The lust that dare not speak its name

There are few things more disturbing for many people than human-animal sex. I can still recall the shocked face of a woman in the university cafeteria after a paper on zoophilia at the Minding Animals conference in Utrecht in 2012

I asked her if she was all right. "Well, I wasn't expecting to hear that," she said, obviously distressed. "I thought zoophilia was about – zoos."

Zoophilia is a term used to describe human-animal sexual behavior, and also includes feelings or erotic sexual attachment humans may have to animals. Certainly the people who took to the streets in Berlin last week to protest as Germany tightened its laws against having sex with animals understood what the word meant.

The protestors gathered at Potsdamer Platz to make their feelings known. zoophiles argue that their relations with animals are consensual. According to advocacy group ZETA (Zoophiles Engaging for Tolerance and Enlightenment) animals are capable of expressing whether or not they desire sex.

The all-male group was galvanized into action following moves by the German parliament to make sex with animals a criminal offence. On 1 February, the upper house, the Bundestrat, voted to criminalize "using an animal for personal sexual activities" and to punish offenders with fines up to $34,000. (New York Times 1 Feb)

Michael Kiok, chairman of ZETA maintained: "We see animals as partners and not as a means of gratification. We don't force them to do anything. Animals are much easier to understand than women."

The reaction online in The Local – Germany's newspaper in English, reflected the bewilderment and anger of the woman I met in Utrecht. "Human race, lost cause", "I will never be able to watch Komissar Rex the same way again...", "Are dogs, goats, sheep or whatever really consenting partners and show sexual pleasure? I think not. It is rape, pure and simple."

Not according to philosopher Peter Singer. In his 2001 paper Heavy Petting he argues that instances of sex across the species barrier are so frequent "it ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human beings." Singer's views, especially on disability, distress many.

He was at the Minding Animals conference and his panel appearances evoked a heated – and divided - response in the academic and activist audience.

Danish author Peter Høeg's controversial 1996 novel The Woman And The Ape dealt with zoophilia, and didn't shy away from the intimate moments of inter-species lust. One character observes: "People are forming closer attachments to animals than ever before. Dogs and cats sleep in people's beds, get kissed on the mouth, stroked between the legs. …and deep within human beings, in their minds, on the fringes of their consciences, their outlook on life, their angst and passion, animals abound." (224)

In my involvement in animal studies groups as part of my academic research, zoophilia and bestiality are still not widely discussed. While medical experimentation on animals, the legal rights of animals and the human and animal relationship are examined in depth the lust that dare not speak its name is still in the closet.

In fact, out of more than 400 papers at the Minding Animals conference, there were only two that dealt with zoophilia.

Judith Adams, from the University of Southampton, presented a paper on "Human-animal sex and the role of internet pornography". She said this was an under researched area, and provided the terminology of zoophilia and bestiality; the former being an emphatic attachment to an animal that may cause a human to prefer a non human partner. The latter is animal sexual abuse.

In a paper she co-authored entitled "Zoophilia: the role of maternal unresolved attachment and infant dissociation in adult human-animal sexual interactions"

Adams said it may be argued that a distinction should be made between Bestiality as a practice which is exhibited by humans towards animals and that zoophilia as a preference or an experience which humans feel toward animals. "Not everyone who engages in bestiality is a zoophile and not everyone who identifies with or would be classified as a zoophile has sexual interaction with animals."

History shows humans have always had a great fascination for imaginary creatures that transgress supposed species boundaries. Greek and Roman mythology are rich in bestial themes, such as Leda and the Swan, and it was the Romans who invented the rape of women by animals for the amusement of the audience at the Coliseum.

This is detailed in Bestiality and Zoophilia: Sexual Relations with Animals (edited by Anthony L. Podberscek, Andrea M. Beetz). Published in 2005, the book is a special issue of Anthrozoös, the journal of the International Society for Anthrozoology -- a multi-disciplinary journal of the interactions of people and animals.

The editors called for a critical discussion on the phenomenon of sexual contact with animals, arguing that although bestiality and zoophilia have occurred throughout history, and that that bestiality has been an integral part of human life throughout history and in every culture, only since the mid-1990s has it received serious attention.

The book charts human-animal liaisons. In the Middle Ages, sexual intercourse with animals was thought to have been healthy and a cure for many diseases. As early Christian legislation appeared, prohibitions against bestiality emerged. There was fear of half-human births, and by 1638 Denmark passed a law making bestiality punishable by burning.

But nothing has stopped people engaging in zoophilia, nor artists and writers speculating on the narratives of such indulgences. In The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, the erotic ukiyo-e woodcut by Japanese artist Hokusai, an octopus pleasures a woman.

In the 1982 erotic horror fantasy Cat People, Irena Gallier (Nastassja Kinski) transforms into a big cat when she has sex, which only fuels her lover's desire.

In the 2009 film Splice, the human-animal monster of biotechnology Dren (Delphine Chanéac) has consensual sex with her more than willing social father, pinning him down with her human torso and animal hooves; hybrid initiated zoophilia. However, Dren changes gender at the end of the movie, raping and impregnating his/her biological mother. In this age of genetic modification via biotechnology, do we need to come up with a name for this form of animal-human on human sexual abuse, or will Bestiality suffice?