Joy Joco of Suffolk, Virginia, left her horses to graze while running errands this past Labor Day. Upon returning home, she noticed that one was bleeding. After examining Angel, her veterinarian turned to her and said, “This horse has been raped, you need to call the police.” The assailant(s) cut through a fence in the field behind her home, physically restrained Angel, and proceeded to sexually assault her with a blunt object (perhaps a baseball bat). The case remains open.

WTKR (9/8/10) quotes a pair of psychology professors. Louis Janda: “Somebody who could harm an animal doesn’t really have the same sense of empathy that most of us have, to hate to see other living creatures suffer.” Daralene Colson: “For people who lack empathy, attempts at treatment are fairly limited. If you just don’t have the sense, it’s hard to change someone so that they feel something when they see people or animals suffering.”

On October 21st, Long Island’s Mitchell Marsicano was arrested for sexually abusing his 23 lb. Shibu Inu in his tenants’ apartment (who had taken in the dog after witnessing prior abuse, including a sex act on October 12th). The tenant, Daniel Miller, awoke to “squealing” and “the worst picture imaginable.” The charges: one count of second degree burglary, and one count each of sexual misconduct and attempted sexual misconduct.

Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice said, “It’s unimaginable to think that anyone could carry out such unspeakable acts of cruelty and violence on a defenseless animal.” And Miller added, “He’s a monster.” But consider this: The burglary charge is a Class C felony that carries up to a 15 year sentence; the sexual misconduct (euphemism defined) charges are misdemeanors with a one year maximum. In other words, breaking into someone’s apartment is about 15 times more serious than raping a sentient animal. Imagine that.

Society cannot punish this monstrous act appropriately because Snowball is a piece of property. We know intuitively that burglary and rape are not on the same moral plane, but as legal things, animals have no serious protection. This conflict of interests almost always favors the property owner.

While zoophilia and bestiality are complicated issues that could be defended in a philosophical vacuum, the harsh reality is that people can (and do) abuse their chattel. NYS should be ashamed that raping the family dog remains a misdemeanor (even if adjudged aggravated cruelty, still only two years). At the very least, everyone should know about Marsicano’s proclivities through an abuser registry. As Drs. Janda and Colson explain, it is almost certain that empathy for animals cannot be taught to rapists, so we need to know who and where these people are.

In 2005, a 45-year-old Seattle man was rushed to the hospital (by a friend who subsequently fled) with a ruptured colon. The fatal injury was caused by anal intercourse with an Arabian Stallion. The man was part of a larger group that engaged in various sexual acts (videotape included) with multiple species on a rural farm. The problem for prosecutors was that Washington had no law forbidding this behavior. The incident sparked a public dialogue that led to felony criminalization of bestiality. A similar debate took place in Arizona (deputy fire chief attempting sex with a sheep). Bestiality is prohibited in some 30 states (a misdemeanor in New York). The issue is patently provocative and controversial.

Zoophilia (sexual attraction to animals) and bestiality (sexual activity with animals) are complicated terms. In a shocking book review (Midas Dekker’s Dearest Pet: On Bestiality), utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer delineates a philosophical defense for some bestiality (Heavy Petting). He argues that the taboos surrounding other nonreproductive sex acts (masturbation, sodomy, fellatio) have long since vanished, but not so with bestiality, though that’s not to say it is necessarily rare. He cites Kinsey’s famous (or infamous) statistics: 8% of males and 3.5% of females engaged in sexual contact with an animal (50% for men in rural areas).

Singer believes that bestiality (and the taboo) illustrates our ambivalence towards animals. We are, supposedly, above the rest of creation (only we are made in God’s image), but we cannot help but physically act (sexually, in this case) like other animals. And through this physicality, Singer suggests, interspecies relations can be mutually pleasurable (devoid of cruelty or force, of course). And if so, the taboo should fade away. Singer writes, “…sex with animals does not always involve cruelty. Who has not been at a social occasion disrupted by the household dog gripping the legs of a visitor and vigorously rubbing its penis against them?”

“This does not make sex across the species barrier normal, or natural, whatever those much-misused words may mean, but it does imply that it ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human beings.” In other words, our sexual proclivities (again, without cruelty) place us squarely with the rest of the planet’s mammals, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Wesley Smith, a conservative Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, offers a different perspective. According to Smith, sexually abusing animals should be criminalized on its own merits, but… “Bestiality is so very wrong…because such behavior is profoundly degrading and utterly subversive to the crucial understanding that human beings are unique, special, and of the highest moral worth in the known universe–a concept known as ‘human exceptionalism.’” Engaging in bestiality makes us “just another animal in the forest.”

I believe both Smith and Singer are wrong. Smith’s argument disregards an animal’s intrinsic worth. While he does concede that “using animals sexually is abusive,” his entire emphasis is on human dignity (“the real reason for outlawing the practice…is that sex with animals unacceptably undermines human exceptionalism”). The problem with Singer’s thesis is a question of limits. Allowing human-animal sex would afford owners an opportunity for even more abuse and torture (anti-cruelty statutes notwithstanding). Yes, relations can appear (no whimpers, no struggle) to be mutually satisfying (a victimless crime). But lines will be crossed, and domesticated animals (who are already exploited by definition) will suffer further.

A proscription against bestiality may thwart natural (and benign) urges for some humans, but other outlets must be found (most zoophiles also have long-term human relationships). The objection to bestiality, though, should not be based on a repugnance towards the human practitioners (who, by the way, believe that castrating the family dog is more a crime against nature than what they do). Rather, the owned animals at the center of this issue need whatever shields (however flimsy they may be) we can offer.