Sexual Offences Bill poll 2

[lovingboth]

Although they're no longer going to call it bestiality, the law on 'intercourse with an animal' is going to be confirmed.

What is covered includes penis in animal's vagina or anus and animal's penis in human's vagina or anus. Oral sex with an animal will remain as legal as it is now (ie covered, where appropriate, by the cruelty against animals legislation).

[Poll #119968]

Trivia note - in the 1980s, someone called unsuccessfully for one of the better sex education books to be banned because it pointed out in its section on the law that oral sex with an animal wasn't covered by the bestiality legislation. The comment was withdrawn from later editions of the book though.

Comments

[adjectivegail]

i am curious as to how heteronormative thinks one could gain consent from an animal in order to have oral sex with it...?

Animals and consent

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

One frequently heard argument is that if the animal does not kick/bite/make other attempt to stop you this is de facto consent. I am not convinced. You also hear people saying that as they eat animals without their consent, surely having sex with them without consent does not matter much.

Re: Animals and consent

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I seem to agree with what "people" say in both cases here.

Pavlos

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

And just to make sure, the Animal Health and Welfare strategy being currently drafted has a mention of the subject. Trying to come up with language that says animal-human sex is bad but artificially inseminating an animal is OK proved quite tricky I understand.

Somehow this came up in conversation during the course I last went on, and I gave up explaining and suggested they ask someone from the Home Office about it. So a poor guy wandered in with a well-earned pint and was asked "What's the Home Office's opinion of bestiality" before he could even sit down. All he could say was "I'm pretty sure we're against it"! The conversation then managed to stay at a similar level for hours, and that was before the x-rated MTV came on...

[lovingboth]

It doesn't apply to this clause, but in general, this bill says something is 'sexual' if a reasonable person would consider it might be sexual and then consider that it is sexual because of its nature, its circumstances or the purpose of any person in relation to it.

The example they give - I can't remember offhand if it's in the notes or a minister's speech - is a doctor doing an intimate examination. If a purpose of the doctor is to get off on doing it, it's sexual, not medical.

They're going to start arguing on just how anyone could prove that though.

Pointless or mis-classified legislation

[pavlos.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine why anyone would care to legislate anything about bestiality in the first place. If the legislator assumes that

A. Animals have rights that should be respected and,
B. Animals have the same feeling towards their sexual self-determination as people

Then I would say the legislator is at least acting very atypically on this subject compared to other subjects involving animals.

I can see some reason to legislate against bestiality under "Treatment of animals" laws. Indeed the sex might sometimes annoy the animals. I guess it would rank low in the list of the animals' problems though, well past being eaten, disposessed of habitat, tamed, captured, run over, hunted, neglected, etc. Also (subtle point) humans already enjoy near-total control over the animals' lives, so I think anyone attempting sex with animals is more likely looking for pleasure than domnination.

Or I could see it under labour laws: Though shall not produce bestiality porn. You are trying to degrade the human actors by exploiting them to do dirty (as in stinking, muddy, hairy) sex acts.

What I don't think is appropriate is including bestiality under sex legislation, which is intended to regulate the intimate behaviour of humans towards one-another.

Pavlos