Let me start by saying that I am a cynophile, and have created this account specifically to defend the notion that bestiality, in certain common circumstances, is morally permissible and occasionally even beneficial to the animal. I'll start by going through Piers Beirne's paper, "Rethinking Bestiality: Towards a Concept of Interspecies Sexual Assault," published in 1997. And before anyone asks, this was not peer reviewed in any meaningful sense. It was published in the journal "Theoretical Criminology", of which Professor Beirne was the founding editor. The journal was founded in February 1997 too (this paper was published in August of the same year), so he was likely also the editor at the time of publication. It's only two citations are made about a decade by papers trying to establish a link between bestiality and interpersonal violence, and these papers were written in part by the same authors Chris Hensley and Suzanne Tallichet. As for Professor Beirne himself, his website does not list too many publications, and those it does list are books, not peer-reviewed journal articles. But none of that touches on the clear bias present in the article against bestiality, which it will be the goal of this essay to show while presenting the arguments made (or lack thereof) in a manner that is as fair to author as I can be, given my own position.

Let's start with the abstract, which is freely available at the following link (the paper, unfortunately, requires paid access or a login with that site):

http://tcr.sagepub.com/content/1/3/317.short

Here is the main goal of this paper, in professor Beirne's words,
"I argue that bestiality should be understood as `interspecies sexual assault' because the situation of animals as abused victims parallels that of women and, to some extent, that of infants and children and further because (1) human-animal sexual relations almost always involve coercion; (2) such practices often cause animals pain and even death; and (3) animals are unable either to communicate consent to us in a form that we can readily understand or to speak out about their abuse."

I will deal with all three of these arguments separately, but the very term "interspecies sexual assault" indicates that the author has already made up his mind on the issue, and the arguments presented are mere icing on the cake. In very general terms, argument 1 is untrue for the ordinary definitions of coercion, argument 2 is irrelevant in cases where such circumstances do not apply, and argument 3 is the only one which has a sliver of legitimacy, and that only in the second half (on speaking out about abuse).

At the beginning of the paper, to introduce the topic, professor Beirne cites a pornographic film and notes, interestingly, that the animals have varied reactions to the sexual contact with humans, from energetic and enthusiastic participation to boredom and indifference to extreme horror and pain. An ordinary utilitarian examination of these situations would indicate, until further information was furnished, that these acts are perfectly fine in the first case, questionable but not outright wrong in the second, and utterly wrong in the third. This raises the question of how we should approach bestiality in society, and particularly why it should mostly be reviled and not ignored as a harmless social deviance. He acknowledges that the reaction to bestiality is more often emotional than intellectual, stating that,

"Probably to most of us, bestiality is a disturbing form of sexual practice that invites hurried bewilderment rather than sustained intellectual inquiry."

Then he goes on to introduce this subject in a historical context, and I won't go into that history here, as it's irrelevant to our topic. However, his definition of bestiality (or more accurately a partial listing of activities described by that term) is interesting for later reference.

"Usually, in law, it refers to sexual intercourse when a human penis or digit enters the vagina, anus, or cloaca of the animal. However, it often also entails any form of oral-genital contact, including those between women and animals and even, in psychiatry, fantasies about sex with animals."

This definition, oddly, is both too narrow and too broad. Too broad in that fantasies probably shouldn't be included, and too narrow in that it excludes the insertion of the animal's genitalia into the anus or vagina of a human being. Considering how common these activities are among male and female bestialists, this is an inexcusable omission only presented this way to strengthen later arguments.

He then goes on to describe why, historically in Christian societies, it was viewed as wrong,

"Over the ages three beliefs have persisted about its wrongfulness: it ruptures the natural, God-given order of the universe; it violates the procreative intent required of all sexual relations between Christians; and it produces monstrous offspring that are the work of the devil."

Professor Beirne describes each of these three in more detail. I'll dismiss all three of them for a reason I can give in one word: biology. The theory of evolution utterly destroys the idea that human beings are entirely separate from the other animal species, animal behavioral studies prove that many species are sexual opportunists, with sexual behavior far more varied than strictly procreative sex, and genetics shows that offspring between human beings and the species they have domesticated is virtually impossible.

Then, despite the string of executions previously described, Beirne bemoans the fact that bestiality, both in ancient times and currently, is often practiced and rarely prosecuted. To conclude this section, he states,

“There has gradually emerged a pseudo-liberal tolerance of bestiality.”

This he asserts without evidence. Given the recent spate, both in the U.S. and abroad, of anti-bestiality laws, this is evidently untrue, at least in terms of Western society at large.

We then reach the main arguments of the paper. Beirne bemoans the fact that there has been little attention paid to the animal's role in bestiality in academic discourse. I agree with him on this point, but the manner in which he describes the problem is provocative and not conducive of a reasoned debate on the pros and cons of bestiality.

“While researchers have examined the physiological consequences of bestiality for humans, they pay no such attention to the internal bleeding, the ruptured anal passages, the bruised vaginas and the battered cloaca of animals, let alone to animals' psychological and emotional trauma.”

Even if this passage didn't ignore the millions of cases of animal sex with no harm to the animal, and millions more in which the animal derives obvious pleasure, it's a bad argument because it presents the worst cases as those by which we should define a moral standard. This same form of argument can be used for any sexual behavior involving at least two creatures. To pick a recent example, the abduction and repeated rape of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Gina DeJesus over the course of a decade is obviously reprehensible, yet to use it to characterize heterosexual sex in general would clearly be out of line.
Another argument is attempted from liberal-rights theory,

“We might insist... that if bestiality is engaged in with a mammal, then it is a harm inflicted on a moral patient entitled to the fundamental right of respectful treatment.”

This may be true of the worst cases insisted upon by Professor Beirne, but what of the cases currently being ignored? I can understand why an animal would be considered a moral patient, much like a child or a brain-damaged person, not morally responsible for its actions. Yet in cases where the animal initiates sexual contact, and the human acquiesces to its advances, clearly no harm is being done to the animal, nor is the animal being treated disrespectfully. Though a little harder to ascertain, similar considerations allow one to invalidate this objection in even cases in which the animal is on the receiving end, so long as the animal is treated respectfully. And if one defines respectful treatment to exclude all interspecies sexual contact, I would like to know how one justifies this definition given the clear sex drives present in some animals as well as their social attachment to human beings

A third argument attempts to establish all interspecies sexual contact as coerced,

“Animals' interaction with humans is always infused with the possibility of coercion. So it is with sex. In the same way that sexual assault against women differs from normal sex because the former is sex obtained by physical, economic, psychological, or emotional coercion- any of which implies the impossibility of genuine consent- so too, Adams' assertion that bestiality is always sexual coercion ('forced sex') is surely a correct description of most, if not all, human-animal sexual relations.”

Then Professor Beirne notes that he doesn't think this assertion is correct simply because the human and animal have unequal power, as Adams would have it, since this description applies to virtually all sexual activity between two or more creatures. But he then goes on to assert that animals cannot genuinely consent to sex and are coerced for that reason. To support this, he veers off into phenomenological arguments by Nagel that we can't know how other animals experience the world, and thus cannot ascertain whether they assent to a particular course of action. This is clearly false, as is evidenced again by biology. We, as human beings, observe that both we and other animals have similar mechanisms for basic biological functions (such as sexual functioning) as well as more complex behavioral and psychological phenomena (empathy, social functioning, emotions, etc.). Moreover, we observe that animals have these capabilities both within their own species and towards other species, and particularly towards human beings (dogs are especially astute in this regard). What, other than a fatalistic argument that being at all ignorant is equivalent to being completely oblivious, would allow us to conclude with this information that human beings cannot tell whether animals assent to a behavior or not? And if we can tell whether the animal assents and use this information to determine whether sexual advances are welcomed, what exactly is morally wrong about it in general?

To belabor the point, Beirne makes another argument that all such activity is coercive. His argument is that animals are effectively unable to refuse sexual advances, either because they are incapable of refusing due to their “docile and often human-bred natures”, or in cases of apparent refusal, they are incapable of enforcing their will. As anyone who's ever been bitten by a dog or kicked by a mare can attest to, animals are not defenseless. In fact, given the large sizes of animals required to take part in such activity without harming the animal, moral cases of bestiality are far riskier to the human being involved than to the animal, see for an example of this the death of Mr. Hands.

Beirne then defines interspecies sexual assault as “all sexual advances by humans to animals.” Once again, this is very broad, and the author admits as much. However, he then goes on a tangent on how sexist language often uses animals as metaphors to place women as somehow less than human and therefore exploitable without guilt. This comparison only carries weight, however, if we accept such a rigid hierarchy as valid; in fact, the relationship between human beings and other species is more complicated than this, in that I would argue that certain animals are, in some ways, superior to humans, and not inferior in all ways.

Having made his arguments that bestiality is immoral, Beirne then goes on to describe various “types” of bestiality. These include sexual fixation, commodification, adolescent sexual experimentation, and aggravated cruelty. I'll go through each one in turn, because they are qualitatively different and deserve different treatments from an ethical standpoint.

Sexual fixation is used to be interchangable with zoophilia in this paper, though I would argue that they are not at all the same thing. Sexual fixation is exclusive physical attraction to nonhuman animals, while zoophilia is an emotional or psychological attraction to nonhuman animals. Beirne dismisses this as both rare and a poor justification. He then goes out of his way to paint all zoophiles as zoosadists by speculating on their motives,

“It is just as likely that fixated humans assault animals not because they believe it benefits their sexual 'partners' but because they enjoy inflicting pain on other creatures who, in this particular case, just happen to be animals because animals are more available to them than humans. Do they often not start with animals and eventually 'graduate' to humans?”

Anyone who has given even a cursory glance to the research on zoophiles shows that, in their eyes, this is not the case. Obviously, this needs to be studied further to confirm or disprove the assertion that the animals benefit as well, but such baseless accusations only serve to show that the author has in mind a stereotypical worst case of zoophilia and seeks to argue against this, rather than the phenomenon as it is generally practiced.

Commodification is the type of bestiality practiced in pornography and other profit-focused sexual practices. The use of animals here is the same, ethically, as the use of animals in a circus or in a television show; abuse is possible, but also preventable with proper precautions, though admittedly greater precautions should be taken to prevent actual sexual abuse for profit. One might argue that these uses of animals are also wrong, but the same arguments would need to be made for both nonsexual and sexual cases of using animals for the gratification of human beings. Personally, I think that so long as the animal is treated with care and respect, there is nothing inherently wrong with training the animal to perform for entertainment purposes or otherwise.

Adolescent sexual experimentation is probably the most common form of bestiality, and is in the largest morally grey area. Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with this, but care must be taken to ensure that adolescents do not abuse animals in their care solely to satisfy their own lusts. Better structured sexual education and more encouragement of responsible sex would likely prevent most of this.

Finally, there is aggravated cruelty, clearly the most heinous of the four and also, thankfully, the rarest. Unfortunately, this is the form of bestiality which leaves behind the most evidence and is thus perceived to be more common than it actually is. Such acts could be covered by any animal cruelty statute, as in such cases there is clear physical and/or psychological harm to the animal, which could be detected by any third party and especially by a veterinarian.

The paper concludes by summarizing the previous parts and lamenting the lack of proper study of bestiality. I too lament this lack of study, but for an entirely different reason. There exists clear evidence of mutually consensual, beneficial sexual relationships between human beings and other animals. Such relationships are moral in any rational moral system (utilitarian, liberal-rights, etc.) which does not make them immoral purely by definition. I'll be happy to defend this position if asked about it, but for now I'll just stay that more study is needed to determine whether this kind of human-animal interaction should be discouraged in all cases, and I welcome such study even if it completely disproves my opinion, for at least then I'll know whether I'm wasting my time defending it.