My prediction: You'll not be getting anything out of it. Here's a challenge: Try to get people to read any actual research like http://www.scribd.com/doc/239639832/23/Bestiality-and-the-Art. Let us know how many are willing to even acknowledge its existence.

What I'd expect

• Pedophilia, because everyone knows developing human children are exactly like adult and sexually mature dogs psychologically and also everyone who has sex with adult nonhuman animals also wants to have sex with human children, because that's exactly how it works
• They can't consent, but I won't explain what I think consent is nor why my idea applies to dogs nor why dogs can have sex with each other without this consent other than weaseling out with explaining it away with words like "equal interaction". Also, animals can't say "no", also animals have to be trained from the beginning because they wouldn't let a human have sex with them and bite them, also they only hold still to please their owner, also they need to be tied down because they won't hold still. No ad hoc explanation is too contradictory to bring up. Also animals don't derive pleasure from sex, they only mate for reproduction and also they can not possibly want sex with humans, because reasons.
• "Many" are injured or even killed, without having any basis to show for that assertion
• "Animal brothels" and "animal sex tourism", again without having to show any basis for it
• Diseases transmitted to the human, without any data that the situation is significantly worse than the diseases that are transmitted without sex between animals and humans or STDs that are transmitted between humans. Also penile cancer, while neglecting to mention that this study seems to be criticized quite a bit.
• Studies that correlate sex with animals with sexual assaults on humans, but neglecting to mention that these studies only look at sexual offenders in the first place. You can usually read the discussion/limitations part of these studies (when they are well done) and quote directly from the study why it doesn't say what people think it says.

That's it off the top of my head.

Honestly, I am not sure about you. Perhaps it's the paranoia I have nurtured over long years of receiving zero support and tolerance from anyone not being a zoophile. But you seem a teeny-teeny-tiny bit odd to me, personally, can't help it. I remember your post about you being there for anyone to talk. I surmise some people might like the offer. I myself was rather left with the impression like you thought we constantly hang around in essentially self-help groups - and that we need any help i.e. that we are by implication defective or disadvantaged so badly - or something like that. Even if, it had a bit of a 'normal' person bursting into an AA meeting and starting to shake everyone's hands with "I understand, I do understand - so much hug"

Or you like the devil's advocate position.

Or you are genuinely a staunch equality for everyone supporter.

Which of it it is, I still haven't decided and probably I don't care in all reality - Yet I needed to say that to answer all your posts I read but never commented to ever at once.

If you are still with me at this point, why not give the link to the debate? I might be interested to see how it goes so far and promise I am not going to sign up to it - in particular since I have ran through every permutation of every possible topic and debate on it already. Plus you said you've done your research, so why ask for further support? You should be fine, and don't expect divine whispering from me as the debate goes on.

Alas, while I am not going to rehash these lists of arguments available on the web (just google) or in certain topical forums, I give you this tip: Do NOT let them have the default 'right' position just so. They have to justify their position just as much as you have to justify yours. Their position is NOT 'd'uh, course it is the right one'.

They will come automatically from the view that the way the world is NOW, at their place of HOME, is the way everything is correct, and should be, and is the best, and the natural way of all things (and it can only decline from there). That is their starting and cling-to point. But if you know what a paradigma is, and you can switch in between, analyze and compare them, then you are so much above them in their little local self-vapor clouds. Then you are discussing within all of ethics, not just one singular set of morals. They will simply build justifications after the fact of their small, local and today view (although it's not formulated for them like this) all the time, desperately trying to maintain it. Because everyone wants to be normal, right, with the crowd around them, and prefers the way things are right now.

They will typically overgeneralize while doing this (the fact that animal sex splits into being bottom/top or gay/hetero or the different species and those implications and their quirks for example is just lump by them in to one and the same 'animal sex' - hilarious), or build straw mans, slippery slopes and similar easily spotted fallacies in debating (as you said, ad hominem attacks are the choice when they don't manage to hold on to their position after two to three exchanges).

Pointing all that out when it happens will de-lodge their argument structure already. Force them to give good reasons and factual bases, logically consistent iterations to build their position, not just 'it's unnatural' (so many things humans do are unnatural - flying helicopters for example). When they quote the bible, quote other bullshit from the bible; When they say it is a health problem, ask why humans can have human sex, because that is much more infective, or why millions of people are allowed to have dogs or cats (key: toxoplasmosis) and can snuggle them every night, then. Ask why we can cut a cows head off and everyone thinks that is normal (murder), but sex (allegedly rape) is so bad. Think the implications of their statements through, usually there is some absurd end in them. etc pp pp. When they say it's the law for example, what does the debater on the higher level see? Cause it says so, because we wrote it like that. That can't make it objectively right, or was stipulating that a black man has 3/5 the vote of a white man objectively right? (see the bias we have for how things are now? Nowadays everyone 'd'uh' see's that this was wrong...)

Not that anyone really is going to care, but good luck trying. God bless and good bye.

Gotta second the why are you doing this, but whatever.

You might wanna consider something. A lot of the time when zoos do this they actually make things worse the way they handle it, or even attempting. You debate this, with a perfect argument essentially winning, there's a good chance you still lost.

Depending on the crowd, with a zoo normally there's a fair chance you lost by default because lots of people will absorb the mental image of a dogfucker defending himself over any content and take that as some sick fuck saying anything to rationalize his behavior. A few will take the debate to heart. Thankfully, you don't have that exact problem (unless you're accused of being one). Worth pointing out.

The problem you do share is coming off as an abrasive asshole. This matters. Zoos are at a disadvantage and your 'opponents' are often assholes so instinct is to fight fire with fire, and it doesn't help zoos walk into these heated up in the first place. I'm here to tell you, high school is over (I hope) and telling people "no you fuck off" doesn't work. All you do is make yourself a bigger enemy, turn people off and draw yourself into a corner. Because it's polarizing. They can do it, but you can't. You don't reach people with an us vs them mentality. You need the exact opposite. For one it takes being the better man and transcending the pettiness. I know this from years of being an asshole when I feel like it.

[I'm not a fan of this stuff, but since you're not a zoo it's less of a deal. Let's call it harm reduction]

I've noticed some of the generally used anti-zoo arguments (mostly emotional appeals and/or exaggerations of the consequences) supplied by zoozooz. Here are some of the more philosophical objections, which tie into the common ones but also deserve their own mention in case someone educated about them decides to argue with you.

• The phenomenological argument. Basically, the way a nonhuman animal experiences the world is so fundamentally different from the human experience that any attempt to ascribe humanlike motivations to them(consent in particular) is destined to fail. My response would be that any standard which left animal emotions completely unknowable would also do the same for every other person, and that the two choices here are to give up on ever knowing another living creature's inner world, or to pragmatically do the best you can in both cases, in which case we may be able to learn enough about animals to judge their emotions through their behaviors.

• Human exceptionalism. This focuses on bestiality as a dehumanizing and degrading experience, effectively fraternizing with lesser creatures in a manner which makes one at best pathetic and at worst an inhuman monster. To counter this, you might attack the cultural sources of this attitude (generally Western religious traditions), and point out that attempts to strictly rank the animal kingdom in a hierarchy, as though animals are worse in all ways, is a gross oversimplification.

• The "animal rights" argument. This is more of a response to a particularly philosophically consistent objection which might arise in the conversation. At some point (hopefully not, because it's a weak argument), you might say that we have no problem, as a society, doing other things with animals, including keeping in our homes, training them, harvesting them for foodstuffs and clothing, and in many cases slaughtering them. Many people will ignore this point, but some might say that these behaviors are wrong too, and that society needs to in effect completely disassociate itself from animals. To this, I might say that it would be extremely cruel to the animals to, for instance, set all livestock free, since they are in no way prepared for the harshness of life outside captivity, and that there are some human-animal interactions which are mutually beneficial, of which sexual relationships are often one.

In addition, here is a positive argument for your side. I know you didn't ask for it, but I figure some material in favor of your position would be good to have. It will be in a syllogistic format.

• Premise 1: Sexual activities in mammals, when desired by both parties, are pleasurable and contribute to social bonding. (For evidence, look at the biological mechanisms behind sex and sexual desire)
• Premise 2: Mammals communicate sexual desire through the use of body language and other nonverbal cues (really any nature documentary will tell you this)
• Premise 3: Human beings are capable of recognizing these nonverbal cues and, to some extent, emulating them, through the use of their intellects and paying attention to these signals (if not, we wouldn't be able to identify them at all).
• Premise 4: Some mammals use these nonverbal cues towards human beings (Plenty of anecdotes and videos, particularly dogs humping legs while erect).
• Theorem 1: Human beings can recognize nonverbal cues of some mammals as communications of sexual desire toward them (from premises 2, 3, and 4).
• Premise 5: Some human beings experience sexual desire towards some nonhuman mammals (See any zoo research, most notably Miletski and Earls-LaLumiere)
• Premise 6: There is some overlap between humans who feel sexual desire towards animals and humans towards whom the affections of nonhuman animals are felt (This is the most controversial premise, but very likely considering how large both groups are and the fact that the human and animal likely influence each other's feelings towards themselves)
• Theorem 2: Sexual activities between some humans and some nonhuman animals are desired by both parties, and in these cases are therefore pleasurable and contribute to social bonding (from theorem 1, and premises 1 and 6).

I think this should be enough to establish this as acceptable in private.

So far that link is not a bad read after all, in fact. I would have expected more angry replies - so that is good for that community in general to be so collected.

Curious to see if someone manages to construct a novel reason - although nowadays I rarely get surprised in that regard.

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