Thanks for answering the question seriously. I love debates like this, and wish we had more of these and less trolls slinging around disgust. I'm happy to get explanations of each in detail, but let me try to go over each in turn.

First, I'm not saying I can justify sex with animals through some specific moral system. I'm saying that the most common arguments against it fail in all of the major ones, and each major moral system in Western philosophy that isn't explicitly absolutist (you can't do this, period, no reason really) can be used to argue that it is permissible, if not in some cases encouragable.

• Regarding abolitionism, I'll agree that the moral views leading to it (the legal equality and dignity of all sentient beings, for example) make it difficult in a practical sense to maintain a relationship with an animal. But this doesn't make relationships with animals inherently wrong. For example, we could consider how the human/dog relationship first began. Humans started throwing their garbage into piles around their camps, and wolflike creatures began hanging around their camps. People like the protection from predators and other tribes they got from this, and began to be friendly to these proto-dogs. How much conscious control of breeding they had at the beginning is a matter of debate, but in any case, dogs became domesticated largely for mutual benefit, and without much coercion at first.

Assuming that animals were freed into the wild, and a similar situation began again, would this be wrong from an abolitionist perspective? This seems to me the difference between arguing that slavery is wrong, and arguing that the slaves should be sent to Africa to be protected from their oppressors. The first part does not imply the second.

• Potential ignorance is only solved by learning about the species and their body language. In other words, if you want to court someone, you should get to know them first. If there is some fundamental barrier to understanding of nonhuman cognition, then I would argue that precisely the same barriers exist for understanding the cognition of any other person as well. Any erosion of these barriers by empirical observation could work, to some extent, within our species or outside it. We cannot have a situation in which it is inherently easier to understand how every other person thinks than it is to understand any other sentient creature, without denying empirical evidence of animal cognition and the wide range of experiences in both humans and animals.

• Regarding lawfulness, I can see that as one moral framework that, in many countries and states, would make it wrong to have sex with animals. But blind legalism of this kind seems like an incredibly simple version of deontology, which doesn't really address morality per se and simply dismisses moral questions as practically irrelevant.

If this view of morality is true, then whether or not a particular action is moral depends upon your position on Earth with respect to arbitrary borders drawn up a long time ago. Let me give an example: in Montana, bestiality is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, and is a felony. To the south, in Wyoming, it isn't explicitly illegal at all. If I built a cabin directly on the border, and brought a dog there to sleep with me, would my actions be morally worse on the north side of the house than it would on the south side? If so, why?

• Assuming one believed in monogamy and was already in a relationship with a human, it would be wrong for them to fool around with an animal. But this is very situational (albeit a common situation). Even under the assumption that one should have only one sexual relationship at a time, there is no reason that relationship cannot be with an animal. And if one is in a pre-existing relationship with a human and finds that an animal draws their attention far more, then in some situations it might be best to tell them how you feel, and maybe even leave them if that's permissible. In any case, this is a situation in which it may not be OK, but that situation does not apply to everybody on Earth, even if the principles involved do.

Feel free to expand on your other points, or correct me in mine. I will admit that I may have overreached in my previous statement, but I stand by the idea that the major frameworks (deontology, virtue ethics, and consequentialism) do not view sex with animals as wrong in the most common situations where the proper precautions have been taken. The lawfulness example comes the closest in my view, as that is also a practical concern for me, but that one seems like a sort of disguised absolutism, where the government is imposing some absolute code on its people which should not be questioned.

Better than sticking one's dick in a filthy ape vagina :)

Where do I begin?

No, it's quite easy to tell. How do you think breeders figure out when an animal is "ready?" (at least the ethical ones who don't use breeding stands). It's not all the stud animal, trust me. Even breeders readily admit this.

You're taking advantage of them not knowing any better and seeing you as an authority figure.

This is the most legit argument you have presented thus far, so good job. That said, why should they know better? Sex with a human is safer than sex with their own kind, arguably. There's no risk of pregnancy and little to no STDs!

There's a reason people don't fuck wild animals and live to tell about it.

I had to suppress a chuckle.

My partner was a wild White Tail doe. Well, I guess wild is relative. She approached people for food as it was a "no hunting" zone. She certainly did not see me as an authority figure though.

So what's in it for you for denying that our nonhuman companions are competent in choosing sexual partners on their own? Are you afraid of something?