Universally, human males have shown a considerable interest in unusual, rare, and sometimes fantastically impossible types of sexual activity. In consequence there is a great deal more discussion and a more extensive literature about such things as incest, transvestism, necrophilia, extreme forms of fetishism, sado-masochism, and animal contacts than the actual occurrence of any of these phenomena would justify.
From the earliest recorded history, and from the still more ancient archives of folklore and mythology, there are man-made tales of sexual relations between the human female and no end of other species of animals. The mythology of primitive, pre-literate peoples in every part of the world has included such tales. 1 Classic Greek and Roman mythology had accounts of lovers appearing as asses, Zeus appearing as a swan, females having sexual relations with bears, apes, bulls, goats, horses, ponies, wolves, snakes, crocodiles, and still lower vertebrates. The literary and artistic efforts of more recent centuries have never abandoned these themes; erotic literature and drawings, including some of the world’s great art, have repeatedly come back to the same idea. 2
Much of this interest in rare or non-existent forms of sexual performance may represent the male’s wishful thinking, a projection of his own desire to engage in a variety of sexual activities, or his erotic response to the idea that other persons, especially females, may be involved in such activities. This stems from the male’s capacity to be aroused erotically by a variety of psychosexual stimuli (Chapter 16 ). Females, because of their lesser dependence on psychologic stimulation, are less inclined to be interested in activities which lie beyond the immediately available techniques, and rarely, either in their conversation, in their written literature, or in their art, deal with fantastic or impossible sorts of sexual activity. Human males, and not the females themselves, are the ones who imagine that females are frequently involved in sexual contacts with animals of other species. In fact, human males may be responsible for initiating some of the animal contacts and especially the exhibitionistic contacts in which some females (particularly prostitutes) engage. 3
Considerable confusion has been introduced into our thinking by this failure to distinguish between sexual activities that are frequent and a fundamental part of the pattern of behavior, and sexual activities which are rare and of significance only to a limited number of persons. Psychologic and psychiatric texts are as likely to give as much space to overt sado-masochistic or necrophilic activity as they give to homosexual and mouth-genital activities, but the last two are widespread and significant parts of the lives of many females and males, while many of the other types of behavior are in actuality rare.
As we have already seen, males may be more often involved than females in a variety of non-coital sexual activities. Sexual contacts between the human male and animals of other species are not rare in the rural segments of our American population, and probably not infrequent in other parts of the world. Some 17 per cent of the farm boys in our sample had had some sexual contact with farm animals to the point of orgasm, while half or more of the boys from certain rural areas of the United States had had such experience (see our 1948:671–673). It will be profitable to try to analyze the factors which account for the lesser frequencies of animal contacts among the females in the present sample.
In discussing this matter in our volume on the male (1948:667–668), we pointed out that there is no sufficient explanation, either in biologic or psychologic science, for the confinement of sexual activity to contacts between females and males of the same species. We have no sufficient knowledge to explain why an insect of one species should not mate or attempt to mate with many other species, why different species of birds do not indiscriminately interbreed, or why any species of mammal should confine its sexual activity as often as it does. There are obvious anatomic problems which prevent the indiscriminate, interspecific mating of some forms, but no known anatomic or psychologic factors which would prevent most of the more closely related species from trying to make inter-specific matings. 4 We have also pointed out that evidence is beginning to accumulate that individuals of quite unrelated species do make inter-specific contacts more often than biologists have heretofore allowed. The intensive study of the movements of individual birds, which bird-banding techniques have made possible, has shown that there is a great deal more inter-specific mating among birds than we have previously realized. More intensive taxonomic and genetic work in the field has shown the existence of a large number of inter-specific hybrids, and these provide evidence that inter-specific mating occurred at some time or other and, more than that, that such matings were viable and gave rise to fertile offspring. The successful matings must represent only a small proportion of the inter-specific contacts which are actually attempted or made.
It is not a problem of explaining why individuals of different species should be attracted to each other sexually. The real problem lies in explaining why individuals do not regularly make contacts with species other than their own. In actuality, it is probable that the human animal makes inter-specific sexual contacts less often than some of the other species of mammals, primarily because he has no close relative among the other mammals, and secondarily because of the considerable significance which psychologic stimuli have in limiting his sexual activity.
We have previously pointed out (1948:675–676) that the farm boy may begin his sexual contacts with animals because he responds sympathetically upon observing their sexual activities. With the mating animals he can, to a considerable degree, identify his own anatomic and physiologic capacities. Moreover, the boy may come into contact with freer discussions of sex at an earlier age than most boys who are not raised on farms, and in many instances he has an example set for him by other boys whom he discovers having sexual contacts with the farm animals. Not infrequently he hears adults in the community discuss such matters. The comments are usually bantering and not too severely condemnatory.
But none of these factors are of equal significance to the female. At earlier ages, girls do not discuss sexual activities as freely or as frequently as boys do (p. 675), and they less often observe sexual activity among other girls or even among the farm animals. The specific record (p. 663) shows that some 32 per cent of the adult males in the sample had been erotically aroused when they saw animals in coitus, while only 16 per cent of the females had been so aroused. The histories indicate that many of the farm-bred females had been oblivious to the coital activities which went on about them. Quite frequently they had been kept away from breeding animals by their parents, and we find that a good many of the rural females in the sample had not learned that coitus was possible in any animal, let alone the human, until they were adolescent or still older. As a result, the animal contacts which the females had made were usually the consequence of their own discovery of such possibilities, whether the first experiences were had in pre-adolescence or in more adult years. Most of the farm boys had acquired that much information some years before adolescence.
It is not surprising then, to find that the incidences and frequencies of the animal contacts made by the females in the sample were much lower than the incidences and frequencies which we found among the males in the sample. 5
In Pre-Adolescence . A few of the females—1.5 per cent of the total sample—had had some sort of sexual relation with other animals in pre-adolescence, usually as a result of some accidental physical contact with the household pet, a cat or a dog, or as a result of curiosity which had led to the exploration of the animal’s anatomy, or through some deliberate approach on the part of the animal itself. Among the pre-adolescent females who had had any such experience, the contacts were incidental in 38 per cent of the cases. In most of the pre-adolescent cases (92 per cent), however, the girl had had contacts which had aroused her erotically, and in 20 per cent of these pre-adolescent cases she had reached orgasm. Among the 659 females in the total sample who had reached orgasm prior to adolescence, 1.7 per cent had experienced their first orgasm in contact with other species of animals.
Among the 89 females who had had pre-adolescent animal experience, general body contacts and masturbation of the animal had been involved in most cases. But out of the 5940 females in the sample, 23 had had dogs put their mouths on their genitalia, 6 had had cats similarly perform, and 2 had had coitus with dogs.
Among Adult Females . Some 3.6 per cent of the females in the sample had had sexual contacts of some sort with animals of other species after they had become adolescent. Some 3.0 per cent of the females in the total sample had been erotically aroused by their animal contacts. In only 1.2 per cent of the total sample had there been repeated genital contacts which aroused the female erotically, or mouth-genital relations or actual coitus. This means that only one female in each eighty in the sample had had such specific sexual contacts with animals after the onset of adolescence. In addition to the overt experience with animals, 1 per cent of the females had fantasied such contacts while they masturbated (Table 38 ), and 1 per cent had dreamt of having animal contacts (Table 55 ).
Half of the females had had their contacts with animals after the onset of adolescence and before the age of twenty-one, but there were 95 older females who had had such contacts, in some instances even in their late forties. Most of the contacts had occurred among single females, although there were 44 cases among married or previously married females. 6 Contacts had occurred among females of every educational level, although most of them (81 per cent) had occurred in the better educated segments of the sample, largely because that group is better represented in the sample.
Nearly all of the contacts had occurred with dogs or cats which were household pets. Nearly three-quarters (74 per cent) of the females had had contacts with dogs. 7 Over half of the relationships had involved only general body contacts with the animal. In some instances, the females had only touched the animal’s genitalia; in other instances, there had been more specific masturbation of the animal. For some 21 per cent of the females, the animal had manipulated the human genitalia with its mouth, but in only one of the adult cases had there been actual coitus with the animal. There were, however, additional cases of coitus in other segments of the female sample which were not utilized in the calculations for the present volume (p. 22).
In 25 out of the 5793 adult histories on which we have data concerning animal contacts, the human female had been brought to orgasm by her sexual contacts with the animal, chiefly as a result of the animal’s manipulation of her genitalia with its mouth.
The frequencies of the animal contacts had been low, amounting to only a single experience in about half of the cases. In 47 per cent of the 91 cases which had involved the most specific sort of contact there had been two or more experiences, and in 23 per cent of the cases there had been six or more contacts. There were only 13 females in the sample of 5793 who had reached orgasm by contact with an animal of another species more than three times up to the age at which they contributed their records to the study. There were 6 females, each of whom had reached orgasm more than 125 times in her animal contacts, and there was one female who had reached orgasm perhaps 900 times in such contacts.
The incidences and frequencies and significance of animal contacts as a source of outlet for the human female are obviously a minute fraction of what most human males have guessed them to be. The present data consequently illuminate some of the basic differences between the sexual psychology of the human female and male, and show something of the effects that such differences in psychology may have on the overt behavior of the two sexes.
In ancient codes and laws, there were frequent references to human males having animal contacts, and judgments and penalties were prescribed for such activity. The more ancient codes, however, appear to have ignored the possibilities of females having sexual contacts with animals, 8 and there are apparently only two references, both of them in Leviticus (parts of which represent a later development in Biblical law), concerning females who have sexual contacts with animals. 9 The Biblical references involve the prohibition of such acts, and demand death as the penalty for both the female and the animal. The Talmud, however, makes more frequent reference to such female activity, repeating the Biblical injunctions against it and imposing the same penalties. Finally the Talmud goes so far as to prohibit a female being alone with an animal because of the possible suspicion that she might have sexual contact with it, and this is unusual because it gives the matter more attention than is ordinarily given it in any of the other codes. 10
The Catholic code on animal contacts logically follows the general concept that sexual function is justified only as a means of procreation, primarily in marriage, and all contacts between the human female or male and an animal of another species are consequently contrary to nature, a perversion of the primary function of sex, and sinful in deed or desire. The judgment would appear to apply to female as well as to male contacts. 11 Touching the genitalia of an animal even out of curiosity may be a sin, and touching it with lust may be a grave sin. 12 The opinion is expressed that experience in animal contacts might be sufficient grounds for a separation. 13
The legal codes of essentially all of the states prohibit sexual relations between the human animal and animals of other species, usually rating them as bestiality or sodomy, and usually attaching the same penalties that are attached to homosexual relations. In a few instances the penalties are lower than those for homosexual relations; in some instances they are very severe. 14 When there is no specific statute covering the matter, the common law ruling against bestiality would sometimes apply. 15 In some instances the statutes specifically indicate that they are applicable to both females and males. 16 In many instances they do not specifically designate the sex to which they apply, but in most such cases they would be interpreted to cover both sexes. It is probable, however, that the lawmakers in most instances had male activity in mind when they framed their statutes; and the question is quite academic, for cases of females who have been prosecuted for animal contacts are practically unknown in the legal record.
There are in the older literature a few records of females receiving the death penalty for such contacts, particularly in medieval history. 17
We do not have any instance of legal action against any of the cases in our sample, and we find only one case in the published court records here in the United States. 18
Considering the rarity of sexual contacts between females and animals of other species, it is interesting to find specific recognition of such contacts in the moral and legal codes.
1 Folk tales and myths of human females in contact with male animals are summarized in: Dubois-Desaulle 1933:31–47. Ford 1945:31. Leach and Fried 1949(1):61.
2 As examples of the persistence of this theme into more modern life, note the hundreds of representations of “Leda and the Swan,” the magazine cartoons showing a female abducted by an ape, the still-current “Prince Charming” nursery tale, and motion pictures of gorillas interested in human females.
3 The observation of exhibitions of coitus between prostitutes and animals is frequently recorded in our male histories; they are also mentioned in: Kisch 1907:201. Bloch 1908:644, 646. Krafft-Ebing 1922:562. Rohleder 1925:370. Kelly 1930:184–185. Robinson 1936:46. Negri 1949:217. London and Caprio 1950:21–22.
4 But records of sexual activity attempted between animals of gross morphologic disparity are in: Karsch 1900:129 (female eland with ostrich). Féré 1904:79–80 (male dog with chicken). Hamilton 1914:308 (male monkey with snake). Zell1921(1):238 (stallion with human). Bingham 1928:71–72 (female chimpanzee with cat). Williams 1943:445 (cow with human).
5 A number of other authors have also recognized that females make animal contacts less often than males. See, for instance: Casañ ca.1900 (4) : 67. Bloch 1908:642; 1909:704. Kelly 1930:183. Dubois-Desaulle 1933:143. Chideckel 1935:312.
6 Tahney 1910:162 notes that animal contacts are commoner among unmarried females. Bloch 1933:185 feels that the married and unmarried are equal in this respect.
7 That the majority of female contacts with animals are had with dogs is also noted in: Mantegazza 1885:128–131. Moraglia 1897:6. Féré 1904:184. Havelock Ellis 1906(5) :83. Hoyer 1929:252. Kelly 1930:184. Chideckel 1935:315. Haire 1937:484. Hirschfeld 1940:138.
8 See: Pritchard 1950:196–197. The code of Lipit-Ishtar, the code of Hammurabi, the Middle Assyrian Laws, and the Neo-Babylonian Laws contain no references to animal contacts, but the Hittite Laws have five references to male contacts with animals. Since the Hittite Laws are in essential agreement with other Near-Eastern codes, it may well be that the makers of these codes held the same opinion as the Hittites in regard to animal contacts. It must be recalled, however, that some of these codes are not known in toto .
9 The injunction against and penalty for contact between a human female and an animal is in Leviticus 18:23 and 20:16. Also Exodus 22:19 might be considered as ap_plying to both sexes.
10 The Talmudic references to female contacts with animals are in: Kethuboth 65a, Yebamoth 59b, Sanhedrin 2a, 15a, 53a, and 55a, Abodah Zarah 22b–23a.
11 Catholic interpretations of animal contacts are in: Arregui 1927:153–154, and Davis 1946(2) :247, who specifically include the female. The “penitentials,” partially secular and partially religious codes dating before the 13th century, occasionally refer to contacts between human females and animals. According to Havelock Ellis 1906(5) :87–88, Burchard’s penitential stipulates a seven-year penance for a female who has had sexual contact with a horse.
12 Touching an animal’s genitalia may vary from a light to a grave sin depending on the motivation, according to Davis 1946(2):249. Arregui 1927:156 adds that when such touching is necessary, as in animal breeding, it is best that it be done by older or married persons.
13 Using the term “divorce” to mean permanent separation with “the conjugal bond remaining,” Noldin 1904(3) :sec. 665 states: According to the probable opinion of learned men any alien sexual intercourse, even that which happens through sodomy or bestiality, suffices for instituting a divorce.
14 Forty-four states specifically forbid sex relations with animals, and cases in three of the remaining (Ark., Del., and Vt.) indicate it is a crime, leaving only New Hampshire where such activity is not a felony or its equivalent. In Georgia up until 1949 the minimum penalty for the crime against nature when committed with another human was “imprisonment at labor in the penitentiary for and during the natural life of the person convicted,” whereas the penalty for ’’bestiality’ was five to twenty years imprisonment. In eight states (Calif., Colo., Ida., Mo., Mont., Nev., N. M., and S. C.) the possible maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
15 For the application of the common law ruling, see: State v. LaForrest 1899:45 Atl. (Vt.) 225.
16 For the application of the statutes to both female and male, see, for example: Georgia Code 1933:Title 26 §5903. Maryland Code 1951:Article 27 §627.
17 The death penalty for females making contacts with animals in medieval times is noted in: Mantegazza 1885:128–131. Havelock Ellis 1906(5) :88. Hernandez [Fleuret and Perceau] 1920:83–94. Dubois-Desaulle 1933:58, ’81–89. Robinson 1936:42–44.
18 The only published case in the U.S. of a female convicted because she had had contact with an animal is in: State v. Tarrant 1949:80 N.E.2d (Ohio) 509.