Re: [UUPoly-L] Beastly Marriages

[P O <wild_card@sbcglobal.net>]

Very little reliable data, actually.  When I tried doing some research for a class a while back, I found that the topics of bestiality and zoophilia (which is the more likely candidate for marriage) are not just poorly studied, but that in many cases the study is in fact actively discouraged.  

So, if you want real statistics, you're not likely to find any that are useful.  But the assumption is that both disorders are very rare, with zoophilia being the rarer of the two.  Personally, I think that's because it's very hard to define where your obsession with your pet becomes unhealthy, but it's easy to say that having sexual contact with an animal is clearly wrong.  

I think it's similar to why people use sex to define polyamory, even when most polys admit that it's about more then the sex.  Some will even count people as partners, even if they are no longer having sex, because it's about love.  But then it's hard to draw a hard boundary on love to say this is a very close friend and this is too far for social mores, but sex is an easy line to draw.  You can love your best friend and enjoy spending time with them.  You can do everything with them, take them with your family wherever you go.  But the instant you have any sort of sexual contact, it's over the line.  

*shrug*  I guess in our society, sex is just the easiest line to draw.  Maybe that's why we're so obsessed with it.



--- On Wed, 6/3/09, uupoly-l-request@uupa.org <uupoly-l-request@uupa.org> wrote:

In a message dated 6/3/2009 7:22:03 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
JasmineGld@aol.com writes:

"If  freedom to marry means, as he said, that  people ought to be free to  
enter into any kind of union they wish, well then,  he's virtually  
endorsing 
polyamory and polygamy, and incestuous marriage, and   bestiality," Barber 
claims. "[There are] no holds barred here."   


So I'm curious -- since someone always brings this up....
 
I know that some people have sex with animals, but...reallly.....how many  
people want to *marry* them??
 
Just looking for a few statistics here.......
 
Bill B.