We Need Better Porn
This article contains discussion of pornography. It’s not graphic, but it’s very much the central focus. Reader discretion is advised.
I used to watch a fair amount of zoo porn when I was younger. I already knew I was animal attracted before seeking it out, but I wanted a better understanding of what a sexual relationship between a human and an animal actually looked like. And so, I risked the sketchiest of websites, clicked on the most ill advised pop ups, and downloaded the most blatant viruses to try and find the kinds of content I was looking for. For the most part, I was pretty successful, and learned a lot about the kinds of things that I did and didn’t like. One day, I stumbled across a video of a human man having sex with a female dog. It was the first or second time that I’d ever seen that. I was amazed, not even realizing that that was a possibility. I watched the dog on her side, and the human doing the humping, and found it very engaging. Eager to find more, I decided to look down at the comments. The very first one was something along the lines of:
“What the hell. That dog is clearly medicated”
Confused as to what that meant, I read a few more.
“That dog isn’t moving, clearly drugged”
“Definitely tranquilized”
“That’s rape”
As I realized what I’d just watched, what I quite literally “got off” to, I felt sick to my stomach. I never wanted to see an animal taken advantage of like that. It was awful. And my complacency in watching the video made me feel like I had somehow endorsed it. I stopped watching zoo porn for a few years after that. I never wanted to have that kind of experience again.
The worst part about seeing that video is that the entire time I didn’t even realize the situation. I was too young to realize that that isn’t what sex should look like. Especially when it’s happening between a human and a dog, a pairing you learn much less about through the media and pop culture. If I wasn’t already part of a very supportive group of zoos at the time, I can honestly see how that experience could have led me to think more negatively about the sexuality as a whole. Or at the very least humans having relationships with female animals.
Clearly, that’s an issue. The fact that zoo porn sites can feature content on them that is so obviously abusive to so many people is something that should never be happening. Even in cases where it’s less directly rape and moreso just abusive, there should definitely be a filter for that content. But here’s the thing. Even after all that, I still don’t think that zoo porn is a bad thing. In fact, I think that it serves a really vital service, and can be an amazing tool if used correctly.
I recently ran a poll on Twitter (@hereforthezoo). The poll read:
“How did you discover you were animal attracted?”
The poll recieved 705 votes, broken down as such.
4.5% of people stated that friends got them into it.
17.3% of people said that they just innately knew.
27.9% of people had a proximity to animals.
and a whopping 50.2% found out they were animal attracted due to porn.
My Twitter account is safe for work and used pretty exclusive for activism. The bias on my account would probably be away from people that just want to jerk off to dogs, which makes me think that if you ran the same survey on a more adult oriented account, the percentage of people voting porn would be much higher. By a huge margin, porn is the way that people are first introduced to the idea of animal attraction in general.
As a community, we need all the allies that we can get. Last week we ran an article stating that somewhere around 7% of people are animal attracted. But we certainly don’t have 7% of the world’s population out there advocating for zoo rights. And that’s because most people treat their animal attraction as a kink. Something to get off to and not think about until the next time they want to get off. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I wonder how many of those people would be invaluable assets to the zoo community, but never ever realize that the community at large exists. There’s probably a whole slew of people with very desirable positions or talents that have zoo porn websites bookmarked for easy access, but have never listened to a single episode of Zooier Than Thou. People paying hundreds of dollars to feral animators’ patreons who would be happy to donate to zoo positive causes, but just don’t know that they even exist.
Let me describe my dream zoo porn site. First of all, it’s accessible. When all the content people are looking for is locked in private Telegram groups where you have to know a guy who knows a guy to get in, that’s only going to push people to more niche sites with laxer rules. If Kiwi Farms, The Pirate Bay, and all the current zoo porn sites can exist, there’s absolutely no way that that should be a problem. I want something where you can just enter the URL and get there. Once you get onto the site itself, all the actual content is curated. A team of people with an understanding of what good and healthy bestiality looks like have reviewed each video and given it a thumbs up. Also on the site there would be some form of Q&A or explanation video going over the anatomy of different species, as well as a few tips and how to’s to make sure that people who are ready to take their relationship to the next step with a partner know how to make sure that it’s fun for both parties. Also, the site would have ads. Banners, sidebars, or maybe even pre-video. But the ads would be for other things in the community. ZooTT, this magazine, Zipwok’s next album. Whatever it is, just things that animal attracted people would be tempted to click on that could get them more interested in engaging with the activism side of things. Honestly, it could even be for openly zoo artists or content creators, to provide people with a benefit for identifying as zoo. Back in the early days of e621, people used to advertise on banners that they had projects or commissions, and I remember them talking about how that was so much more effective for advertising because it was a member of a community directly engaging with that community.
So, here’s the problem with all that. And with zoo porn in general. The personal risk and liability is huge for the person that actually owns the site. Most hosts would never allow that kind of content, the site would probably be under constant attack from people who don’t support it, and it’s still pretty illegal in most places. The person that starts this project would have to be someone who keenly understands how web development works, who also happens to have a ton of server space and free time to be able to actually build all this, and also care about the community as a whole enough to actually be willing to try and promote community projects. It’s a niche within a niche within a niche. And honestly, it’s something I don’t have a solution for. I certainly don’t have the skills to make that happen. But, it’s something that I wish as a community we thought about more, because I think it’s really important.
In our pursuit of zoo rights, we can’t ignore the sex in zoosexuality.
Article written by Tarro (March 2023)
Find them at https://twitter.com/hereforthezoo
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