(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

kahrohseh
2007-01-11 04:56 am UTC (link)

I always thought the notion was that neither children nor animals have an informed understanding of what's going on, the thousands of years of symbolism and cultural relevance and mores. Or simply, a child might peaceably go along with sexual intercourse, but that doesn't mean he or she knows the full weight of what's going on, and thus, the abuse and rape is still there. Just because the other side's oblivious doesn't mean we should feel free to exploit them.

...Who said cat macros? Cat macros.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	caito 2007-01-11 05:20 am UTC (link)
	(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kahrohseh 2007-01-11 05:42 am UTC (link)
	I hereby acknowledge this macro as An Astute Observation. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	luthe 2007-01-11 07:44 pm UTC (link)
	This macro has the power of the win. Also, I don't think that cat is consenting to the surprise buttsecks in that picture. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	daylightsparks 2007-01-12 02:32 am UTC (link)
	Once my cat was having that done, and I told the vet that "10% of cats actually enjoy that." The vet just looked at me blankly. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	caito 2007-01-12 03:02 am UTC (link)
	looks at you blankly (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	daylightsparks 2007-01-12 03:07 am UTC (link)
	"Kids in the Hall" reference. The sketch involved aliens giving anal probes. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	loonylupinlover 2007-02-09 06:45 am UTC (link)
	Hey I do that! XD (Reply to this)(Parent)

	sheep 2007-02-09 12:24 pm UTC (link)
	It's wrong, but I imagined that cat as Kyo... (Reply to this)(Parent)

serai
2007-01-11 05:24 am UTC (link)

Or simply, a child might peaceably go along with sexual intercourse, but that doesn't mean he or she knows the full weight of what's going on, and thus, the abuse and rape is still there.

Sure, when you're talking about a child. But these aren't children. They're just not human, which is not the same thing at all. Do adult animals not have the ability to recognize sexual intent, and react with either consent or objection?

I guess my problem is the automatic assumption that animals have no ability to make their own choices when they do it all the time.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

kahrohseh
2007-01-11 05:38 am UTC (link)

Show me an animal with the cognitive ability above a 4-year-old (the rated intelligence of the world's smartest chimps, iirc) and I'll grant you that animal might have an inkling that that human is doing more than shoving a flushed stiff appendage up its genitals, and thus have an informed understanding of what's going on and what it should do about it.

I'm not saying there aren't smart animals out there, but it's a completely different level. A passive mare that doesn't kick when its owner is fucking it doesn't signify an informed, mature participant engaging in a highly symbolic and culturally significant act, it shows a mare that is acclimated and trusting of the-creature-that-brings-the-food enough to let it stick something small and funny in its back hole.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	serai 2007-01-11 06:22 am UTC (link)
	Funny, that's what an extraterrestrial of superior intelligence might say about the average housewife. I guess it's all in the point of perspective, eh? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	mindset 2007-01-11 06:40 am UTC (link)
	And when the theoretical extraterrestrial of theoretical superior intelligence fucks the theoretical average housewife while his theoretical colleagues bemoan his theoretical ethics, then perhaps we can use that argument in a debate of non-theoretical horsefucking. You fail at logic, perspective, and life. FOAD, please. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	serai 2007-01-11 08:09 am UTC (link)
	My, my, how very civilized you are. Do you always end conversations with people that way? Or only those you don't agree with? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

mindset, 2007-01-11 08:38 am UTC

(no subject) -

serai, 2007-01-11 09:13 am UTC

	skewed_tartan 2007-01-11 06:53 am UTC (link)
	Where in the HELL did that one come from? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jetamors 2007-01-11 08:09 am UTC (link)
	...And if those being actually existed, it would be wrong for them to have sex with us. What's your point? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	serai 2007-01-11 08:11 am UTC (link)
	sigh Read my post again. I'm not defending sex with animals. I'm interested in the concept of "consent" and what that means when we apply it to beings different from us, on whatever grounds. If you'd read my post more carefully, you'd know that. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

jetamors, 2007-01-11 08:17 am UTC

(no subject) -

serai, 2007-01-11 08:20 am UTC

(no subject) -

jetamors, 2007-01-11 08:36 am UTC

(no subject) -

serai, 2007-01-11 09:11 am UTC

(no subject) -

mcity, 2007-01-11 05:19 pm UTC

(no subject) -

lottelita, 2007-01-11 09:00 am UTC

(no subject) -

jetamors, 2007-01-11 06:49 pm UTC

aposiopetic
2007-01-11 07:22 am UTC (link)

Do adult animals not have the ability to recognize sexual intent, and react with either consent or objection?

I could be completely talking out of my ass here (and I'm sick and it's late, so please also forgive the possibly horrible analogy I'm going to make), but no, I don't think can (always) recognize sexual intent. An animal's frame of reference is completely different to that of a human's. If they're presented with a situation that they don't understand, either by observation or being hardwired for it, then it's hard for them to consent to it (or, alternatively, consent to it without realizing all of the rammifications). For example, like when creepyguy apparently covered his dick in oats. The horse was thinking, "Ooh, a snack :D" and went along with it, while the guy was thinking "Blowjob! She loves me ♥" The horse went along with it, but I doubt that it knew that it was involved in a sexual act at the time.

Heck, if people can miss intent (example: my icon could appear to be waving at someone in an attempt to bring them closer when she is instead going "Is Glinda going to have to ~~slap~~ drown a bitch?"), then it's definitely easy for animals to miss it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

khym_chanur
2007-01-11 05:56 am UTC (link)

I always thought the notion was that neither children nor animals have an informed understanding of what's going on, the thousands of years of symbolism and cultural relevance and mores.

On the one hand, you could say the same thing about neutering pets or deciding who they're going to mate with: they can't have an informed understanding of what's being done to them, but we do it to them anyways. On the other hand, if you applied the same consequentialist argument to having sex with animals to having sex with children, you get very skeezy results. But this raises an interesting (to me, at least) question: for what things do you treated an animal's lack of informed understanding the same as a human's lack of informed understanding, and for what things do you treat them differently? Is there anything besides sex for which an animal's lack of informed understanding becomes an issue?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	serai 2007-01-11 06:28 am UTC (link)
	Yes, I've thought the same thing myself, and it's some of the reason I brought this up. The way I've heard people talk about animal issues over the years, it always seems to me that the issue of consent and what we do to animals is almost always based on what the speaker happens to believe, rather than what actual evidence exists. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

napalmnacey
2007-01-11 06:43 am UTC (link)

I'm only going to give my opinion on this once cause the whole subject makes me wretch.

Domesticated animals are bred to be submissive to us. So that 'consent' you think they're giving can't be trusted to be consent at all. They're raised to let us do whatever we want to them. As their caretakers, it's our responsibility to treat them well.

I think the problem is that people are anthropomorphising these creatures and not understanding how they view relationships with other living creatures.

Bestiality/zoophilia is abuse, and there's no other word for it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

serai
2007-01-11 08:17 am UTC (link)

Well, physical mutilation is abuse, yet we do that to animals constantly. Tying up babies and forcing them to live on thin gruel until they're soft enough to eat is abuse, yet there's a whole industry that produces and sells veal.

We constantly do horrible and stomach-turning things to animals. It seems to me that there's only some things that are OMGWRONG because they can't consent, and they're the things that only a few people would want to do. The ugly shit the majority of us approve of is accepted as perfectly ok.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	napalmnacey 2007-01-11 08:21 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, it's a double standard. Some live with it, some don't. If I had the constitution to be a vegan, I wouldn't eat meat or animal products ever again. But I don't, so shrugs. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

serai, 2007-01-11 09:09 am UTC

(no subject) -

napalmnacey, 2007-01-11 09:15 am UTC

kahrohseh
2007-01-11 06:44 am UTC (link)

Hoo... Let me be clear, I have total respect for you and this line of questioning, it's all very valid, but I'm starting to wish I'd kept strictly to the macros and teh funneh.

But in answer to the questions you pose, well, I can't claim to have any solidified theory on that. If I were to fall back on what I remember from formal Ethics class, I'd say the dividing line comes down to potentiality: an animal is never going to grow up into something more cognitively advanced, whereas a human child will, barring a few exceptions. Parents take formulative steps with their children on an assumption they are preparing them for some outward-expanding future, whereas pet owners seem to be of a psychology to do things that will ensure their pet, at best, something consistent, uneventful and peaceful.

But then, people use the same potentiality argument against abortion and the mentally disabled, so, I just... aiyaiiigh. ><; I'd still put it down to the fact that an animal has no full comprehension and never will, whereas a child someday will, and that's what bears the most weight.

Or, if all this is unstable, it may just come down to the fact that humans, as humans, are more accountable to fellow humans than to animals. But if humans develop something called humanity and the property of being humane, then out of at least our reputation among fellow humans we should apply the basic fundamentals of civility to our treatment of other species.

Or we just all go out for ice cream.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kahrohseh 2007-01-11 06:49 am UTC (link)
	*Formative, not formulative. See? I did need that ice cream. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -