Horseplay

Because I didn't spell it out explicitly, you may or may not have noticed when I linked to the story of the man in Washington state who died after having sex with a horse. The hard way. No charges were pressed, because no laws existed in Washington forbidding bestiality. But all good things come to an end.

But then the story went global last month after E&P Online covered it from the angle of how one reporter managed to get certain unpleasant details into her paper, such as the fact that the farm where this happened had become known on the Internet as a "destination site" for people who want to have sex with critters. The E&P article was widely linked. Next thing we knew, videos of the fatal horse-on-man sex act were circulating on the Web.

Now there's a legislative and journalistic twist. Washington state Senator Pam Roach (R-Auburn) is introducing a bill to outlaw bestiality in the state. And a Seattle columnist has attacked her move, declaring that animals often enjoy the "human touch."

Before you ask, yes of course I have seen the video. No, you don't want to see it and if you do, you'll wish you hadn't. I wasn't right for about a week afterwards and I have a very high tolerance for the strange stuff. Really, you should just take my word on this one. But because I know about 1/3 of my readers are complete deviants, you can find a link to it somewhere on this page. Just don't say you weren't warned. Anyhow:

In her final draft of the bill, finished Aug. 23, Roach included clauses that make knowingly observing an act of bestiality, documenting of acts of bestiality, and trafficking in photos or videos showing such acts, felonies too. However, not everyone has backed Roach. Robert L. Jamieson Jr., a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, wrote last month that "unless the innocent talks like Mr. Ed or Roach is a horse whisperer, how can she know the animal was harmed?"

He added later, "Moralists will say that since it is impossible for animals to give consent, they should not be taken advantage of sexually. But it's not as if animals consent to being tied to leashes, caged in zoos, pricked by research needles or fattened up before being slaughtered for hamburger, either. People assume animals don't mind being treated in such potentially cruel ways just as some people assume animals don't get any sensual joy from human touch -- a debatable point if one has ever watched a dog hump a human leg with pleasure."

Well, uh, I suppose so. Then again, leg-humping is pretty easy to control. Unless, of course, this legislation passes.