why isn't meat legally "murder"?

Meat industry lobbying.

Because double standards.

By extension, it's a-okay to put animals in cages for all their life, take the cubs away from their mothers, forcibly breed animals, use them for all kinds of experiments, but when interspecies intimacy is involved? You sick abusive fuck, they can't consent!

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It's not actually as big of a double standard as one might initially think:

A lot of people (in the west at least) are very uncomfortable with the idea of eating dogs. This is because, I guess, that they're essentially considered a part of society, and thus killing them is essentially murder. But at the same time they're perceived as innocent, as pure, essentially as children. Thus having sex with them is clearly rape.

On the other end, wild animals are perceived as outsiders. They're not our friends and family, they're seen in some cases almost as dangerous enemies. They have no connection with humanity. As such, killing them is permissible, as doing so could only help society. On the other hand, it seems a lot of people actually wouldn't find sex with a wolf rape; they're not infantalized and thus can defend themselves. If you tried to force yourself on a wolf they could kill you. And so on.

Farm animals occupy a weird middle ground: too foreign for killing to be murder, too familiar for sex to not be rape.

Of course none of this is remotely logically consistent. But if you poke people's brains on this enough, that is what you'll find.

As some have said, the real reason is because humans love arbitrary double standards, often particularly the people who claim not to have them.

Even so, I wish people would stop using this comparison. It comes off as "we may be raping animals but at least we're not eating them!" which totally oversteps the whole point that sex between fully capable, communicative adult partners should not be illegal.

While it's an important fallacy, I find myself avoiding this argument more than not. I've always felt that it's other people's expectations that I'm exploiting my mate, using it for my sexual gratification as if it were some kind of living sex toy, when in reality I just have a loving relationship with him that goes some places most other peoples' don't.

When you start saying "well we eat animals and don't care what they think so why is this wrong?" it paints the wrong picture imho.

Still, an important hypocrisy and a powerful question as you say, but one to be used with tact, I think.

I don't like this analogy for several reasons.

First of all, people can and will always argue meat is a necessity, but sex is not. Whether or not meat is needed for complete nutrition is debatable, but the need for that nutrition isn't. Sex is absolutely not a need. While most beings have a drive for it, unless you're a ferret you're not going to die from it.

Secondly, as ulungu pointed out, it ignores the different ways our society views and treats specific species. At least in America and Eurpoe, dogs are part of our families, almost serving as permanent children in some ways. It's to the point that eating dogs is almost seen as a form of cannibalism- in many dog meat debates a comparison is drawn to eating other human family members.

Finally, it implies that bestiality is inherently rape, or at the least is rape often. It draws the comparison to ugly, painful things like death and factory farming. "We already abuse them, so why not this too?"

Personally, if I'm going to make a comparison, it's going to be to activities that are (at least in theory) not abusive and are fun or enriching for the animal- organized dog sports, for example. It's an arguably unnatural application of natural drives and behaviors. There are inherent risks attached and the dogs don't understand the human-invented social significance of it. The supposed benefits can be achieved through other, potentially less risky means. Though there are abusive individuals, people who practice claim they don't force the animals to participate, and a willing participant is not only more ethical, but is always going to perform better. All of this is true of both dog sports and bestiality.

So I don't even know why I'm here, but. I have had this argument with some people. I consider bestiality to be the rape. Animals cannot consent to sex in the same way young children can't. They don't have the mental capacity to understand and also they don't have the ability to communicate. If you are for bestiality why are you against pedophilia?

Let’s face it: people generally eat meat because it comes in packages from the supermarket, not on four legs. If they had to kill and prepare the animal they were going to eat themselves, you can bet there’d be a lot more vegetarians about. (From what I understand, vegetarians - unlike vegans - don’t object to eating meat intrinsically; they only object to the killing of healthy animals to provide meat.) Personally, I’d have a lot of problems eating the meat of any animal I’d had sex with, or was particularly friendly with (by that, I mean the species it belonged to). So, again, if people spent more time around animals, there probably be more vegetarians.

Incidentally, bestiality isn’t legally rape; the charge of 'rape' can’t be applied to species other than human. Bestiality – in Britain at least – is outlawed because it’s regarded as an 'unnatural act.'

From the several threads I've seen on the subject, once you sweep aside the "they can't consent" issue because they also do not consent to being killed and eaten, you get "well humans have always eaten animals, but they haven't always had sex with animals" LOL. What it really boils down to is religion, and how Christianity is becoming stronger world wide and exerting its influence everywhere. Since the bible is fine with killing animals it's ok to do that without their consent. But since the bible condemns having sex with animals it's wrong 0_o