submitted 2015-07-23 12:59:33 by furvert_tailEquine, large canid
furvert_tailEquine, large canid 2 points on 2015-07-23 13:00:53
I saw this in /r/philosophy and thought it interesting. Doesn't mention non-humans explicitly, but covers many relevant examples that are analogous to the usual arguments.
[deleted] 1 point on 2015-07-23 14:17:29
[deleted]
actuallynotazoophileok, I lied 2 points on 2015-07-23 14:56:36
Good article, unfortunately it never led up to the conclusion I hoped it would end with. I still have no idea what constitutes consent.
I'd love to know how many people who push a verbal 'yes' as the only type of consent have never actually had sex themselves. I've never got a yes from any of the girls I banged, but it was pretty bloody obvious what we both were going to do. If 'yes means yes' hasnt got a leg to stand on then why is it so bad if I then go and replace a human with a dog? The escalation form of consent is the same for both species.
myloverhasfurCanidae 1 point on 2015-07-23 16:52:24
After reading the article, it occurs to me that, while it might be fairly common between humans for sex to occur under false pretences, it would probably be significantly harder to communicate a false pretence to an animal. Any thoughts? The nearest experience I can think of have been times where I accidentally mentioned the word "walk" in the presence of my dog without, as he construed, actually intending to take him on a walk. It seems to me that, since animals understand actions more readily than words, it would be harder to lie to an animal than another human being.
furvert_tailEquine, large canid 1 point on 2015-07-23 17:52:45
An interesting thought, but I get the impression that when people accuse us of "just training them to do it", they are thinking of a sort of false pretence — that the action was under the pretence of, say, food. (Which I hope everyone would be giving them anyway, hence "false" pretence). I don't think I'm phrasing this well...
myloverhasfurCanidae 1 point on 2015-07-23 18:57:28
I think I see what you mean. I would hope that, since sex is supposed to be pleasurable to both parties, that one wouldn't need to offer food as an additional "reward" for their participation. I suppose it would be a sort of false pretence if the animal complied with the understanding that they would get a treat in return and you didn't reward them with such.
ursusem 3 points on 2015-07-23 19:56:47
It seems to me that the animal should want to do the sex- because he/she wants to do the sex (the sex should be the reward in the animal's mind). Not because what he/she REALLY wants is to get a food treat. If that is the case, why are we having sex with animals that don't absolutely love doing sex with us? This is where some of my doubts about bestiality come in to play.
myloverhasfurCanidae 2 points on 2015-07-23 20:24:30
I agree with you on that. Personally, part of the reason I would want to have sex with a dog is in order to pleasure them. However, I don't think that bribing the animal like that is quite the same sort of false pretence I originally asked about.
zoozooz 1 point on 2015-07-23 22:52:22
why are we having sex with animals that don't absolutely love doing sex with us?
What do you mean, "we"?
Sure, some people may do that, but that's not what we here want to do.
See the zeta principles:
Place the animal’s will and wellbeing ahead of one’s desires for sexual gratification.
The same way people usually don't like to have to "coerce" other people to have sex, "we" don't really like to coerce animals to sex either.
Or do we?
ursusem 0 points on 2015-07-23 23:55:54
I wouldn't want to coerce them.. but I can imagine people doing this. I'm saying that would not be very desirable you know. I guess nobody who has sex with animals coerces them in anyway (except for maybe bestialists). You just bend over and the animal hops on your back and starts fucking you. As someone who doesn't view animal porn and as someone who has never had nor attempted to have sexual intercourse with an animal I find it hard to believe that animals would do this on their own. You're going to tell me no training is ever involved? Give me a break.
myloverhasfurCanidae 1 point on 2015-07-24 00:05:40
You're going to tell me no training is ever involved? Give me a break.
I think the point isn't that no guiding is involved, but rather that the sex itself, rather than something else like food, should be the reward.
ursusem 1 point on 2015-07-24 00:57:28
Why would they need guiding? They're supposed to know what they're doing, right?
myloverhasfurCanidae 1 point on 2015-07-24 01:25:27
More or less, yes; but if you have, say, a dog who hasn't had sex before and hasn't been able to watch other dogs have sex either, they might need a little bit of help. A lot of it is instinctual, but part of it is also watching others (keep in mind, though, that I'm not speaking from experience; I haven't yet had the priviledge of owning intact dogs).
ursusem 1 point on 2015-07-24 01:37:21
Well yes, perhaps you are right about that...
actuallynotazoophileok, I lied 1 point on 2015-07-24 02:29:37
As someone who doesn't view animal porn and as someone who has never had nor attempted to have sexual intercourse with an animal I find it hard to believe that animals would do this on their own. You're going to tell me no training is ever involved? Give me a break.
er, wot?
ursusem 1 point on 2015-07-24 02:55:36
I just think this thing is weird (even though I like the idea of it)
furvert_tailEquine, large canid 1 point on 2015-07-24 09:41:32
Every so often, someone links to a video of a dog knocking over a fully-dressed human and humping them. Also, years ago, I heard a story in the paper of a guy walking his dog in a forest, the dog ran off and he heard a man cry out, he ran after the dog and found a human couple having sex and the dog was doing his best to join in.
While it's possible that all of these videos and stories come from closeted zoos, it seems unlikely.
Yearningmice 1 point on 2015-07-24 15:57:50
I'm not interested in dogs and not going into details I simply did not stifle my female dog's curiosity while I've masturbated and as a result have had interesting experience being a pretty much completely passive participate. The only training involved is the same I do for my wife, an "ow" when she nips me. Did she learn things? Yep. Did I train her? Nope. Didn't even guide her, simple made enough space and watched what she wanted to do.
No peanut butter, no coercion, no training, no reward... at least not in the training sense. I simply let things happen that society suppresses so much of the time. She would have gotten the same belly rubs and head pets without doing a damn thing so...
It always surprises me when folks who supposedly are so "attuned" to animals completely deny an animal's ability to explore, experience, learn. Ever watch your dog out of the back window when they are in the yard? They sniff, explore, play with toys, watch new things, listen to things and so forth.
The very thing you got to understand /u/ursusem is that animals are trained from a VERY early age to not be sexual at all. Even if they are, they get parts chopped off because of "behaviours" and guess what kinds of behaviours those are? It is distinctly possible your view of the asexuality of animals is simply the result of no experience with animals from birth.
Edit: The animal's birth, not yours. :)
ursusem 1 point on 2015-07-24 16:56:10
...I think it bugs me that I can't ask them what their opinion is on interspecies romance/ romantic relationships. I'm sure they can tell that we are human and not what they are... I wish I could know what they think of it. I wish I could know more about their thoughts. You can't know someone's specific thoughts just by looking at their behavior.
incognito-cognition 1 point on 2015-07-24 22:28:39
If she learns that something causes you pain (hopefully a negative stimulus for her), and modifies her behavior to cause you less pain, isn't that pretty much training her? :)
I think the "training" people talk about negatively is the coerscive act of withholding essentials or doling out punishment unless an animal does something he/she would ordinarily not want to do... but I wish people would be more clear about this.
ursusem 1 point on 2015-07-24 23:54:56
Perhaps by "training" they mean that the person uses some form of positive reinforcement to cause an animal to mount in the first place.. and then they train them to do the fucking then. Or they train them to present their backside and train them to tolerate the fucking. Again, I have no idea as to whether or not this kind of thing occurs. They may not punish the creatures but they may try to bribe with positive reinforcement until the animal "gets it right" until the animal understands what is expected of him/her. The animal is acting as some kind of glorified sex toy in this case. Again, I wish I could "talk" this kind of thing over with a non-human of my liking- so he can know what my intention is, where I hope the relationship will go, he can consider whether he wants to have that kind of a relationship with me, everything is out on the table plain as day. To be honest, animal autonomy doesn't feel like "real" autonomy to me somehow. Perhaps more of the human population feels like me in this way and it is difficult to explain what I mean by this. I think this whole situation would be better if only animals could chit-chat with us.
zoozooz 1 point on 2015-07-25 07:54:58
but they may try to bribe with positive reinforcement until the animal "gets it right"
Here is a conundrum for you: If an animal likes sex, isn't having sex positive reinforcement in itself?
animal autonomy doesn't feel like "real" autonomy to me somehow
Because there unfortunately are some people who use coercion?
There was this interview with someone from denmark where he said:
So how exactly do you go about having intercourse with your dog? He's male, right?
He started it himself when he was younger. I was getting a DVD from the machine, and that was all he needed. That's when he took me the first time. He's since learned when it's OK and when it's not, judging by mine and my wife's body language. The sex is like this: I'm naked and on all fours. If he wants to go, he'll jump up and take me. If not, he'll go get a toy, I'll put my clothes back on and we'll go into the garden and play normally with each other.
Is this not leaving the decision to the dog?
furvert_tailEquine, large canid 2 points on 2015-07-25 10:30:55
To be honest, animal autonomy doesn't feel like "real" autonomy to me somehow.
I empathise, but for me "humans" are just another animal. Human autonomy doesn't feel "real". We're too easy to manipulate, too easily forced into a false choice and it's too hard for most of us to think outside the framing of whatever question was placed before us.
I don't disagree, but at what point do we give an animal some credit, or should I assume I just train my wife for sex?
furvert_tailEquine, large canid 1 point on 2015-07-24 09:27:30
I think we agree.
It's made me realise something though; when I think about minds, at the level of neurones, I think in terms of positive and negative reinforcements — colloquially, "rewards" and "punishments". It's equally disturbing for me to think about sex as a reward and sex as a thing to be rewarded; reducing it to that level denies agency, to humans as well as non-humans because our minds are made of the same stuff.
myloverhasfurCanidae 1 point on 2015-07-24 13:02:55
Now that's an interesting thought. I'm not convinced myself that there isn't more to our minds than just neurons, but it's interesting nonetheless.
ursusem 1 point on 2015-07-23 18:16:23
I think the real reason why "non-consensual sex" aka rape is wrong is because of how it causes the victim to feel. I think the thing we don't like about rape is that it is a traumatic experience for you if you are the victim of the crime. How this notion of "consent" plays into the issue is kind of tricky. People either want to do a certain kind of sex or they do not want to do that particular sex. If anyone is forced or tricked into or touched while they were unconscious/sleeping etc there is a good likelihood that that person will feel the negative, horrible, bad feelings of having been touched when they otherwise would not have wanted that encounter to occur (it feels like a big, horrible violation to the one who has been raped)- but the thing is, they were not allowed to have their own "say" in the matter due to the fact that they were forced into the sex or they were tricked into the sex that they otherwise would have declined had everything been clear to them. A rapist is not CONSIDERATE of the victim's FEELINGS/internal experience/internal appraisal about the sexual encounter. A rapist only cares about self gratification regardless of what the victim feels/wants or perhaps sometimes a rapist enjoys inflicting psychological/emotional pain and suffering upon their victim through the rape act. It's no fun to be made to have sex against your will.
incognito-cognition 1 point on 2015-07-25 11:33:01
It seems to me the consent argument is a semantic misstep in the first place. As far as I know there is no possible legitimate doubt that animals can and do request, agree to, desire, initiate, attempt to engage in, etc., sexual activity, free of coersion. Sometimes with other animals, sometimes with furniture or toys, and yes, sometimes with humans. Okay, so they can't "bark yes" as the pundits put it - why should they need to? Just as with humans, if they are nervous or unsettled (or slap you), you should stop no matter what they "say"... if they present mating behavior and grind their naughty parts on you, at worst that means "hey, can you help me with this?" It seems to me that a request from a fully-healthy adult operating within typical capacities implies whatever "consent" one may need.
Could somebody explain in a rational, methodical way why this is not sufficient?
furvert_tailEquine, large canid 2 points on 2015-07-25 12:29:30
If I understand the opposition well enough (and I may not), then one issue is, "is this behaviour wilful, or automatic?". Many times this criticism is phrased as "it's just instinct", which is a poor argument when human sexuality is also instinctual; instead (assuming again that I understand the critics) I would phrase the concern as, "When they do these things, is it like the knee-jerk reaction in humans? Is it like the leg-twitch reaction when you rub a dog in just the right place? Is it like humans laughing when tickled, even though we find it unpleasant?".
Now I think about it, the "tickle -> uncontrollable laughter" analogy is interesting. Many humans are incredulous about the idea that the person they are tickling doesn't like it, because of their laughter. Of course, given that abusive tickling is normally stopped by a slap or a punch, it falls into the same "stop" behaviour you've just described.
/r/zoophilia archive
I saw this in /r/philosophy and thought it interesting. Doesn't mention non-humans explicitly, but covers many relevant examples that are analogous to the usual arguments.
[deleted]
Good article, unfortunately it never led up to the conclusion I hoped it would end with. I still have no idea what constitutes consent.
I'd love to know how many people who push a verbal 'yes' as the only type of consent have never actually had sex themselves. I've never got a yes from any of the girls I banged, but it was pretty bloody obvious what we both were going to do. If 'yes means yes' hasnt got a leg to stand on then why is it so bad if I then go and replace a human with a dog? The escalation form of consent is the same for both species.
After reading the article, it occurs to me that, while it might be fairly common between humans for sex to occur under false pretences, it would probably be significantly harder to communicate a false pretence to an animal. Any thoughts? The nearest experience I can think of have been times where I accidentally mentioned the word "walk" in the presence of my dog without, as he construed, actually intending to take him on a walk. It seems to me that, since animals understand actions more readily than words, it would be harder to lie to an animal than another human being.
An interesting thought, but I get the impression that when people accuse us of "just training them to do it", they are thinking of a sort of false pretence — that the action was under the pretence of, say, food. (Which I hope everyone would be giving them anyway, hence "false" pretence). I don't think I'm phrasing this well...
I think I see what you mean. I would hope that, since sex is supposed to be pleasurable to both parties, that one wouldn't need to offer food as an additional "reward" for their participation. I suppose it would be a sort of false pretence if the animal complied with the understanding that they would get a treat in return and you didn't reward them with such.
It seems to me that the animal should want to do the sex- because he/she wants to do the sex (the sex should be the reward in the animal's mind). Not because what he/she REALLY wants is to get a food treat. If that is the case, why are we having sex with animals that don't absolutely love doing sex with us? This is where some of my doubts about bestiality come in to play.
I agree with you on that. Personally, part of the reason I would want to have sex with a dog is in order to pleasure them. However, I don't think that bribing the animal like that is quite the same sort of false pretence I originally asked about.
What do you mean, "we"?
Sure, some people may do that, but that's not what we here want to do.
See the zeta principles:
The same way people usually don't like to have to "coerce" other people to have sex, "we" don't really like to coerce animals to sex either.
Or do we?
I wouldn't want to coerce them.. but I can imagine people doing this. I'm saying that would not be very desirable you know. I guess nobody who has sex with animals coerces them in anyway (except for maybe bestialists). You just bend over and the animal hops on your back and starts fucking you. As someone who doesn't view animal porn and as someone who has never had nor attempted to have sexual intercourse with an animal I find it hard to believe that animals would do this on their own. You're going to tell me no training is ever involved? Give me a break.
I think the point isn't that no guiding is involved, but rather that the sex itself, rather than something else like food, should be the reward.
Why would they need guiding? They're supposed to know what they're doing, right?
More or less, yes; but if you have, say, a dog who hasn't had sex before and hasn't been able to watch other dogs have sex either, they might need a little bit of help. A lot of it is instinctual, but part of it is also watching others (keep in mind, though, that I'm not speaking from experience; I haven't yet had the priviledge of owning intact dogs).
Well yes, perhaps you are right about that...
er, wot?
I just think this thing is weird (even though I like the idea of it)
Every so often, someone links to a video of a dog knocking over a fully-dressed human and humping them. Also, years ago, I heard a story in the paper of a guy walking his dog in a forest, the dog ran off and he heard a man cry out, he ran after the dog and found a human couple having sex and the dog was doing his best to join in.
While it's possible that all of these videos and stories come from closeted zoos, it seems unlikely.
I'm not interested in dogs and not going into details I simply did not stifle my female dog's curiosity while I've masturbated and as a result have had interesting experience being a pretty much completely passive participate. The only training involved is the same I do for my wife, an "ow" when she nips me. Did she learn things? Yep. Did I train her? Nope. Didn't even guide her, simple made enough space and watched what she wanted to do.
No peanut butter, no coercion, no training, no reward... at least not in the training sense. I simply let things happen that society suppresses so much of the time. She would have gotten the same belly rubs and head pets without doing a damn thing so...
It always surprises me when folks who supposedly are so "attuned" to animals completely deny an animal's ability to explore, experience, learn. Ever watch your dog out of the back window when they are in the yard? They sniff, explore, play with toys, watch new things, listen to things and so forth.
The very thing you got to understand /u/ursusem is that animals are trained from a VERY early age to not be sexual at all. Even if they are, they get parts chopped off because of "behaviours" and guess what kinds of behaviours those are? It is distinctly possible your view of the asexuality of animals is simply the result of no experience with animals from birth.
Edit: The animal's birth, not yours. :)
...I think it bugs me that I can't ask them what their opinion is on interspecies romance/ romantic relationships. I'm sure they can tell that we are human and not what they are... I wish I could know what they think of it. I wish I could know more about their thoughts. You can't know someone's specific thoughts just by looking at their behavior.
If she learns that something causes you pain (hopefully a negative stimulus for her), and modifies her behavior to cause you less pain, isn't that pretty much training her? :)
I think the "training" people talk about negatively is the coerscive act of withholding essentials or doling out punishment unless an animal does something he/she would ordinarily not want to do... but I wish people would be more clear about this.
Perhaps by "training" they mean that the person uses some form of positive reinforcement to cause an animal to mount in the first place.. and then they train them to do the fucking then. Or they train them to present their backside and train them to tolerate the fucking. Again, I have no idea as to whether or not this kind of thing occurs. They may not punish the creatures but they may try to bribe with positive reinforcement until the animal "gets it right" until the animal understands what is expected of him/her. The animal is acting as some kind of glorified sex toy in this case. Again, I wish I could "talk" this kind of thing over with a non-human of my liking- so he can know what my intention is, where I hope the relationship will go, he can consider whether he wants to have that kind of a relationship with me, everything is out on the table plain as day. To be honest, animal autonomy doesn't feel like "real" autonomy to me somehow. Perhaps more of the human population feels like me in this way and it is difficult to explain what I mean by this. I think this whole situation would be better if only animals could chit-chat with us.
Here is a conundrum for you: If an animal likes sex, isn't having sex positive reinforcement in itself?
Because there unfortunately are some people who use coercion?
There was this interview with someone from denmark where he said:
Is this not leaving the decision to the dog?
I empathise, but for me "humans" are just another animal. Human autonomy doesn't feel "real". We're too easy to manipulate, too easily forced into a false choice and it's too hard for most of us to think outside the framing of whatever question was placed before us.
I don't disagree, but at what point do we give an animal some credit, or should I assume I just train my wife for sex?
I think we agree.
It's made me realise something though; when I think about minds, at the level of neurones, I think in terms of positive and negative reinforcements — colloquially, "rewards" and "punishments". It's equally disturbing for me to think about sex as a reward and sex as a thing to be rewarded; reducing it to that level denies agency, to humans as well as non-humans because our minds are made of the same stuff.
Now that's an interesting thought. I'm not convinced myself that there isn't more to our minds than just neurons, but it's interesting nonetheless.
I think the real reason why "non-consensual sex" aka rape is wrong is because of how it causes the victim to feel. I think the thing we don't like about rape is that it is a traumatic experience for you if you are the victim of the crime. How this notion of "consent" plays into the issue is kind of tricky. People either want to do a certain kind of sex or they do not want to do that particular sex. If anyone is forced or tricked into or touched while they were unconscious/sleeping etc there is a good likelihood that that person will feel the negative, horrible, bad feelings of having been touched when they otherwise would not have wanted that encounter to occur (it feels like a big, horrible violation to the one who has been raped)- but the thing is, they were not allowed to have their own "say" in the matter due to the fact that they were forced into the sex or they were tricked into the sex that they otherwise would have declined had everything been clear to them. A rapist is not CONSIDERATE of the victim's FEELINGS/internal experience/internal appraisal about the sexual encounter. A rapist only cares about self gratification regardless of what the victim feels/wants or perhaps sometimes a rapist enjoys inflicting psychological/emotional pain and suffering upon their victim through the rape act. It's no fun to be made to have sex against your will.
It seems to me the consent argument is a semantic misstep in the first place. As far as I know there is no possible legitimate doubt that animals can and do request, agree to, desire, initiate, attempt to engage in, etc., sexual activity, free of coersion. Sometimes with other animals, sometimes with furniture or toys, and yes, sometimes with humans. Okay, so they can't "bark yes" as the pundits put it - why should they need to? Just as with humans, if they are nervous or unsettled (or slap you), you should stop no matter what they "say"... if they present mating behavior and grind their naughty parts on you, at worst that means "hey, can you help me with this?" It seems to me that a request from a fully-healthy adult operating within typical capacities implies whatever "consent" one may need.
Could somebody explain in a rational, methodical way why this is not sufficient?
If I understand the opposition well enough (and I may not), then one issue is, "is this behaviour wilful, or automatic?". Many times this criticism is phrased as "it's just instinct", which is a poor argument when human sexuality is also instinctual; instead (assuming again that I understand the critics) I would phrase the concern as, "When they do these things, is it like the knee-jerk reaction in humans? Is it like the leg-twitch reaction when you rub a dog in just the right place? Is it like humans laughing when tickled, even though we find it unpleasant?".
Now I think about it, the "tickle -> uncontrollable laughter" analogy is interesting. Many humans are incredulous about the idea that the person they are tickling doesn't like it, because of their laughter. Of course, given that abusive tickling is normally stopped by a slap or a punch, it falls into the same "stop" behaviour you've just described.