ngc1366
Tourist
Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Abstract
Human sexual relations with animals, a behavior known as bestiality, have existed since the dawn of human history in every place and culture in the world. Furthermore, an abundance of folklore, paintings, sculptures, films, literature and pornography exists dealing with bestiality themes. This article describes the highlights of the history of bestiality in various cultures, based on Miletski’s recent book (2002).
Based on the literature, bestiality—human sexual relations with animals, has been part of the human race throughout history, in every place and culture in the world. This article describes the highlights of the history of bestiality as it appears in art, folklore, religion, law, and in actual behaviors. All the facts and opinions presented in this article are taken from the literature (Miletski 2002). Most of the material reviewed and discussed is anecdotal, some is unbelievable, and occasionally authors provide conflicting data. It is important to take into consideration that some of the facts and views presented came from works that are questionable with regard to their validity. Nevertheless, the abundance of information from all around the world leaves no doubt that bestiality has been an integral part of human life.
Prehistoric Times
According to Rosenberger (1968), the practice of human–animal sex began at least in the Fourth Glacial Age, between 40,000 and 25,000years ago. Many discoveries of paintings and carvings showing humansand animals having sexual relations have been made in various ancient religious temples, indicating the pre-occupation of ancientman with bestiality. For example, according to Taylor, an engraved bone rod from the cave of La Madeleine, France, from the later Ice Ages (around 25,000 years ago), depicts a lioness lick-ing the opening of either a gigantic human penis or a vulva, and an Iron, Age cave painting from the seventh century BC, from Val Camonica, Italy, portrays a man inserting his penis into the vagina or anus of a donkey. According to Waine (1968), cave drawings of the Stone Age leave no doubt that our prehistoric ancestors enjoyed frequent and pleasurable sexual relations with animals.
Moreover, the fact that these drawings had an integral part in a clan’s family history, indicates it was a common act, or at least a desired act.
Ancient Near East
Archeological findings demonstrate that bestiality was practiced in Babylonia, the ancient Empire in Mesopotamia, which prospered in the third millennium BC. In his famous Code of Hammurabi, King Hammurabi (1955–1913 BC) proclaimed death for any person engaging in bestiality. At other times, according to Waine, during the Spring Fertility Rites of Babylon, dogs and other animals were used for maintaining a constant orgy condition for seven days and nights.
The Hittites, (around 13th century BC), the predecessors of the Hebrews in the Holy Land, had certain rules about which animals were tolerable to have sex with and which were forbidden and punishable by death.
The Book of Leviticus states that bestiality was very wide-spread in the country of Canaan. The Hebrews took issue with all the previous inhabitants of the Holy Land and their customs. Even depicting God with an animal’s head or an animal’s body was an abomination. The Hebrews considered sexual relations with animals a form of worshiping other Gods, as was homosexuality, and the bestialist and the animal were both to be put to death.
The purpose of these taboos was to help maintain and reinforce the boundaries of the group, and enable it to retain its distinctive identity under adverse circumstances. There are four references concerning men who have sexual contacts with animals in the Old Testament (Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 18: 22–24; Leviticus 20: 15–16; Deuteronomy 27:21), and two references concerning women (Leviticus 18:23; Leviticus 20:16). The Talmud, a commentary on the Old Testament, specifically forbids a widow from keeping a pet dog, lest she be tempted to have sexual relations with it.
Ancient Egypt
The ancient Egyptians worshiped Gods with animal shapes almost exclusively in the pre-dynastic period before about 3000 BC. Animal–human sexual contacts are occasionally portrayed on the tombs, and bestiality was recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphics as far back as 3000 BC. Several kings and queens had a reputation of engaging in bestiality, most famous was Cleopatra, who was said to have had a box filled with bees which she had placed against her genitals for stimulation, similar to a vibrator.
Egyptian men often had sexual intercourse with cattle or any other large domesticated animal, while the women resorted to dogs. Sexual contacts with apes were further reported for both men and women, and most interestingly, the Egyptians are reported to have mastered the art of sexual congress with the crocodile. This was accomplished by turning the creature onto its back, rendering it incapable of resisting penetration. This form of copulation was believed to bring prosperity and restore the potency of men. The Egyptians were also known to engage in worshipful bestiality with the Apis bull in Memphis, Egypt and with goats at the Temple at Mendes. The goats were further used as a cure for nymphomaniacs. Having said all that, bestiality was however, punishable in Egypt, by a variety of torture mechanisms, leading to death.
Ancient Greece
Bestiality themes were very popular in Greek mythology. Most notorious are the stories of Leda and the swan (Zeus), and Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, King of Crete, who fell in love with a bull, hid inside a wooden cow and copulated with it. The worship of bulls as fertility symbols was widespread in Crete and elsewhere long before the Greek period in classical times, and the tone of the writers of the day leaves no room to doubt that bestiality was a fairly common occurrence in daily life. The ancient Greeks engaged in bestiality during religious celebrations such as the Bacchanalia, in honor of the God Bacchus, and in the Temple of Aphrodite Parne, the Greek Goddess of Indecent Copulation. As with the ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks believed bestiality cured nymphomaniacs. Bestial affairs were acted out on the Greek stage, and were the theme of The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, the earliest Latin novel that has remained in its entirety, and has long been censored because of its Pornographic language and bestiality content. Bestiality was never punishable in ancient Greece.
Ancient Rome
Roman mythology is rich with bestiality themes, as is Greek mythology, and the Romans liked to view on stage scenes from the sexual lives of the mythological Gods, including bestial acts. Bestiality was wide-spread among shepherds, and Roman women were known to keep snakes which they trained to coil around their thighs and slide past the lips of their vaginas. It was the Romans who invented the rape of women (and sometimes men) by animals for the amusement of the audience at the Coliseum and Circus Maximus, and bestiality flourished as a public spectacle in ancient Rome. Emperors, such as Tiberius (AD 14–37), his wife Julia, Claudius (AD 37–41), Nero (AD 54–68), Constantinus (a.k.a. Constantine the Great, AD 274–337), Theodora (Emperor Justinian’s wife, AD 520s), and Empress Irene (AD 797–802), had been known to either engage in bestiality or enjoy watching others engage in bestiality, at the beginning of the Roman Empire, legal retribution for bestiality was required only for sodomy, under which bestiality was included. Later, bestiality was distinguished from sodomy and made punishable by death. In any event, as the Empire expanded and grew more powerful and corrupt, punishments for bestiality became almost nonexistent.
The Middle Ages in Europe
Bestiality was most widespread and accepted in Western society during the Middle Ages—from the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476 to the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492. Animals were common, everywhere, and they often shared the same roof with their owners. Sexual intercourse with animals was further thought to have been healthy and a cure for many diseases. Nonetheless, bestiality was invariably connected with black magic and witchcraft. In the Middle Ages, bestiality received full attention from Catholic jurist-theologians, whose discussions of the matter filled volumes. One of the greatest problems involved the distinction between sexual intercourse with animals and sexual intercourse with demons, which often assumed animal form for the purpose of consorting with witches. According to Salisbury’s (1994) analysis of the relationship between the Church and bestiality, early Christian thinkers inherited two main traditions: (1) In the Germanic myths, heroes were described as having characteristics of strength as a result of having an animal ancestor, as was the founder of the Danish royal house who was said to have been the offspring of a bear and a woman. And, (2) in the classical Greco-Roman tradition, Gods appeared regularly as animals to have intercourse with humans. As the early Church fathers wrestled with this classical heritage and selected those elements suitable for Christianity, they shaped their Christian texts with the notion that humans and animals were separate, and humans should thus not have sexual relations with animals. They made the Hebrews’ laws against bestiality stricter, since bestiality did not serve reproduction, and formal conciliar decrees began regulating sexual behavior, prescribing various penalties for bestiality. The early pagan Germanic secular law did not prohibit bestiality. However, as soon as Christian legislation appeared, prohibitions against bestiality emerged, suggesting that the activity was indeed going on. The penitentials began in Ireland as a way to offer the Churchmen manuals for “healing” the souls of sinful parishioners. The early Germanic world viewed animals primarily as property and food, and this attitude was reflected in the view of the early Irish penitentials, which ranked bestiality close to masturbation, making it a mild sexual sin. For example, an early Welsh penitential, the Preface of St. Gildas (495–570), required a year of penance to expiate the sin of bestiality.
However, if the man had been living by himself when he “sinned,” three 40-day periods of fasting served as sufficient penance. Factors of age, marital status, and ecclesiastical rank served to increase or decrease penances for all sexual sins. The casual attitude toward animals and sexual relations with them began to change as the conciliar legislation from the East began to influence the penitential compilers. The Council of Ancyra equated bestiality with homosexuality, and this association reached Visigothic Spain as early as the late sixth century with Martin of Braga. This shaped the Spanish penitentials from the seventh or early eighth centuries, which gave a 20-year penance for those who committed either sodomy or bestiality. The later Irish penitentials slowly became influenced by the Council of Ancyra. Equating homosexuality with bestiality not only increased the penalty, but it communicated a change in the way people looked at animals. Instead of being an irrelevant object, the animal became a participant as in the equivalent of a homosexual encounter, and it became important to kill the animal, in order to erase any memory of the act.
A major question, which pre-occupied the inquisitors, judges, theologians, and those who condemned witches, was whether the union of male or female witches with the Devil, under the disguise of an animal, was able to produce any offspring. Twelfth-century people seemed to worry more about demons than before, and tales about halfhuman births, which resulted from such unions, began spreading.
By the 13th century, the animal world seemed much more threatening than it had been in the early Middle Ages, and penalties for bestiality increased. The idea that sexual union between man and animal may result in offspring shaped the composition of the Summae Theologica, by Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274), which represented the highest development of medieval thought. St. Thomas identified four kinds of unnatural vice: the most serious sin against nature was bestiality, followed by homosexuality, intercourse in an “unnatural position” (anything other than the missionary position), and masturbation. The attitudes of St. Thomas tended to dominate all thinking on sexual behavior to the end of the Middle Ages, resulting in classifying as deviant any kind of non-procreative sexual activity. Although the courts were more preoccupied with prosecuting homosexuality, Dubois-Desaulle, Niemoeller, Evans, and Dekkers describe the various types of torture accused bestialists endured, usually in the town square in front of a crowd, until they died.
The Renaissance Period in Europe
During the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, authorities were actively prosecuting homosexuals and bestialists, and the high point of bestiality trials coincided with that of the witch-hunts. During the 15th and 16th centuries, sexual relations with animals formed one of the main topics for preachers, and by 1534, bestiality became a capital crime in England and Sweden. In 1683, Denmark passed a law making both homosexuality and bestiality punishable by burning. In 1711, it was decided that those convicted should be strangled as well as burned. During the 17th century, the incidence of bestiality between young boys and cows and sheep became so prevalent that the Catholic Church tried o ban the employment of male herdsmen.
Hundreds of reports have survived from the boom in bestiality trials from the 16th to the 18th centuries, demonstrating that bestiality was well-established in ordinary life in Europe. Tales about monster-Looking births continued to spread, as well as myths about the connection between bestiality and sexually transmitted diseases. One of the persistent legends of history attributes the death of the Russian Empress Catherine the Great to an accident while attempting to have sexual relations with a bull or a horse. The sling broke, and the weight of the animal crushed her.
Europe in the Modern Era and Today
Parisian brothels were known to provide turkeys for their clients. As the men were about to experience orgasm through having intercourse with the turkey, they would break the bird’s neck, causing the bird’s cloacal sphincter to constrict and spasm, clamping down on their penises and creating pleasurable sensations. A similar activity was enjoyed by ancient Chinese men, whose animal of preference was the goose. In 19th century France, bestiality became an organized practice, and at the time of Napoleon III, bestiality was said to have been one of the allied activities of the Society for the 1994), although certain acts continued to be punishable, if they involved violence or occurred in a public place.
Many western countries, with the exception of a few such as England and the United States, had followed suit, at least in the elimination of the death penalty.
In 1821, the law in England called for the death penalty for any person who committed the crime of sodomy, either with a man or with any animal. This law was revised in 1861, and the sentence reduced to life imprisonment (L’Etalon Doux 1996). Nevertheless, since in England bestiality has been lumped together with homosexuality as “sodomy;” the prosecution of the former has declined with that of the latter. In 2002, the United Kingdom’s Home Office reported the sentencing to be reduced to a maximum of two years of imprisonment.
According to Dubois-Desaulle, the Hungarian penal code of 1878 carries the maximum penalty of one-year imprisonment for sexual relations with animals. The German penal code of 1871, revised in 1876, in its Article 175 states that acts against nature with animals shall be punished by imprisonment, and the convicted individual shall be deprived of his civil rights. Bestiality stopped being a crime in West Germany in 1969 due to “lack of use”. In the former Eastern (communist) half of Germany, bestiality was not considered an offense. During World War II, human–animal breeding experiments were conducted by the Nazi physician, Dr. Josef Mengele. He was reported to be obsessed with bestiality, and was bent on creating a hybrid that could eventually replace slave labor for menial tasks. He used the large camp source of young Jewish and Polish girls in the Auschwitz concentration camp for this purpose, and forced dogs and ponies on these women. Klaus Barbie, the infamous “Butcher of Lyons,” used to force female prisoners to perform sex acts with animals as a way of egrading them, according to war crimes testimony.
According to Rosenberger, bestiality is very common in Europe. As late as in the sixties, in Sicily and parts of France, Germany, and Poland, priests used to ask in the confessional if one had used an animal for “bestial purposes of sex”. In the forties and fifties, in Sicily and southern Italy, bestiality among herdsmen was said to have been of such proportions that it was considered a national custom. And, Aleister Crowley, the organizer of “Love is the law” cult in Sicily, was said to have his mistress and other female members of the cult engage in acts of bestiality with his selected sacred goat. According to a 10-year-old issue of The Wild Animal Revue, a specialized magazine about bestial sex, interested individuals can find sex shows involving women engaging in sexual activities with a variety of animals, such as dogs, goats, snakes, donkeys, bulls, and ponies, almost all over Europe: in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, Austria, Norway, and in the Netherlands. Denmark is probably the only place where bestiality videos are legally produced and distributed, while in Hungary, magazines dedicated to animal sex are sold openly in book-stores.
South and East Asia and Oceania
In its 17 volumes—Thousand Nights and a Night, translated by the British explorer and orientalist, Sir Richard F. Burton, and published between the years 1885 and 1888—bestiality among Chinese with ducks, goats, and other animals, is discussed, According to Waine, in China, sexual relations with canines prospered both in the past and present. In old Shanghai, the exhibit of a young virgin being mounted by a dog was regularly offered in the brothel’s sex shows, and Prince Chien, of the Han dynasty (221 BC–AD 24), was said to have forced women to have intercourse with dogs. Sultans and other leaders of the East were said to use animals to keep the women of their harems happy and satisfied. In ancient days, Pekingese dogs were bred and raised by eunuchs under close supervision of the Emperor himself. The royal preference for Pekingese probably precluded penetration possibilities, but the special treatment given to their tongues by the eunuchs, and the common practice of puppy breast-feeding by privileged ladies, indicate dog–human sexual attitudes “beyond the shadow of a doubt”.
The Pekingese was replaced by the Chow Chow as Imperial Dog in following centuries.
As mentioned before, the wealthy and sophisticated men of the East, especially the Chinese, were famous for their intimate relations with geese and other birds, whose necks they wrung at the moment of orgasm in order to obtain added stimulation from the final spasms of the animal’s anal sphincter. In 1933, Dubois-Desaulle stated that bestiality was popular in the “Orient.” Before communism in China, almost any sex show could be seen in Shanghai. Yet, currently no animal sex shows are known to take place in China. However, relates that in Southeast Asia one can find sex shows with barnyard, domestic animals, snakes, and eels.
Thailand is notorious for its human–animals sex shows, as are Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, and the former French colonies of the Pacific Islands. Although there is very little bestiality among the Japanese, the ultimate bachelor party extravaganza in modern day Japan is said to be an exhibit of a young woman being mounted by a dog, and underground bestial sex shows can still be found. In Australia and New Zealand, dog, goat, ram, pony, and bull sex shows exist. It is also reported that the Aborigines of Australia are known to practice bestiality. Bestiality was very common among the Hindus, and portrayals of animal–human sexual contacts frequently appear in temple sculptures all over India.
Although the Code of Manu, the first systematic coding of Hindu law, dating from about the first century AD reads: “A man who has committed a bestial crime... shall perform a Samtapana Krikkhra”, according to Donofrio, in ancient India, the belief in transmigration of souls between animals and humans was combined with acceptance toward bestiality. For example, Kautilya fined a person who copulated with animals only 12 panas, which was much less than for anal intercourse among humans. In India too, it was reported that pet dogs and monkeys were kept in harems to service the women. Tantrism often portrays man as a rabbit, bull or horse, and the woman as a doe, mare, or a female elephant, and among the supernatural powers promised to practitioners of various yogic disciplines are those by which a person could become a beast, so that he could have sex with animals and thereby experience sex in its totality. In an early legend, Prajapati was said to have cohabited with the dawn goddess Ushas, who tried to escape him by assuming hundreds of different animal shapes. It was through such copulations that all animal species were produced. In Hindu mythology, Mallika, the wife of Prasenajit, used a pet dog for her sexual gratification, and Prasenajit sought satisfaction with a goat.
According to the Hindu tradition of erotic painting and sculpture, a human copulating with an animal is actually a human having intercourse with a God incarnated in the form of an animal. Copulation with a sacred cow or monkey is believed to bring good fortune. During the Hindus’ celebrations at the Holi festival, to honor the Goddess Vesanti, open human sexual relations are said to be wildly practiced, and Hindu women are reported to masturbate and perform fellatio on bulls in order to be closer to God. “Many city youths have their first orgasm dangling from the rump of a sacred cow”, although in an article on sexual problems of adolescence in India, Nagaraja states that only one percent of the adolescent population suffers from the “abnormal desire” of bestiality. Sex shows with dogs, bulls, and water buffalos can be found in the Indian Ocean area and in the Indian Sub-continent (India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and Sikkim). Among the Tamils of Sri Lanka, intercourse with goats and cows is said to be very common.
Arab Countries, the Middle East, and Africa
According to Rosenfeld and Rosenberger, the Arabs have long practiced bestiality. They practice bestiality primarily with goats, mares, sheep, sows, asses, and camels, if the latter cooperate. Arab women reportedly have oral sex and intercourse with dogs whenever men are not available to please them. Arab men believe that intercourse with animals increases virility, cures diseases, and enlarges their penises. The Muslims of Morocco have a similar belief, whereby fathers encourage sons to practice anal and vaginal intercourse with donkeys in order to make the penis grow. Boyhood masturbation is scorned in favor of bestiality, and the sight of a group of young Moroccan boys taking turns mounting a donkey is accepted as merely comical. Grown-up men are ridiculed for the practice, but are not punished as long as they perform the act with their own livestock.
Bestiality is considered better than “zina,” which is adultery or fornication. Muslims assume a man has sex with an animal only when he is depraved, or to prevent himself from committing “zina.” If discovered, the animal was to be destroyed and eaten further reports that Algerian boys have sex with she-asses because marital dowries are so high they cannot afford to get married and are deprived of sex with wives.
Although under Islamic law the penalty for sex with an animal is death, and in ancient times bestiality led to death by stoning of both man and animal, bestiality was tolerated in Islam and widely practiced (interestingly enough, according to Edwardes, Masters, and Ramsis, the Koran makes no mention of sexual relations with animals). A popular Arab saying is that “the pilgrimage to Mecca is not complete without copulating with the camel”. Among some nomad tribes, intercourse with cattle is still regarded as a ritual of passage for adolescent males. Bestiality is found only rarely among the Rwala Bedouins, occasionally in Central Arabia, and frequently among the semi-Bedouins of Northern Israel and Mecca.
It was also reported that as recently as the early part of this century, the nomads’ practice of bestiality with their cattle constituted an ordinary feature of pastoral life among the Palestinian Arabs. During the 1978 American conflict with Iran, the Little Green Book, with extracts from the writings of Ayatollah Khomeini, was published. This book contains traditional ritualistically correct views on various issues, among them what to do with a sodomized camel. Bestiality is common among the Turks, who are known for having anal intercourse with mares. Some people regard bestiality as sinful only when it involves animals that are edible, such as cattle or sheep. Turks also believe that sex with a donkey makes the human penis grow larger. Today in Turkey, although enforcement of moral laws is very strict, pony, donkey, and dog sex shows are known to run from time to time. The last reported arrests for bestial activity were in 1993 and took place near the Kurdish refugee camps.
There are stories about the notorious side-shows in Aden, Port-Said, Cairo, and Alexandria which offer tourists sex exhibitions of humans and animals, and it is reported that brothels in Cairo provide sex shows of women and mule stallions. Egyptian shepherd boys are well known for engaging in sexual relations with animals in their herd. They especially favor fellatio, and rub honey or candy on the penis to encourage the suckling of lambs and goats.
In Lebanon, Beirut was known as a “hot place” for bestiality in the 1960s, and according to Dubois-Desaulle, in 1933 bestiality was still very popular in Syria. Sexual acts between humans and animals were not punished or even considered socially unacceptable among the Kusai and Masai tribes (inhabitants of Kenya and Tanzania). On the South Sea Island of Kusai, men are reported to use cattle occasionally as sexual objects, and Masai male adolescents frequently use female donkeys as a sexual outlet, and as practice, as they believe it improves their lovemaking. The Suaheli (Bantu people of Zanzibar/Tanzania) and Arabian fisherman along the coast of Africa, near Mombasa, Kenya, used to believe that unless they had anal sex with the sea-cows they netted, they would be dragged out to sea the next day and drowned by the dead sea-cow’s sister.
Many people would therefore make the fishermen swear, by the Koran, that they did not have sex with the seacow they were selling at the local market. At El Yemen, trained baboons were popular sex partners for both men and women, and the women in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and the Sudan were said to smuggle dog-faced apes (girds) into the harem and have sexual relations with them. Among the Manghabei of Madagascar, bestiality with calves and cows has been observed to be practiced openly by children and adults alike. The people of the Hottentot tribe, nomadic people in southwest Africa, do not consider bestiality to be immoral; they do, however, regard incest in the same negative light as Western people. Sex with animals used to be a part of the Ibo (Nigerian tribe) male coming-of-age ritual. Every boy had to “successfully” copulate with a specially selected sheep, to the satisfaction of a circle of elders who witnessed the performance. Among the Yoruba (another tribe in Nigeria), there was the custom that a young hunter had to copulate with the first antelope he ever killed, while it was still warm. Many tribes in Central Africa believe animals to be the ancestors of human beings. In Voodoo ceremonies, as well as in some other religious and magical rituals, individuals believe themselves as transformed into animals, and have sexual relations either with other humans or with animals of the kind they believe themselves to be.
South and Central America
The Inca civilization extended down the Pacific coast, from Columbia to Chile and inland to the Andes. In their sexual mores, bestiality was punishable by hanging. Nevertheless, six percent of Inca archaeological decorated specimens, dated from before AD 1000, depict bestiality.
An ancient law in Peru forbade bachelors from having female alpacas in their homes because of the many reported cases of bestiality. Peruvian men who were unaccompanied by women were further forbidden from herding llamas. In South and Central America, bestiality was said to be so prevalent when the Spaniards arrived, that the priests included the “sin of bestiality” in their confessional protocol. According to Gregersen, sexual contacts with animals play an important part in the sex life of almost everyone in the Kagaba, an agricultural society in northern Columbiam. An ancient pre- Columbian belief among Indians of the Caribbean coast of Columbia relates that adolescent males will not achieve competence in marriage unless they practice intercourse with donkeys. In a study on the gaucho population living on the border of Brazil and Uruguay, Leal found the gauchos to understand bestiality as a legitimate practice within a group where the dominant cultural belief consists of mastering the wild.
A sexual relationship with certain animals is not only a sanctioned practice within this group, but is seen throughout south Brazil as a herdsmen’s or rural tradition. “Barranquear” is the regional term used to refer to male sexual relationship with animals, usually mares. There is a sort of hierarchy of animals to be followed in the “barranqueamento.” The sequence starts with the chicken and culminates with the mare.
Chickens are for small and young boys, and the act is subject to ridicule. For the gauchos, bestiality shows courage, and the wilder the animal in the animal hierarchy, the more prestigious is the act. Most gauchos do not engage in bestiality as a regular activity, although it is an important part of their sexual initiation. In the towns and cities of this region, bestiality is considered another form of sexual play among male teenagers. It is tolerated by society as part of growing up and as a necessary erotic experience. Bestiality within this more urban context is practiced with hens, ewes, sows, cows, mules, and mares, but not with cats or dogs. A group of boys will hold the animal while one of them has intercourse with it. There is no legislation against bestiality in Brazil, either under criminal or civil law. It is an offense only when it is done in a public area. Brazil is especially known for its sex shows, and some of the latest animal porn films are from this country. In an analysis of Latin American (Mexican, Cuban) pornography of the 1930s through the 1950s, Di-Lauro and Rabkin found that bestiality was a common theme. Films such as Rin Tin Tin Mexicano, and A Hunter and His Dog depict bestiality acts. The Wild Animal Revue further describes a series of 8mm stag films, which appeared during the early 1930s, known as the “Mexican Dog” series. Animal sex shows in Mexico have declined since the days of the 1950s and 1960s, but there are still rumors of the famous donkey shows. Sex shows with animals were common in the brothels of Cuba, but Castro closed down all the brothels. In Balboa, Panama, there used to be night clubs that featured a donkey having intercourse with a woman. There has always been an underground trade in bestiality videos and magazines, and United States Customs occasionally checks tapes coming in from Panama.
Native Americans, Canadians and Eskimos
Among Native Americans, bestiality varied from tribe to tribe (Rosenberger 1968). Married men, among the Navaho Indians (in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah), were known to occasionally engage in bestiality while out herding alone, and unmarried women engaged in bestiality, as well (Deutsch 1948 cited in Donofrio 1996). Bestiality was common among the Crow (native Americans who live in the upper basins of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers, in eastern Montana) who had no scruples about having sexual relations with mares and wild animals that had just been killed in the hunt. Although all forms of animal sexual contacts are said to be taboo among the Ojibwa (native Americans and Canadians who live in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario), Ojibwa women were known to have sex with dogs, while Ojibwa men had sexual relations with dogs, bears, moose, beavers, caribou, and porcupines (Gregersen 1983).
Cases of bestiality among the Mohave (native Americans who live along the Colorado river in Arizona and California) are known to have involved mares, female asses, heifers, sows, and hens Bestiality is fairly common among the Hopi Indians in north Arizona, who consider sex with animals socially acceptable. Hopi men are reported to have intercourse with burros, dogs, horses, sheep, and chickens, and Hopi boys are sometimes directed to animal contacts so they will leave girls alone. The Sioux (native Americans of the Great Plains) and the Apache (native Americans in south-west US and in north Mexico) had similar views. The Plains Indians (a number of native north American tribes that inhabited the Great Plains, and followed the buffalo) were known to experiment with colts and to use freshly slain animals for sexual purposes. In the Canadian Indian tribe of the Salteaux, sexual relations betwend women and dogs are reported. It is also reported that hunters have sex with moose and with female bears they have shot, before the animals get cold. Sexual acts between humans and animals were not punished or even considered socially unacceptable among the Kupfer Eskimos. Among the Copper Eskimos, intercourse between men and live or dead animals is not infrequent and is not prohibited.
The New World — The American Colonies
In Colonial America, a divorce law enacted in 1639, in Plymouth Colony, mentioned bestiality specifically as reason for divorce, and some sexologists and historians believe bestiality was widespread. Colonial laws against bestiality required harsh punishment, since the colonists believed these relationships could have reproductive consequences of monstrous offspring. Therefore, the colonists made sure both the person and the animal were executed. The Colony of Pennsylvania ordered life imprisonment and whipping of the person involved in bestiality, at the discretion of the court, and Colonial Virginia law prescribed castration as a remedy for bestiality. The first recorded cases of bestiality in the New World took place in 1642 in Plymouth and Massachusetts Colonies. Both men were sentenced to death, and the animals were slaughtered and burned
The United States of America
According to Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin’s1948 study, one American man in about 13 had sexual experience with animals. The authors estimated the number to be eight percent of the male population in the United States. They also stated that animal sexual contacts were largely confined to farm boys, and added that over half of the rural males who had a college education had had some kind of sexual contact with animals. Almost four percent of the women interviewed by Kinsey et al. (1953) reported having had sexual contact with animals after they had become adolescents.
Rumors about orgies involving animals among swinging circles have been reported , and according to Dumont there used to be a guest ranch in Texas, as late as 1970, which arranged sexual relations between the guests and various horses trained for performing sexual acts. The Pet Book series, detailing bestiality fantasies, from Greenleaf Classics in San Diego, California, has flourished since the early 1970s. A full length, underground movie was reportedly shown in some San Francisco adult movie theaters about 20 years ago. The film was called Animal Lovers and portrayed the female star engaging in intercourse with various types of animals including a dog, a donkey, and a pig. There are also the Color Climax’ 8mm animal films, such as Dog Fuckers, Horse Lovers, and Horsepower, all from 1970. Another two 8mm stag films appeared in the early 1970s in which porn star, Linda Lovelace, had sex with a large dog. Lovelace, however, has denied her participation in such films. There have been reports of underground, private, local, animal shows in the United States and Canada, but nothing organized. At one mid-Western high school, the football team still gets a “goat show” after “home coming,” reportedly, a tradition for over 20 years. There were also reports about some wild animal sex shows during construction of the Alaskan pipe line. In 1962, Illinois became the first American state to revise its criminal code, and oral-genital contacts, anal intercourse between consenting adults in private, and sexual acts with animals, were no longer considered criminal offenses. In 1997, twenty-five states, the District of Columbia, and the United States Government outlawed bestiality. The sentences ranged from a mere fine of not more than $500 in Tennessee to an indeterminate life sentence in Michigan. The laws in the United States have been changing, and according to Richard, in 2001, three states—Iowa, Maine, and Oregon—passed laws criminalizing bestiality. The late Mark Matthews, in his book The Horseman (1994), helped increase awareness of the existence of “zoophilia” (i.e., in addition to engaging in bestiality, the zoophile, or “zoo,” also feels love and sexual attraction toward the animals). In recent years, the Broadway theater has been increasingly open in its portrayal of the full spectrum of sexual themes and activities. Productions such as, Futz and the very recent The Goat, have depicted the themes of bestiality and zoophilia.
The Internet
Alt.sex.bestiality (A.S.B.) was one of the first Internet news groups which started around 1990 as someone’s idea of a joke. Soon, A.S.B. grew and matured into a discussion and support group, providing information about health issues, laws governing bestiality, bibliographic references, “how to” guides, written, and pictorial erotica, and information about the “zoo community’s” events. Most people in this newsgroup had sexual relations with animals, and many were quite proud of it. There were also many others who have not had any sexual contact with animals, but who were eager to do so. According to Andriette, for most “zoos,” finding other “zoos” has changed their lives. It has given them a new self understanding, and connected them with like-minded friends. Stasya’s Home Page, which was about zoophilia, was initiated in September of 1995, and averaged a “hit” (a visitor) every three minutes. Stasya reported (in 1996) receiving anywhere from two to six messages per day from people saying “thank you for being there”. In January of 1999, according to the Humane Society of the United States’ web site, in one Internet search using the term “bestiality,” it found 85,771 documents. These days, one can find numerous web sites, chat rooms, and pet forums exclusively devoted to bestiality, zoophilia, and related pornography online. And Byrd points out that bestiality/zoophilia has never been more present, even in fashion magazine advertisements and television commercials.
Conclusion
A more in-depth exploration of the history of bestiality is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is apparent and important to acknowledge that man has engaged in bestiality since the dawn of civilization, in almost every culture and place in the world. Although individuals have been punished, sometimes tortured and killed, for engaging in bestiality, the behavior and the pre-occupation with bestiality has persisted. Even more important are the reports that bestiality is still an integral part of many people’s lives, whether in myth, art, literature, or as actual sexual behavior. Although no one knows how prevalent sexual behavior with animals is, bestiality is unquestionably among us.
Abstract
Human sexual relations with animals, a behavior known as bestiality, have existed since the dawn of human history in every place and culture in the world. Furthermore, an abundance of folklore, paintings, sculptures, films, literature and pornography exists dealing with bestiality themes. This article describes the highlights of the history of bestiality in various cultures, based on Miletski’s recent book (2002).
Based on the literature, bestiality—human sexual relations with animals, has been part of the human race throughout history, in every place and culture in the world. This article describes the highlights of the history of bestiality as it appears in art, folklore, religion, law, and in actual behaviors. All the facts and opinions presented in this article are taken from the literature (Miletski 2002). Most of the material reviewed and discussed is anecdotal, some is unbelievable, and occasionally authors provide conflicting data. It is important to take into consideration that some of the facts and views presented came from works that are questionable with regard to their validity. Nevertheless, the abundance of information from all around the world leaves no doubt that bestiality has been an integral part of human life.
Prehistoric Times
According to Rosenberger (1968), the practice of human–animal sex began at least in the Fourth Glacial Age, between 40,000 and 25,000years ago. Many discoveries of paintings and carvings showing humansand animals having sexual relations have been made in various ancient religious temples, indicating the pre-occupation of ancientman with bestiality. For example, according to Taylor, an engraved bone rod from the cave of La Madeleine, France, from the later Ice Ages (around 25,000 years ago), depicts a lioness lick-ing the opening of either a gigantic human penis or a vulva, and an Iron, Age cave painting from the seventh century BC, from Val Camonica, Italy, portrays a man inserting his penis into the vagina or anus of a donkey. According to Waine (1968), cave drawings of the Stone Age leave no doubt that our prehistoric ancestors enjoyed frequent and pleasurable sexual relations with animals.
Moreover, the fact that these drawings had an integral part in a clan’s family history, indicates it was a common act, or at least a desired act.
Ancient Near East
Archeological findings demonstrate that bestiality was practiced in Babylonia, the ancient Empire in Mesopotamia, which prospered in the third millennium BC. In his famous Code of Hammurabi, King Hammurabi (1955–1913 BC) proclaimed death for any person engaging in bestiality. At other times, according to Waine, during the Spring Fertility Rites of Babylon, dogs and other animals were used for maintaining a constant orgy condition for seven days and nights.
The Hittites, (around 13th century BC), the predecessors of the Hebrews in the Holy Land, had certain rules about which animals were tolerable to have sex with and which were forbidden and punishable by death.
The Book of Leviticus states that bestiality was very wide-spread in the country of Canaan. The Hebrews took issue with all the previous inhabitants of the Holy Land and their customs. Even depicting God with an animal’s head or an animal’s body was an abomination. The Hebrews considered sexual relations with animals a form of worshiping other Gods, as was homosexuality, and the bestialist and the animal were both to be put to death.
The purpose of these taboos was to help maintain and reinforce the boundaries of the group, and enable it to retain its distinctive identity under adverse circumstances. There are four references concerning men who have sexual contacts with animals in the Old Testament (Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 18: 22–24; Leviticus 20: 15–16; Deuteronomy 27:21), and two references concerning women (Leviticus 18:23; Leviticus 20:16). The Talmud, a commentary on the Old Testament, specifically forbids a widow from keeping a pet dog, lest she be tempted to have sexual relations with it.
Ancient Egypt
The ancient Egyptians worshiped Gods with animal shapes almost exclusively in the pre-dynastic period before about 3000 BC. Animal–human sexual contacts are occasionally portrayed on the tombs, and bestiality was recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphics as far back as 3000 BC. Several kings and queens had a reputation of engaging in bestiality, most famous was Cleopatra, who was said to have had a box filled with bees which she had placed against her genitals for stimulation, similar to a vibrator.
Egyptian men often had sexual intercourse with cattle or any other large domesticated animal, while the women resorted to dogs. Sexual contacts with apes were further reported for both men and women, and most interestingly, the Egyptians are reported to have mastered the art of sexual congress with the crocodile. This was accomplished by turning the creature onto its back, rendering it incapable of resisting penetration. This form of copulation was believed to bring prosperity and restore the potency of men. The Egyptians were also known to engage in worshipful bestiality with the Apis bull in Memphis, Egypt and with goats at the Temple at Mendes. The goats were further used as a cure for nymphomaniacs. Having said all that, bestiality was however, punishable in Egypt, by a variety of torture mechanisms, leading to death.
Ancient Greece
Bestiality themes were very popular in Greek mythology. Most notorious are the stories of Leda and the swan (Zeus), and Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, King of Crete, who fell in love with a bull, hid inside a wooden cow and copulated with it. The worship of bulls as fertility symbols was widespread in Crete and elsewhere long before the Greek period in classical times, and the tone of the writers of the day leaves no room to doubt that bestiality was a fairly common occurrence in daily life. The ancient Greeks engaged in bestiality during religious celebrations such as the Bacchanalia, in honor of the God Bacchus, and in the Temple of Aphrodite Parne, the Greek Goddess of Indecent Copulation. As with the ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks believed bestiality cured nymphomaniacs. Bestial affairs were acted out on the Greek stage, and were the theme of The Golden Ass by Lucius Apuleius, the earliest Latin novel that has remained in its entirety, and has long been censored because of its Pornographic language and bestiality content. Bestiality was never punishable in ancient Greece.
Ancient Rome
Roman mythology is rich with bestiality themes, as is Greek mythology, and the Romans liked to view on stage scenes from the sexual lives of the mythological Gods, including bestial acts. Bestiality was wide-spread among shepherds, and Roman women were known to keep snakes which they trained to coil around their thighs and slide past the lips of their vaginas. It was the Romans who invented the rape of women (and sometimes men) by animals for the amusement of the audience at the Coliseum and Circus Maximus, and bestiality flourished as a public spectacle in ancient Rome. Emperors, such as Tiberius (AD 14–37), his wife Julia, Claudius (AD 37–41), Nero (AD 54–68), Constantinus (a.k.a. Constantine the Great, AD 274–337), Theodora (Emperor Justinian’s wife, AD 520s), and Empress Irene (AD 797–802), had been known to either engage in bestiality or enjoy watching others engage in bestiality, at the beginning of the Roman Empire, legal retribution for bestiality was required only for sodomy, under which bestiality was included. Later, bestiality was distinguished from sodomy and made punishable by death. In any event, as the Empire expanded and grew more powerful and corrupt, punishments for bestiality became almost nonexistent.
The Middle Ages in Europe
Bestiality was most widespread and accepted in Western society during the Middle Ages—from the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476 to the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492. Animals were common, everywhere, and they often shared the same roof with their owners. Sexual intercourse with animals was further thought to have been healthy and a cure for many diseases. Nonetheless, bestiality was invariably connected with black magic and witchcraft. In the Middle Ages, bestiality received full attention from Catholic jurist-theologians, whose discussions of the matter filled volumes. One of the greatest problems involved the distinction between sexual intercourse with animals and sexual intercourse with demons, which often assumed animal form for the purpose of consorting with witches. According to Salisbury’s (1994) analysis of the relationship between the Church and bestiality, early Christian thinkers inherited two main traditions: (1) In the Germanic myths, heroes were described as having characteristics of strength as a result of having an animal ancestor, as was the founder of the Danish royal house who was said to have been the offspring of a bear and a woman. And, (2) in the classical Greco-Roman tradition, Gods appeared regularly as animals to have intercourse with humans. As the early Church fathers wrestled with this classical heritage and selected those elements suitable for Christianity, they shaped their Christian texts with the notion that humans and animals were separate, and humans should thus not have sexual relations with animals. They made the Hebrews’ laws against bestiality stricter, since bestiality did not serve reproduction, and formal conciliar decrees began regulating sexual behavior, prescribing various penalties for bestiality. The early pagan Germanic secular law did not prohibit bestiality. However, as soon as Christian legislation appeared, prohibitions against bestiality emerged, suggesting that the activity was indeed going on. The penitentials began in Ireland as a way to offer the Churchmen manuals for “healing” the souls of sinful parishioners. The early Germanic world viewed animals primarily as property and food, and this attitude was reflected in the view of the early Irish penitentials, which ranked bestiality close to masturbation, making it a mild sexual sin. For example, an early Welsh penitential, the Preface of St. Gildas (495–570), required a year of penance to expiate the sin of bestiality.
However, if the man had been living by himself when he “sinned,” three 40-day periods of fasting served as sufficient penance. Factors of age, marital status, and ecclesiastical rank served to increase or decrease penances for all sexual sins. The casual attitude toward animals and sexual relations with them began to change as the conciliar legislation from the East began to influence the penitential compilers. The Council of Ancyra equated bestiality with homosexuality, and this association reached Visigothic Spain as early as the late sixth century with Martin of Braga. This shaped the Spanish penitentials from the seventh or early eighth centuries, which gave a 20-year penance for those who committed either sodomy or bestiality. The later Irish penitentials slowly became influenced by the Council of Ancyra. Equating homosexuality with bestiality not only increased the penalty, but it communicated a change in the way people looked at animals. Instead of being an irrelevant object, the animal became a participant as in the equivalent of a homosexual encounter, and it became important to kill the animal, in order to erase any memory of the act.
A major question, which pre-occupied the inquisitors, judges, theologians, and those who condemned witches, was whether the union of male or female witches with the Devil, under the disguise of an animal, was able to produce any offspring. Twelfth-century people seemed to worry more about demons than before, and tales about halfhuman births, which resulted from such unions, began spreading.
By the 13th century, the animal world seemed much more threatening than it had been in the early Middle Ages, and penalties for bestiality increased. The idea that sexual union between man and animal may result in offspring shaped the composition of the Summae Theologica, by Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274), which represented the highest development of medieval thought. St. Thomas identified four kinds of unnatural vice: the most serious sin against nature was bestiality, followed by homosexuality, intercourse in an “unnatural position” (anything other than the missionary position), and masturbation. The attitudes of St. Thomas tended to dominate all thinking on sexual behavior to the end of the Middle Ages, resulting in classifying as deviant any kind of non-procreative sexual activity. Although the courts were more preoccupied with prosecuting homosexuality, Dubois-Desaulle, Niemoeller, Evans, and Dekkers describe the various types of torture accused bestialists endured, usually in the town square in front of a crowd, until they died.
The Renaissance Period in Europe
During the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, authorities were actively prosecuting homosexuals and bestialists, and the high point of bestiality trials coincided with that of the witch-hunts. During the 15th and 16th centuries, sexual relations with animals formed one of the main topics for preachers, and by 1534, bestiality became a capital crime in England and Sweden. In 1683, Denmark passed a law making both homosexuality and bestiality punishable by burning. In 1711, it was decided that those convicted should be strangled as well as burned. During the 17th century, the incidence of bestiality between young boys and cows and sheep became so prevalent that the Catholic Church tried o ban the employment of male herdsmen.
Hundreds of reports have survived from the boom in bestiality trials from the 16th to the 18th centuries, demonstrating that bestiality was well-established in ordinary life in Europe. Tales about monster-Looking births continued to spread, as well as myths about the connection between bestiality and sexually transmitted diseases. One of the persistent legends of history attributes the death of the Russian Empress Catherine the Great to an accident while attempting to have sexual relations with a bull or a horse. The sling broke, and the weight of the animal crushed her.
Europe in the Modern Era and Today
Parisian brothels were known to provide turkeys for their clients. As the men were about to experience orgasm through having intercourse with the turkey, they would break the bird’s neck, causing the bird’s cloacal sphincter to constrict and spasm, clamping down on their penises and creating pleasurable sensations. A similar activity was enjoyed by ancient Chinese men, whose animal of preference was the goose. In 19th century France, bestiality became an organized practice, and at the time of Napoleon III, bestiality was said to have been one of the allied activities of the Society for the 1994), although certain acts continued to be punishable, if they involved violence or occurred in a public place.
Many western countries, with the exception of a few such as England and the United States, had followed suit, at least in the elimination of the death penalty.
In 1821, the law in England called for the death penalty for any person who committed the crime of sodomy, either with a man or with any animal. This law was revised in 1861, and the sentence reduced to life imprisonment (L’Etalon Doux 1996). Nevertheless, since in England bestiality has been lumped together with homosexuality as “sodomy;” the prosecution of the former has declined with that of the latter. In 2002, the United Kingdom’s Home Office reported the sentencing to be reduced to a maximum of two years of imprisonment.
According to Dubois-Desaulle, the Hungarian penal code of 1878 carries the maximum penalty of one-year imprisonment for sexual relations with animals. The German penal code of 1871, revised in 1876, in its Article 175 states that acts against nature with animals shall be punished by imprisonment, and the convicted individual shall be deprived of his civil rights. Bestiality stopped being a crime in West Germany in 1969 due to “lack of use”. In the former Eastern (communist) half of Germany, bestiality was not considered an offense. During World War II, human–animal breeding experiments were conducted by the Nazi physician, Dr. Josef Mengele. He was reported to be obsessed with bestiality, and was bent on creating a hybrid that could eventually replace slave labor for menial tasks. He used the large camp source of young Jewish and Polish girls in the Auschwitz concentration camp for this purpose, and forced dogs and ponies on these women. Klaus Barbie, the infamous “Butcher of Lyons,” used to force female prisoners to perform sex acts with animals as a way of egrading them, according to war crimes testimony.
According to Rosenberger, bestiality is very common in Europe. As late as in the sixties, in Sicily and parts of France, Germany, and Poland, priests used to ask in the confessional if one had used an animal for “bestial purposes of sex”. In the forties and fifties, in Sicily and southern Italy, bestiality among herdsmen was said to have been of such proportions that it was considered a national custom. And, Aleister Crowley, the organizer of “Love is the law” cult in Sicily, was said to have his mistress and other female members of the cult engage in acts of bestiality with his selected sacred goat. According to a 10-year-old issue of The Wild Animal Revue, a specialized magazine about bestial sex, interested individuals can find sex shows involving women engaging in sexual activities with a variety of animals, such as dogs, goats, snakes, donkeys, bulls, and ponies, almost all over Europe: in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, Austria, Norway, and in the Netherlands. Denmark is probably the only place where bestiality videos are legally produced and distributed, while in Hungary, magazines dedicated to animal sex are sold openly in book-stores.
South and East Asia and Oceania
In its 17 volumes—Thousand Nights and a Night, translated by the British explorer and orientalist, Sir Richard F. Burton, and published between the years 1885 and 1888—bestiality among Chinese with ducks, goats, and other animals, is discussed, According to Waine, in China, sexual relations with canines prospered both in the past and present. In old Shanghai, the exhibit of a young virgin being mounted by a dog was regularly offered in the brothel’s sex shows, and Prince Chien, of the Han dynasty (221 BC–AD 24), was said to have forced women to have intercourse with dogs. Sultans and other leaders of the East were said to use animals to keep the women of their harems happy and satisfied. In ancient days, Pekingese dogs were bred and raised by eunuchs under close supervision of the Emperor himself. The royal preference for Pekingese probably precluded penetration possibilities, but the special treatment given to their tongues by the eunuchs, and the common practice of puppy breast-feeding by privileged ladies, indicate dog–human sexual attitudes “beyond the shadow of a doubt”.
The Pekingese was replaced by the Chow Chow as Imperial Dog in following centuries.
As mentioned before, the wealthy and sophisticated men of the East, especially the Chinese, were famous for their intimate relations with geese and other birds, whose necks they wrung at the moment of orgasm in order to obtain added stimulation from the final spasms of the animal’s anal sphincter. In 1933, Dubois-Desaulle stated that bestiality was popular in the “Orient.” Before communism in China, almost any sex show could be seen in Shanghai. Yet, currently no animal sex shows are known to take place in China. However, relates that in Southeast Asia one can find sex shows with barnyard, domestic animals, snakes, and eels.
Thailand is notorious for its human–animals sex shows, as are Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, and the former French colonies of the Pacific Islands. Although there is very little bestiality among the Japanese, the ultimate bachelor party extravaganza in modern day Japan is said to be an exhibit of a young woman being mounted by a dog, and underground bestial sex shows can still be found. In Australia and New Zealand, dog, goat, ram, pony, and bull sex shows exist. It is also reported that the Aborigines of Australia are known to practice bestiality. Bestiality was very common among the Hindus, and portrayals of animal–human sexual contacts frequently appear in temple sculptures all over India.
Although the Code of Manu, the first systematic coding of Hindu law, dating from about the first century AD reads: “A man who has committed a bestial crime... shall perform a Samtapana Krikkhra”, according to Donofrio, in ancient India, the belief in transmigration of souls between animals and humans was combined with acceptance toward bestiality. For example, Kautilya fined a person who copulated with animals only 12 panas, which was much less than for anal intercourse among humans. In India too, it was reported that pet dogs and monkeys were kept in harems to service the women. Tantrism often portrays man as a rabbit, bull or horse, and the woman as a doe, mare, or a female elephant, and among the supernatural powers promised to practitioners of various yogic disciplines are those by which a person could become a beast, so that he could have sex with animals and thereby experience sex in its totality. In an early legend, Prajapati was said to have cohabited with the dawn goddess Ushas, who tried to escape him by assuming hundreds of different animal shapes. It was through such copulations that all animal species were produced. In Hindu mythology, Mallika, the wife of Prasenajit, used a pet dog for her sexual gratification, and Prasenajit sought satisfaction with a goat.
According to the Hindu tradition of erotic painting and sculpture, a human copulating with an animal is actually a human having intercourse with a God incarnated in the form of an animal. Copulation with a sacred cow or monkey is believed to bring good fortune. During the Hindus’ celebrations at the Holi festival, to honor the Goddess Vesanti, open human sexual relations are said to be wildly practiced, and Hindu women are reported to masturbate and perform fellatio on bulls in order to be closer to God. “Many city youths have their first orgasm dangling from the rump of a sacred cow”, although in an article on sexual problems of adolescence in India, Nagaraja states that only one percent of the adolescent population suffers from the “abnormal desire” of bestiality. Sex shows with dogs, bulls, and water buffalos can be found in the Indian Ocean area and in the Indian Sub-continent (India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and Sikkim). Among the Tamils of Sri Lanka, intercourse with goats and cows is said to be very common.
Arab Countries, the Middle East, and Africa
According to Rosenfeld and Rosenberger, the Arabs have long practiced bestiality. They practice bestiality primarily with goats, mares, sheep, sows, asses, and camels, if the latter cooperate. Arab women reportedly have oral sex and intercourse with dogs whenever men are not available to please them. Arab men believe that intercourse with animals increases virility, cures diseases, and enlarges their penises. The Muslims of Morocco have a similar belief, whereby fathers encourage sons to practice anal and vaginal intercourse with donkeys in order to make the penis grow. Boyhood masturbation is scorned in favor of bestiality, and the sight of a group of young Moroccan boys taking turns mounting a donkey is accepted as merely comical. Grown-up men are ridiculed for the practice, but are not punished as long as they perform the act with their own livestock.
Bestiality is considered better than “zina,” which is adultery or fornication. Muslims assume a man has sex with an animal only when he is depraved, or to prevent himself from committing “zina.” If discovered, the animal was to be destroyed and eaten further reports that Algerian boys have sex with she-asses because marital dowries are so high they cannot afford to get married and are deprived of sex with wives.
Although under Islamic law the penalty for sex with an animal is death, and in ancient times bestiality led to death by stoning of both man and animal, bestiality was tolerated in Islam and widely practiced (interestingly enough, according to Edwardes, Masters, and Ramsis, the Koran makes no mention of sexual relations with animals). A popular Arab saying is that “the pilgrimage to Mecca is not complete without copulating with the camel”. Among some nomad tribes, intercourse with cattle is still regarded as a ritual of passage for adolescent males. Bestiality is found only rarely among the Rwala Bedouins, occasionally in Central Arabia, and frequently among the semi-Bedouins of Northern Israel and Mecca.
It was also reported that as recently as the early part of this century, the nomads’ practice of bestiality with their cattle constituted an ordinary feature of pastoral life among the Palestinian Arabs. During the 1978 American conflict with Iran, the Little Green Book, with extracts from the writings of Ayatollah Khomeini, was published. This book contains traditional ritualistically correct views on various issues, among them what to do with a sodomized camel. Bestiality is common among the Turks, who are known for having anal intercourse with mares. Some people regard bestiality as sinful only when it involves animals that are edible, such as cattle or sheep. Turks also believe that sex with a donkey makes the human penis grow larger. Today in Turkey, although enforcement of moral laws is very strict, pony, donkey, and dog sex shows are known to run from time to time. The last reported arrests for bestial activity were in 1993 and took place near the Kurdish refugee camps.
There are stories about the notorious side-shows in Aden, Port-Said, Cairo, and Alexandria which offer tourists sex exhibitions of humans and animals, and it is reported that brothels in Cairo provide sex shows of women and mule stallions. Egyptian shepherd boys are well known for engaging in sexual relations with animals in their herd. They especially favor fellatio, and rub honey or candy on the penis to encourage the suckling of lambs and goats.
In Lebanon, Beirut was known as a “hot place” for bestiality in the 1960s, and according to Dubois-Desaulle, in 1933 bestiality was still very popular in Syria. Sexual acts between humans and animals were not punished or even considered socially unacceptable among the Kusai and Masai tribes (inhabitants of Kenya and Tanzania). On the South Sea Island of Kusai, men are reported to use cattle occasionally as sexual objects, and Masai male adolescents frequently use female donkeys as a sexual outlet, and as practice, as they believe it improves their lovemaking. The Suaheli (Bantu people of Zanzibar/Tanzania) and Arabian fisherman along the coast of Africa, near Mombasa, Kenya, used to believe that unless they had anal sex with the sea-cows they netted, they would be dragged out to sea the next day and drowned by the dead sea-cow’s sister.
Many people would therefore make the fishermen swear, by the Koran, that they did not have sex with the seacow they were selling at the local market. At El Yemen, trained baboons were popular sex partners for both men and women, and the women in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and the Sudan were said to smuggle dog-faced apes (girds) into the harem and have sexual relations with them. Among the Manghabei of Madagascar, bestiality with calves and cows has been observed to be practiced openly by children and adults alike. The people of the Hottentot tribe, nomadic people in southwest Africa, do not consider bestiality to be immoral; they do, however, regard incest in the same negative light as Western people. Sex with animals used to be a part of the Ibo (Nigerian tribe) male coming-of-age ritual. Every boy had to “successfully” copulate with a specially selected sheep, to the satisfaction of a circle of elders who witnessed the performance. Among the Yoruba (another tribe in Nigeria), there was the custom that a young hunter had to copulate with the first antelope he ever killed, while it was still warm. Many tribes in Central Africa believe animals to be the ancestors of human beings. In Voodoo ceremonies, as well as in some other religious and magical rituals, individuals believe themselves as transformed into animals, and have sexual relations either with other humans or with animals of the kind they believe themselves to be.
South and Central America
The Inca civilization extended down the Pacific coast, from Columbia to Chile and inland to the Andes. In their sexual mores, bestiality was punishable by hanging. Nevertheless, six percent of Inca archaeological decorated specimens, dated from before AD 1000, depict bestiality.
An ancient law in Peru forbade bachelors from having female alpacas in their homes because of the many reported cases of bestiality. Peruvian men who were unaccompanied by women were further forbidden from herding llamas. In South and Central America, bestiality was said to be so prevalent when the Spaniards arrived, that the priests included the “sin of bestiality” in their confessional protocol. According to Gregersen, sexual contacts with animals play an important part in the sex life of almost everyone in the Kagaba, an agricultural society in northern Columbiam. An ancient pre- Columbian belief among Indians of the Caribbean coast of Columbia relates that adolescent males will not achieve competence in marriage unless they practice intercourse with donkeys. In a study on the gaucho population living on the border of Brazil and Uruguay, Leal found the gauchos to understand bestiality as a legitimate practice within a group where the dominant cultural belief consists of mastering the wild.
A sexual relationship with certain animals is not only a sanctioned practice within this group, but is seen throughout south Brazil as a herdsmen’s or rural tradition. “Barranquear” is the regional term used to refer to male sexual relationship with animals, usually mares. There is a sort of hierarchy of animals to be followed in the “barranqueamento.” The sequence starts with the chicken and culminates with the mare.
Chickens are for small and young boys, and the act is subject to ridicule. For the gauchos, bestiality shows courage, and the wilder the animal in the animal hierarchy, the more prestigious is the act. Most gauchos do not engage in bestiality as a regular activity, although it is an important part of their sexual initiation. In the towns and cities of this region, bestiality is considered another form of sexual play among male teenagers. It is tolerated by society as part of growing up and as a necessary erotic experience. Bestiality within this more urban context is practiced with hens, ewes, sows, cows, mules, and mares, but not with cats or dogs. A group of boys will hold the animal while one of them has intercourse with it. There is no legislation against bestiality in Brazil, either under criminal or civil law. It is an offense only when it is done in a public area. Brazil is especially known for its sex shows, and some of the latest animal porn films are from this country. In an analysis of Latin American (Mexican, Cuban) pornography of the 1930s through the 1950s, Di-Lauro and Rabkin found that bestiality was a common theme. Films such as Rin Tin Tin Mexicano, and A Hunter and His Dog depict bestiality acts. The Wild Animal Revue further describes a series of 8mm stag films, which appeared during the early 1930s, known as the “Mexican Dog” series. Animal sex shows in Mexico have declined since the days of the 1950s and 1960s, but there are still rumors of the famous donkey shows. Sex shows with animals were common in the brothels of Cuba, but Castro closed down all the brothels. In Balboa, Panama, there used to be night clubs that featured a donkey having intercourse with a woman. There has always been an underground trade in bestiality videos and magazines, and United States Customs occasionally checks tapes coming in from Panama.
Native Americans, Canadians and Eskimos
Among Native Americans, bestiality varied from tribe to tribe (Rosenberger 1968). Married men, among the Navaho Indians (in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah), were known to occasionally engage in bestiality while out herding alone, and unmarried women engaged in bestiality, as well (Deutsch 1948 cited in Donofrio 1996). Bestiality was common among the Crow (native Americans who live in the upper basins of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers, in eastern Montana) who had no scruples about having sexual relations with mares and wild animals that had just been killed in the hunt. Although all forms of animal sexual contacts are said to be taboo among the Ojibwa (native Americans and Canadians who live in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario), Ojibwa women were known to have sex with dogs, while Ojibwa men had sexual relations with dogs, bears, moose, beavers, caribou, and porcupines (Gregersen 1983).
Cases of bestiality among the Mohave (native Americans who live along the Colorado river in Arizona and California) are known to have involved mares, female asses, heifers, sows, and hens Bestiality is fairly common among the Hopi Indians in north Arizona, who consider sex with animals socially acceptable. Hopi men are reported to have intercourse with burros, dogs, horses, sheep, and chickens, and Hopi boys are sometimes directed to animal contacts so they will leave girls alone. The Sioux (native Americans of the Great Plains) and the Apache (native Americans in south-west US and in north Mexico) had similar views. The Plains Indians (a number of native north American tribes that inhabited the Great Plains, and followed the buffalo) were known to experiment with colts and to use freshly slain animals for sexual purposes. In the Canadian Indian tribe of the Salteaux, sexual relations betwend women and dogs are reported. It is also reported that hunters have sex with moose and with female bears they have shot, before the animals get cold. Sexual acts between humans and animals were not punished or even considered socially unacceptable among the Kupfer Eskimos. Among the Copper Eskimos, intercourse between men and live or dead animals is not infrequent and is not prohibited.
The New World — The American Colonies
In Colonial America, a divorce law enacted in 1639, in Plymouth Colony, mentioned bestiality specifically as reason for divorce, and some sexologists and historians believe bestiality was widespread. Colonial laws against bestiality required harsh punishment, since the colonists believed these relationships could have reproductive consequences of monstrous offspring. Therefore, the colonists made sure both the person and the animal were executed. The Colony of Pennsylvania ordered life imprisonment and whipping of the person involved in bestiality, at the discretion of the court, and Colonial Virginia law prescribed castration as a remedy for bestiality. The first recorded cases of bestiality in the New World took place in 1642 in Plymouth and Massachusetts Colonies. Both men were sentenced to death, and the animals were slaughtered and burned
The United States of America
According to Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin’s1948 study, one American man in about 13 had sexual experience with animals. The authors estimated the number to be eight percent of the male population in the United States. They also stated that animal sexual contacts were largely confined to farm boys, and added that over half of the rural males who had a college education had had some kind of sexual contact with animals. Almost four percent of the women interviewed by Kinsey et al. (1953) reported having had sexual contact with animals after they had become adolescents.
Rumors about orgies involving animals among swinging circles have been reported , and according to Dumont there used to be a guest ranch in Texas, as late as 1970, which arranged sexual relations between the guests and various horses trained for performing sexual acts. The Pet Book series, detailing bestiality fantasies, from Greenleaf Classics in San Diego, California, has flourished since the early 1970s. A full length, underground movie was reportedly shown in some San Francisco adult movie theaters about 20 years ago. The film was called Animal Lovers and portrayed the female star engaging in intercourse with various types of animals including a dog, a donkey, and a pig. There are also the Color Climax’ 8mm animal films, such as Dog Fuckers, Horse Lovers, and Horsepower, all from 1970. Another two 8mm stag films appeared in the early 1970s in which porn star, Linda Lovelace, had sex with a large dog. Lovelace, however, has denied her participation in such films. There have been reports of underground, private, local, animal shows in the United States and Canada, but nothing organized. At one mid-Western high school, the football team still gets a “goat show” after “home coming,” reportedly, a tradition for over 20 years. There were also reports about some wild animal sex shows during construction of the Alaskan pipe line. In 1962, Illinois became the first American state to revise its criminal code, and oral-genital contacts, anal intercourse between consenting adults in private, and sexual acts with animals, were no longer considered criminal offenses. In 1997, twenty-five states, the District of Columbia, and the United States Government outlawed bestiality. The sentences ranged from a mere fine of not more than $500 in Tennessee to an indeterminate life sentence in Michigan. The laws in the United States have been changing, and according to Richard, in 2001, three states—Iowa, Maine, and Oregon—passed laws criminalizing bestiality. The late Mark Matthews, in his book The Horseman (1994), helped increase awareness of the existence of “zoophilia” (i.e., in addition to engaging in bestiality, the zoophile, or “zoo,” also feels love and sexual attraction toward the animals). In recent years, the Broadway theater has been increasingly open in its portrayal of the full spectrum of sexual themes and activities. Productions such as, Futz and the very recent The Goat, have depicted the themes of bestiality and zoophilia.
The Internet
Alt.sex.bestiality (A.S.B.) was one of the first Internet news groups which started around 1990 as someone’s idea of a joke. Soon, A.S.B. grew and matured into a discussion and support group, providing information about health issues, laws governing bestiality, bibliographic references, “how to” guides, written, and pictorial erotica, and information about the “zoo community’s” events. Most people in this newsgroup had sexual relations with animals, and many were quite proud of it. There were also many others who have not had any sexual contact with animals, but who were eager to do so. According to Andriette, for most “zoos,” finding other “zoos” has changed their lives. It has given them a new self understanding, and connected them with like-minded friends. Stasya’s Home Page, which was about zoophilia, was initiated in September of 1995, and averaged a “hit” (a visitor) every three minutes. Stasya reported (in 1996) receiving anywhere from two to six messages per day from people saying “thank you for being there”. In January of 1999, according to the Humane Society of the United States’ web site, in one Internet search using the term “bestiality,” it found 85,771 documents. These days, one can find numerous web sites, chat rooms, and pet forums exclusively devoted to bestiality, zoophilia, and related pornography online. And Byrd points out that bestiality/zoophilia has never been more present, even in fashion magazine advertisements and television commercials.
Conclusion
A more in-depth exploration of the history of bestiality is beyond the scope of this paper. However, it is apparent and important to acknowledge that man has engaged in bestiality since the dawn of civilization, in almost every culture and place in the world. Although individuals have been punished, sometimes tortured and killed, for engaging in bestiality, the behavior and the pre-occupation with bestiality has persisted. Even more important are the reports that bestiality is still an integral part of many people’s lives, whether in myth, art, literature, or as actual sexual behavior. Although no one knows how prevalent sexual behavior with animals is, bestiality is unquestionably among us.
