Bestiality and zoophilia - Evolve For Animals

Bestiality and ZoophiliaThe famous Kinsey reports on the sexual behavior of the American maleand female also include data on sexual contacts with animals. Kinsey and hiscolleagues interviewed about 5300 adult, white men and 5800 adult, whitewomen about their sexual experiences. Although the objectivity of the methodsemployed is sometimes criticized, the studies provide important information.Kinsey and his colleagues found that in rural areas about 40 to 50%of the males had had at least one sexual encounter with an animal, and 17%had even experienced an orgasm as a result of sexual contact with animalsduring adolescence. Amongst all the American men in the study, however,the prevalence was much lower, about 8% (Kinsey, Pomeroy and Martin1948)—still a substantial number, though. With such a sensitive subject asbestiality, behaviors were probably under- rather than over-reported.For the female population, Kinsey et al. (1953) found a prevalence rateof 3% for sexual contacts with animals. The frequency of the contactsranged from just once to several times a year to several times a week, andsometimes these contacts occurred over a period of several years or even awhole lifetime. These contacts included oral practices and masturbating(by rubbing against the body of the animal), as well as vaginal and analpenetration. It needs to be mentioned that the number of persons whorepeatedly had sexual contact with animals over a longer period of timewas much lower. Many participants indicated that contacts were motivatedby curiosity or occurred due to particular circumstances.About 20 years later, Hunt (1974) reported data on 982 American menand 1044 American women, including information on bestiality. Eventhough the prevalence rates were lower than those reported by Kinsey,Pomeroy and Martin (1948) and Kinsey et al (1953)—about 5% of themen and about 2% of the women reported at least one sexual encounterwith an animal—Hunt (1974) suggested that this was due to urbanization,with people having less access to animals in cities. Hunt (1974) also foundthat the majority of men (75%) and women (67%) who had had sexualcontacts with animals reported it had occurred on only a few occasions. Asin Kinsey’s studies, Hunt found that the majority of sexual contacts withanimals occurred during adolescence or early adulthood.Alvarez and Freinhar (1991) provided information on the occurrenceof sexual contacts with, and sexual fantasies about, animals among a specialsample: 20 psychiatric in-patients, 20 medical in-patients, and 20 psychiatricstaff members. They found that 55% of the psychiatric in-patients,but only 10% of the medical in-patients and 15% of the psychiatric staffmembers, had had at least one sexual fantasy or contact with an animal.Unfortunately, the authors did not distinguish between actual contact and48 Beetz