Have you hugged your pet today?

I'm a pretty open minded person, but there are somethings that just give me a full body shudder.

After reading Mistress Matisse's story about dogs and this one on nyhotties I am now left wondering what exactly makes a person want to have sex with an animal?

I had a teacher in high school who grew up on a dairy farm in a rural part of NY. Well, one day his dad walked into the barn only to find one of the farmhands getting up close and personal with one of the cows. I swear that I am not making this up. To make things more chaotic I went to a parochial school.....there were classmates of mine who had no idea that some people are a whole different breed of animal lover (one that PETA does not condone) until that very moment.

My roommate (who by now is really wondering why I'm inquiring about his theories on this topic) offers 2 theories:
1. The more taboo or forbidden something is, the more some people want to try it
2. It is the embodiment of the animalization of sex.

Or, maybe the animal seemed interested....?.... I mean once my ex-boyfriend's kitten jumped down off a bookshelf and landed between his legs (I was on top) and just sat and watched us. (Once the sex was finished we noticed her sitting there). But she did not try to join in.

I tried doing some research into the why of this fetish, but googling "beastiality" just overwhelmed me with offers of free animal pron pictures, movies, and stories. Not the kind of research I had in mind. "Zoophilia" worked a bit better.
So far I have learned that zoophiliacs do not encourage animal abuse as I learned at Zoophilia.net- a very comprehensive site that exists to "provide the world with an objective website, both for opponents, zoophiles and neutral curious people." (I guess that makes me a curious person). The (scientific) literature on the subject is slowly emerging.

Some of the knowledge I gleaned:

• It is a paraphilia defined as sexual attraction by a human to an animal.
• It is apparently legal to sell animal oriented porn in Denmark and the Netherlands.
• About half of the 50 states have laws that explicitly outlaw beastiality
• It is apparently not that difficult to know when a dog has orgasmed (something I have never, ever given any thought to before. How human-centered of me).
• Abnormal does not mean wrong, in some situations.
• It is not wise to have relations with a stray animal.

I still don't think that I am any closer to understanding why a person might want to have sex of any sort with an animal. I have however learned that I do have one thing in common with zoophiles- the religious right want to ban all sex that isn't missionary style intercourse between and married man and woman.