Be civil and follow principle of charity in the comments.
Would it be okay if it was with a grotesque human-animal chimera capable of superintelligence asking for a friend
Extremist vegan or zoophilia apologist? We may never know.
This is the same type of arguments pedophiles make when they compare their mental illness to being gay.
People have already explained very articulately that killing an animal for food is different from fucking it for pleasure and dominance. Because let’s be real, that is the only reason why anyone would ever rape an animal.
We can definitely have a discussion on the amount of meat consumption and how it needs to be cut down significantly for both the sake of the environment and for the same of animal welfare and human health, but my experience is that everytime this type of argument is brought up, it tends to be a thinly veiled attempt at normalizing zoophilia.
I hope you don’t have any pets, OP.
Those same people do not actually kill animals. They eat meat, there is a disconnect here. I would wager if everyone had to kill and process the meat they eat that consumption would go down considerably.
Everybody’s gotta eat, but not everyone’s gotta fuck a dog
No one has to eat meat, in fact with all the space used for animals we could produce way more food instead.
No one has to eat meat
People with crohn’s or colostomy bags would disagree.
in fact with all the space used for animals we could produce way more food instead.
The space used for animals is grassland and doesn’t have the right soil to be cropland. i.e. if all animals disappeared tomorrow we wouldn’t get any more cropland at all.
With one exception being the animals that are fed with crops.
We wouldn’t grow more crops in total, but more would be available for human consumption.
We wouldn’t grow more crops in total, but more would be available for human consumption.
The bulk of animal food from crops isn’t human edible. Cows have an amazing ruminant digestive system that can process plant food that humans can’t!
Cool idea: don’t presuppose what literally every human needs based on your narrow worldview. Without significant animal fat and protein I wouldn’t be able live.
No, I’m not going to get into specifics, but also, no, I cannot get my current nutritional needs (and still desire to eat) by cutting animal products and biproducts in my diet.
Then who has to fuck a dog? Didn’t you mean noone has to fuck a dog?
Paging lemmy.world/u/noone
what do you have to say for yourself?
I think their point is that there are options to not eat the dog either.
Are there more people then having sex with dogs than there are those who eat them?
False premise. Zoophilia isn’t condemned because animal rights etc. It’s condemned because ‘ew WTF we don’t want people doing that, to the extent that we will make laws against it.’
It’s the same reason that we have laws against incest. Had laws against homosexuality.
I’m not saying it should be allowed because we (some of us) grew up and realised that laws against homosexuality were stupid. Just that, that is the reason. Collective societal disgust. It’s only justified by using animal rights (and rightly so, because EW) the same way we justified antihomo laws because it goes against some obscure biblical / Koranic rule.
It’s the same reason that we have laws against incest.
I’d argue it’s also the fact that because of the low genetic diversity of the parents children born from incest have a higher chance of developing genetical diseases.
The chance is lower than most people presume but at the same time: why gamble?
Yes but that is also a rationalization after the fact. First, it was ew, then we figured out that there were also rational reasons against it.
First, it was ew, then we figured out that there were also rational reasons against it.
Well, actually, it’s the other way around. Evolutionary speaking, there was a disavantage to inbreeding, so the “ew” evolved because of that. We think inbreeding is wrong because evolution taught us that it lowers the chance of survival for our offspring.
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While surely there is some genetic component at play there it appears to be primarily motivated by the primate social adaptation system.
This seems like a strange argument, because “the primate social adaptation system” is also ultimately governed by evolution. Obviously a primate group with a social tendency towards incest would have worse survival rates than a primate group with a social aversion to incest, and that social fabric definitely is tied to evolution (unless you mean to imply that our social fabric did not arise from evolution, but I don’t think that’s what you’re saying).
Also, I don’t see how this can have anything in particular to do with primates and their social constructs as incest is avoided by all animals, as far as I am aware. It is not a purely human or primate thing, incest is bad for all animals and so they have all evolved via evolution to avoid it. I’d say the Westermarck effect is just the result of that evolution - obviously humans can’t directly read genetic code, so the mind assumes that whoever you grew up with must be your close relatives, and that’s good enough of a signal in 99% of cases, so that’s what evolution went with.
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We don’t eat wood chips and don’t like the way they taste, not because they are bad for us, but rather because we would rather eat potato chips.
I’m sorry but I find this premise completely ridiculous - obviously we don’t like how they taste because they are bad for us. Evolution isn’t only about preference, it’s also about avoiding stuff, like poison or rotten food or woodchips or whatever. I don’t think we can come to an agreement on such a premise.
the “ew” evolved because of that.
i don’t know how you could possibly prove this, but i would love to see you try.
You can’t really definitively prove a theory like that I think. I’m no biologist so I’m not an expert by any means, but we can’t go back in time to see why evolution did what it did. We can only guess from what we have right now.
That said, such an “ew” response to incest surely is not just coincidence. It must have arose for a reason, just like all of our emotions evolved for a reason. For example, we also experience disgust when smelling or tasting rotten milk, because drinking rotten stuff is bad for survival too, so evolution made us have that response, because it would lower the chance of us drinking spoiled milk. There’s nothing “inherently disgusting” about incest or spoiled milk. We only find those things disgusting because they are bad, evolutionarily speaking.
And btw this isn’t restricted to humans obviously, all animals avoid having offspring with their close family, so this is a very deep-rooted behavior.
It’s been the norm in many countries for centuries, so can’t have been seen as EW as you claim
Those laws and customs predates knowledge of genetics significantly.
Humans may not have consciously known that incest was bad, but evolution made us think so before we were even humans.
AllSome animals avoid incest, it’s not just humans. We only created those laws and customs because evolution already made us believe that incest is bad. It’s pre-programmed in us, so to speak.All animals avoid incest
That isn’t even remotely true.
Fair - but humans are definitely not the only animals that do.
What about same sex incest, or where one or both partners are sterile, or between adopted siblings who aren’t related genetically? That would still be considered wrong, right? Even though there wouldn’t be genetic consequences
Personally? IDGF about what two consenting adults do in bed. My only objection is when it comes to children being born from incest because of the higher risk of genetic diseases.
between adopted siblings who aren’t related genetically?
Don’t know where you from but AFAIK that’s perfectly legal in Germany.
My only objection is when it comes to children being born from incest because of the higher risk of genetic diseases.
But that’s still not a 100% consistent argument and it leans into another morally complex topic: eugenics.
Because, if you argue that way, you’d have to clarify your stance towards people with genetic diseases/disabilities in general.
And if you follow the logic, we would also have to shun/abolish sexual relations between people with genetic disease or who carry the respective alleles, so that their offspring have a higher chance of inheriting a disease (in some cases way higher than with random siblings).
It might be the root cause, why there seem to be marriage rules in most human societies, that exclude intermarrying of siblings (especially considering that the risks increase drastically if you keep procreating that way for generations), but the current taboo is not entirely rational and seems more based on cultural tradition than current understanding.
Again, personally: As I have one confirmed genetically transmitted condition and one suspected genetically transmitted condition this is a dilemma close to my heart and TBF I haven’t reached a final conclusion for myself yet. On one hand I think it is unethical to conceive a child knowing full well, that they have a considerable higher risk of disease, and yet I don’t think GATTACA was meant as an instruction manual. As so often in life the answer is somewhere in the middle.
That’s a great justification for the EW
It’s the same reason that we have laws against incest. Had laws against homosexuality.
I don’t think this is right. We have laws against incest, because we were programmed by evolution to think incest is bad. The causal chain is:
- Incest lowers survival rates,
- Evolution causes humans to find incest disgusting to increase survival rates,
- Humans create laws to abolish incest because they find it disgusting.
Homosexuality is not like that at all, if I understand correctly (which I may not, tbf). Homosexuality may in fact be a evolutionary trait that is selected for in a certain sense, or it may just be a side-effect of other evolutionary efforts. For instance, having a homosexual uncle could be beneficial to you, as he would spend less time taking care of his own kids (obviously won’t have any) and more time taking care of you. The uncle’s genes would have no incentive to do this and evolution would not pressure the uncle to become homosexual, but your common ancestor (your grandparents on one side) would benefit as your genes would be helped along by your uncle, and so evolution could have caused homosexuality to occur ever so often, to produce one of these “helpful uncles”.
From what I’ve been told by rape victims, I’d much rather be murdered.
Who do you personally consider a bigger criminal?
- Human murdering other animal without their consent?
- Human raping other animal without their consent?
(We are making judgments solely based on the animal’s perspective. So we can’t include disingenuous human arguments like “They died a noble death for our survival”.)
raping an animal is still worse. Morally, killing animals is bad but it does provide a method of survival wether it’s moral or amoral, raping an animal is just a sick and twisted desire that is not only gross and unnatural but also does not provide any method for survival, so while no it’s not noble like your premise claims the argument to be it’s just seem as societally gross for a good reason.
From the animal’s perspective, you could argue rape continues their species and therefor is natural like killing, cannibalism etc. but that doesn’t change the dynamic between humans and animals. To the animal, dying is death and it’s something every living thing has to do, getting raped/rape is not
Through Animal’s perspective - Raping an animal is bad but Killing is worst outcome as it removes them from the gene pool, which means they can’t be able to produce their offspring and continue their progeny/generation. ~ Humans justify killing animals because they think through their own benefits, because they neglect animal’s perspective.
Right, I think a lot of my understanding does revolve around being a human and I cannot separate myself from that morality & most animals are driven by survival if that makes sense. This question is so fucking wild
This is exactly why many indigenous cultures put an emphasis on thanking the animal for their meat.
Can I not also thank a squirrel after sex?
Why a squirrel specifically? 🤣 dear Lord, you’re an evil spirit 😅
Predisposed to consuming nuts
(I’m gonna regret this one later)
There is no logical consistency except what allows the continued survival and flourishing of life and the human race.
Having sex with animals could get you sick and cause all sorts of problems. Eating animals on the other hand can extend your life beyond a few days and perhaps even into years after you can no longer drink your mother’s milk and has very few downsides, especially with the invention of cooking. Sure, we don’t need the source of sustenance that is meat today when we have several times more food than is necessary to feed the whole globe and then throw a lot of it away, but this wasn’t true for the vast majority of our history. People only a few hundred years ago had to scrape for every protein they could find.
There’s no special moral reason because we didn’t decide. It’s just an instinct, though one that we can examine and ignore if we want.
Most people don’t use critical reasoning to make their decisions, hence why most people live their lives in a state of constant contradictions.
My old philosophy professor once told us that the most effective way to expose somebody’s lack of critical reasoning about an issue is to just respond with, “who says?”
Basically the Socratic method, ask them to justify the statements they make, and see how they respond. The vast majority of the time, you’ll quickly find out that they don’t have any good reasons to support their statements. They haven’t given them much thought at all, nor much thought to differing views/positions. They live their lives in ways that feel generally “correct” or pleasurable to them, and that’s it.
Why do they think it’s alright to eat factory farmed meat? Because they like the taste, the thought of billions of animals living short, miserable lives, then being slaughtered and processed for us to consume doesn’t horrify or disgust them, so they keep doing it.
Most people when challenged on it will put up some vague attempt to support their actions, “Other animals do it to each other, so why not us?” “Animals don’t have sophisticated minds, so it doesn’t actually cause them real suffering.” “Humans need animal protein to be healthy.” etc. All terribly weak arguments that are easily refuted. But most people don’t care, because most societies normalize meat consumption and factory farming. They grew up eating meat with other people eating meat all around them, and they never gave it any thought.
Hence why most pet owners who eat meat would be absolutely horrified and disgusted if their dog or cat had a litter and somebody bought all of the puppies/kittens, only to torture, slaughter, and eat them. A completely inconsistent reaction given the fact that the pet owner happily eats other animals that are treated in the same way. But again, they didn’t reason themselves into their viewpoint, so they don’t worry about being consistent.
This is further confirmed by anecdotes from vegetarians/vegans, who will tell you about all the awkward, unprompted reactions from meat-eaters when they find out they don’t eat meat. Many people get very defensive, often making snide or accusatory remarks about vegetarianism/veganism. They don’t like the idea that eating factory meat is morally wrong, because they like the taste and don’t want to make to effort to change their lifestyle to confirm with that moral principle. So they mock, tease, or try to “expose” inconsistencies in the vegetarian/vegan’s own worldview as a defense mechanism.
If they can make the vegetarian/vegan look foolish, then that feels like a win psychologically to them, which provides mental and emotional comfort and allows them to slip back into their lifestyle without needing to confront their own moral failings.
“Other animals do it to each other, so why not us?” “Animals don’t have sophisticated minds, so it doesn’t actually cause them real suffering.” “Humans need animal protein to be healthy.” etc. All terribly weak arguments that are easily refuted.
if you care to articulate these refutations, i’d be fascinated to see how strong your arguments are.
- The first argument is just another version of the “it’s natural/unnatural, therefore it’s right/wrong.” Many animals also eat their own young, rape each other, etc. Does that make it acceptable for humans to do it also? Of course not. Some homophobes will point out that homosexual relationships are evolutionarily disadvantageous, (“unnatural”) and therefore that means it’s wrong for humans to form homosexual relationships. Obviously a ridiculous argument, but it’s just the inverse form of the one above.
- Is it alright to torture a human infant or a severely developmentally disabled person? What about a person with very advanced Alzheimer’s? All three examples have little to no mental self-awareness, certainly less than a dog, pig, dolphin, etc. At what point is self awareness sufficiently low enough to make it morally acceptable to cause deliberate pain to that person for your own enjoyment? Second, there is a growing body of evidence that a large portion of animals, including many that are currently farmed/fished for consumption, demonstrate sentience beyond simple reflexes. Beyond the scientific studies, everyday experience indicates this in many animals. Dogs, pigs, birds, octopus, can all solve simple puzzles, demonstrate various apparent emotions like curiosity, fear, joy, confusion, anger, etc. Clearly some level of sentience is present, even if it’s quite simple.
- All essential nutrients humans need can be found in plants. You need to adjust your diet obviously, some nutrients like B12 and Iron are harder to get from a plant-based diet. While others, like Vitamin C and Fiber are easier. The old stereotype that vegetarians/vegans are all malnourished weaklings, is a myth. There are many vegetarian/vegan elite athletes, including Olympic medalists and world record holders, (Alex Morgan, Scott Jurek, Dotsie Bausch, Fiona Oakes, Meagan Duhamel). So at least in the developed world, (where factory farming is the most pervasive,) there is no nutritional need for the general population to eat animals.
All essential nutrients humans need can be found in plants. You need to adjust your diet obviously, some nutrients like B12 and Iron are harder to get from a plant-based diet. While others, like Vitamin C and Fiber are easier.
If you eat 100% plant based you will need to supplement which contradicts the first sentence.
Reading on this a bit more, it looks like I was off on B12 specifically. Vegetarians can get this from eggs and milk, but full vegans need to either eat plant-based foods that are fortified with B12, or directly take a B12 supplement.
So my first sentence should actually be, “All essential nutrients humans need can be provided by a plant-based diet.” That is accurate because it includes fortified plant-based foods, plant-based direct suppliments, and vegetarians.
the distinction between food and supplements is purely regulatory and semantic. at what point does something become a food or a supplement? if i lack vitamin c and i eat an orange, have i supplemented with vitamin c? b12 supplements are made through microbial fermentation, like alcohol or vinegar or lactic acid. if i need iron and i take a pill, i’ve supplemented with iron, but if need sodium and i eat salt, have i supplemented? starch and sugar are simple chemicals extracted from whole foods, yet they are still considered foods. my point is that there is no true objective distinction between food and supplements, it’s just a vague label like “natural/unnatural”
One is torture.
The other is a means of survival.
It’s acceptable to kill for survival.
It’s not acceptable to torture and hurt for sexual gratification that can be gained solo with no one else involved.
Modern meat consumption is very disconnected from survival for most people though.
More humans could survive with more food if we reused the land growing food for animals for growing food for humans to eat. We would need so much less land that we could rewild a lot of it, and massively reduce the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere as well.
But people like meat and will react badly to anyone suggesting that eating less is a good idea for everyone.
More humans could survive with more food if we reused the land growing food for animals for growing food for humans to eat.
Animals are raised on grass land, which is different from cropland. Even if all the animals disappeared tomorrow we wouldn’t have any extra cropland.
That doesn’t address grass land vs cropland.
It just complains people are turning forests into cropland.
I do feel like most people I talk to irl seem to agree that eating less meat is good for everyone, but that’s very local of course, and agreeing and doing it is also not necessarily connected 😅
agree that eating less meat is good for everyone
I think this is just human nature, you say the socially acceptable thing to move the conversation along even if it wont impact their behavior. In a situation where the topic comes up (even staunch pro-meat doctors) the path of least resistance is to smile nod and “agree”.
I get what you mean, but as somebody that hasn’t eaten meet in 35 years I would argue its not needed for survival.
So shouldn’t the same logic dictate that it is not acceptable to kill for culinary satisfaction, if nutrition can be gained without killing a creature? (Which is very possible in most parts of the world)
You do not need meat to survive lmao. You eat it because you like it, at least be honest with yourself
- Zoophilia is Rape (sex without consent)
- Killing animal is Murder .
In both cases we should be considering animal’s perspective (what animals feel in both cases). We can’t just involve human’s perspective for our own convenience. Do animals consent to be murdered? I don’t think so.
Valid argument - assuming you live in the woods and hunting and gathering is the only way you can get food.
People raping and killing for their own enjoyment is sick. Someone else doing the dirty work for our enjoyment (i.e. eating meat), well that’s different. If somehow zoophilia were proven to enhance meat flavor, we’d probably be OK with it
Thanks for taking this question in purely analytical manner and questioning the conflicting social values. There are many comments here which tries to answer the question but get engaged into sense of social shame and prejudice rather than focusing into the logical consistency with given premise.
If you need for survival to hunt and eat an animal you are just part of the ecosystem, a predator.
Do you need to have sex with another species? In the wild it happens and even rape is natural, but the question could be “would you like to live in a human society like that?”.That said, animal farming is unethical and completely unnecessary nowadays. Most people would agree that killing an animal just for pleasure would be ethically wrong, but then we as a society rape to breed, grow in terrible conditions and kill in nightmarish ways farm animals just because “meat is good”.
This puts it best. Zoophillia and eating meat (what I assume they mean) are not morally comparable. Eating animals was a necessity for a long time, that has continued into modern life (because our brains are wired to LOVE meat). Nobody actually enjoys the process of killing animals, I’m sure if you had a butcher shop where you slaughtered live animals at the counter people would be horrified. We just like meat, we are literally wired to, and the process to obtain it is cruel and ugly.
Zoophillia is completely different, there is zero material gain from it, and it’s done purely for the joy of the human initiating it.
Because they benefit from eating animals (they enjoy eating them) whereas they don’t benefit from having sex with animals (they don’t enjoy having sex with animals).
Speak for your self buddy!
In the Bible they had to make a law against it
In the Bible they had to make a law against it
So they did about eating Pork, but Christians like the taste so eat it anyway.
“Leviticus 11:7-8 that pigs are considered unclean and should not be eaten.”
Funny enough initially in the Bible people weren’t supposed to eat meat at all, then they loosened the restrictions but had rules for certain species (although I don’t recall if animal sacrifices started before or after this). Then in the new testament they did away with a bunch of rules but in a very vague way so Christians get to cherry pick what they want and when then argue about it with other Christians. Although there was also a story about a blanket or something with a ton of “bad” meat where god said to eat so I guess that counts as justification
That sentence is from the old covenant, which also requires animal sacrifice among other things. The entire old covenant is not binding for Christians anymore, since Jesus replaced it with the new covenant.
It’s about squick.
Think about how they call sex with animals “bestiality”. It’s not “oh it’s because it hurts the animals!”, it’s because “ew, gross, you’re stooping to the level of an ANIMAL!”.
I don’t think it’s about consent, either. If you were somehow able to communicate well enough to actually get consent (which, to be clear, is pretty iffy what with the whole language barrier and such), people would still be squicked.
(also I’m pretty sure “zoophilia” is more about being into animals rather than actual sex with them, which is the whole “bestiality” thing. You can be into someone/a group of people without wanting to rape them.)
It’s probably because most of society fundamentally doesn’t see other animals as people, and therefore killing them is totally fine (“what? they’re not people!”), but having sex with them is Evil and Bad (“why would you want to have sex with them? they’re not even a person!”).
Yeah it makes no sense.
I’m pretty sure “zoophilia” is more about being into animals rather than actual sex with them
I wasn’t sure about this, due to the common link with sexuality - but it looks like - at a semantic level - you’re right.
From the original Greek via Aristotle;
philia is commonly translated as friendship or affection. Its conceptual opposite is phobia
Continued today with Bibliophilia, Dendrophilia, Thalassophilia etc (Books, trees, the sea) - all non-sexual, and there are hundreds of other examples “used in everyday language to describe completely normal, passionate hobbies and aesthetic appreciation”
Is there any historical evidence that relates zoophilia to decreasing the domesticated animals’ population thus causing food scarcity? Is there a material basis for the condemnation? [Some religious scriptures suggest to kill the animal after performing copulation.] I never thought that way.
I can’t imagine that it would ever have enough impact to reduce their population significantly
I’m sure you would hear more than a few say something along the lines of 1) ending their life can be done relatively humanely. And it serves a fundamental purpose, for sustenance. While meat for sustenance is not actually necessary, it is considered a basic staple of our diets and generally acceptable. 2) Having sex with animals, though, harms them in a way and leaves them to live with that harm. It can traumatize the animal. It is inherently inhumane. And it serves no purpose but to satisfy a carnal desire, a morbid curiosity, or a sadistic appetite.
I’m not saying that it is an altogether consistent or sound argument. It is something some can rationalize though. But, frankly, I would call either explanation at least a little bit bullshit.
The answer to either their desire for meat or their revulsion to animal molestation is that their instincts give them those feelings. It is evolution. Animal meats and fats are a calorie dense and nutritionally valuable food source that our ancestors have eaten since before humans existed, and we’re mostly wired to enjoy the taste and crave it. A revulsion for sex outside of species helps make sure that we continue to make babies. It’s as simple as that.
Some very few people don’t have one, the other or both of these instincts, but the vast majority do. Most of those people will happily rationalize the feeling that isn’t based in rationality, like above. Some will examine those feelings and rationalize themselves into changing/recontextualizing their feelings or choosing to not act upon them in light of their viewpoint or some virtue they’ve applied to the question. But most just do what feels right and is normalized and don’t ever really truly question it.
And even if you are one of those people who has rationalized themselves into a rationally/morally superior position regarding meat eating, or maybe you never even had an instinctual desire for it, you almost certainly have other habits, values, opinions, etc. that go against every rationality too that just come with human nature.
We’re people. We’re animals. We have intelligence. We have primal drives. Nobody is morally perfect. Nobody can even agree on what moral perfection is. Morality is both subjective on the whole, and objective for each and every one of us. We just gotta get along.
