The term "zoophilia" was introduced into the field of research on sexuality in Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) by Krafft-Ebing, who described a number of cases of "violation of animals (bestiality)", as well as "zoophilia erotica", which he defined as a sexual attraction to animal skin or fur. He used the term "zooerasty" for the paraphilia of exclusive sexual attraction to animals, but that has fallen out of use.

Zoophilia can refer to sexual activity with animals (bestiality), the desire to do so, or to the paraphilia of the same name which requires a definite preference for animals over humans as sexual partners.

Some zoophiles and researchers draw a distinction between zoophilia and bestiality, using the former to describe the desire to form sexual relationships with animals, and the latter to describe the sex acts alone. Masters (1962) uses the term "bestialist" specifically in his discussion of zoosadism, which refers to deriving sexual pleasure from cruelty to animals. Stephanie LaFarge, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School, and Director of Counseling at the ASPCA, writes that two groups can be distinguished: bestialists, who rape or abuse animals, and zoophiles, who form an emotional and sexual attachment to animals. Williams and Weinberg studied self-defined zoophiles via the internet and found they saw the term as involving concern for the animal's welfare and pleasure, and an emphasis on believing they obtained consent, as opposed to the zoophile's concept of bestialists, who zoophiles defined as a group who focused only on their own gratification. Williams and Weinberg also quoted a British newspaper as saying that zoophilia is the term used by apologists of bestiality.

The more recent terms "zoosexual" and "zoosexuality" have been used since the 1980s (cited by Miletski, 1999); to refer to a sexual orientation. Pornographers sometimes use the terms "dogsex" and "farmsex."

Ernest Bornemann (1990, cited by Rosenbauer 1997) coined the separate term "zoosadism" for those who derive pleasure from inflicting pain on an animal, sometimes with a sexual component. Some horse-ripping incidents have a sexual connotation.



The Kinsey reports controversially rated the percentage of people who had sexual interaction with animals at some point in their lives as 8% for men and 3.6% for women, and claimed it was 40–50 percent in people living near farms, but some later writers dispute the figures, because the study lacked a random sample, and because the prison population was included, causing sampling bias. Martin Duberman has written that it is difficult to get a random sample in sexual research, and that even when Paul Gebhard, Kinsey's research successor, removed prison samples from the figures, he found the figures were not significantly changed.

By 1974, the farm population in the USA had declined by 80 percent compared to 1940, reducing the opportunity to live with animals; Hunt's 1974 study suggests that the demographic changes led to a significant change in reported occurrence. Males in 1974 were 4.9% (1948: 8.3%), and in females in 1974 were 1.9% (1953: 3.6%). Miletski believes this is not a reduction in interest but a reduction in opportunity.

Nancy Friday's 1973 book on female sexuality, My Secret Garden, comprised around 190 fantasies from different women; of these, 23 involve zoosexual activity.

In one study, psychiatric patients were found to have a statistically-significant higher prevalence rate (55 percent) of reported bestiality, both actual sexual contacts (45 percent) and sexual fantasy (30 percent) than the control groups of medical in-patients (10 percent) and psychiatric staff (15 percent). Crépault and Couture (1980) reported that 5.3 percent of the men they surveyed have fantasized about sexual activity with an animal during heterosexual intercourse. A 1982 study suggested that 7.5 percent of 186 university students had interacted sexually with an animal.

Sexual fantasies about zoosexual acts can occur in people who do not wish to experience them in real life. Nancy Friday notes that zoophilia as a fantasy may provide an escape from cultural expectations, restrictions, and judgements in regard to sex. A frequency interest in and sexual excitement at watching animals mate is cited as an indicator of latent zoophilia by Massen (1994). Masters (1962) says brothel madames used to stage exhibitions of animals mating, as they found it aroused their clientele, and that it can encourage their clients to engage in bestiality.

Several studies have found that women show stronger vaginal responses to films depicting bonobo copulation than to non-sexual stimuli.


One of the primary critiques of zoophilia is that zoosexual activity is harmful to animals and necessarily abusive, because animals are unable to give or withhold consent. Critics also point to examples in which animals were clearly harmed, having been tied up, assaulted, or injured.

Similar to arguments against sex with human minors, The Humane Society of the United States has said that as animals don't have the same capacity for thinking as humans, they are unable to give full consent. In his 1993 article, Dr. Frank Ascione stated that "bestiality may be considered abusive even in cases when physical harm to an animal does not occur (this is similar to the case of adult sexual activity with a child where consent is presumed to be impossible)." This is because animals are unable to be fully informed, communicate consent, or to speak out about their abuse. In a 1997 article, Piers Beirne, Professor of Criminology at the University of Southern Maine, points out that 'for genuine consent to sexual relations to be present...both participants must be conscious, fully informed and positive in their desires.'

Utilitarian philosopher and animal liberation author Peter Singer argues that zoophilia is not unethical so long as it involves no harm or cruelty to the animal, a position countered by fellow philosopher Tom Regan, who writes that the same argument could be used to justify having sex with children. Regan writes that Singer's position is a consequence of his adapting a utilitarian, or consequentialist, approach to animal rights, rather than a strictly rights-based one, and argues that the rights-based position distances itself from non-consensual sex. The Humane Society of the United States and Kranti takes the position that all sexual molestation of animals by humans is abusive, whether it involves physical injury or not.

Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder of PeTA, clarified in a letter to the Canada Free Press that she was strongly opposed to any exploitation of, and all sexual activity with, animals.

Some people believe that zoosexual relations are simply for those unable or unwilling to find human partners. Research shows the majority of zoophiles appear to have human partners and relationships; many others simply do not have a sexual attraction to humans. Some zoophiles have an attraction to species which are relatively inaccessible, such as dolphins; tending to oppose the view that they are simply seeking sexual fulfillment. However farm animals or pets - with which the zoophile may have come into contact as a child - are the most common animals chosen.

Other ethical concerns regarding zoophilia are the belief that humans are guardians in charge of their animals, so a sexual relationship is a betrayal of the trust earned by this duty of care.

In many jurisdictions, all forms of zoosexual acts are prohibited; others outlaw only the mistreatment of animals, without specific mention of sexual activity. In some countries, such as Denmark, bestiality is not outlawed. It is currently illegal in Canada, Netherlands, most of the United States, Australia (except for the ACT), and New Zealand. In the UK, only penetrative acts are illegal. Countries such as Belgium, Germany, and Russia are somewhere in between: they permit sexual activity with animals, but prohibit the promotion of animal-oriented pornography.

Current anti-cruelty laws focus more specifically on animal welfare. Notable legal views include Sweden, where a 2005 report by the Swedish Animal Welfare Agency for the government expressed concern over the increase in reports of horse-ripping incidents. The agency believed current animal cruelty legislation was not sufficient in protecting animals from abuse and needed updating, but concluded that on balance it was not appropriate to call for a ban. In New Zealand, the 1989 Crimes Bill considered abolishing bestiality as a criminal offense, and instead viewing it as a mental health issue, but they did not, and people can still be prosecuted for it.

Some countries once had laws against single males living with female animals, such as Alpacas. Copulating with a female alpaca is still specifically against the law in Peru.

Infections that are transmitted from animals to humans are called zoonoses. Some zoonoses may be transferred through casual contact, but others are much more readily transferred by activities that expose humans to the semen, vaginal fluids, urine, saliva, feces and blood of animals. Examples of zoonoses are Brucellosis, Q fever, leptospirosis, and toxocariasis. Therefore sexual activity with animals is a high risk activity. Allergic reactions to animal semen may occur, including anaphylaxis. Bites and other trauma from penetration or trampling may occur. Some of the more common zoonoses are listed at the National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Brucellosis

Brucellosis in humans is a potentially life-threatening multisystem disease that can be extremely difficult to treat. There are several varieties of Brucellosis, all caused by bacteria of the genus Brucella, the most notable being B. abortus and B. melitensis which affect larger species of domestic animals, and B. canis which infects dogs and other canids. All are widely spread around the world. The most severe infections are thought to be associated with B. melitensis which primarily infects goats, sheep, and camels in the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America, parts of Africa and some southern European countries. Humans can catch B. canis through contact with the body fluids of infected dogs, especially semen, urine and vaginal fluids. Dogs can be infected with Brucellosis without showing any signs or symptoms, and infection can only be diagnosed with specific blood tests. The typical symptoms of the type of brucellosis contracted from dogs are: fever that comes and goes, loss of appetite, fatigue, weakness, malaise, sore joints, low back pain, spine pain, headache, depression, abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhoea, vomiting, weakness, dizziness, unsteadiness of gait, and urinary retention. Heart and lung complications can occur. Infected people exhibit only some of these symptoms. Other forms of brucellosis can be more severe.

With approximately 500,000 zoonotic infections a year worldwide (source:CDC), brucellosis places a large burden on humanity. Brucellosis has been reduced to rare disease status in North America (excluding Mexico) and northern Europe through vaccination and eradication programs, but it remains rife throughout the rest of the world. In most countries up to 10% of dogs carry this bacterium, and even up to 42.7% in some provinces of China, representing a major threat to the health of veterinarians and people who handle the blood or semen of infected animals. In the USA, there are only about 100 cases of human brucellosis diagnosed per year, although some sources consider it underdiagnosed and underreported. Most other countries have much higher rates, with high risk areas including the Mediterranean Basin (Portugal, Spain, Southern France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, North Africa), South and Central America (including Mexico), Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

Several organized religions take a critical or sometimes condemnatory view of zoophilia or zoosexual activity, with some variation and exceptions.

Passages in Leviticus 18:

And you shall not lie with any beast and defile yourself with it, neither shall any woman give herself to a beast to lie with it: it is a perversion. - Lev 18:23, The Holy Bible

and

If a man lies with a beast, he shall be put to death; and you shall kill the beast. If a woman approaches any beast and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the beast; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them. 20:15-16

are cited by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians as categorical denunciation of bestiality. In Part II of his Summa Theologica, medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas ranked various "unnatural vices" (sex acts resulting in "venereal pleasure" rather than procreation) by degrees of sinfulness, concluding that "the most grievous is the sin of bestiality." Some Christian theologians extend Matthew's view that even having thoughts of adultery is sinful to imply that thoughts of committing bestial acts are likewise sinful. In Judaism and Islam, however, having desirous sexual thoughts is not considered a major sin. In Judaism, it is subsumed within the category of Avon, as a failing of emotional control.

Views of zoophilia's seriousness in Islam seem to cover a wide spectrum. This may be because it is not explicitly mentioned or prohibited in the Holy Qur'an, or because sex and sexuality were not treated as taboo in Muslim society to the same degree as in Christianity. Some sources claim that sex with animals is abhorrent. The majority view holds it in deep condemnation as Islamic Law is based upon the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah or the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad(صلى الله عليه و سلم). A number of Hadith have stipulated the death penalty for individuals involved in acts of bestiality, a stance similar to the one adopted in the Judaic traditions and in the Old Testament:

Whoever comes unto an animal, kill him and kill it with him. Narrator: Abu Huraira and Ibn Abbas. Reference: Sahih Al-Jami'a, page or number: 5938.

A book "Tahrirolvasyleh", cited on the Internet, which quotes the Shia Ayatollah Khomeini approving of sex with animals under certain conditions, is unconfirmed and possibly a forgery. It is however contested whether such a fourth volume of Tahrirolvasyleh ever in fact existed. No evidence of verified translations or cited references seems to be found in the hands of independent (Western) or other notable Islamic scholars and the main sources seem to be anti-Islamic in nature. Though the book Tahrir-ul-Vasyleh does exist, there is widespread suspicion concerning the existence and authenticity of such a "fourth book".
There are a few unsubstantiated references in Hindu scriptures to religious figures engaging in symbolic sexual activity with animals such as explicit depictions of people having sex with animals included amongst the thousands of sculptures of "Life events" on the exterior of the temple complex at Khajuraho. The depictions are largely symbolic depictions of the sexualization of some animals (such as the horse being a symbol of masculinity) and are not meant to be taken literally. Orthodox Hindu doctrine holds that sex should be restricted to married couples, thereby forbidding zoosexual acts. A greater punishment is attached to sexual relations with a sacred cow than with other animals.

Buddhism addresses sexual conduct primarily in terms of what brings harm to oneself or to others, and the admonition against sexual misconduct is generally interpreted in modern times to prohibit zoosexual acts, as well as pederasty, adultery, rape, or prostitution. Various sexual activities, including those with animals, are expressly forbidden for Buddhist monks and nuns.