AR-News: Anti spay-neuter article

[Animalsav at aol.com]

 Today I rec'd a hard copy of a National magazine dealing with animal control 
and animal shelters with the article I wrote on the tubal/vasectomy scheme 
and it's connections to zoophilia.

The bi-monthly  magazine has a circulation in the animal control and shelter 
arena of 4,800 subscribers  per issue, and is distributed in eight countries. 
It is not available on-line as it is too large a publication.

Below is the article as published, NOTE that ASAIRS and asairs.com no longer 
exist, the files and advocacy now reside with Michele Tarvan of 
http://www.humaneconcepts.com  asairs.net redirects to that.

"ZOOPHILIA"
By Mike Rolland, ASAIRS founder.

Vol. 27, No.3
May/June, 2004
Pg 34 and 35

Most computer users have been exposed to at least some of the advertisements 
or pornographic web  sites on the internet  depicting sexual abuse of animals. 
This article will briefly address the animal sex-abuse abuse issue insofar as 
it's context and association with another growing issue for rescue groups and 
humane societies- requests for tubal ligations and vasectomies as an 
"alternative" to regular spay-neuter.

Zoophilia, more commonly known as bestiality involves real or in some cases 
just desired sexual contact with an animal, various surveys and psychological 
studies of late on zoophiles indicate the  zoophilism rate in society is 
approximately 4 to 5 percent. A several year's running human sexuality survey on the 
web whose percentile numbers have held up remarkably well over 60,000 surveys 
confirms this figure. The astonishing thing is this figure is greater than 
that of pedophilia which is always in the news.

Individuals who engage in sexual relations with animals may do so from a 
variety of reasons, and the question of harm or animal abuse is not always clear 
in the face of a lack of physical injuries. There are of course as in all walks 
of life, abusive individuals as well as non abusive individuals. Both aspects 
of this go beyond the intended scope of this article. Many zoophillic 
individuals work in or volunteer at animal shelters or have jobs in animal related 
fields, this should come as no surprise to the reader.

Generally, the act of zoophilism involves both male and female animals, all 
animals are involved, including equines  and in particular- the domestic canine.

The individual who is obsessed with this form of sexual conduct usually 
always prefers sexually intact animals, as do those who use these animals in the 
growing and very abusive porn films, for reasons which should be fairly obvious 
to the reader without  going into further details. 

The benefits of spay-neuter are well documented, now there's another reason 
for it to be done:

In the past couple of years our group has become aware of a number of 
zoophillic individuals who are actively attempting to skirt spay-neuter requirements, 
regulations, or laws, by trying to convince the humane society or rescue 
group to allow a vasectomy or tubal ligation. They encourage others with this 
interest to ask for this "alternate" surgery as a specific. Some may cite 
objections to surgery or "mutilation" to hide the real motivations. Others willingly 
put up a cash deposit and sign an alter contract they know can't or won't 
likely be enforced. The deposit is gladly forfeited in order to obtain intact dogs 
at almost any cost.
Tubal/Vas has been discussed as a very specific method to skirt spay-neuter 
as far back as 1994 on the usenet newsgroup alt.sex.bestiality and similar 
bestiality related forums.

 This is done specifically to obtain dogs for the purpose of engaging them in 
sexual activities. Tubal/vas allows the zoophillic individual to use the 
animal for this purpose, whereas a spayed or neutered dog is generally not 
physically able to, and  is far less desirable.
Our group has for the last 3 years monitored a  very vocal 19 year old 
California teen who is obsessed with stopping spay-neuter which he calls "the worst 
form of animal cruelty,"  and is promoting tubal/vas as an "alternate." The 
teen has many associations and friendships  with known zoophillic individuals, 
and they have latched onto him and his advocation for their own gain.
Investigating this teen's other interests, obsession with animal mating and 
werewolves, "shapeshifting", and in particular: his gun collection, we logged 
his web sites and public statements showing serious enough issues that I 
forwarded this information to the police, sheriff,  the FAA and the FBI to name but 
a few. 

His anti spay web site was originally hosted by an admitt of years ago 
followed by a male dog, again, specifically to engage these animals in sexual 
activities.
In December of 2003 this teen's Yahoo group and advocation were taken over by 
an animal rights activist who is against spay-neuter but for different 
reasons than zoophilia, this was done because of the teen's ineffective methods and 
his other interests made him a target for ridicule. The new moderator has 
distributed anti spay-neuter materials on a number of forums but the associations 
with zoophilia we pointed out in these same forums makes this suspect with 
many readers.

The humane society staff and rescue group personnel must become aware of both 
of these issues and not chalk this up to "old farm jokes." A quick search on 
Google.com for "bestiality" pulls up 1,580,000 items, for  the incorrect 
spelling "beastiality" the figure is an additional  1,760,000, while "zoophile" 
pulls up  165,000 more.  Every porn site and reference there involves real 
animals and a real animal is abused to make these horrid films.

Bestiality is LEGAL in about 20 states, yes, I said legal! since there are no 
laws on the books in these states that specifically include bestiality and 
animal abuse statutes often can't be applied where physical and visible injuries 
are not apparent. The State of Maine, and Officer Donald Harper of Maine 
Animal Control reported several cases of bestiality they were unable to prosecute 
in any way due to the lack of a law against it at that time.

Bestiality is also legal in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and a number of other 
foreign countries, the penalty in the UK was recently REDUCED in sentence as 
well as scope to only include penetrative sex. The recent Supreme Court decision 
to invalidate sodomy laws in the US may very well have made bestiality legal 
now by default in 24 of the 30 states, with the remaining 6 states having 
passed new legislation against bestiality due in part to our efforts- notably 
Oregon, Iowa and Missouri, but also to a lesser degree: Illinois, Indiana, and 
Maine.  

A search on Google.com in the "news" tab for "bestiality" almost always pulls 
up cases in the news of arrests, and these are the individuals who were 
caught- a tiny percentage of the whole. A recent case involving a pony and a 65 
year old neighboring man in Denmark, sparked outrage when the owners were unable 
to prosecute the man for anything and he was released, Denmark has no laws 
against bestiality and two officials have proposed one be enacted due to this 
case and the publicity surrounding it.

ASAIRS is an all volunteer animal welfare entity now under new ownership by 
Michele Tarvan,  for more information on sexual abuse of animals, the laws, FAQ 
 go to : http://www.asairs.net
 Or: http://www.pet-abuse.com or: http://www.pet-abuse.com/database/