Narrative Shortcuts
A few days ago (well, a few minutes ago as I'm typing this paragraph, but a few days ago by the time you see it,) I was chatting with a non-zoo about some of the zoo discourse that's going on in the community right now. I was saying that I think I'd like to do an article called What Counts As Zoosexuality?, because I've been thinking a lot lately about how zoo pride projects tend to be like "people might have sex with animals and not actually be zoos," which I do think is true, but also that's really interesting and maybe worth examining more, maybe. Like, how much of that zoo/not-zoo determination is based in the person's actual feelings and thoughts and attractions and behaviors, vs how much of that is just that we don't want to call certain people zoos if they don't tick our Good Awesome Kind Person Welcome To The Club boxes? There's also asexual zoos of course, and people who are a little zooey but it's not their whole deal, and furries, all kinds of things that we've talked about plenty of times before here at ZDP, but I thought it could be an interesting article to kind of collect up all of these different scenarios and intersecting demographics, and discuss why we might call these things zooey or not zooey.
But, you might notice, you are not reading an article that is called, "What Counts As Zoosexuality?" Because, this non-zoo said something absolutely captivating to me that completely took my attention away from that topic.
The topic that I DO want to talk about is kind of related, though.
This non-zoo said to me, as we were chatting, "I will say. A defining zoosexuality article is absolutely something I'm in favor of. Because just in the stuff you've sent me before, there is definitely a big undercurrent of 'it isn't real zoosexuality if it isn't rooted in love for the animals,' and like. Non-touchy-feely zoos deserve better. Like. I see a lot of overcompensating for 'bestiality is abuse' by being like 'oh we all love our animals so much' and like. My dudes. Let's not. Let's not treat just hooking up or just fucking as lesser."
Which is a wickedly accurate burn, I have to say. Hats off, I bow to you, that is absolutely something that we are guilty of.
In our conversation, what I replied with was this:
"yeah I think there is a lot of bleed between the concepts of 'people who want to make zoo pride projects because queer' and 'people who are like jesus fucking christ the way animals are treated is bleak and we should encourage people to do way way way way better' and there's sort of a path of least resistance going through 'we all love our animals so much.' Toggle who is one of the co-founders of ZooTT does self describe as aromantic, and does mention it publicly/on the show now and then, unless I am tripping kangaroo balls and completely thinking of someone else."
And the non-zoo was like "YAY AROS :D" and I was like, "Hey I would really like to write an article about narrative shortcuts in how we try to present ourselves as zoos."
What Is A Narrative Shortcut?
So, within the craft of storytelling (and in a lot of other fields like tennis and politics,) there is something called an Unforced Error.
I'll give you an example of an unforced error in storytelling: Let's say I want to write an interrogation scene in a book, and it's going to be really serious and dramatic, and I decide that the detainee's name is Sarah Parkins, and the good cop's name is Sari Perkums, and the bad cop's name is Sarah Parkinns. By giving these characters such similar names, I have made this story WAY MORE DIFFICULT TO KEEP TRACK OF. Readers will have to constantly skip back a few lines to remind themselves which Sarah P./Sari P./Sarah P. is which. I wanted readers to take this scene seriously, but I've made it extremely confusing instead, and so it's probably not going to have the hard-hitting impact that I had hoped it was going to.
This is an *unforced* error because, nobody said that I HAD to make this scene confusing. I could have instead just decided that the detainee's name is Sarah Parkins, the good cop's name is Detective Miller, and the bad cop's name is Detective Jackson. Now everything is much more easy to follow, and I can do a more effective job at getting to the actual point of the scene, without creating this unnecessary stumbling block that's going to turn the reader away before we've even gotten to what it was that I was trying to say.
ut on the other paw, if I was writing an interrogation scene for a non-fiction book (something that happened in real life,) and the people involved actually were really named Sarah Parkins, Sari Perkums, and Sarah Parkinns, then I would have to take a deep breath, and set out ready to tackle a narrative that's going to be difficult to convey to the reader, but I'm going to take the time, skill, and care that it requires in order to get it right. It's unfortunate for me that I can't just change their names to make my life easier, but, I will rise to the occasion because I have to. I can't take any shortcuts: I'm going to have to go through this scene the long way, taking the time to remind the reader who is who, and coming up with more memorable ways to keep track of everyone. It's probably going to take 3x longer to do it right this way than if I could just cheat and change their names to something easier, but, in this case, I have an obligation to keep to the facts.
When writing articles for the magazine, this is the kind of thing that we debate in the editing room *all the time.* Where do we fall between our duty to be honest and our duty to get to the point?
Stuff like, "Hey this article says that all zoos want to see a world where zoosexuality is accepted, but I think we have to change it because that's actually not true, we know there are zoos who would prefer that everyone keep it to themselves." "Okay but I think it's obvious what we mean, we're just saying that it's a pretty well accepted opinion and one that we endorse, we're obviously not actually saying literally every zoosexual thinks the same thing. I don't think we have to waste a whole extra paragraph on this side-caveat when people would know what we meant." "Could we at least change it from 'all zoos' to 'all zoos in our corner of the community'?" "That works!"
Generally, I think we do a very good job of maintaining journalistic integrity in our editorial decisions, because it is something we as a team take very seriously. But, there are only so many hours in the day, for us and for our readers; To say, "The love dogs give to humans is truly breathtaking," is a very brief, poignant point; It would take much longer, and probably end up missing the point entirely, if instead we were like, "Every relationship between every human and every dog is different; In many cases, dogs may be indifferent to humans, or be afraid of them, or any other myriad things; In our observations though, and this is only one small set of opinions based on a finite number of personal experiences, we have known certain individual dogs who did demonstrate a noticeable amount of love for us; It is important to remember that not every human when shown this love by a dog will find the love desirable; Some humans may indeed find such love desirable, such as we have, but it is important to remember that others might feel less strongly about such advances from animals, or may feel neutral or negatively; It is important to keep in mind the surrounding context that this is not reflective of how all dogs feel about all humans, or even necessarily how the majority of dogs may feel about any humans, but we merely wanted to remark--" YAAAAAAAWN. GET TO THE POINT.
Narrative shortcuts are storytelling devices that we can use to get to the point. It's avoiding unforced errors when they can be avoided. It's not spending dozens of sentences clarifying X point IF the point would be clear enough to a reader who was reading the article in good faith. Used as such, narrative shortcuts are a good thing: they make for an easier and more effective reading experience, and they help us share what needs to be shared, whether that's uplifting messages, analysis on thorny difficult topics, or just dry, helpful information.
That said, narrative shortcuts can also be used to tell lies and perpetrate erasure: narrative shortcuts *can* be used for evil. (Or just used carelessly. Or used for good but then it's been over two years that you've been using them on this magazine and eventually a few of them build up so that what was a fairly harmless narrative shortcut to use once or twice has found its way into more articles than you've realized and so it's good to take a step back and examine what some of these narrative shortcuts that you've been using are and whether they're good or bad.)
What are some examples of narrative shortcuts in zoo discourse and are they good or bad?
Shortcut: "Zoos actually love animals!!! Zoos are better to animals than the average person off the street by a mile!!!"
Analysis: This kind of thing does vary a lot.
Not to brag (okay actually yes this is a brag here,) but I've had zoos say to me, "Alissa, I love my dog, but I cannot hold a candle to the way that you love your dog, you are something else." And I think that often times, my gushing about how much I care about animals can really be a benefit when I'm writing about zoo stuff: whether I am hoping to show skeptical non-zoos a more flattering image of us, or whether I am hoping to just share some nice things for my fellow zoos that I think they'll like to hear, being able to be like "I LOVE THE ANIMALS. SO. MUCH." is useful, pleasant, engaging, good. But, it is true that all of that stuff isn't for everyone who gets aroused by muzzles and paws. There are people who are sexually attracted to animals but aren't going out of their way to be animal rights activists. There are people who are just hooking up with a four legger because that hole is nice rather than for a zooey love song that they are going to compose later. And, we probably shouldn't saddle them with this idea that they're bad people for not having their heart melt at going on a long romantic walk through the dog park, just like we shouldn't expect the world out of every gay or trans person.
Just like how there is an astounding variety of ways humans feel/don't feel attracted to other humans, the same can be said in a zooey context. The lovey dovey stuff isn't just hot air: it is earnestly felt by myself and many others, and I do think we make for very compelling illustrations of what zoos are like. But it is also very much worth remembering that aromantic is not a synonym for amoral. And hey, maybe I'm coming on too hard, and the average person off the street actually would be more comfy sitting on the bus next to Johnny JustFucksHisDog rather than Alissa NoYouReallyNeedToKnowWhatTheInsideOfMyZooeyHeartLooksLike.
Shortcut: "Nobody actually cares at all one way or the other about zoophilia." (or) "Zoophilia is a topic so taboo that everyone in society assumes it is bad by default and will never have their minds changed."
Analysis: Man I don't know I'm just a furry on the internet. My intuition, just based on my time seeing how people react to the topic, both in-person and online, is that a lot of times "disgust" over bestiality is performative, and that people in candid private conversations can be very openminded and openhearted to the idea of hearing about bestiality and zooromanticism. But, obviously everyone is an individual, and individuals can have any opinion under the sun.
As people who are zoos, we probably think and worry about zooey stuff in way more minutes of the day than the average non-zoo will in a year. We catastrophize, or conversely we overassume that others are more likeminded to us than they actually are. We hear examples of zoos being accepted and celebrated, and then we hear examples of zoos being dragged through the mud and jailed. So I think that at times both sides of the coin can feel true: that non-zoos en masse are generally pretty cool with us, or that non-zoos en masse are generally pretty uncool with us. It depends! A lot of times with this one it's just the author reflecting on what their thoughts about it are when they really search their feelings in that moment, rather than any claim that anyone on our editing team can read every single non-zoo's mind on the entire planet simultaneously and get to the bottom of this zoo acceptance thing.
Shortcut: "Horses and Golden Retrievers are astonishingly sexy and even non-zoos have got to admit that animals are hot when they see a horse or a Golden Retriever."
Analysis: It would be slightly more technically accurate to say, "Horses and Golden Retrievers are astonishingly sexy TO ME and even non-zoos SHOULD BE ABLE TO AT LEAST SEE WHY ZOOS SAY that animals are hot when they see a horse or a Golden Retriever BUT WE KNOW THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE NOT ZOOEY EVEN FOR HORSES AND GOLDEN RETRIEVERS SOMEHOW BUT THAT'S OKAY, IT'S FINE, REALLY."
Closing Thoughts
Narrative shortcuts: I hope that generally, readers will understand our good intentions when we don't always provide every caveat every time. We do our best, and I think our best has been really impressive and good overall, but, again, it has been over two years, and certain shortcuts become very well trodden, to the point where it's like, "Oh hey that IS a shortcut though, maybe we should examine that patch of our discourse a little closer sometime."
And if you are an aroallo zoo with average opinions about animal rights, and you have not felt especially seen by our hyperromantic dog zoo yay animal rights team, oh my god write us an article please, as long as you're like cool and stuff we would love to hear from people who trample beyond our shortcuts in ways we wouldn't have even thought of.
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Article written by Alissa Dogchurch (May 2025)