What is a 'Zoophile?'Because this question tends to come up quite a bit in my life - and it occurs to me that I've never really written up a short-form answer to it (despite many, many words on the topic posted publicly over the span of many years) - I'm posting this condensed version of something that, most likely, I will expand out in substantially more detail in the future.
The whole "Frequently Asked Questions" template is pretty well played-out but, in the absence of a more creative inspiration, I'm just going with the FAQ for now.
Q. What's the big deal?Anyone who interacts with me, either online or personally, beyond a surface level is going to bump into references I make to my family life, or my partners, or "zooish" questions or perspectives. For some folks, this is all self-evident and stopping to explain what's going on would be rather silly. However, I've come to realize that many other people really have no idea what I'm referencing (despite the years of discussions on this topic in which I've participated, scattered around the internet). Rather than expect people to go out and hunt around for the extensive but fragmentary data on my family life, I'd rather have a single point of reference - in my own words.
Q. I've heard a bunch of rumors? Are they true?Obviously, that's an impossible question to answer because of the simple fact that there's a near-limitless supply of rumors in circulation, running from the unusual but true (my time in prison for the role I played in a
US/Canada helicopter smuggling organization) to the utterly bizarre and completely disconnected from reality (that I'm in hiding in Paraguay, or secretly running an international porn empire). While a few of the more hateful rumors I've taken the trouble to aggressively deny - and will continue to do so - for the most part I've learned that rumors have a life of their own and time spent trying to "deny" them is wasted, at best. Indeed, from time to time I've shamelessly egged on various rumors for the sheer devilish joy of seeing just how bizarre they can become over time (no, I'm not a "retired porn star" - but I think it's a damned cool rumor so feel free to keep spreading it). I've had a fairly visible public profile for more than a decade, on and off, and because of some of the more -ahem - spectacularly entertaining or downright unbelievable things I've managed to involve myself with, that attention has laid down a fairly deep - and entirely factually variable - collection of tidbits about me online. Indeed, sometimes it feels like my public persona takes on a life far above and beyond the "real" me - so it goes.
Q. What's with this "zoophilia" thing? Is that what you are?This is where the question of definitions becomes central, and at the risk of tendentiousness I must clarify
exactly what I mean when I make some statements and use some words. To me, the definition of zoophilia that is most useful is something along these lines:
a human being whose primary social, emotional, and physical bonds tend towards forming with individuals of other, non-human species. There are other definitions, and I don't claim mine to be the One True Word on what they should all mean; however, for me personally that's how I use the word. And, within that definition, there's simply no question that I fit the criteria and thus I'm a zoophile.
Q. Right, ok - so you like dogs alot or whatever. So what - who doesn't?For me, the experience of "being zooish" means that throughout my life - both as a child, and after becoming an adult, I've
always connected with dogs and horses on a far more comfortable, consistent, substantial, and important level than I have with other human beings. That's not to say that I've never had human friends (or don't have them now), nor that I've never been intimate with humans before (I was married for the better part of 10 years, in fact). It simply means that, for me, the process and experience of bonding with non-humans (dogs and horses, in particular) has always been easier, smoother, more predictable, and
ceteris paribus resulted in relationships that feel "more real" to me than many human relationships. This is not something I've chosen, not some "rebellion against people," not a statement of moral superiority, nor an affectation that suits some kind of performance need. It's just "who I am," and always has been - my closest friends, my deepest bonds, and my most meaningful connections haven't tended to be with other human beings.
Q. So does that mean you are "into bestiality?? That's gross!Ah, yes... the "sex question." Right off the bat, I will state that there's a level of detail with respect to my sexual life that I simply don't find it healthy or useful to discuss in generalized, public terms. If ever there's a place where Too Much Information is a risk, discussing such matters must certainly qualify - and not just for me. What is true is this: all my life, before puberty and throughout adulthood, I've always felt that my physically intimate connections with non-humans have been the "real" part of that side of my life, and that such connections with other humans have been, I suppose, a form of "going through the motions." Again, in terms of definitions, the specifics of what I refer to as "physical intimacy" matter - and they are almost certainly not what many readers of this are assuming. Understand that my central physical experiences, in terms of intimate connections, have
always been with non-human partners - indeed my entire context for the discussion, assumptions about "what counts" and what doesn't, and awareness of how Normal (i.e. non-zooish) folks do the "sex thing... it all springs from my physical connections with non-humans. To me, physical intimacy is a question of mutual trust - of the feeling of security and unquestioning acceptance one feels when one is in close physical contact with a partner. Is this just another way of saying "sex?" NO! Really, it's not - though I suppose that boundary can be hard to put into words, if it exists at all. I just don't know that I understand in any real way what "counts as sex" and what doesn't - indeed, in the past I've clearly failed to anticipate where that boundary is for Normal folks. So, I gave up trying - and I choose to stick with "physical intimacy" because it makes sense to me.
Q. So you 'get off' on having sex with animals? Actually, no. While I've had that "fact" about me thrown at me many, many times it's still not true. I suppose it would be like saying to a happily married man "so, do you get off on fucking your chick?" No, not really - that's so far away from being an accurate, or reasonable, description of anything like reality that it becomes no more than a falsehood.
Q. Aha, well anyway despite all that mumbo-jumbo I think you are raping your poor, defenseless animal victims - you should be ashamed.Not sure that's really a question (even though I wrote it), but it's
lurking out there and I'd prefer to face it spot-on. It's something I've tried to discuss, explain, explore, and describe from every imaginable angle - both within the boundaries of TMI constraints, and with an utter willingness to get as detailed as one can possibly imagine. Generally, I've found that more information doesn't yield any better understanding. So, I've boiled things down to two key points. First, for about 99.9% of the people reading this, what you are visualizing in your head (and I really encourage you to stop and recognize what that visual image is - because I believe it's right there in your mind)
has absolutely nothing to do with the most basic, factual, boring elements of my intimate relationships. The gender is wrong, the interaction is wrong, the motivation is wrong, heck even the
outcome is wrong. For a minute, set that image aside and allow me to put forth a far more accurate - though metaphorical - description of the reality of things. Most folks reading this, I hope, will have some familiarity with the mechanics of so-called "artificial insemination," in dogs in horses. One "collects" semen from the male, and then uses that to inseminate the female. If you take the first half of that - the collection from the male - and hold it aside... that's a bit more of a (metaphorical) illustration of the extent of the kinds of physical intimacy we're experiencing around here. Insofar as, for whatever moral/ethical reason, you feel it's utterly horrific to collect a stud dog or stallion... then I suppose you'd find our physical intimacy to be horrific too. If you can't quite see where the horror comes into such procedures then, without question, what we do in the privacy of our own home wouldn't manage to trigger the "horror response" either. And that, at this point, is about as much detail as I believe is useful to toss forth.
Q. But animals are like little children, and cannot "consent" - so you are raping little children, basically. How could you?As someone who was sexually abused by a relative when I was young, this kind of statement is one of the few things that pisses me off. It pisses me off for two reasons. One, by drawing a fatuous connection between an entirely unrelated activity and the actual reality and destructive force of childhood sexual abuse between humans, there's an implicit denigration of the real pain and seriousness of real child sexual abuse - something I know firsthand. Second, calling "animals" no more than equivalent to "children" is so spectacularly small-minded, insulting, inaccurate, haughty, and simplistic - to the animals themselves - that it makes me see red. Look, anyone who can stand next to a 2,000 pound adult draft horse stallion and call him a "child" either doesn't give a rat's ass about reality, or is just too dumb and disconnected from reality to know the difference. Adult, mature, self-aware, healthy, thinking, feeling,
living non-human social mammals - like dogs and horses and wolves and such - are NOT equivalent to human "children," on any level. They aren't dumb, they aren't just poorly-created versions of humans, they aren't inferior, they aren't helpless, they aren't unable to "communicate," they aren't easily manipulated, they aren't hopelessly vulnerable, and they aren't blank templates on which some evil human can imprint whatever their evil heart desires. Frankly, I'm tired of the comparison and the more I've seen it and thought about it, the more insulting and stupid it shows itself to be. Like comparing apples to asteroids, it's far more (intentionally) misleading than anything else. So, no, my partners and family members are not "like children" in any sense at all (they're alive, they're mammals, they're carbon-based... all the trivial "similarities" hold). If you are so heart-set on hammering that "similarity" home that you can't see this, then I'm not interested in disabusing you of it. Have fun.
Q. Still, animals cannot "consent" so whatever you do is rape - you can't deny that.Yes, actually, I
can and do deny that. Right away, I have no idea how the gold standard for sexual intimacy came to be "consent" - as if it's a question of one person passively acquiescing to some vaguely unpleasant but endurable humiliation, and the other person forcing this largely symbolic action on their "partner" in an expression of pure power dynamics. While that may be standard assumptions for Normal sexuality, that is
not what I believe underlies healthy physical intimacy - and indeed it seems at core to be a perversion of the most fundamental elements of healthy, trusting intimacy. I can't really recall, personally, ever "consenting" to sex in my life - I've either been an active participant, or said "no thanks, I've got a headache" and sat that round out. Consent is for medical procedures, not intimacy. Yes, I know it comes from the definitions surrounding human rape, human date rape, human underage sexual abuse, and the like - important questions
for human beings interacting socially with other human beings. It's just not a concept that translates at all outside of our language-centric human framework. Consent is, fundamentally, a
verbal process - a spoken or written agreement to allow something to happen. How does a stallion "consent" to any specific activity? Does he sign his hoofprint? Nod his head? Simply not kick, and not trot away? Put his ears forward - not put his ears forward? The concept is simply framed wrong - for a stallion, he is either a
willing participant in a specific activity, or he's an
unwilling participant in it, i.e. he's forced to do something (or allow something to be done to him) that, if he could physically avoid he would. That makes sense to me. However, if someone can explain to me how a stallion (or stud dog, or male of most any species) can be "forced" to be an "unwilling participant" in reciprocal sexual activity (with him playing, for lack of a better phrase, the "traditional male role") then I'll eat my hat. As far as I know, it's logically impossible - like "forcing" water to flow uphill, or something. I can see how "willing participation" could well be a meaty question for, let's say, a human male and a canine female... however,
that's not the sort of relationship I find myself in, and as such I've no desire to have the "discussion" of how one does or does not assure oneself of "willing participation" by both partners. If anyone, in my own intimate relationships, could be categorized as being in the "passive role," it'd be me - to put it bluntly. So, unless we're worried about
me consenting or not, the question is really moot. The male who refuses active participation in sexual activity is a rather "soft target" for concern. I'm not alone in rejecting this sanctimonious, insulting assumption that non-humans cannot be willing, enthusiastic participants in sexual intimacy (within their own species, or not): Peter Singer, one of the "founding fathers" of the animal rights movement, has
spoken out forcefully in favor of the recognition of zooish intimate bonding - the assumption that people who "care about animals" and zoophies are on other "sides" of the argument is a false dichotomy. It always has been.
Q. Ok, so maybe you aren't raping poor defenseless victims or anything - but it's still weird and gross and wrong and you should get treatment to get "fixed" and be normal. Why aren't you?Zoophilia is, by the more or less consensus agreement of academic psychology, not a "disorder" nor something that is to be "cured" - any more than are other non-majority sexual orientations. While it is still listed as a "paraphilia" in the DSM IV, the primary concern over whether zoophilia is healthy or not has to do with the
social response towards zoophiles from mainstream society - not the orientation itself. In other words, being a zooish person can have severe psychological costs - but those costs result from the hatred we tend to face from mainstream society, not from ourselves or any internally-created problems of identity or self acceptance. This maps to my own experience. I'm neither "sorry" for who I am, nor wishing I could change and "be Normal." Like imagining what it'd be like to be female, I can sort of project myself into it but it seems a bit scary and too different from who I am to really make sense to me as an identity. I've benefited from psychological counseling on and off, in my life - and generally been open about my sexual orientation. I can't recall it ever being the "big issue" in my counseling sessions - perhaps an important background variable, but never the centerpiece of personal
ennui or self-doubt. This maps to all
existing academic research on zoophiles; for the most part, we don't seem to be torn by internal self-doubts. The details of my personal, intimate life may be "gross" to someone reading this - and I may find
your intimate behavior to be "gross," from my own perspective. I'm just not sure that matters, or indeed is a response that reflects the best of who we are.
Q. I've never heard of "zoophilia" before - you're the first zooish person I've ever met! Are you unique?No, I'm not unique. According to the existing (though limited) research data, the "zooish" portion of human populations seems to hover around 1% - this number seems fairly standard across cultures and across historical times. Every human culture that has a substantial written record - or has received substantial ethnographic investigation - has exhibited some degree of zooish behavior. Every one. Some cultures are wildly aggressive about persecuting zooish behavior - Europe in the Middle Ages is a great example - though many others have either implicitly accepted such bonds (nomadic tribal cultures of central Europe), or explicitly celebrated them (Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Incan, and other indigenous South American cultures... to name a few of many examples). In short, while the
percentage of humans who "swing zooish" seems to be consistently small, the
existence of this zooish minority seems to be as fundamental to human sexual behavior as same-sex coupling or "inter-gendered" sexual identities. That said, in modern western culture zooish topics are one of the last, great - and most heavily enforced - taboo subjects. Thus, the overwhelming majority of folks in some form of zooish relationship, in our culture, are deeply "in the closet." I'm very much the exception to that rule (for a range of historical and personal reasons, beyond the scope of this post). However, the average person who has met a broad swath of other people in their life has, statistically, gotten to know more than a few zooish folks - even if they weren't aware of it at the time.
Q. Do you zoophiles all hang out together in "zoo bars" or something? No, not really. In fact, not at all - zoophiles have a well-earned reputation for being ornery, self-reliant, quick to turn defensive, and opinionated (present company excepted, of course
). Get three zoos together, and you'll have three opinions on any imaginable subject - and a heated argument for each. There are places online where zoos can get together and share experience and wisdom - some are really healthy and positive repositories of good thinking and community wisdom; others are as destructive and embittered as you can possibly imagine... multiplied by 100. In terms of non-online gatherings, despite rumors and so forth, there's very rarely if ever "zoo meets" and I've certainly never been to such a thing - nor would I want to. By definition, zooish folks aren't really "people people" - getting us together takes work, and rarely ends well. It goes with the territory. That said, it
is possible that there's more than the usual percentage of zoos in some areas of activity: if it involves meaningful, positive, long-term connections with non-humans then there's probably more than a few closeted zoos participating. Yes, I know more than a few "highly visible" folks in various fields who are, behind the front image, zooish in practice. No, I won't tell you who they are - I've never "outed" a fellow zoo, and don't plan to.
Q. Last question for you: since it's illegal, why aren't you in jail?While some areas of the world have explicitly criminalized cross-species physical intimacy of any sort (these anti-zoo laws are generally popular with evangelical Christians, embattled politicians, and prosecutors looking for easy targets of mob-hatred campaigns to vilify an unpopular victim) - with various loosely-structured "exceptions" for veterinary practice, which are often impossible to put into clear terms - there are also many places in the world where such laws do not exist. There's also many places in the world where same-sex intimacy is illegal - even punishable by death - and for the straight folks, "sodomy" remains illegal in some U.S. states. Adult sexual toys are illegal in some Southern states - to buy, or use - and until recently marriage between different "races" was illegal almost everywhere. In other words, the existence - or not - of laws with respect to sexual orientation and sexual activity is hardly a good indicator of moral acceptability, or ethical foundations. More specifically, such laws relate to
specific physical activities at a specific physical time in a specific jurisdiction. Not only do I avoid discussing such details here, the fact is that
I have never discussed such details, do not acknowledge participating - ever - in such activities, and flatly reject any effort to tie my words in this thread to ANY specific act whatsoever.
In summary, zoophilia is about far, far more than "just sex" - and while it may be disappointing to hear, my actual life is not quite the sex-centric, orgiastic frenzy that I suspect some folks imagine in their most fervid fantasies. It's all rather more quotidian than that, by a wide margin - I spend far more time writing about such subjects, explaining such subjects, and debating such subjects than I've ever actually
done such subjects - ironic, but true. Further, while my words here seem to be sex-focused, that's merely because it becomes such a topic of obsession and unending questioning that I want to get it all on paper, in public, once and for all. Some people may try to overstate what I've discussed here, claiming I "admitted" to this or that - I can't stop that, but I can hold these words here as the actual reality of what I've actually said. If it's a question of sexuality and I don't discuss it here in my own words, then anything you "hear" out there is coming second- or third-hand and is likely shot through with inaccuracy.
It is not only possible - but far from unusual - for someone to be accurately described as a zoophile and not, in any conventional sense of the words, be "having sex" with nonhumans. I have no doubt this "small detail" will tend to get lost in discussions; nevertheless, I close by stating it once again. I do not "deny" sexual intimacy - indeed, I make a point of avoiding denial of most anything in the world, as it's a death spiral of self-constricting negativity that ends nowhere good. However, my lack of denial of such things is NOT equivalent to - or intended as - a roundabout way of saying something. I've said, here, exactly what I want to say - exactly how I choose to say it, and with exact factual accuracy. Some people may misread, misconstrue, or misrepresent what I've said - that doesn't change reality. If this seems opaque, please read through again - it's all here.
Finally, unless you really have a deep interest in learning more about zoophilia as a long-term area of study, please do
not expect me to answer your follow-on questions about what I've said here, whenever the mood strikes you to ask. I choose to share these details to set a clear and accurate foundation - and to push back against some of the bullshit that swirls in the rumor-storms out there. That does not mean I'm sitting around with nothing better to do than to take random questions about my personal life. I will do you the honor of not judging you to be of undeniable bad manners for asking any such questions, if you will do me the honor of not expecting me to answer them.
Respectfully,
D. SpinkNovember 2009
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