.
So piss off with your pedantic, retrenched tautologies.If you can't even make it past the OT to formulate your terms I'm not buying.
If you don't want to do it, fine. Why worry so much about someone else doing it? That says something about the people who worry.
The idea of putting someone in jail for five years on a felony charge is utterly cruel compared to the actual harm done, and the harm is only "proven" by resorting to largely imaginary entities that aren't worth punishing anyone for. Perhaps the animal rights activists who are pushing for this kind of law simply want to be cruel to yet another segment of humanity. They would do anything that it takes to hurt the human race. Talk about your "degradation" and your affronts to "human exceptionalism", take a good hard look at animal rights activists and their dishonest and terrorist tactics. The person pushing for the Florida law is an animal rights activist and generally they disobey laws that they don't like, like laws against setting personal property on fire. Her reputation should be linked with theirs.
Punishing people for "degrading" acts that are not otherwise harmful, or for violating the "human exceptionalism" rule actually takes the strength out of the concepts and shows them to be weak. These are ideals that should not be sold by threats of punishment. Whoever has to punish an affront to those ideals has no idea what they are about anyway.
There is a little bit of truth to your mostly wrong argument. We would have a pretty bad society if we treated humans like we do animals. I mean we kill wildlife by the thousands, euthinize dogs and cats by the millions, and slaughter farm animals by the billions.
But you're proposing the reverse of what should happen. I would expect that all zoophiles would want their animal lovers to be treated with as much respect as if they were a human partner, not the other way around.
So instead of claiming that humans would be brought down to the animals, maybe you should consider encouraging society to have more respect for the life of other animals. Maybe then we would have more regard for them and stop slaughtering wolves from helicopters, clubbing baby seals, boiling chickens alive and cutting their beaks off with a hot knife, and force breeding dogs and cats at puppy mills.
For those of you who see nothing wrong with such an act, I would sure like to know how you can call this "consensual" when the animal in question isn't even an adult human being.
Please expand a little on your "Libertarian view" comment. Do you maintain that libertarians believe that animals are entitled to the same rights as humans? You seem to be arguing that because the animal cannot consent (in your opinion, I don't agree or disagree as I'm not an expert) it is therefore "wrong" by the libertarian view to have sex with the animal. Would that not therefore also mean that it's "wrong" to eat animals or otherwise abuse them without their consent?
Sounds to me like you're implying that Libertarianism insists on vegetarianism and opposes a large part of scientific research... and that's just ridiculous.
Since when are "adult human beings" the only species that has sex? How is it you think they do it in the wild? Is it just a coincidence that they bump into each other and make babies?
If you don't think animals can communicate, then you are not fit to have an animal companion. If not, what makes you think that say a dog can express his desire to go on a walk, to go to the bathroom, to get a belly rub, to tell other dogs to back off or that he wants to play.... yet when it suddenly comes to sex, they loose all capacity to communicate, express, think, consent or anything else you want to suddenly deny them when it comes to this action.
What exactly do you call it when a dog humps someones leg? Did the human just rape the dog?
This whole "human exceptionalism" is understandable but how "rubbing body parts" with an animal degrades it is not.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that what makes humans different is either mental or spiritual depending on whether you use scientific or philosophical terminology. Whichever you choose, it is an immaterial difference and not influenced by outside physical actions.
It can't be the simple proximity of an animal. We've done that for lots of reasons since before history. Some of them are even welcome in our homes.
And the whole concept of equality is an obvious joke. Think not? Try to outrun a horse or hide from a dog. Equating apples and oranges is fallacious from either viewpoint.
So please tell me why it makes such a difference exactly where you pet the animal.
Bernard
"So please tell me why it makes such a difference exactly WHERE you pet the animal." (emphasis mine)
If I have to explain it to you, then you shouldn't be on this thread!