There can be no doubt whatsoever that as a group zoos are legally, politically, and socially oppressed and discriminated against. If this is to change then zoos as a community would have to have a part in the process of change. However, there are numerous issues around this and this section is intended to contribute and encourage debate amongst zoos on that subject.
To this end an essay was posted in the zoo mailing lists in February 1999. This aroused a great deal of interest. Here is a copy of that essay. You can download it or read it here on screen below. To download the essay click here. Just remember to save it when it's loaded to your screen.
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Thinking about our rights - zoophile political activism?
--------------------February 1999-----------------------
[the author may be contacted at [email protected]]
(Posted in Zooishness, crossposted on Zeta.)
[email protected] welcomes comments on this essay but suggests they are best made in the zeta list or zooishness list first if you are a member of either of those, and that you only write to him about this essay at his hotmail address if you are not a member of either of those lists. To find out how to join those lists go to the community section of the Globalzoo website at http://welcome.to/globalzoo
On both the zoophile discussion lists there has been a recent interest in our legal and political rights, prompted sadly I suspect by a recent incident of the kind of discrimination we all risk, and so the succinct question has now been asked by [the list member], "Who speaks for zoophiles?" I feel this is an incredibly important question that requires an answer, not just by myself, for the simple but obtuse answer is "no-one", but an attempt at an answer by us, to ourselves, the zoophile community such as it is.
Where we are known we are reviled and abused, a situation that many minorities have faced and many still do face. Some minorities have made some progress toward diminishing the discrimination they face and others have not, anyone who has made some study of the liberation attempts of various different sexual minorities will know how some failed and others succeeded, and why. This is not the place for a lesson in sexual freedom politics, it's all in the sociology books if you care to read them. But let's not kid ourselves that the "victors" of these struggles win hands down. Gays for instance still regularly get bashed and sometimes even killed. There are legal rights and there is acceptance, not the same thing, although they run together. To think however that we might gain acceptance in our lifetimes is delusional, but there might be just an outside chance of a slim hope of some legal rights if the community was determined enough. But for myself I am of the opinion that the chance is too slim to be realistic and that the community is not likely to be determined enough in sufficient numbers for that to happen.
However these are just my own questions and opinions at this time, and my mind is not really made up yet either way on this.
First a few definitions so you know what I'm talking about. When I talk about the zoophile community I mean for the most part the online community who are as far as I know *effectively* the only zoophiles able to communicate regularly and openly amongst themselves. The un-internet-connected zoophiles might know one or perhaps two others, or once in a while go to some kind of conference, but in the most part I assume they are fairly isolated. The active debating online zoo community number as far as I can tell about 200 at most and of those there is a hard core of about 30 regular long term contributors.
By zoophiles I mean the "love" kind, not simply people who enjoy the sexual act with animals, but let me say that I would not wish to draw a hard distinction as membership can I think move from one group to the other, and some seem to have a foot in both camps. Divisions in the community will of course only weaken any political recognition attempt, although it must be born in mind that membership of any zoopolitical cadre by pure bestialists would only serve as ammunition for those that would oppose us. Bestialists are a double-edged sword, we would have to decide whether we needed their numbers, whether the distinction is clear enough to even be made, and whether they would be a political liability. The opposition would of course make no such distinction anyway so the liability factor of admitting bestialists to any political endeavour is probably overstated. It is clearly the sexual expression of love for an animal that is opposed by the groups who actively campaign against us, that it is an act in the context of love is a distinction that would be utterly ignored and ridiculed as a deliberate and/or misguided lie.
It is the sexual act that so exercises the opposition's angst, be it against gays, zoophiles, or any other minority. Let's not mistake this, as far as they are concerned there is only white heterosexual sex between married adults, purely for procreation, never for pleasure, only in the missionary position and no abortions or contraception allowed. If you don't know what kind of people the opposition are then WAKE UP! There is no way we could ever persuade THEM. What we MIGHT just possibly do is persuade legislators not to take too much notice OF them. But that is an infinitesimally small chance I suggest.
Let me dispel one red herring (diversionary tactic) for those here who unlike the opposition can actually listen. The issue of consent in HUMAN TERMS has no bona fides whatsoever. Animals are not human and they do not get sexual psychological hang-ups of the human sociologically originated kind. If it feels good and they want to they just do it. Physical coercion is of course outside the ambit of this statement as that applies equally to all aware species as a moral prohibition in my opinion (I say aware so as not to simply include only the reflexively-aware such as the so-called "higher" animals).
What is absolutely clear is that the only people who will speak for zoophiles are zoophiles themselves. However it is equally clear that the zoophile community has not *yet* reached that stage of evolution to have a political voice. It seems however that the electronic zoophile community has reached the stage where it is beginning to voice some consideration of the idea of speaking out. Indeed a younger zoophile **** [alias removed upon request May 20th 2002] as he is known to us, is actually doing so and trying to challenge the laws in his country even though he does so from the legally disadvantaged position of one still legally a minor. This is a good time perhaps for us all to think and debate about where we might want to go. To voice our dreams and also to ground ourselves in reality, to consider carefully the possible directions available.
I see three scenarios. The first and most likely is that nothing much will change for quite a long time, but eventually the authorities under the goading of the opposition will weed out our more open lines of communication despite constitutional guarantees of free speech, and we will gradually move to more secret and electronically secure ways of staying in touch. It's fairly easy to go underground if people are really determined, using encryption and anonymous remailers etc. It would be sad however as we would be less accessible to the newcomers who really need to find us if only to know they are not alone. I'd go underground if I had to, but that's not where I want to be. As it is few of us are openly zoophile in the world outside of cyberspace, and even in cyberspace we are for the most part only open in the relative perceived (but entirely erroneously) safety of these forums.
The second scenario is that a few members of the community give voice publicly to their beliefs and demands for rights. If done as single individuals they are in my estimation doomed to at best ridicule, I hate to think of what the worst outcome could be.
The third scenario is that the community takes some time to assess and reach some measure of consensus about what ways there might be forward from the present position, its self-definition, the achievable goals if any, and strategies for either ensuring security if the underground option seems inevitable, or possible political avenues if any at all seem likely to bear some fruit. I believe this scenario is now happening, that it has been happening for a while, but that its nascence was marked by the question "Who speaks for zoophiles?".
If this is the time of reflection and contemplation of our identity and situation, then media such as fiction and poetry are as appropriate tools as any for such an introspective dialogue. A zoophile zamisdat (underground publication) is an important organ for political consciousness. I am not talking only about preaching to the converted, there are new members arriving all the time, with every shade between bestialist and zoophile amongst them. Even if there were no newcomers, a bit of creative communication does not in any event go amiss.
Here are some questions I don't know the answers to:
Is the zoophile community big enough to _ever_ reach the stage where it could win a political campaign?
Should it want to reach that stage?
Even if it reached that stage could the battle be won?
From the time it reached that stage how long might the battle take to win and what would be the cost to people's well-being during that time?
If the battle was won would he result be so much better than things are now?
Like I said, I think the list memeber's question deserves some examination and I have taken the opportunity, not to start the ball rolling - it's rolling already - but just to give it hopefully a bit of added impetus.
On a lighter note, if we were to "get political", suggestions for a zoophile song or anthem might be nice :-)
[An entirely non-relevant to the essay section of posting has been cut for this archive edition]
[Here is the original posting that prompted this rights essay.]
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> On Thu 11 Feb 99 (20:10:49), [a list member] wrote:
> >
> >>I caught wind of this thru a relayed message from the AR discussion
> >>list. An example of people with their hearts in the right place, and
> >>their heads up their ass.
> >>
>
>>http://www.hsus.org/current/sexabuse_intro.html
> >
> >After reading the HSUS web above the first thing that pops into my mind
> >is "who speaks for zoophiles" in political and legal matters? Do gay
> >advocacy groups embrace us?
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