Primary bestiality (fucking between people and other animals) is found in all nonindustrial societies. Secondary bestiality (generalized erotic relationships between people and other animals) is found everywhere on the planet, on every city street, in every rural town. Bestiality is an erotic reality, one which clearly places people in nature, not above it.

The relationship between people and other animals, when nonpredatory, is always erotic since its substance is nonverbal communication and touch. That eroticism in its pure form is life-affirming and life-enriching was sufficient reason to make bestiality a capital crime in the Dark Ages, at least for the nonhuman animal; sufficient reason for the English in the Dark Ages to confuse sheep and Jews.

In contemporary society relationships between people and other animals often reflect the sadomasochistic complexion of human relationship. Animals in our culture are often badly abused, the objects of violence and cruelty, the foil of repressed and therefore very dangerous human sexuality. Some animals, like horses and big dogs, become surrogate cocks, symbols of ideal macho virility.

Needless to say, in androgynous community, human and other-animal relationships would become more explicitly erotic, and that eroticism would not degenerate into abuse. Animals would be part of the tribe and, with us, respected, loved, and free. They always share our fate, whatever it is.

Andrea Dworkin, everybody