I've got a friend, who shall remain anonymous.
He seems to me to be a good portion zoophile. He's attracted to animals, at least to some extent, and is not attracted to humans. He doesn't want relationships with humans... But neither does he want a relationship with any animals.
The difference is, while the reason for him not wanting a relationship with humans is that he doesn't find them emotionally or physically attractive, the reason he doesn't want a (physical) relationship with animals seems to be that he thinks such actions would be immoral.
Now, I disagree on that point, quite strongly, but it doesn't really bother me that he's made it, because I think in his case, given the context, it is out of care for the animal's well-being. However, he knows I'm a zoophile, and I've found myself defending real life sexual contacts on several occasions.
I'm curious what you fellows think of this situation. It tends to be a common belief (one which I'm not convinced I agree with) that sex with animals should be discouraged. In this case, does that, in your view hold? Furthermore, should I refrain from defending real life actions on the basis that it might make him more likely to engage in such actions, given his attractions? Or perhaps not. I'm not sure, so I'd like to hear some alternate opinions.
I think it is awesome that you know an another zoophile in person.
The original zeta rule of "don´t talk ´em in, talk ´em out" should always be obeyed to, even in this case. Leave the decision entirely to him, let him decide if he wants to step into a life that is way more problematic than that of a "theoretical zoo"...as I said many times before, there´s a huge difference between being a phantasizing zoo occasionally jacking off to animal phantasies/animal porn and being a practicing, convinced zoophile.
Chances are high that encouraging him will backfire on you someday. Just imagine this: you keep nagging and talking him into this until he finally does it with an animal. First, he kinda likes it, but then, his obviously present moral views make him rethink what he has done. Suddenly, he becomes disgusted of his own actions and guess who he will put the blame on... Our community already had incidents where the "newbie" screwed up other people´s lives because "he found djeezus" or made up his mind after the "sex buzz" wore off. Talking in people who apparently are undecided and/or not self confident enough to do things on their own can only lead to desaster.
If your friend is a zoo and not going through an experimental/ self finding phase, he won´t need your encouragement. He won´t need you to talk him into it. Once the internal pressure, the yearning builds up enough, he will make his own decision...with no one else to blame for it than himself.
You surely can show your support by telling him you´d be totally okay with him even if he becomes a practicing zoophile, but you should totally abstain from trying to convince him doing something he isn´t convinced of 100%. Support? Absolutely. But forcing/coercing/talking him into it? Absolutely NO!
You should always keep in mind that , besides being a safehaven for actual zoophiles, our community also serves as a cesspool and a magnet for legions of sexually insecure folks, an armada of special snowflakes , people making up a "zoo persona" as a part of roleplaying , mentally unstable persons who find refuge in a "non judgemental" community etc... It is equally tricky and vital to learn differentiating between the "real McCoy" and one of those I mentioned above. Please don´t try and "recruit a new zoo". Let him make his own decisions; whenever he does the giant leap from phantasizing to actual intercourse, you and our community will be there for him.
Go on and enjoy the rare possibility to talk about zoophilia with another real life person, this is an uplifting experience for both of you. But don´t become an enthusiastic "recruiter", don´t try to push him into something he may be unfit and unprepared for.
I never said that I would try to convince him to do anything.
My point is that I'm not convinced I should try to convince him not to do anything. You say the zeta rule is "don't talk 'em in, talk 'em out" - that is the rule that I said earlier I'm not convinced about. I don't think it's right to talk them in, but I don't think it's right to talk them out either.
My stance would, at most, be: "I don't think this is wrong. And if this is something you want to do, I'm here with information that would be of use."
Perhaps I gave across the wrong impression, because you seem pretty convinced I was suggesting something that I was definitely not suggesting. Again, I have no intent to talk him into anything.
It does very much sound like that, though. You have a opinion and if brought up you will give a heavily biased opinion in favor by "providing information". But even though you have made up your mind it is not a topic over which there is consensus, even amongst zoophiles. The question of consent is not an easy one to answer and heavily clouded with layperson interpretation and emotions on both sides. As such you should absolutely rather talk them out. You can be supportive if they seek your support specifically but never go around advertising stuff they have to determine for themselves. I personally would always talk them out as becoming a practicing zoophile is indeed the far off extreme of the spectrum people might find themselves in being confused.
They obviously have a opinion based on personal ethics that is just as viable as yours. You can offer your opinion if asked for it, but otherwise it's really not your business to interfere. And never state your experiences and opinions as anything other than experiences and opinions.
Look, this "don´t talk ´em in, talk ´em out" rule has a meaning you haven´t thought about yet, I assume...
Lemme explain: "Talk ´em out" addresses multiple issues that a subculture as frwned upon as ours faces when it becomes too "open", too accessible for any kind of outsider. First, talking ´em out is something similar to what the Shao Lin monastery used to do with new aspirants. It is a test of patience (what definitely is an obligatory virtue when you have/deal with animals) and a test of dedication and will ( what also are two qualities that come in very handy when engaging in something so controversial as zoophilia). At this point, you may think "What a bunch of elitist dicks came up with this shit?"....and you may be right, at least partially. But isn´t the situation we´re in right now the undoubtable proof that this "elitist" attitude is what we lack the most? Back in the nineties, when the zeta rules were created, zoophilia was frowned upon by society; today, zoophilia has been "upgraded" to the "toxic" status. The "laissez faire" principle, the "come in and find out" attitude, mistaking indifference for tolerance is what has brought us here, with an ever increasing level of hostility towards zoophilia. New laws and sting operations are the consequences. I hereby assure you that the "talk ´em out" was never meant in an elitist way, nobody wanted to make a zoo´s life even more difficult than it already is. Since we all were aware of the controversial nature of zoophilia and also understood that the LGBT tactics aren´t appliable to our subcommunity´s goals, we made this rule to ensure our own survival as we easily understood what an "open door" attitude would lead to...just take a good look around you to see we were right about that. It´s not elitism, it´s protecting our identity...one reason why zoophilia has become a synonym for fucking animals is the lack of separation, the lack of an identity as a zoophile. Using a Tyler Durden-ish deterrence strategy to test patience and dedication of the aspirant/novice could have spared our community from quite a lot of irresponsible and unfit individuals popping up in the news/headlines every other week and all that follows drawing unwanted attention towards our community. You wouldn´t give a 5 y.o. an animal as a christmas present, would you? And nobody would judge you as intolerant and elitist if you deny doing this, right? With, zoophilia, it´s quite the same...first, you have to make sure that the person demanding access to the "inner circle" and its knowledge is actually aware of all the responsibilities, the duties and obligations zoophilia involves. As a subgroup of people claiming to be the "real animal rights activists" and having superior knowledge (for example the "...but animals CAN consent nonverbally" argument) , we absolutely are dependent on complete consistency of our mindset. Given the fact that many, if not the most "zoos" do have their difficulties with identifying obvious signs of rape in porn (such as cornered and tied up animals), how can we ever expect anyone to believe us when we say we can read the animal´s consent from its body language?
Deterring the "adventurous" , unsteady part time "zoo" who is fed up with his animal at some point of his life would possibly spare the animal from being neglected or sold after its "job" is done. Bad treatment and a new owner to adapt to is avoidable stress... Keeping off the insecure individuals and "try outs" also would benefit the animal. If the only purpose of having an animal is sex and the knowledge is restrained to an "how to" type of "wisdom", it surely isn´t a bad thing to keep those unfit ones from our turf. What kind of "zoo" can you be if you only know how to fuck a mare, but can´t identify a colic and respond properly to a life threatening situation because sex is the only thing you´re interested in? Right, a very shitty one.
Even the "fantasizing manchilds" have a fair share of guilt by contributing their interpretation of zoophilia to the general public image. Don´t think that all the inconsistencies, all the insanity and viciousness that also is part of "zoophilia" today isn´t observed by the outsiders. Even the infantile person making up his "zoo persona" is forming our public image.
No other orientation has an equal amount of this "including everyone" attitude as zoophilia has...the "open door" policy has failed miserably, but predictably. Our community is like a party without any bouncers fending off the party crashers and destructive assholes that will behave for a little while, but quickly escalate your party into a huge mess, drawing in the police to regain order. One of these bouncers is the "talk ´em out" attitude, ´cause destructive assholes usually are impatient persons and will rush to another target once they realize it takes them a fair amount of time to get into your party.
I can´t stress enough how essential it is to protect our orientation and our identity as zoophiles from feeble minded, unfit, irresponsible, immature and mentally challenged individuals. What happens if we become too "tolerant" (a.k.a. indifferent)? Well, take a look outside, in your newspapers, at your laws, at Beastforum, at ZETA, speak with some outsiders, your parents, etc...
The worst thing is that we, the small group of zoos creating the zeta rules, have foreseen all of this. We all were excited as fuck when the first few zoophile homepages surfaced: Valadan´s Stable, Kurrelgyre´s page, Actaeon, to name but a few. But we also saw how fragile our new won freedom was when we failed at installing some kind of barrier keeping off the part time zoos, the nutjobs and the totally unfit. I must admit that being a bit older than the average /r/zoophilia- user is an advantage, but it also is a huge disadvantage, a ever present feeling of total failure as the older ones like me were able to observe the changes over the decades with the unpleasant and hard to bear thought that all of this didn´t come as a surprise...the laws, appearance of the antis and zoo haters, the irrationality, the increasing pressure. Back then, only the most pessimistic zoos were convinced all of this will occur...we mocked them and called it "zoo dystopia"...today, we´re all living in this zoo dystopia.
BTW: My statement regarding you "talking in" your friend wasn´t directly aimed at you, it was more of a general statement. I still am very pleased that this subreddit is different from most of the other virtual "zoo" meeting places and most of you folks are reasonable people. But you should also keep in mind how quickly and easily things are misunderstood and even a single word spoken at the wrong time can lead another to draw false conclusions. Encouraging someone to do things often is hidden in subtext and even praising the "advantages" of animal sex a bit too enthusiastically can tip people over and make ´em want "a piece of the delicious cake" themselves. We zoos should do our best to remain as neutral as we can. I believe in honesty as our best bet; we shouldn´t paint a "all happy" picture of zoophilia, we shouldn´t paint it too dark and depressive either. Provide anyone interested in zoophilia with the whole picture, give out all the info: yes, zoophilia can be very satisfying and having intercoure with your quadruped partner is "tha bomb" sometimes. But don´t leave out the huge number of negative things that come with it. Don´t leave out the tremenduous amount of dedication that is necessary to be a genuine, reasonable, responsible and fit zoophile. Tell ´em that zoophilia is more than a lifestyle you can join and quit as easily as , for example, skateboarding. Only when we ALL fill the zeta rules with life, we can hope for a change. Protect your orientation, that´s what zoo pride really is. Even one "zoo" intentionally or unintentionally hurting or mistreating an animal is one too much. Only honesty, integrity and responsibility will build up trust in others and clarify that zoophilia is NOT a playground, not a fetish, not just another sector of "normal" human sexuality, not "the new gay". Since animals are involved, we zoos need an extra amount of trustworthiness and all the LGBT tactics are essentialy useless for us. We desperately need thinkers, not fuckers and wankers; we need to find a new strategy and we need to find it soon.
I think that's the best position you can have. I met a girl once who was curious, but I also left it at 'I have information if you want it.' It seems to be the safest route.
fwiw, i read nothing in what you said in your original post that suggested you were trying to persuade him to do anything.
Something vaguely related happened to me recently. I got confronted with the idea of a self-claimed zoophile who swore of sexual contact with animals on the grounds of consent.
What happened was the I was in a conversation with 3 other people. One of them I am really close to (she knows I'm zoo), the 2 others I barely know. I don't know why, but conversations with the people I associate myself with tend to often involve the subject of sexual deviancy. We talked about how pedophilia was immoral and about how pedophiles should never act on their urges because of it, and at one point came the dreaded "just like zoophiles." I'm pretty used to people being universally against physical expressions of zoophilia, so it didn't bother me much. But then, somebody mentioned that they had a zoophile acquaintance that decided to abstain from sexual contact with animals because animals cannot give consent on human terms. Normally, I think I would done a pretty good job at refuting this. But the notion that a zoophile could find zoophilia immoral upset me greatly. I stammered, got really nervous and left.
If I ever met that guy and talk about zoophilia, what would even happen? I'm still on the fence a bit about the morality of it myself, but I mostly convinced myself sex with animals can be morally acceptable if certain conditions are met. I sure as hell won't ever stop myself from acting on my urges if these conditions are met for my partner and me. It's very disquieting for me to think that some people out there share my attraction yet get hung up on the same arguments that are used "against" us.
I'll second what 30-30 said above. There is indeed a huge difference between people who claim they find animals sexy and people who actually have/want to have sex with them. It is my opinion that would be almost dangerous to confront these type of people with your convictions. A self-hating zoophile, for lack of a better word, is as dangerous as normal people, even more so.
The situation is a bit more complicated than I let on - because it would be incredibly difficult to sum up the various conversations we've had without writing something that go on for pages, and because I have no right to talk about some of the personal details he's talked about.
A short version, I think, would be that I wouldn't call him a self-hating zoophile. It's more... I don't think he has a strong sex drive, and so for the longest time he just said to himself "well, this entire category is something I just won't participate in". As such, he never gave it a whole lot of thought. Until recently, whereupon he seems to be questioning both how he sees humans and how he sees animals. So it's not like he has a firm opinion on anything, really... I'd call his opinions "underdeveloped", if anything.
Ok... I didn't understand your post in that sense. In that case, I think I'd say to be honest with your convictions if the subject is ever brought up, but don't bring it up on purpose. Let him come to his own conclusions by himself.
This has not been my experience at all. The vast majority of zoos I've met have been largely positive about sex with animals. I've heard the position that we should not proselytize (as 30-30 put it, "don't talk them in, talk them out") -- but that's a bit of a separate matter.
If we think acting out zoo activities is morally wrong because they can't consent, and abstain from such activities due to said reason...then ya'll should just give up having any animal of any type, ever. Don't seek out medical treatment. Make sure all your products that you use, are not made from any animal whatsoever. Don't take photos of their naked bodies. Don't take them to the vet either.
Because that is the logic behind consent. If an animal cannot consent to sex, it cannot consent to ANYTHING. And if you vouch for medical treatment because without it, we most likely wouldn't be here? I have to ask, what makes humans so much more important than animals, that they should have to suffer a GREAT deal just to keep us...even the worst of us, alive?
I'm not buying into the moral anxiety over it until we stop being such hypocrites as a species. My only concern is the happiness of the animal and interpreting their happiness as best as I can. You know you haven't done anything wrong, if the animal doesn't act depressed, traumatized, etc. And most people know what a traumatized animal looks like. Animals don't hide trauma out of fear of punishment or social rejection like children do/can.
That consent logic gets fuzzy on the human side of things as well. Deception and manipulation run amuck with human relationships, if the government/people were to enact a law that jailed everyone for being the least bit manipulative or deceptive in order to get laid, most of the world's population would be in jail.
heh, I can recognise myself in this quite well