A Letter from a Zoo to You
Hi there!
If you're reading this, chances are that you were given it either anonymously or by a friend, family member, or loved one. The reason that they did that is because they want you to know that someone that really cares about you also happens to be a zoophile.
Now, don't freak out. I know that word has a lot of baggage around it. But, the term is extremely misunderstood, and can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, so before you get too concerned, keep reading and let me explain what that actually means.
First of all, zoophilia (or zoosexuality, as some people call it), is an orientation for people that are attracted to animals. At its core, that's all there is to it. But, there's a lot more nuance there. For instance, someone might be attracted to animals, but in a fictional capacity (think chocobos, Pokémon, Lion King, etc). It could also mean that they're attracted to real life animals, but in a way where they aren't interested in pursuing a relationship with an animal in real life. Or, they could be a full blown zoophile, and have an animal partner that they really love and care about. Regardless of where along that spectrum someone is, at the end of the day they're a zoo.
Now, depending on who you are reading this, I'm going to guess that it's very possible you felt more and more of a negative reaction as we got further to the 'real life' end of the zoo spectrum. But, I want to break down a couple more myths here. First of all, zoosexuality really isn't all that different to human sexuality. Common parlance probably has you imagining some psycho who likes to hurt animals, I can't stress enough that that couldn't be farther from the truth. In reality, zoosexuality is based primarily around attraction and love. Zoos tend to be people who appreciate animals in a way that most people don't, and want to engage with them on another level, but in a way where everyone has fun. A lot of zoos see their partner the same way that you might see your spouse or partner yourself. They have a long term, romantic relationship, and want all the same long walks on the beach, dancing in the rain, riding off into the sunset together, and all those other Hollywood tropes that I think most animals would actually like more than humans. Harm is the last thing a zoo would want for their partner. Both in day to day, as well as in the bedroom.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room here. You're probably thinking to yourself at this point that all that romance stuff sounds nice, but that doesn't get to the real issue here, right? Well, let me take a second to address something you're probably going to find gross, but also is really important to talk about here, and that's sex. If you don't want the zoo side of this here, you can skip the next two paragraphs, but I do think if you're someone with concerns it's worth learning about the things you find uncomfortable. So, let's talk about it.
First of all, it's important to acknowledge that many animals enjoy sex in the same way that us humans do. There's a reason that non-neutered dogs love to hump that pillow, or stuffed animal. They aren't doing it because they think it's another dog and they're trying to reproduce. They're doing it because it feels nice to get off every now and then. This is true of the vast majority of mammals. Most animals masturbate. Horses, lions, cats, bats, dolphins, monkeys, the list goes on and on. Not just male animals either! Female animals also tend to enjoy sex (although your mileage may definitely vary more there.) Still, we know female animals tend to also have clits, and feel sexual pleasure from the act. It's not just like it's all guess work either. Studies have hooked dogs up to machines that measure brainwaves and found that the experience of orgasming looks very similar in their brain as it does ours. The reason that people don't tend to think about animals also enjoying sex is because they tend to not be around a lot of animals that have the capacity to. Right now in society it's an extremely common practice to spay and neuter pets. That's a whole other conversation, but the important part is that when you remove the sex organs of animals, you upset their hormonal balance and end up making it so that they don't have the drive to enjoy sex anymore. That's why most of the animals in your life probably don't seem all that interested in getting their proverbial rocks off. But, that's not the natural state of animals. That's something humans are inflicting upon them because the concept of animal sexuality makes us uncomfortable. But, I think that's pretty cruel and unfair to those animals. They aren't doing anything wrong, they're just doing something fun, and we're the ones making it weird.
Speaking of, let's talk about the human element here. When most people picture zoo relationships, they're picturing a tiny female dog, and some big guy that's just having his way. This really couldn't be further from the truth. A lot of zoos, probably 70%, are more interested in male animals than female, and similarly want to be the ones receiving during sex rather than the ones penetrating. Zoos also tend to be interested in larger animals. Which makes sense, right? If what I'm saying is true, and zoos do care about the health and happiness of their partner, they'd want to get into a relationship with an animal that matches their size category. The average medium sized dog actually has similar sized equipment to the average human, and so most zoos look for relationships with that size of animal and up, and even in the cases where it's a male human and female animal, it's nothing they aren't already able to handle, so to speak. And that's really just talking about dogs. Dogs tend to be the animals that zoos are most attracted to, but second place is horses, and when it comes to size I'm sure you can imagine that that's really not an issue. My point is this. Sex between humans and animals can absolutely be healthy, safe, and fun for both parties. That's not to say that there are zero people out there that use animals because they're bad people, but there are bad people attracted to humans too. It's easy to clump people into groups, especially when you don't understand those groups. But if you take anything away from reading this, let it be that most zoos love their animals and would never ever hurt them.
In fact, zoos actually tend to care about animals more than most people in general, even past the specific animal that they're in a relationship with. The veganism rate amongst zoos is significantly higher than the rate in the general population, and if you ask any zoo what they think about animal autonomy, or the ways that most people treat their pets, you're likely to get a whole rant on the subject. There's a whole community of zoos out there, and talking about the best ways to treat the animals in your life or the ones we share the world with in general are very common discussions.
I don't want you to have to read a whole novel here, so let me start wrapping this up. I know this has been a lot of reading from one perspective. I highly encourage you to see what other people are saying too. There's a lot of negative opinions about zoos out there, but there's also a lot of amazing zoo voices that give our side of the story too. First of all, this was written by the team behind Zooey Dot Pub, a zoo lifestyle and advocacy magazine that puts out a lot of great information for and about zoos. If you're interested in checking out more, we'd definitely recommend,
#1 The Joy of Zoo
#2 On Consent
#3 Why Zoosexuality Having A Voice Matters
Tired of reading? Don't worry, we get it! We run a magazine and sometimes we get tired of reading too. That's why it's great there's an awesome zoo podcast out there called Zooier Than Thou that you can check out! Their whole catalogue is great, but if we had to recommend a few first time episodes, we'd recommend,
#1 Zoo 101
#2 Tackling Taboos: A Guide to Zoo Research
#3 The Meat Panopticon
Or, if you're looking to just talk to some zoos yourself, why not check out a really awesome zoo forum, ZooCommunity! It's a totally safe for work forum where you can ask any other questions you might have about zoos, and someone will be happy to answer! Check out ZooCommunity here!
- https://zoocommunity.org/
There's also been a lot of non-zoos who have talked about zoosexuality, so if you're looking to get more of an unbiased look, here are some videos, books and research papers you might find interesting!
- Taboo Science - Zoophilia and the Hidden Community That's Into Animals
- Renegade Ape - Sex With Animals featuring dr Hani Miletski
- Measurement and Correlates of Zoophilic Interest in an Online Community Sample
- Loving Animals
- Zoophilia Is Morally Permissible
If you made it this far, thanks so much for giving us a chance. It can be really hard to get people to look outside the commonly held perspectives, and trust me, we know this is a pretty spicy one. If you're still not totally convinced, that's totally okay. In fact, it's very normal. Nobody changes their mind just like that. But, I hope that at the very least you're more open to having a conversation, because that's all the person that sent you this is looking for. I mean, I'm sure that they'd also apprecaite full unconditional support, but you've gotta start somewhere, right? Anyway, that's all from me. Whoever sent you this letter might try to have a converastion with you in the next little while, you might already have a guess about who it was. Or, maybe they're scared and they aren't ready to do that right now, and they were just curious about your potential reaction but they're scared that you're going to kick them out of your life. Either way, I hope you give this some real thought and maybe even check out some of those other resources.
Thanks for giving us a chance, good luck with what'll probably be a very awkward conversation!
Article written by Tarro (July 2025)
Find Tarro at https://twitter.com/hereforthezoo
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