Things that anti-zoos say

[Zoo50]

I've noticed recently some nonsensical things that anti-zoos have said recently. For example, consider this link:

tpa.animalwellnessaction.org/2019/01/news-outlet-reports-that-beastforum-and-other-bestiality-sites-to-go-dark-in-february/

This is a quote from that link:

"Some academics have studied the subject, and one researcher concluded that more than a third of arrests for bestiality also involve child sexual abuse or exploitation. In addition, nearly 40 percent of offenders have prior criminal records for bestiality, child sexual abuse, CP, domestic violence, battery, adult rape, substance abuse, trespass, public indecency, and even murder. That same study notes that bestiality, particularly when experienced as a child, has been shown to be the single largest risk factor and strongest predictor of increased risk for an individual committing child sexual abuse."

This is bullshit. The things said in the above quote are simply not true -- those who have sex with animals are not automatically "likely" to commit unrelated crimes (like murder). This so-called "study" is nonsense. Yet, because zoos are hiding, this kind of nonsense is the only stuff about zoos that the general public hears about.

Here is another anti-zoo link:

wtsp.com/article/news/regional/florida/animal-cruelty-and-bestiality-could-become-a-felony-as-2-florida-lawmakers-push-bill/67-707a64a7-a766-4eb1-b298-3f24a547da4f

Quote from that link:

“There’s a serious problem of bestiality on the internet, and we found one website that has over a million subscribers," Letterman explained. "And, what they're doing is buying and selling animals for bestiality purposes all over the country.”

The quote is probably referring to the now-defunct Beast Forum. What bothers me about this quote is that sex with animals (in general) is viewed as a "problem" -- this is nonsense. Interspecies sex (that humans engage in) is not a "problem" (there is nothing with it). Also, I have serious doubt about the "buying and selling" comment -- most zoos simply have sex with animals behind closed doors.

Then there is this link:

aldf.org/project/2018-us-state-rankings/

The term that the ALDF uses to describe all human-animal sex is "sexual assault of animals". To them, literally every kind of zoo sex is a "sexual assault", no matter what. This extreme view is probably being pushed throughout the United States, in state legislatures, to get legislators to ban sex with animals.

Also, there is this link:

blog.humanesociety.org/2017/12/senate-passes-pact-act-crack-down-animal-cruelty-crimes.html

Quote from that link:

"The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, S. 654, this evening, getting us dramatically closer to the day when the nation has a federal anti-cruelty statute that allows [the federal government] to crack down on malicious cruelty and also the sexual exploitation of innocent creatures."

In the view of HSUS, literally all sex with animals is "sexual exploitation of innocent creatures". This is nonsense. Sex with animals is not "exploitation". For example, when a dog has sex with a woman and the dog is the one "on top", who is "exploiting" who? How can someone say the dog is being "exploited" in such a situation? Even when a man is having sex with a female animal, how is that more of an "exploitation" than spaying/neutering, which involves literally castrating an animal?

And let's not forget the comment from the article "Giving The Dog A Bone", calling sex with animals a "desecration":

"The subject of bestiality is no joke. We believe it to be the ultimate desecration of the relationship between humans and animals. The RSPCA is opposed to the infliction of pain, suffering and distress or the killing of any animal in the name of entertainment. The Society firmly believes that animals should be treated with respect and dignity."

The notion that sex with an animal is a "desecration" is nonsense. It is no more of a "desecration" than other kinds of interspecies sex (sex that doesn't involve a human).

Other people on this forum can add other anti-zoo propaganda they've seen.

 

[Bigpaws_Bear]

Oh they have been trying to pin us as "Pedophiles", forever.

it's sorta obvious they are trying to call us opportunistic sexual predators.

 

[Zoo50]

Oh they have been trying to pin us as "Pedophiles", forever.

it's sorta obvious they are trying to call us opportunistic sexual predators.

What I don't understand is, where are all these so-called "studies" coming from anyway? They are full of lies and propaganda. As @SigmatoZeta pointed out in another thread, what anti-zoos are trying to do to zoos (slandering) is what people tried to do to gay people 60 years ago.

Where are all the pro-zoo studies?

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

I would be alright with any study on us and our animals that controlled properly for mental health, income, intelligence, and other variables.

 

[mares4me]

All the more reason to stay hidden. Bringing this community out in the open will only cause non-zoos to form a crusade against us.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

All the more reason to stay hidden. Bringing this community out in the open will only cause non-zoos to form a crusade against us.

I have espoused a reasonable generation long or two generation long plan for a coordinated emergence that starts with social inroads that are already relatively viable, at least compared with everything else.

If anything, I am actually alarmed by the thinking that our only alternative to secretive clandestine bullshit, which is ultimately more suicidal than its advocates understand, is to do something equally suicidal.

An asexual gender nonbinary cryptoanarchist with four college degrees and type I bipolar disorder that runs a partly furry themed MUCK server and actually literally will talk with you about pure abstract speculative philosophy for 12 uninterrupted hours CAN PROBABLY HANDLE THE FACT THAT YOU ARE A ZOO. Notably, I actually know such a person, and they can handle the fact that I am a zoo just fine.

So maybe that is an extreme example. It is still something. We start with the easiest. We work on the rest later.

Planning on being permanently secretive is like pretending you can live underground without an air supply. It is science fiction. People are going to be aware of us. If those of us that are not mentally ill or sociopaths are hiding behind closed doors, that is what people will think all of us are, and it is only a matter of time before they start sterilising or lobotomising us. Permanent secrecy is a delusional fantasy. They can see everything we post here, including this and anything you say back to this. They are evaluating it and trying to figure us out. This is a public place.

Hello? Is anybody out there a psychologist that is trying to study us? Help!!!!! In the name of Christ, help!

Just marching around waving signs is a written invitation for someone to shoot you. Impulsive actions are worse than non-action because it is not really action. It is reaction.

An emergence that has planning and intelligence and foresight behind it just makes common sense. We should put our best and our brightest and our most affluent on it.

 

[Zoo50]

All the more reason to stay hidden. Bringing this community out in the open will only cause non-zoos to form a crusade against us.

From the perspective of anti-zoos, zoos are already out in the open, and there already is an anti-zoo crusade. That's why so many new anti-zoo laws have been made in recent years. So far, people's silence is not stopping the anti-zoos.

Also, online zoo environments (such as the now-defunct Beast Forum) mean that technically zoos are not being silent (even if they are anonymously discussing things online).

So, hiding benefits one's security, but it's not stopping the anti-zoos.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

From the perspective of anti-zoos, zoos are already out in the open, and there already is an anti-zoo crusade. That's why so many new anti-zoo laws have been made in recent years. So far, people's silence is not stopping the anti-zoos.

Also, online zoo environments (such as the now-defunct Beast Forum) mean that technically zoos are not being silent (even if they are anonymously discussing things online).

So, hiding benefits one's security, but it's not stopping the anti-zoos.

The only way you can beat that tragedy of the commons is to teach zoos to love the zoophile community enough to make them want to stick their necks out. Art, poetry, music, great radio shows, anything that proves we are worth something.

 

[Seplis Tetiker - "Augata"]

Honestly, all this talk about "staying hidden" makes me feel a little... disappointed. I know what it's like to shelter myself in this closet we live in... so does every single annonymous user that posts on this site.

You all know what it feels like... knowing that if you slip up (even a little...) you'll be ridiculed, and sometimes prosecuted for no other reason than "being yourself."

No justification other than "having a sexual preference."

Are you sure that you want things to stay like that? I mean, I guess "waiting out the storm" sounds pretty sanguine in theory-- but what if we lose? What if the punishment gets worse-- you think things are bad now? Wait until law enforcement stops "grouping us" with murderers and starts "treating us" like them.

I'm not saying that I've got some "sexy victory plan" waiting, or anything like that... but can we all collectively agree that this ends with us coming out-- or at least... being in a position where it's okay to do so. Not hiding away like criminals.

I don't mean to poke holes in anybody though... actually, I'm a little curious about the upsides you think hiding our sexual preference garners.

 

[Barb Dwyer]

I just don't understand why we are grouped with pedophiles. I seek relationships with adult horses. What could be more different from children?

It seems the reasoning is, If you're willing to do that, then you'll do anything. BULLSHIT.

I have a degree in journalism, so I'm trained to be skeptical of claims like "one researcher says" because absolutely anyone can claim to be a "researcher" and promote whatever agenda they want.

If we do not honestly and fairly describe ourselves, we cede the discussion to the ignorant haters who would portray us as murderous abusers.

 

[Bigpaws_Bear]

I cannot be a Pedophile, I don't deal well with Immature Humans, much less their offspring.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

It's not my fault that other people cannot distinguish between an adult dog and a human infant.

 

[Barb Dwyer]

I'm with you on that. I have absolutely zero sexual interest in children.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

I will say that human kids are kind of fun, but that's because they are so smart. I mean they are like sponges. You can deliver them any set of ideas whatsoever, and they'll start putting them together almost instantly and taking them in directions you never would have thought about. I could sit and talk with a kid for hours because that kid could teach me a few things, especially if that kid is a little bit gifted.

 

[Seplis Tetiker - "Augata"]

I will say that human kids are kind of fun, but that's because they are so smart. I mean they are like sponges. You can deliver them any set of ideas whatsoever, and they'll start putting them together almost instantly and taking them in directions you never would have thought about. I could sit and talk with a kid for hours because that kid could teach me a few things, especially if that kid is a little bit gifted.

You've got a better outlook on children than I do, their undeveloped brains clash with mine and cause nuclear dissonance.

 

[Bigpaws_Bear]

nuclear dissonance

(Snicker)

 

[Barb Dwyer]

Yes it can be fun to serve as a teacher. We old farts are full of lessons. Name any hobby or pursuit and we can inform kids about it - cooking, camping, gardening, you name it,

But they can discover sex for themselves, I don't want any part of that.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

@Barb Dwyer,

The way I explained sex to a kid that asked about it was, "A lot of us are kind of the opinion that, if you don't have the initiative and the gumption to try to find out about it for yourself, then we really don't want you to reproduce."

 

[Barb Dwyer]

OK we needed some humor.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

By the way, she said, "That's mean," and I said, "Yeah."

Anyhow, I'm not sure how someone could even possibly confuse a child with an adult dog. The human child's mind is growing by the minute. Their minds are so spongy, they have learned a new behavior within seconds. You pull out a new board game, and they start learning it within seconds. They can be taught almost any new set of ideas and rules almost instantly. It is a pretty scary powerful machine that they have grafted onto the front of their brains. The dog, while the dog might become pretty smart, reaches a point pretty quickly where you've taught it everything it's possible to teach it. There is just no room for any confusion, there.

People that tell me that analogy apparently assume that I don't have any experience with children, but I do. First, I was one. Second, I understand that children are really terrifyingly intelligent, and we really are not taking the fullest advantage of their capacity if you want to know the truth. I'm not sure what kind of a fool those people take me for, but it's a night and day difference.

 

[caikgoch]

one researcher concluded that more than a third of arrests for bestiality also involve child sexual abuse or exploitation

That is absolutely true. ONE "researcher" did conclude that based on a survey of incarcerated sex offenders. Of course, using the same data and logic one could conclude that ninety eight percent of heterosexual males are child rapists.

I wouldn't be concerned except that we live in a society where "It's filled with love" and "Dog recommended" sells $50k cars.

 

[Barb Dwyer]

Young minds have an appetite for the mysterious. There is a satisfaction, sometimes a thrill, in discovery.

When I was growing up I'd shoot my wad to copies of Playboy magazine with pictures of titties. Now any boy who can spell MILF can get an eyeful. Does that cheapen the experience for them? I think so.

Well, they're on their own. I want no part of it. I won't be the old guy exposing himself at the school bus stop.

 

[petshoplust]

If you want to change attitudes, you have to start in the schools. Just look at how our schools have become. Basic US history seems not to be taught. Regarding the studies? Start having research into the cognitive facilities of animals. Start having the researchers determine if animals can determine what they (animals want). Start innocently to have research projects into animals that is NOT bestiality oriented, but can be conevert to that end. First convince the people that animals can agree or disagree to do something. as in agree or disagree to have sex with a human. UT NEVER bring up the subject of bestiality until they agree that animals are self determining. Do not expect change of behavior to us to happen overnight.

We may also have to change the political climate as well. Get rid of the Nanny-state we seem to be heading to.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

That is absolutely true. ONE "researcher" did conclude that based on a survey of incarcerated sex offenders. Of course, using the same data and logic one could conclude that ninety eight percent of heterosexual males are child rapists.

I wouldn't be concerned except that we live in a society where "It's filled with love" and "Dog recommended" sells $50k cars.

Child rapers have a fetish for authoritarian models for their sexuality. They need power in the mix, or they can't get it up.

Us gay male zoos are kind of the opposite, frankly. We are putting ourselves under a male dog's power, letting him grab us forcefully around the hips, letting him claw us up, and letting him have his way with us. We are really engaging in role-reversal, which wolves in healthy functioning packs in the wild do during play all of the time: they remember how much fun it was when they were puppies to play with a bully adult, so out of learned habit, they let the growing adolescent be "bully adult" for a few minutes. It's a teaching tool for making sure adolescents, at least at some point, grow up to be leaders.

However, that was kind of a side-tangent: ultimately, us self-identified zoos are specifically interested in ADULT animals. At worst, you could accuse us of having a Victorian era model or modern Saudi Arabian model for our sexual relationships, where our partners are not allowed to leave the house unchaperoned, and it's not our fault that the alternative is for them to get abducted by a dog-catcher that intends to carry them away to a death camp as punishment for vagrancy.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

If you want to change attitudes, you have to start in the schools. Just look at how our schools have become. Basic US history seems not to be taught. Regarding the studies? Start having research into the cognitive facilities of animals. Start having the researchers determine if animals can determine what they (animals want). Start innocently to have research projects into animals that is NOT bestiality oriented, but can be conevert to that end. First convince the people that animals can agree or disagree to do something. as in agree or disagree to have sex with a human. UT NEVER bring up the subject of bestiality until they agree that animals are self determining. Do not expect change of behavior to us to happen overnight.

We may also have to change the political climate as well. Get rid of the Nanny-state we seem to be heading to.

Actually, the nanny state is going to ultimately become our salvation. Hear me out. It sounds insane, but it works.

What happened in the 1950's was exactly that. The government decided they were going to make a sort of Utopian state and give their children "the privileges they never had," and the atmosphere was very rigidly authoritarian. There seemed to be this idea that you weren't allowed to even think for yourself because it would put you at risk of pondering, horror of horrors, COMMUNISM. Social conversation became so bland and repetitive and empty and shallow that it prompted Paul Simon to write the song, in reaction against the atmosphere he had grown up in, "The Sound of Silence."

Well, there was a backlash against it, and the LGBT people rode that backlash. They didn't create it. They just rode it.

The Homeland Generation is coming of age. They grew up in a world where there was awful danger in the world and really awful fake news and disinformation and Russian propaganda infiltrating our social media, not to mention forum bullies that make them feel bad for being children and not knowing the tools to stand up to a troll yet and then emotionally immature mods that proceed to ban them and leave the troll. They see the world as a naturally scary place full of meanies and bullies, where a lot of things went wrong because there was not really a functioning adult or soundly advised set of rules controlling things and keeping bullies under control, and they are ultimately going to end up putting their own children into a sort of gilded cage. You really cannot stop this from happening. It's quite honestly going to suck.

One of the "officially acceptable views" is going to be, "zoos are very bad because they rape their helpless animals," and they are going to get punished for questioning this. However, they are also going to get punished for having any other belief that is not a part of the "official doctrine." Ultimately, the "official doctrine" is going to become such a force for oppression that the following generation is going to start saying, "Hey, back the fuck off, you Homelander fascist jerks."

It's not going to be a pleasant process, but the tension is going to be like a stretched rubber-band like water behind a dam. When the dam breaks, then it's going to be time for us to make up our minds, whether we take the plunge over it into full openness, where we join the rest of human civilization, or continue playing this ignorant game of clandestine bullshit shenanigans that we have been since the dawn of human civilization.

The strategy that is being taken by podcasts like Zooier than Thou is actually remarkably effective because they are helping give zoos a sense of identity and an idea that they ought to take a clear-eyed look at what they are doing and talk openly with someone about what they are doing. The reason why is that every backlash has a recoil. During the Reagan era, there was a reaction to drugs getting into every corner of American life that gave birth to the Drug Wars and eventually the opioid crackdown (a repeat of Prohibition and another lesson on why it doesn't work), and the LGBT community suffered some recoil because they were being blamed for the AIDS epidemic in spite of the fact that they couldn't possibly be spreading it to straight people.

It got pretty ugly during the Reagan era, honestly. The LGBT community, if they hadn't been organized and ready, could have suffered a serious recoil the like of which had not been seen in history. They only survived that period because they entered that period of liberation with an established sense of a moral compass that was set into motion by the 1950's Mattachine Society (whom I think the Zooier than Thou hosts are looking to). If the LGBT had not been ready with a sense of internal control going INTO the Sexual Revolution, they seriously could have ended up being worse off than they had been before. It could have gotten very bad. That actually is what happened in parts of Africa.

That's why I keep harping on the importance of organization, not because I want us zoos to burst out of the closet right this minute and start waving around signs and marching on legislative buildings and noisily drawing attention to ourselves. The reason why is that I know that our reemergence is really almost inevitable, and if we are not coordinated going into it, then we are going to get the same horrific recoil all over again that we are suffering from now.

By "organizing," I mean organizing to deal with the disgusting riot that the next Sexual Revolution period is going to be because it's coming up in another generation, whether we want it or not. We have to be ready to rise above it and prove that we are better and more moral. It's not going to be enough for our community to be morally equivalent to non-zoos. We have to be exceptional. We have to be polished. It's going to be hard. If we play our cards right and ONLY if we play our cards right and walk a very fine line, then I think that there will be a time when we are not just accepted but actually deeply admired. We can if we want to.

 

[Zoo50]

I don't mean to poke holes in anybody though... actually, I'm a little curious about the upsides you think hiding our sexual preference garners.

I think most zoos want to hide in order to ensure their safety and security. The consequences of one coming out could be really bad.

If we do not honestly and fairly describe ourselves, we cede the discussion to the ignorant haters who would portray us as murderous abusers.

This is a major concern. If zoos continue to hide and be silent, the lies and propaganda that the anti-zoos spread will continue to grow, and zoos will be portrayed as terrible people.

 

[shrimpsoda]

If you want to change attitudes, you have to start in the schools. Just look at how our schools have become. Basic US history seems not to be taught. Regarding the studies? Start having research into the cognitive facilities of animals. Start having the researchers determine if animals can determine what they (animals want). Start innocently to have research projects into animals that is NOT bestiality oriented, but can be conevert to that end. First convince the people that animals can agree or disagree to do something. as in agree or disagree to have sex with a human. UT NEVER bring up the subject of bestiality until they agree that animals are self determining. Do not expect change of behavior to us to happen overnight.

We may also have to change the political climate as well. Get rid of the Nanny-state we seem to be heading to.

There are animal behavioral studies for those who wish to take a biological or zoological route in their education. Many vets and zookeepers take animal behavior courses. I don't really think the course belongs in elementary schools.. if children want to learn about animals like that, they go do 4-H or something. When they're teens they can volunteer at shelters, zoos, and wildlife rehab centers to study animal behavior in person.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

@Zoo50, the question is how you are going to persuade some zoos to stick their necks out for other zoos? My thinking is that if we don't really like ourselves as a community, then getting some zoos to stick their necks out for other zoos is not going to be easy.

I have started keeping up with the podcast Zooier than Thou, a link to which is available on this site, and I am thinking that more stuff like that out there could start to heal our community.

Right now, we are not even close to getting a large number of non-zoos to side with us because we won't even side with ourselves. We look at the dysfunctions within our community, especially some of the olds that have had a few too many experiences with total creeps, and we get overwhelmed with this sort of dark cynicism. It is a sort of internalized zoophobia.

I bet that if we could get other zoos to like zoos, then society would not be all that long in starting to follow us.

 

[mares4me]

It's not that I don't like other zoos, it's just completely out of this world to stick my neck out for them. I'd only do that for zoos that I personally know and trust.

Why risk my future with horses (if there is one) for nothing? It doesn't make any sense, friend.

 

[Barb Dwyer]

*snorting in laughter* then I suppose I'm one of the Olds but actually I'm a Buick guy.