We Germans usually are said to be impolite, so I will answer accordingly to this:

It´s about dicks. Size, girth and so on...the common woman isn´t intrigued with oversized penises and does not derive pleasure from getting impaled by a horse dick or stretched ´til it hurts by dog knots. Only a few women derive pleasure from it, this is where masochism begins to play a certain role IMO.

The internet: a place where women are men, men are kids and kids are police officers^^

Let´s take a look onto BF´s survey: although many users appear to be women ( see above ^^), the tremenduously overwhelming majority defines themselves as homo- or bisexual men, roughly 85 percent of the participants. So it´s pretty safe to say that the animal penis plays an important role, being a lesbian zoo (exclusive female with female animals won´t work out so well, I assume) is a real rarity AFAIK. Another ten percent identify as straight zoos. Men are said to be more intrigued by bodily features like boobs, ass or , as a gay zoo, cock and balls than women, so I guess it´s kinda natural that men, additionally sexually more adventurous than women, are the major "population"; animals bluntly show off what they have and that´s what male sexuality prefers. With men, it´s more of a "sight" thing whereas with women, it´s more of a "mood" thing, I guess.

Gender roles: It depends on how much the proband is involved with humans as gender roles are irrelevant to animals. Genders are human categories and only important in a human relationship or to humans. Animals don´t care. According to that, there are literally no gender roles that don´t exist. You can witness anything, from straight guys to transexual crossdressers, ...you name it, you´ll find it...guaranteed.But, as I said, this is entirely a human thing. What I feel about it? Well, to me, this gender crap sometimes is repulsive and I don´t understand what these people are doing and what exactly gives them pleasure in doing it. For me, it´s just silly human games, but that´s entirely my own opinion; others might consider it more important than me.

I myself don´t identify as a human and thus am just what I am. There´s one thing I have experienced over the years: Because I don´t show "normal" male behavior, females feel "safe" around me. I don´t check out their boobs, don´t imagine getting them into bed and I feel like they can sense this on a subconscious level. For me, it is beyond my possibilities to feel something sexual for humans and women, usually seen as prey on the normal man´s subconscious if the male is somehow attracted to the female, are comfortable with this small pause to the usual sexual "mating dance" they have to endure all day long when accompanied by normal males.Although sometimes I hear sentences like "I wish my friend/ husband would treat me with the same amount of love you have for your mare"...maybe a little bit of envy shines through here.;) The non-zoos seem to be happy when we distance us from them, as they don´t want to be associated to us "pervs" in any way. But I´ve experienced that some of my friends I came out to were interested in my orientation. One guy, studying psychology, is especially interested in me, he says he never had contact to "such a guy" before and wants to learn as much as possible about zoophilia. He even accompanied me when I went to the stables after coming out to him and was absolutely baffled when I gave my mare a nice and long french kiss we both enjoyed. After he had seen us two interacting with each other for one and a half hours, he explained that he is totally okay with me being a zoo.

BTW: Sure, women get creepy messages, but as an ex-user of BF, I think I can compete with the females. What weird personal messages I received over the years I was active in BF you wouldn´t believe....and I did not openly identify as female, but as male. ;)

There was a sexual fantasy survey late last year that showed 3% of women and 2.2% of men fantasised about sex with animals, so I don't think it's a lack of lady zoos, if anything there should be 50% more women than men. Creepy men on the internet sounds highly likely, not only because women have told me about such things putting them off various places, but I've encountered such men myself when I listed myself as "bi" on a dating website.

I've heard from a few female zoos I've talked to that online communities they tried to join were not very welcoming to them, and/or they received creepy messages. I only distributed the survey here and on a few forums, so if that's the case and female zoos are reluctant to join online communities because of that, I'd take that into consideration when looking at the survey results. However, I don't know for sure which communities or kinds of communities they were trying to get involved in. If it was BF, I'd say creepy messages are probably the norm there... There are also a few bestiality kink folks included in the survey, and that group seems to be mostly male. I'd like to think there are just as many female zoos are there are male zoos, they're just not as involved in online communities, but who knows.

In answer to your first question (though it is a bit uninformed), I'd say that most of the lack of females in zoo communities is due to the creep factor, both from people in those communities (which varies, obviously, depending on the group) and from social pressures in the larger culture (to join a community for people seen as fetishists is unnerving, to say the least). There may also be larger biological and/or psychological factors contributing, such as males generally being less choosy about mates (stereotypically, at least) or females worrying more about their reputations and offensiveness than males. What the mix is, I can't say, but the parts relating to bad behavior can be fixed, at least.

I don't know much about the larger zoo community, and can only speak from experience, but I think a difference between myself and other typical males is a desire to be nurturing and to function, for lack of a better word, as the "brain" of the relationship. A typical happy relationship in the Western world often involves a division of duties, with the man doing much of the concrete problem solving and the woman doing more of the social and emotional heavy lifting. In a zoo relationship, regardless of the genders of the participants, that's not really possible in the same way. Our partners can be emotional and expressive, but they can't really take a step back and evaluate their feelings and ours in the same way that we can. The relationship is, by necessity, one-sided in terms of who bears responsibility for making it work, for better or worse.

I think society holds men and women to different standards. Men are allowed to be sexually "deviant", while women are supposed to "act proper". Because of this I think less women venture into online zoophile communties.

First of all, while a male can boff a goat just fine, what female would really enjoy the 3 second poke from a male goat's wet willy? Sex just doesn't work well between women and many species. Women generally have to stick to dogs, and a dog's heat-seeking moisture missile can certainly scare a lot of less-than-obsessed people off.

I see a lot of women raising horses and I guarantee that while they may not identify as zoos, they love controlling a 24 inch horse cock, even if its being used on a mare. They live vicariously through their horses. I've known many many women who breed horses even while they have no room for the foals, no money to feed them, yadda yadda. So I don't know what to call this category. Vicarious zoos?

Then there's this interesting fact... I know plenty of zoos that are straight with humans (if at all in to humans) but 99% of these guys will go down with male and female animals. Most have a preference but zoos seem to always diddle both sexes of animals even if they don't consider themselves gay.

Another thing: I think people that speak about their animal in an overly emotional manner are going to turn out to be young 99% of the time. As you get older, bury many of these animals you had called your 'wife' or 'mate', and you get a little more jaded about the truths of life, you will find your behavior toward your animals changing. The need to label them with such terms, or consider a special one to be 'irreplaceable' fades once you discover that you did end up happy with their replacements and even your interests change over time. I've seen it go bad when a zoo is so focused on a particular animal that they're suicidal when it dies. But I mean, they only live a fraction of our lifespans so what do you expect is going to happen? Its easier the second time, easier the third time, but it does change you every time until the giddy "She's my wife!" type of statement seems a little silly.

And finally to make sure I stir the thread up a little, I'll say this: I've never met a zoo exclusive female. As far as I can tell, I've never encountered a woman that wanted to live alone and not be supported by a man. Boom, I said it. Women don't like to be alone in bed, sex aside. I'm willing to bet that whatever drives males to be zoophiles is a different mechanism in females since men and women use (normal) sex very differently in the first place. It might explain the lower number of females better than writing it off as them being scared off by horny-net-geeks.

Remember this is a no-flame-wars thread. Slap my ideas around if you want, but try to look smart when you do.

I've watched over the shoulder of 4 female zoos on relatively benign sites and I have never, not once gotten anything like that in a private message or even what I've seen in the open of a forum. I certainly wouldn't hang around people like that and having seen it when I was a new zoo it makes me much more careful about my friends.

I am sure, in 100% of the female zoos I know personally, that none of them remained on-line in the zoo community no matter how involved in other on-line (furry) communities they are.