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See, regardless of whether or not you wish to describe yourself as one, the fact that you make these arguments reveals you to be a high decoupler yourself! (This is a good thing)
What about one's hand? That's common enough isn't it?
Masturbation/onanism was decried as a sin till within living memory, and still is by some, yet society didn't breakdown when people no longer felt shame about rubbing one out. If you think that doesn't count, look at vibrators or dildos (the former might cause desensitization if overused).
I do not think the average person is meaningfully harmed by sexual intercourse with something that doesn't reciprocate, not to an extent worth noting.
Further, I'm asking that people who already have urges to copulate with animals be allowed to do so without judicial punishment, if not social ones, and in societies, both historical and modern ones like Afghanistan where the practise is widespread, the people who have sex with animals are usually attempting to substitute for a lack of availability of real human women, at least for men, and have few qualms about sending their beloved to the abbatoir when they outlive their usefulness. The average haji goat fucker simply doesn't have access to women, which might explain why they're angry disaffected young men throwing their lives away.
If someone prefers animals over the opposite sex, they're too far gone for it to matter, and will likely just do it in secrecy.
For the overwhelming majority inclined to even try it, bestiality is a poor substitute for normal sex, but like a polyamorous relationship with Rosie Palm and her five sisters, they think it's better than nothing.
I mean, I'm certainly aware that there are likely plenty of deeply cherished beliefs I hold about the world that are likely false, for statistical reasons if nothing else. I think I do a decent enough job on updating as the evidence comes in, I demand an absence of intentional delusion in myself and bemoan those who practice it, how successful I am at that, who ever knows?
I personally think disgust is a terrible reason to prevent consenting humans (or a human, who presumably consents, and an animal, whose consent I don't care about) from doing as they please with each other. This might well be a moral anomaly, but it's an anomaly that allowed for the creation of modern civilization as the overwhelming trend has been for people to mind their own damn business, even if we're in an era of relative backsliding. I am close to a maximalist on the front of interpersonal liberty, even if I am more than willing to consider externalities.
It's striking how at least two people here have brought up the risk of zoonotic disease in the context of "objective" arguments against bestiality, and that strikes me as clear rationalization of a disgust response, did they even bother thinking for one moment how that might be prevented, or have they even seen data suggesting the increase is significant? For the former, I brought up the solution of condoms, and there you go, the problem's largely solved, beyond the residual risk from simply having other species in close proximity, which is a sin of everything from pet ownership to animal husbandry.
If the average person is harmed by thinking too hard for themselves, that's awful, and I can grant that might well be true. I still demand that those who can do better be allowed to opt out in one way or another, and I think we're lucky enough to live in an age where humans will be raised above their current limitations in many regards.
As much as I often disagree with @BurdensomeCount, I am sympathetic to his argument that those who are capable of being free-thinkers not be held down by those who can't resist licking live electric wiring. I'm not particularly beholden to the classist aspect of it either, just general intelligence, or a willingness to accept that negative outcomes are of their own making if it backfires.
Such people must exist, they're the scientists and innovators who bear the rest of us bastards along with them. Technological progress relies on challenging accepted notions, and while not everyone can do the same on the moral front, for the same reason the average person isn't a good PhD candidate even after grade inflation, I demand a right to try, or leave be the people who do.
Well, I don't want to get into a full and comprehensive description of my own system of morality, but yes I believe masturbation is bad. It's much less bad than bestiality though--the less personhood you ascribe to whatever non-person is stimulating you, the more healthy it is, because the less you're trying to make romantic connections where none exist, and the less such behavior actually replaces real romance. Very few people instinctually want to "date" their own hands i.e. attempt to engage in an actual relationship with them, post-masturbation. Many instinctually want to "date" their pets post-bestiality.
I've been couching this in consequentialist terms (which to be clear I do believe in), but bestiality is also just wrong. Conception is one of the highest, holiest powers we have--the ability to, with another person, create a whole new person--and should not be profaned in such a way. I believe this matters more than the psychological harm, but the latter alone is still important enough to outlaw it.
Disgust isn't the reason, disgust is part of the heuristic. I personally think optic nerve signals are a terrible reason to do anything, but in fact they're highly correlated with the actual reasons to do things. Boiling it down to the signal itself, and then saying that that signal is a terrible reason to do something, is poor reasoning.
Of course, heuristics can be wrong, but that doesn't mean they're always wrong or cannot be relied upon.
They're not certainly too far gone. People can come back from all sorts of things.
They probably got there by engaging in bestiality, meaning the law prevents some such people from existing in the first place.
This is the classic "If you ban it people will still do it, but more dangerously" argument. Sure, some will, but trivial inconveniences matter a lot. The numbers would decrease. The whole point is to decrease the number of people doing it.
Right, at some point you do need to decouple at least a little if you want to think for yourself. Similarly, there's a level where you're decoupling too much, and ignoring heuristics you shouldn't ignore. You need to know why Chesterton's Fence exists before you can knock it down, and people from both sides often are overconfident about their theories (like zoonotic disease) for its existence.
Whether laws should be written for everyone or selectively applied or what is its own discussion. I'm trying to tell you those free thinkers are wrong more often than not when it comes to things like this. The free thinkers are licking the same electric wiring, they're just justifying their actions more beforehand. The example that keeps coming to mind for me in this discussion is polyamory. Rationalists are about the most high-functioning, intelligent, wealthy group I can think of in the whole world, and they sacrificed most of their movement's momentum, and even more of its culture, fighting to make their natural desire to sleep around high-status. Everyone wants (in the sense that whatever their conflicting desires, this is also a desire) to sleep around and be socially praised for it. The fact that high-functioning people can remember to use birth control doesn't immediately remove all potential drawbacks, especially psychological drawbacks, which we as a species still barely understand at all.
https://x.com/mirondie/status/1684515767956508672?s=20
You can substitute the "only reason" or the "main reason" in my argument, that was my intent at any rate.
Disgust isn't a particularly good heuristic by itself, and while optic nerve signals are usually thanklessly at work doing useful things, if you start seeing the walls move or figures appear, such conflict with your normal priors and common sense should suggest it's more likely you're going crazy or being tricked than otherwise, the same when disgust isn't backed up by proper empirical considerations.
I think the overwhelming majority of people are unlikely to even want to engage in bestiality in the first place, and by my lights, the practise itself does little harm to anyone or anything I care about.
If I was put in a position where everyone else around me was fucking pigs, I'm not joining in, and if I'm Isekai'd into the body of a young Boris Johnson, I doubt I can even get it up.
Thus I don't particularly care about the creation of new people who engage in bestiality, since I deem anyone almost anyone who does finds it attractive abnormal in the first place!
I'm not one of those people who naively (or maliciously) claim that abolition or prohibition doesn't/can't work. The existence of Bukele's regime is certainly an example when it comes to drug related crime.
The issue is whether the costs associated with enforcement are worth it, and in this regard, I say that's not so. You can get fentanyl off the streets by shooting all the dealers and their customers or subjecting everyone to random stops and searches regularly after removing due process, but such a measure is most likely a pretty bad idea.
Further, the issue here is that bestiality is easy to conceal. It's not like building a personal nuclear reactor or even building an indoor weed farm, barnyard animals or pets are everywhere, and the kind of surveillance necessary to eliminate all potential bestiality is perfect panopticon in nature.
And often, unless caught in the act, there is little to no concrete evidence of the "crime", especially in animals bigger than a dog.
It isn't particularly possible to eliminate and (in my opinion) not desirable to eliminate, hence my claim that it should be de-criminalized. I'm not demanding wider society accept it or endorse it. Plenty of things are legal yet frowned upon, and I have no stake in the matter that makes me want more.
The majority of Rationalists aren't polyamorous, even if polys are over represented therein.
To me, the overall Western attitude towards polyamory is perfectly acceptable, modest to strong societal disapproval yet no meaningful legal consequences when it's not outright non-consensual cheating in a marriage.
In other words, I'm not asking people who disapprove of bestiality to like or endorse it, merely to tolerate it without judicial punishment.
I care about abnormal people and believe practicing bestiality harms them. I also think the marginally abnormal person here is not really all that abnormal; we're not just talking about 70 IQ Afghani shepherds, but also terminally online autists (especially furries) who could easily live perfectly normal lives if not memed into identifying as otherkin and othersexual. If you do not care about these people, or believe bestiality does not harm them, then that should be the focus of our discussion since it is our object-level disagreement.
Plenty of things are both easy to conceal and illegal, even absent the existence of a panopticon. It's pretty easy to keep children permanently chained up in your basement and do all manner of unholy things to them without anyone ever knowing. Making such behavior illegal still has many obvious positive effects:
Our options are not just to either legalize it or ban it and build a suitable panopticon; even lazy enforcement using existing resources probably gets us 80% of the benefit of full enforcement.
The more Rationalist you are the more likely you are to be poly, to the point I'd consider being poly to be a characteristic of Rationalism, much like upper arm strength is a characteristic of being male.
Cheating has no legal consequence at all in probably 99% of marriages in the States. Would you prefer it did? If not, why mention it? (I would prefer the government give adulterers a slap on the wrist, at least).
Wow, this argument sure sounds familiar. I wonder if anyone's ever said this in the past, and if so, how it went for those asked to tolerate it without celebrating it?
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