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The lust that dare not speak its name

By Evelyn Tsitas - posted Tuesday, 5 February 2013


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."

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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.

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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?

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About the Author

Dr Evelyn Tsitas works at RMIT University and has an extensive background in journalism (10 years at the Herald Sun) and communications. As well as crime fiction and horror, she writes about media, popular culture, parenting and Gothic horror and the arts and society in general. She likes to take her academic research to the mass media and to provoke debate.

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