Dearest pet

Midas Dekkers

'People love animals - a stroke here, a pat there, a quick nuzzle in that gorgeous fur... the amount of cuddling they get can make you jealous. In Holland, dogs are caressed more than people. Not as thoroughly, though: that one spot, somewhere down below, generally remains untouched...'. Generally, but certainly not always. Kinsey's research showed that 8 per cent of men and 3.5 per cent of women had had sex with an animal, and that in rural areas the figure for men was closer to 50 per cent. Yet bestiality is almost universally condemned. While our love for animals is extolled as noble and 'natural', all erotic elements in the relationship between humans and other species are vilified and proscribed, thus consigning them to the realm of exotic pornography or crude innuendo. Even so, something remains of physical love for animals. In different forms, sublimated or occasionally...