WEBVTT - An Attempt to Understand Zoophilia 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.360 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.279 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger, 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.960 and hey audience. For this episode, we just want to 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:22.640 let you know up top that this is something that 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.439 you may not want to listen to with children in 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:28.880 the car or something like that, or you know, you 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.760 may want to discern when and where you actually listened 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.879 to the episode because the topic is controversial and a 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.080 little touchy. That's right. If you remember back to two 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.839 thousand fifteen, we published an episode titled the Science of Necrophilia, 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.360 in which we set out to explain and demystify a 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.000 taboo and disturbing practice, and I think we achieved that. 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:50.879 In this episode, we're going to explore the topic of 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.400 zoophilia with the same goals in mind. Now that being said, again, 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.280 we want to give listeners fair warning about the topic, 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:59.560 even though we'll be tackling it with the same level 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.240 of tact and a quorum that we apply to other 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.200 topics of this nature exactly. So, if you just are 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.600 a subscriber to our show and this is downloaded to 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:09.959 your feet and it's auto playing, or something like that. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.920 Now is your opportunity to hit pause and wait until 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.480 you're in a more comfortable situation, or or skip to 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.560 the next episode if you want to. Uh So, here 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:21.800 we go. This is the zoophilia episode of Stuff to 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.600 Blow your mind. All right, now we have disclaimers out 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.560 of the way, let's jump right into it. Was just say, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.080 a clinical definition. What are we talking about when we 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:34.760 talk about zoophilia? Okay? So, zoophilia is typically defined as recurrent, 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:41.400 intense sexual fantasies, urges, and sexual activities with non human animals. 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.760 Sometimes viewers and listeners don't like it when we use 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:46.760 the term non human animals, but here I think it's 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:51.639 especially appropriate. Uh. There are defined variations about this based 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.600 on species. There's a lot of variations on this. I 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.000 didn't want to like really like rattle everybody's heads with 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:02.240 all the various terminology, but suffice to say there's variations 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:07.920 based on dogs, cats, horses, pigs, birds, dolphins, lizards, and insects. Now, 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.840 the word zoo file is Greek for animal lover. But 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:17.359 today zoophilia is defined as a paraphilia. That means it's 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:21.880 an unusual sexual activity that deviates from what is considered 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.600 normal at a particular time in a particular society, and 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.960 these are currently classified as psychological disorders that become basically 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.920 the person's prime means of gratification. It displaces their sexual 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:39.640 content with a consenting adult partner. This can include anything 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:44.960 from fantasies to sexual urges to actual behaviors. But in 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.640 two thousand fourteen a paper was written by Ranger and 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.160 feder Off, and this was in the Journal of the 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:56.600 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law about definitions in 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:58.960 regards to this. And I have to admit that until 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.560 we sat down in did the research for this episode, 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.440 I was a little murky on the terminology myself. So 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:09.920 zoophilia can be confusing, especially when you try to distinguish 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.800 it from the term beast. Reality, it's worth reminding ourselves 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.359 before we get too far into this. Humans are not 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:21.200 the only ones who risk misreading sexual interest in other species. 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.200 There's a lot of evidence we've talked about on the 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:28.360 show before, whether it's chimpanzees, dogs, or horses. Okay, yeah, 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.920 I mean one of the issues here, of course, is that, yeah, 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.440 we find plenty of examples of sexual violence and other 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.480 species as well as cases of interspecies sexual activity. But 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:43.160 but humans are the only practitioners who truly possess rationality 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.440 and consciousness in a in the human sense. Naturally, we've 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.160 discussed in past episodes, you know, to what degree to 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.400 other animals have consciousness? To what degree are other animals aware? 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:55.560 And you know, you can go back and forth, and 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.760 there's some tremendous research that's been done in those areas. 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:03.680 But even in cases where there is arguably consciousness, it 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.680 is a different consciousness, you know, they are just separate 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.400 mind states at work here. And on top of that, 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.280 we're the only species that has ethics and laws and 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.680 a very you know, written down and culturally enforced manner, 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.359 and we're the only ones to whom consent has a 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.719 human meaning, right, And this is super important to the topic. 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.279 But we're actually going to diverge here and we're gonna 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.200 sort of split the topics so that we can cover 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.359 this concisely today. So let's begin by using this distinction. 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:35.080 Going forward, for the rest of the episode, we're going 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:39.680 to refer to zoophilia as a psychological condition and a 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:44.480 psychological condition as well discuss that does not necessarily involve 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.560 contact with the animal exactly, whereas beast reality is a 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:53.720 legal term that is used to describe the act of Okay, Now, 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.839 if you look at the Diagnostic UH and Statistical Manual 0:04:57.880 --> 0:04:59.960 of Mental Disorder is probably our favorite book on the 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:04.279 show to site UH. It includes zoophilia. It's been in 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.840 there since the third edition. The current edition defines it 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:13.080 as quote recurrent and intense sexual arousal involving animals, But 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:19.360 it doesn't differentiate between the sex, age or type of animals, 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.839 and it doesn't specify what sex acts, if any, actually 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:27.440 occur with an animal, and what circumstances maybe, and what 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:32.840 the purpose maybe of this zoophilia. So Ranger and Federof 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:34.479 again I turned back to their paper. They make a 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.520 really good point in that when you compare all of 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.120 the studies of which we found out, there is a 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:44.360 lot of research with this, like so much way more 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.719 than there was when we did our necrophilia episode. Uh. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.120 It turns out that because none of those distinctions are 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.160 made in the d s M, they aren't really made 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.160 in a lot of the papers either. So the terminology 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:59.760 that's used to compare and contrast this psychological condition as 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.559 it's to find is very loose and subsequently they find 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.279 it to be somewhat meaningless. Essentially that like we need 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:11.960 to come up with a better terminology or a better categorization, right, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:14.719 and and that's something we'll get into as well. Somebody 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:16.640 has done that. Yeah. I think what one of the 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.120 interesting things to come out of the research here is 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:21.080 that there is a there is a lot of a 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.280 lot has been written about zoophilia, and yet there are 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.120 and so many questions that still remain. There's still there's 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:32.120 still so much room for additional research. Yeah, and so 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:34.960 most of the studies we looked at, they concentrate on 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.080 the act of beast reality, and we decided, okay, ground 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:39.880 rules for this episode. First of all, we're gonna try 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.000 to just stay away from just like sensationalized stories about 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.560 acts of beast reality, right, We're to focus on the 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:52.000 zoophiliac preference for a human to be attracted to another animal. Also, 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:58.800 there is so much conversation about legal issues surrounding zoophilia 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.080 that there's no way we could possibly put it all 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:02.880 into this episode as well, it would have to be 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:06.359 an entire other episode. So we're leaving out legal and 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.120 ethical questions out of our notes. For today's episode. We'll 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.560 probably circle back around and ask some of those questions 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:14.360 again at the end of the episode, and certainly we 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.160 want to hear from you the audience what comes up 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.000 for you. In fact, in our discussion module on Facebook, 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.920 we've already been talking about this and some interesting points 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.200 about legal and ethical issues have already been brought up. 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:26.880 That's right. Yeah, We've reached out just to see what 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:30.200 kind of initial questions and initial levels of understanding of 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.120 this topic might be there. And I think that's ultimately 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.720 what this episode is about, an attempt to understand zoophilia 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:42.080 to the extent that most of us can. Yeah, all right, 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.160 So now that we've got like a setup and a 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.520 framework for the episode, let's let's do this. Let's get 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.880 into this because there's a lot of interesting information here. 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:55.600 Let's start with the history and myth underpinning zoophilia. So 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.240 there is a long tradition of it being in mythology, 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:03.200 and it usually we chooses animals that have characteristics that 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.840 symbolize what our human ideals are, right, and if you look, 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:12.480 there's prehistoric depictions of zoophilia that have been found in Siberia, Italy, France, 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:17.280 and Sweden allegedly, also the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Hebrews, and 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.679 Romans took part in similar activities as well. Okay, there's 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:26.040 also evidence that during the Middle Ages, zoophilia was a 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.960 tolerated practice, and this was up until the sixteenth century. 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:34.840 It became religiously and culturally shamed because of a prohibition 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.920 against all nonreproductive sexual activities. So this is important when 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.560 we were talking about the definition of it earlier regarding 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:47.760 quote deviancy, right, that it entails the rest of society 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.520 agreeing upon what deviancy is. And apparently at this point 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.719 it was not. Uh So today, of course, there is 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.679 a taboo surrounding it because not just of you know, 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.960 religious reasons of nonreproductive sexual activities, but also because society 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:07.440 has a moral concern about cruelty to animals. Yeah, and 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.320 that's that's definitely something we're going to come back to 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.920 again and again here. Now, when we mentioned mythology and zoophilia, 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.079 I imagine a few examples come to everyone's mind, particularly 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.079 as far as Western traditions are concerned. So the Greek 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.280 god Zeus, for instance, took the form of a bull, 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:25.600 a swan, an eagle, to seduce or kidnap or in 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.079 one case, copulate with a mortal woman. I totally remember 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.960 reading that as a kid, like reading about Greek myths 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.640 and being like, wait a minute, like that there was 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.160 like some it was like there was there was something 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.640 missing from the narrative explaining how that whole thing worked. Yeah. 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.720 I definitely remember reading the myths as well and having 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.160 having some questions about what was really going on here. 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.679 Um and and certainly that you know, this is an 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.600 odd case in and on itself. Just to consider a 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:59.400 a humanoid entity such as Zeus taking the form of 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.280 an animal, uh and then engaging in the sex act 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.439 with a human. We again we have we have an 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.160 inhuman agent, but one that's essentially humanoid in nature, in 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.360 an original form, and it takes the form of a 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.880 beast to pursue and only in some tellings engaged sexually 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.240 with a human female. This is how you can tell 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.679 that it's taboo in our society now, right, Like imagine, 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.360 just try to imagine for Ragnarok. I just went and 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.920 saw that this weekend. It is about similar mythologies, right, 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.200 it's a different cultures mythology. But there would never in 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.880 a million years be a movie where Odin turns into 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:34.959 a bowl and goes to Earth and has sex with 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.240 a human woman that would probably not get past the 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.680 the sensors. Now, in other myths, it's important to know 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.200 we have many varieties of this tale. So in some cases, yes, 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:49.400 humans or humanoid entities take a page from the Zeus 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:53.040 playbook and they masquerade as an animal, and then sometimes 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.920 that masquerade results in in sex. But we also have 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.920 the reversal in which an animal masquerades as a human, 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:04.400 and in these cases, certainly the sex isn't physically human, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.199 but it kind of presents fifty of the zoophilic essence. 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.120 I read. I read an article for this title, The 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:15.200 Mythology of Masquerading Animals or Best Reality, by Windy Donager 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:20.120 who published in the journal Social Research. In this and 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.599 she makes some some I think, very interesting points that 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.360 kind of help illuminate again the mythic underpinnings of what 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.319 we're talking about here today. So she says that animals, 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.760 first of all, often stand in as surrogates in our myths, 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.120 surrogate parents for a royal child, for example, a surrogan 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.319 victim for a child taken into the woods to be murdered. 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.400 We all remember some of the tellings of Snow White, correct, 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.280 with the UH taking the child into the woods to 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.720 a murder and bringing back an animal's heart instead. Right, Yeah, 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:54.760 so this gets back to the idea of the animal 0:11:54.920 --> 0:12:01.160 being a symbol for human ethics, human culture, human beliefs. Now, 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.920 there there are two complementary animal paradigms here, she says, 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:10.200 lowly animals standing in for low social classes and regal 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.120 or high animals standing in for higher human classes or 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.320 even the gods. And she points out that some argue 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:20.240 that Christianity itself borrows from the Greek tale of Zeus 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.800 taking the form of a swan to impregnate Lata. The 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.120 argument here is that instead we get married, and the 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.400 symbol of the dove is a sort of mythological reverberation 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.840 of the Greek myth. In either case, we see humans 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:37.600 marrying above or beneath their stature. Interesting. Okay, I had 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:39.400 not thought of it that way, but yeah, that definitely 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:41.920 makes sense. Yeah, And in the the whole stature question, 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.160 it's going to come back again and again because I 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:48.360 think so much in the zoo zoophilia UH conundrum has 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:50.439 to do with what is the level of the human 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.520 and what is the level of the animal that Like, 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.560 So this idea is interesting because I think it's somewhat 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.800 ties into present day language as well. Class is something 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:01.720 that's very difficult to discuss even today, Like we have 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.480 a hard time talking about it in I guess public company, right. 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.600 Uh So it seems like in order to get around 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.400 that these myths used animals as like a substitute for 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.280 class affiliations. Yeah. Indeed. Now she argues that even non 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:21.240 religious stories with human animal sexual interaction have theological ramifications. 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.200 And I found this very interesting. She she points to 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.880 the trope of feet betraying the status of an entity. 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.160 So we've covered before. One of my favorite topics is 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.800 succubiny and incubie and uh and and there are stories 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.400 about how you can identify a succubus because her feet 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.000 will give her away. Yeah, so she may look like 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:41.760 a beautiful woman, but if you look at her feet, 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.160 they're like duck feet. Because I believe in the witchcraft 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:48.520 treaties that I was reading about this, the argument is 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.680 that that God would never present, uh you know, a 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:57.439 completely um unbeatable challenge that there be for the faithful 0:13:57.920 --> 0:13:59.959 if you're faithful enough to doubt it and then look 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.000 at the feet, think it was a way out. And 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.360 somehow over the years that's turned more into like goat 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:09.000 hooves instead of duct feet. Yeah, there's been more more 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:10.840 monstrous version of the feet. But I see it come 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.760 up to time and time again. Uh. It even came 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.400 up recently on the Netflix series Big Mouth. I don't 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:22.440 know if you're watching risque comedy about puberty, but there's 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.880 a demon that shows up and its nature is given 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:29.000 away by its feet. So, um, this is not only 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.520 the case with lesser beings, but even in the higher beings. 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.680 She appoints to the case in Hinduism where the feet 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.600 of mortals touched the ground while higher beings float quote 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:43.359 like a hovercraft, and then they're There are additional examples. 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.480 You have the idea of feet of clay, the bruised 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.360 heel of Eve Christ as quote, the hunted stag whose 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.320 foot is stained with blood. You have Achilles in his 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.480 heel as well, which she also points out that he 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.920 was the son of a goddess with equine qualities and 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:03.360 was raised by a centaur. So you get into this 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.760 this area where where you have to ask why Why 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.800 the feet? What is it about the feet that gives 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.120 us some clue to the stature of an animal or 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.800 or a being. Probably because they're incredibly vulnerable to write like, like, 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.200 in terms of human anatomy, I think of feet as being, 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.000 you know, especially before we built like steel toed boots, 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.840 they're incredibly vulnerable pieces of anatomy. Well, yeah, I think 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.320 that's a that's a huge part of it, because to 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.760 to wear shoes is an act of a sort of 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.000 a you know, a higher state of humanity. I guess, 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.640 I mean we we have more conflicted feelings about that today. Obviously, 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:44.600 an idea of like walking barefoot through the park has 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:49.360 a certain appeal now that it might not have had previously. Um, 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:51.520 but it is a way to pick up parasites or 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.760 get something stuck in your foot. Uh And And likewise, 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.240 we get into this area where we consider the legs 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.480 of an organism, how many legs does it have? And 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.480 this is often used to determine status. When we see 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.720 that in Leviticus, we see that with Aristotle. Uh And 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:07.360 the argument here is that a lot of this derives 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.480 from the fact that hands define humans, and therefore, if 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.480 you lack a pair of a feat that means that 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:18.120 you probably have hands. Uh. And also our ancestors were trackers, 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.760 they were hunters. This is how we identified other forms 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.880 of life, tracking their movements. And this is the strategy 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:28.240 we turned to when a strange creature must be identified. Uh. 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.520 I mean, there's also the sphinx four ft two feet 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:32.440 three feet in the riddle of the sphinx, you know 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.560 the uh of being that is that has a different 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.040 number of legs in the morning and uh the afternoon 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.600 in the evening. And the argument here is that tales 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.240 of transformation, animals turning into people, people turning into animals. 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.680 It comes down to the same thing. She says, stories 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.840 about animal lovers present two variants of a single truth. 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.240 A human being is really an animal, but the weight 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.880 of reality is placed differently in different variants, so that 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.680 when the story ends and the masquerade is over, either 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.160 there is a human or there is an animal. It 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:06.399 does matter. Generally speaking, the forms are distributed as in 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.240 as in the motif marriage to beast by day man 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.200 by night, And of course the opposite is uh is 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.040 true in some cases where the entity is a man 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.000 by day and a beast by night, but it's going 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:19.440 to be one of these two. And you and I 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:21.240 were talking about this before we went into the studio 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:23.760 to this is sort of both the constant struggle but 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.360 also the desires sometimes to give into the feral animal 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.760 nature of humanity, right, And there's so many examples in 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.520 the episodes we've done of various cultures trying to attain 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:38.320 that state, yeah, without any kind of a zoophilic or 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:43.440 more sexual connotation as well, like animal transformations, and it's 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.760 it's you know, it goes back into prehistory. So Donator argues, 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.480 quote the key seems to be that the true form 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.280 is the one that appears at night, an interesting assertion 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.480 of the primacy of what is hidden the time of 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.359 dreaming over what is apparent the time of the workaday world. 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.720 So probably wondering, well, what are these myths saying? Well, 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.360 she argues that on one hand, ancient people live closely 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.680 with animals, so their forms and their behaviors were natural 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:15.760 metaphors for human sexuality, and they also may have employed 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:21.119 unconscious symbolism in identifying the animal aspects of themselves. But 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.320 we're also talking about sexual trickery here, both both the 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.080 with mythic animals and mythic humanoids. But this is this 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.679 is really quite in keeping with not only human sexuality, 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.040 but the reproductive strategies of countless species. So to what 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.280 extent are we just you know, using these animals as 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.160 metaphors to understand it all? And she also points out 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:44.359 that animals sometimes mistake us for their mates, uh, often 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:48.600 through the process of imprinting. She brings it all to 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:50.440 it to a head, I think with this this final 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.800 quote here, she says animals to have their sexual illusions, 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.359 Thus they provide us with both basic data and basic 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:01.320 metaphors with which to formulate our own sexual masquerades. For 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.560 we too are subject to the magic of imprinting when, 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:08.600 like those mocking birds, we use animals as mirrors in 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:13.640 the construction of our own self deceptive self images. So 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.000 this actually brings up something for me that is going 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:18.880 to come up in the research later, but I want 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.399 to just put a pin on it here, right. Uh, 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.840 Kinsey did some research into this, and we'll talk about 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.960 that data later, but it ties in very closely with 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:33.200 what she's saying about early humans living closely with animals, right, 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.800 and Kinsey's research touched upon that that. Uh. In fact, 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.840 according to his research, and it's been since been disputed 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.919 that rural farm communities are more likely to have instances 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:49.280 of zoophilia than like urban ones where there's less animals. Now, 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:51.879 I will say this, I think that one of the 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:53.879 tame comes from all this is that we can't just 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:58.920 look at myths and religious treatments as near literal invocations 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.680 of beast reality, Like can't say, well, zeus turn into 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:06.119 a swan and copulated with a woman. Therefore, this is 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:10.080 proof positive that that beast reality and zoophilia were were 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.200 common and accepted. But at the same time, I feel 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.000 like there's a there's a lot of truth in her 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.560 statement about quote we about us using animals as mirrors, 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:21.000 because I think I think it not only explains a 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:23.719 lot about what's going on in mythic zoophilia, but it 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.639 might just tie into some of the pathological aspects of 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.240 the topic that we're discussing here. Yeah, yeah, I tend 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:34.240 to agree. I think my position on this, after looking 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.400 at all the research, is somewhere around that we as 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:42.040 human beings are not very good at understanding feelings of 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:47.960 strong emotion and and like we sometimes confuse those. But 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.679 also there's lots of evidence to that this. There's no 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.560 confusion going on here right as we're going to discuss. 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.560 So yeah, I don't know, let's keep going. This is 0:20:56.600 --> 0:20:58.560 a this is a weird one for us. It's hard 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:01.240 to come down on any particular add on this, but well, 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:05.880 I mean outside of saying outside of the law, right right, Um, 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:07.760 And I'd say it's hard to come down on a 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:12.040 position that that clearly explains exactly. Yeah, that's what I meant. 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:14.920 So why don't we take a break, will visit a sponsor, 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:16.480 and then when we come back, we're going to get 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:22.520 into who exactly zoo files are. Alright, we're back. So yeah, 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:27.440 it's one thing to talk about ancient people's and mythological tales, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:32.280 but let's get into the into understanding exactly who zoo 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.840 files are. Right. So, as I mentioned earlier, and actually 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:37.360 I see this now in your note that you made 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.119 the same Uh made the same comment that I just 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:44.200 made earlier. In the nineteen fifties, Dr Alfred Kinsey, everybody 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.440 remembers that movie with Liam Neeson, right, Uh, published the 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:51.840 Kinsey Reports on the American Sexual Practice. And in that report, 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:54.639 it claimed that eight percent of males and four percent 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:57.679 of females had had at least one sexual experience with 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.440 an animal. There was also a high are prevalence for 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.520 these acts for people who worked on farms. There's according 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:08.960 to the that research, it was up to seventeen percent. Mail. Now, 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.679 Kinsey had a book that came out in nineteen and 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:15.840 this was with Wardell Pomeroy and Clyde Martin. It's called 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.439 The Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. That also reported 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:24.320 that fifty percent of the population of male Americans who 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:28.159 lived on rural farms claimed to have sexual contact with 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:34.160 other species. Subsequently, Kinsey advised clinicians to assure such men 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:36.359 if they came to them and you know, they were 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:39.280 having some kind of a crises about this, that this 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.280 was a normal part of being raised in a rural environment. 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.720 And the reasons why we're one that females were scarce 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:53.199 into that premarital relations were strictly forbidden. This is somewhat 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:56.040 unfortunate as we find the sort of the history of 0:22:56.080 --> 0:23:00.000 studying zoophilia move forward to present day, because it caused 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:05.280 most people to assume that zoo files were male, woman deprived, 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:09.119 rural and poorly educated. So it going back to our 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:11.359