Sorry I haven't been around much, I need to catch up and work on getting back to posting more!
I've been kicking myself for not putting this on the survey since I published it, so I'm going to ask it here! I remember a while ago there was some discussion about the possibility of "sexual imprinting" on animals during development. I don't know much about imprinting or what age it supposedly occurs in people, BUT it got me thinking.
Did you grow up around animals; were animals a big part of your childhood? What age range were you when you had animals? If you didn't grow up with them, did you have a significant interest in them? If you had childhood pets, are these species the same (or one of the) species you're attracted to now? Do you think your childhood experiences with animals contributed to your attraction to them now?
I'd love to hear what you guys have to say!
Hello,
That is something I never really thought of. I grew up on a farm around many, many animals. I always felt very comfortable around animals and I felt physical attraction to them LONG before I felt attraction to human males. I always just thought I was weird. I never considered that being exposed to animals as a child could have something to do with my sexual preference.
Grew up on a farm as well. I think it may or may have not something to do with my sexual attraction.
Wether or not it does, I don't care. I love dogs, it's just the way it is and I'm perfectly fine with that.
Hello! Let's see I didn't grow up with animals, but always longed for a furry companion. They where a huge part of my life as I aspired to be a veterinarian one day to work with pets. I always wanted a cat when I was young, but I am now attracted to dogs. Perhaps my longing to be with one is from the lack of their presence in my childhood, it also could be tied to some trauma in my younger years as I was raped by my brother periodically and molested by uncle. Or you know...I just like dogs :3
I wasn't really able to have much direct contact with dogs because I lived in apartments with someone who was allergic to cats and dogs most of my life. The pets we had were fish and parakeets.
Even without being physically present, animals still had a very significant role in my life. Every book I read or movie I watched focused on animals. Whenever it was possible, I would befriend dogs in the park or loose cats. They were always more interesting to me than people. For me I think my zoophilia is ultimately just an extension of this interest.
I didn't get a chance to reply to your other survey because of time constraints over the holidays, but I do have an opinion on this at least from my personal experience.
When I was very young I didn't have any animals, was not exposed to any animals I would say had any particular impact on me other than an insatiable longing to have a kitten like so many other little girls, but my parents didn't like cats.
Right before puberty or so, I distinctly remember watching a movie that featured a wolf, something Disney I think about a young girl in depression era traveling to find her dad and she had a wolf companion. I remember being absolutely smitten with that wolf. I didn't have a word for the feeling, and to make matters worse at the end of the movie my mother made some passing comment that the wolf was "handsome" and for some reason her choice of words startled me and made me anxious and I had no idea why. I know what she meant of course, but in my young mind that was already feeling something new, the added association of that word... "handsome" hit me like a truck and mdae me so uncomfortable that I consciously did not pursue the thought chain anymore, maybe because my family was DEEPLY religious and I knew I shouldn't ask questions about anything remotely like the feeling I had watching the movie. (I don't even remember the movie, just the scenes with the wolf.)
I didn't think back to it for a long time, but later on after discovering fantasy/romance books that had werewolf characters, I found that my visualization of the characters leaned far more towards something handsome and adorable than slavering monsters, I did indeed have my first really "forbidden" thoughts about animal-like features involved in my romantic daydreams, fantasies that excited me far more than imagining what I assume most girls my age were fantasizing about, which was boys on TV shows and teen pop idols, or getting married to a high-school crush. Disclaimer: I was never around a lot of other kids my age, so that may have had an effect also. It wasn't too long after that my dad brought home a black German Shepherd puppy, and for some reason I didn't make that connection until much later, after he started to develop and started taking on that sleek, predatory appearance, even if juvenile at first. But that's a.. uhm, previous story.
I look back now and realize that I may have had my wires crossed from the beginning. I don't know if anything triggered it, because I've always liked that certain look and particular canine behavior. Maybe lots of people are naturally wired to have that attraction, but it takes something really amiss for it to turn sexual. I have no idea.
That movie would be "The Journey of Natty Gann" and the wolf would be Jed the Wolfdog. Jed is kind of hot.
That's the one! Oh man that name was lost to history, I thought it may have even been a TV show. I might have to find and watch it again to relive the memories.
Yes, and I still am.
No, not really.
From as early as I can remember until I was six or seven, then from nine until the present day.
Yes, in a sense. For the most part I've been around small dogs, specifically two terriers when I was younger, and another terrier now. I've discovered I'm attracted to canines, but only wolf-like breeds such as Siberian Huskies, which are a far cry from my childhood companions in terms of both size and physical shape.
In part.
I won't lie and say I've always considered nonhumans equal, but the longer I've known my dogs, the closer I've come to understanding that other animals have varying personalities and all have similar wants and needs. So I don't think it's because of my terriers that I'm attracted to wolf-like canines, but I think it's because of them that I've come to respect other animals for who they are.
I had pets growing up since I was ten. I was rather introverted (still am, though not quite so badly), and grew very emotionally attached to our dog. Yes, I'm attracted to dogs now, but I tend to favor different breeds more than the ones the family pets are. I do think that the combination of my personality and having dogs around contributed to my attraction.
We had cats from the time I was 8-13 or so, but of course I never had that kind of interest in cats. Like almost everyone, I saw movies that had fun animals much in the sense that someone might see Surf's Up and then have a fanboy moment with surfing or penguins... but I think it was more a reflection of my interests and not something that shaped them.
Personally I feel my childhood experiences are completely unrelated to any sexual interests. I had plenty of friends, an average middle-class, somewhat-religious upbringing, etc.
[Edited for clarity]
I was around cats my entire life and my family adopted a stray dog when I was around 9. We kept him until he was put down when I was 20 (he was old and sick.)
Not really. I'm not attracted to cats and prefer large, wolflike dogs, whereas the dog I had while growing up was tiny and un-wolflike as can be.
I grew up in a family of animal lovers and I think seeing how my parents interacted with our pets was what influenced my attraction the most. It was always normal to consider animals as members of the family, to show great amounts of affection to them and to "anthropomorphize" them to some extent.
Yes, I did grow up around animals. They were generally a big part of my childhood. Granted, I didn't exactly live on a farm or anything of that sort. Closest I had was after moving to Florida.
Pretty much been around them since being a toddler with a couple dogs and a cat. Later on in life with more dogs and cats and horses too.
I suppose I could say that yes, I'm attracted to some of the species that I spent early childhood with, but its certainly not limited to just those species in my case.
I do think that my childhood experiences with animals contributed to my attraction to them now. Whether or not it has anything to do with an imprinting ability, I'm not certain. As far as I'm aware, humans don't have the same kind of 'imprinting' that certain other animals do. Though, I do think that having experience with animals early on does make it seem more normal to be around them later in life. They become just like any other person. Sometimes you can relate to them, sometimes you just simply enjoy them being there.
It's definitely an interesting subject though. But as with existing looks at sexuality, I think there is definitely quite a mixture of details when it comes to what causes our preferences. How much of it is environmental vs. biological, etc.. And whether its some sort of imprinting or simply being as comfortable around certain animals as you are people is a curious thing to explore.
i did ; they were.
we had a dog from my very earliest memories 'til i was 23 or 24... i think... then didn't for a while, and it's been hard for me to get back into the necessary mindframe of responsibility. i filled the void with other things, then found i had a hard time giving those things up. basically .. i'm lazy (and dumb).
i watched animal documentaries a lot, and had tons of tiger books (they were my favorite animals for a very long time), so it wasn't just dogs that were a big part of my childhood. i remember being shocked when i saw a documentary that showed lions mating. i didn't make the distinction, and so it was like they were showing porn on TV.. (i was only 10 or so years old at the time). i remember telling my mom about it and she just chuckled.
as i said above. we also had cats, though there's only been a span of about a year that i/we (my family) didn't have a cat.
N/A
yes, to an extent. i'm attracted to so many different species, though .. dogs are just one among many (though being that they're the most convenient to have a relationship with, that's what i've settled on).
i'm surprised to see some who have grown up with animals have answered 'no' to this. i believe it did, though there have been several other factors as well. i think part of who i am was due to the fact that i was significantly younger than my siblings, so i tended to spend a fair amount of time with our pets.
All we had when I was young was the usual family dog.Nothing more than "normal" friendship and also not what I would describe as a big part of my childhood. We bought the first dog when I was around ten years old or so. Dogs never made it past the normal boundaries of relationship, it´s just not my species and I never could imagine myself having an intimate reltionship with a dog. Maybe it´s because for me, dogs have assimilated to humans a bit too much over the past millennia. They´re meateaters, too...as a longtime vegan, I have hard times to feed the cats in our stable, this awful, rotten smell of canned meat...yuck! In summer, it´s twice as "spicy" and made me throw up several times. ;) Until today, I could not figure out a "logical" reason for my interst in horses. As a kid, I considered horses as "girlie stuff" and "gay". I remember one incident when I was around 5 or 6 and was attending a garden party at kindergarten. There were some ponies for the kids to ride them, led by their owners. I recall falling from one pony and when I got up, I additionally received a bite from this mare. I don´t know if I was traumatized by this, but until puberty, I never had contact to horses again. Some would develop hippophobia from that, I guess. For me, there´s no real connection between my hippophilia and my childhood experiences and when I think about it, it still puzzles me that my entire emotional life is related to equines now. When I was in my twenties, I sometimes joked about this to myself, comparing myself to Spiderman. Maybe the pony mare biting me was radioactive, also? ;)
Coming back to your questions, I have to say that there is NO direct link of zoophilia to childhood experiences. Some zoos grew up around animals, some not. Some had a pet, others hadn´t. You have to remember that the process of imprinting the sexual brain circuits only starts with puberty and isn´t linear, logical and a single, followable chain of consecutive causes leading to an orientation. The subconscious plays a big role, too. For me, the attraction to horses came almost overnight, my first feelings of erotic/sexual attraction towards horses I had when I was watching a random poster pinned to my classroom wall. It showed a Haflinger mare and her foal...I was watching the mare´s eyes for the entire one and a half hours, in an almost tracelike state of mind and felt that I just had found the ones I belong to. Never had an interest in humans or other species.
They're omnivores and stay healthy on a vegan diet with no trouble. Of course a plant based diet for dogs needs to be more carefully balanced, but that's why there are companies who do that for you. There also is commercial vegan cat food, but from what I've read, it's not quite perfect yet.
I have yet to see actually scientific research (regardless of the conclusion!) about dogs and vegan diets. Vegetarian diets for dogs only had one paper (result: probably fine), but the only words on vegan diets came from companies promoting their pet food.
I made a different account so I can comment to this subreddit.
Were animals a big part of your childhood?
Yes, I was always fascinated with dogs. We always had one, I loved 101 Dalmations to the point of exhausting it for my parents, and I practiced being a dog every day as a kid.
What age range were you when you had animals?
We've always had dogs, ibwas brought in to the family with exposure to them right away.
If you had childhood pets, are these species the same (or one of the) species you're attracted to now?
Yes, I am exclusively attracted to canines; dogs or wolves. Obviously I'll never get to interact with a wolf haha.
Do you think your childhood experiences with animals contributed to your attraction to them now?
Probably. Like I said I wanted to be one and was fascinated with them. I knew many of the species by heart. I had a dog book that was very technical and I recall the portion about sex very clearly. I was enamored by it and read it all the time, I know now that I was clearly masterbating to it lol. I eventually had interactions with the dogs around me but only the male ones. I was a really sexual child to begin with, so I think that just extended to my liking of dogs. I have no idea where tiny me got the sex drive he had at as little as 4 or 5.
I did not grow up with animals.
I grew up around them, but they were a small part of my childhood. There were horses in nearby fields, and we occasionally looked after cats when their owners were away. Family friends had dogs who took me for walks.
I enjoyed interacting with dogs, but I don't think there was any "significant interest" there.
To the extent that looking after someone else's cat is having a pet, no. I have no interest in them. I'm a dog (and wolf) and horse person.
I don't think so. If it made any difference at all, it would have been by making me see them as people rather than as property.
As a child, the only animals we had at home were fishes in two large tanks. This was because of allergies, and my mom refused to let me own a snake. I've always been very interested in animals and nature.
My grandparents live in the countryside, and they have sheep, chickens, ducks... sometimes they've also had turkeys and once a cat.
Interestingly, after being chased around by a terrier when I was 6 years old, I was afraid of dogs for several years. Still today, while I like dogs otherwise, I don't like dogs that look similar to the one that chased me back then.
While sexual imprinting seems logical, I can't come to think of any dog that would have caused it for me. I hardly knew any dogs as a young child, and my favorite animals were snakes, cats and foxes. Almost everyone I knew as a child who had a pet owned a cat, not a dog.
I'm a zoo who is obsessed with K9s. Why? IDK!
I only grew up around cats, but felines were never my type (for some reason) but when I was a kid, when it came to cartoons etc., I enjoyed animals, especially dog-characters, much more than humans.
When I was like 11, I had a time where I had the desire to own a pet fox, I was dreaming everyday, but it was such an impossible thing. But then my interest in dogs and all canine types were growing, and I loved looking at their body and drawing them.
At age 13 the feelings started turning sexual. Other animals also caught my eyes, when something in TV came where on a farm they put their arm into a cow's butt (sorry I don't know the english definition for it) it wasn't disgusting for me at all. And when I went through channels, I always stopped when they showed animal rears, lol. But funnily I never questioned myself wth is wrong with me, it always felt so "natural"...
My family had a farm at our ground until 25 years ago, with cows, pigs, etc. I often wished I grew up in that time... there are still 2 empty stables, and grass area. Maybe I can give a home to some animals in the future, especially miniature cows look cute.
Right now I almost like all female mammals, dogs are the only species where I enjoy males too.
And my current and first partner is a lovely female dog, who is my everything. Nothing sexual yet going on, but cuddling her as much as she wishes.
My comment on humans: Meh. Maybe one day I'll have a relationship with a girl/woman, but I can't imagine doing anything more intimate than a hug. As soon as she'd start undressing I will run away, lol.