[Savage Love] 'I'd Certainly Rather Be Screwed Than Stewed'

I’m a 32-year-old female engaged to a 34-year-old man.

Some months ago, when we were both drunk, he “got up the nerve” to show me some bestiality porn and tell me how much the thought of me with a dog turns him on. He confessed that he was absolutely terrified I would leave him over this, but said he couldn’t hide it anymore. I was pretty inebriated at the time, and I didn’t say much. We continued to watch dog-on-girl porn, which I can’t say turned me off, but mainly because it turned him on so much.

Since then, he has brought up this subject when he’s inebriated. I’ve told him that as long as this fetish remains a fantasy, I won’t make an issue of it. I also told him that when I am sober, it makes me fairly uncomfortable and that it exploits the animal involved. He argued what I’m sure a lot of people into bestiality believe: It isn’t cruelty or abuse if it’s a male dog doing what comes instinctively to that dog. He also told me that he once had a girlfriend who allowed a dog into their sex life, him as a voyeur, her as a participant in full-on sex with the animal. At that point, I changed the subject, and we had good old vanilla sex with no more talk of dogs, but he was really turned on, much more so than most times we have sex with no talk of bestiality. I love this man a lot, and in every other way, our lives are pretty wonderful. Perhaps he drinks a bit much, but we have both cut back on drinking in the past month—this is a commitment we have made to each other.

The questions I have are these: Is just the fact that he is/we are watching this kind of porn animal abuse? Can this really remain just a fantasy for him, or will he seek this out again, especially since he has had it before?

I know that bestiality is one of the fetishes you disapprove of, Dan, but I have no one else to ask about this.

Dog Day Shafternoon

Yes, DDS, I disapprove of bestiality—because, well, ick. And that, as anonymous dog-fuckers have pointed out to me repeatedly over the years, is the same logic homophobes use to justify their bigotry. But when I go on the record about bestiality—and it’s always con—I do go out of my way to throw the animal-lovers a bone: If I were a sheep, I’d certainly rather be screwed than stewed.

But still. Ick.

Seeing as I’m biased against bestiality—particularly dog-fuckery, as I don’t understand how people even keep dogs as pets—I’m going to recuse myself for a few paragraphs.

“In most cases, the animal is willing and able,” says Martin Weinberg, a professor in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University who has studied zoophilia. “It is difficult and dangerous to try to force an animal to do something it doesn’t want to do,” adds Weinberg. “However, bestiality is against the law in many states, even though I do not see it as abuse unless the animal is physically forced.”

And then Dr. Weinberg makes an important point, one your fiancé needs to take to heart, one that you might wanna have tattooed backward on his forehead the next time he blacks out: “But if the girlfriend isn’t interested in watching it (or in actually participating in the act), the man should be informed that trying to force her into doing so is (to me) partner abuse.” (Emphasis added.)

Catch that? While your boyfriend’s interests may not qualify as animal abuse—and many would debate that point—hounding you about it endlessly does qualify as girlfriend/fiancée/wife abuse.

“The man this woman is talking about, as far as we know, has never had sex with animals,” says Dr. Hani Miletski, author of Understanding Bestiality & Zoophilia. “He just likes to watch, which is very common. There are numerous sites online that feature bestiality, and many curious people visit them often. For some, it’s just curiosity.”

And for some it’s so much more.

Will your boyfriend, in Dr. Miletski’s opinion, be able to let this fantasy remain a fantasy? Or will he seek it out again?

“It’s always difficult to predict what the future will bring,” says Dr. Miletski, “but my guess is that he will always use the idea of bestiality as a part, probably a major part, of his sexual fantasy. He will probably try to get his current girlfriend to go along with the fantasy and act it out . . . but if she doesn’t feel comfortable with that, she should continue to do and say what she has already done and said.”