Talk:Zoophilia

ARBCOM RULING JAN 10 2005 MODIFIED JAN 26 2006 (DrBat/Ciz indefinite ban)

Ciz was a sock-puppet of user:DrBat, a repeat sock-puppeteer who engaged in strong POV warfare on zoophilia/bestiality issues. Significant aspects of the ruling (as amended):

1. DrBat is placed on personal attack parole.
2. DrBat (using whatever account or IP address) is prevented indefinitely from editing Zoophilia and its closely-related articles, or any editing related to the subjects of zoophilia, bestiality, animal sexuality, or human-animal relationships in any article, including their talk pages.

Whether an article or page concerns these subjects shall be determined by the enforcing administrator. Such changes may be reverted by any editor and any administrator may, at his/her discretion, briefly block Ciz (up to a week in the case of repeat violations). After 5 blocks the maximum block shall increase to one year.

Link references for the Arbcom rulings and evidence on both cases:

• Jan 2005: 1st Arbcom case and full rulings at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Ciz, details and links for 1st case are in that page.
• Jan 2006: 2nd Arbcom case at RFArb#Motions in prior cases (26 Jan 2006), with details and links for that case at WP_talk:RFArb/Ciz

• Old talk:

  /Archive1

• Archived talk Oct-Dec 2004, related to Ciz, aka DrBat (Personal attacks on editors and furries, POV warring, vandalism):

  Archive2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... 8 ... 9 ... 10 ... 11 ... 12 ... 13

• Later archived talk:

• /Archive14 Aug 28 2005: unprotection, ethology, JAQ's rewrite, bestiality v. zoosexuality, non-sexual zoophilia, removal of porn links and AnimalDB.com, query if legal in Holland.
• /Archive15 Nov 27 2005: ShadowH/Ciz sockpuppet Nov'05, Satanism, recent edits of User:Wahkeenah, removed links about-bestiality.com, zoophilia.net and NYTimes (zooskool.com notes KEPT as may still be relevant), ingrid newkirk quote clarification/discussion.
• /Archive16 May 14 2006: Linkage to gay rights, zooskool link, discussion of Zoo Code and talkers, user:Zordrac question re articles against zoophilia, NPOV, Actaeon's site, "Animal" v. "Non-human animal" in intro, Peter Singer quote correction, Seus Hawkins discussion of arguments for/against, use of term 'exogamy', stallion masturbation citation, placement of 'legality by state', user:Angrynight debate whether listing arguments for and against creates bias, canine pair bonding POV "pro" edit, dolphin novel, use of term "consensus" in article.
• /Archive17 July 7 2006: Archive of blocked HeadleyDown (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) attempt to POV slant and warfare on the article.
• /Archive18 November 25 2006: temporary split of article into a zoophilia article and a bestiality article (later reversed following discussion), a question of whether Leda and the Swan should be described as "rape", use of the word "zoophilia" before Krafft-Ebbing, another couple of socks of a blocked POV vandal, links to AnimalDB.com, size of zoophile/furry overlap, long article tag removal, and the source and discussion of zoophilia and Islam.

Cite sources

This article needs to be brought up to wikipedia Cite your sources standards and a references section. The following assertations need some digging to check for appropriate citations, and ideally the context, the entire paragraph or full details, as useful background, not just the soundbite:

• The ambiguous term sodomy has sometimes been used in legal contexts to include zoosexual acts jurisdictions like UK is one example, are there others?
• The extent to which zoophilia occurs is not known with any certainty probably in one of the researches
• most research into zoophilia has focused on its characteristics, rather than quantifying it. probably in one of the researches, most likely beetz
• Scientific surveys estimating the frequency of zoosexuality, as well as anecdotal evidence and informal surveys, suggest that more than 1-2% -- and perhaps as many as 8-10% -- of sexually active adults have had significant sexual experience with an animal at some point in their lives a mix of many sources, anyone got any for starters?
• Studies suggest that a larger number (perhaps 10-30% depending on area) have fantasized or had some form of brief encounter
• NZ: It is interesting to note that in the 1989 Crimes Bill considered abolition of beastiality as a criminal offence, and for it to be treated as a mental health issue can we get hold of a copy of the crimes bill review, the whole section thats relevant?
• NZ: In Police v Sheary (1991) 7 CRNZ 107 (HC) Fisher J considered that "[t]he community is generally now more tolerant and understanding of unusual sexual practices that do not harm others." can we get hold of a report of this case and his full comment?
• For example, an old Peruvian law prohibited single males from having a female alpaca (llama).
• A commonly reported starting age is at puberty, around 9 - 11, and this seems consistent for both males and females. Those who discover an interest at an older age often trace it back to nascent form during this period or earlier. there was an informal survey on some website, but researchers may have accurate information
• zoophiles may be attracted only to particular species, appearances, personalities or individuals, and both these and other aspects of their feelings vary over time.
• Zoophiles tend to perceive differences between animals and human beings as less significant than others do.
• They often view animals as having positive traits (e.g. honesty) that humans often lack
  • and to feel that society's understanding of non-human sexuality is misinformed.
• The biggest difficulties many zoophiles report are the inability to be accepted or open about their animal relationships and feelings with friends and family, and
  • the fear of harm, rejection or loss of companions if it became known (see outing and the closet, sometimes humorously referred to as "the stable").
  • Other major issues are hidden loneliness and isolation (due to lack of contact with others who share this attraction or a belief they are alone),
  • and the impact of repeated deaths of animals they consider lifelong soulmates (most species have far shorter lifespans than humans and they cannot openly grieve or talk about feelings of loss).
• Zoophiles do not usually cite internal conflicts over religion as their major issue, perhaps because zoophilia, although condemned by many religions, is not a major focus of their teachings.
• zoophiles sometimes enter human relationships due to growing up within traditional expectations, or to deflect suspicions of zoophilia,
  • and yet others may choose looser forms of human relationship as companions or housemates, live alone, or choose other zoophiles to live with.
• Page citations and context for these:
  • The critical aspect to study was emotion, relationship, and motive, it is important not to just assess or judge the sexual act alone in isolation, or as "an act", without looking deeper. (Masters, Miletski, Beetz)
  • Zoophiles' emotions and care to animals can be real, relational, authentic and (within animals' abilities) reciprocal, and not just a substitute or means of expression. (Masters, Miletski, Weinberg, Beetz)
  • Most zoophiles have (or have also had) long term human relationships as well or at the same time as zoosexual ones. (Masters, Beetz)
  • Society in general at present is considerably misinformed about zoophilia, its stereotypes, and its meaning (Masters, Miletski, Weinberg, Beetz)
  • Contrary to popular belief, there is in fact significant popular or "latent" interest in zoophilia, either in fantasy, animal mating, or reality (Nancy Friday, Massen, Masters)
  • The distinction between zoophilia and zoosadism is a critical one, and highlighted by each of these studies.
  • Masters (1962), Miletski (1999) and Weinberg (2003) each comment significantly on the social harm caused by these, and other common misunderstandings: "This destroy[s] the lives of many citizens".
• At times, research has been cited based upon the degree of zoosexual or zoosadistic related history within populations of juvenile and other persistent offenders, prison populations with records of violence, and people with prior psychological issues. Such studies are not viewed professionally as valid means to research or profile zoophilia ... This approach (used in some older research and quoted to demonstrate pathology) is considered discredited and unrepresentative by researchers.
• Source for Ingrid Newkirk's 1st quote

FT2 00:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Balance in anti/pro

Coming from a pretty neutral viewpoint, I do have to admit that the article seems very "pro" as opposed to "anti". Whatever "anti" statements are made are immediately countered and (seemingly) refuted by "pro" arguments. The "anti" arguments are written in a style that seems condescending, implying that the "anti" view is naive at best and downright discriminatory at worst. 24.207.209.176

• I can confirm this, as I surfed-by this page for the first time. I was somewhat astounded (not to say shocked) about the size of this article. This article is larger than most of all of the rest of the articles I've seen or edited on Wikipedia. So reading the article, I also noticed that contra-arguments are being mentioned, only to be superseded by neutral or pro-arguments. There is also a strong tendency of romanticizing! And reading through the list of states where 'Zoophilia' is forbidden, I got the impression that it would be a pretty handy tool for people who actually (and sadly) perform such actions to have a checklist, to see whether their state allows them to do so, or not - which is also slightly 'pro'. Ran J. 08:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree, the article does tend to focus more on the positives; there is no mention of fence hopping (trespassing on someone's property to have sex with animals) for example, which is sadly a fairly common practice. But overall, I don't feel that it's very biased. As for mentioning legality, there is an entire article on the legal status of cannabis so I don't feel it's out of place to mention it, especially because there are obviously very contrasting views on this. BabyNuke 14:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

(Note: Fencehopping since added) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I third this, this article is alarmingly pro-Zoophelia, and it might give people the wrong impression as to it's stance in society. I think that people who are zoophiles are editing this to try to distort zoophelia into something more natural than it is. Altffour

I feel one reason causing this seems to be the extensive use of weasel words. Just as an example, search for the word "some" in the article and you'll find heaps. There's room for improvement there. Also, the article should at no point draw a conclusion on if it is right or wrong, regardless of what the opinion of the editor may be. The current attitude of the article seems to be however that those who oppose it do so mainly out of ignorance (to quote: "People's views appear to depend significantly upon the nature of their interest and nature of exposure to the subject. People who have been exposed to zoosadism, who are unsympathetic to alternate lifestyles in general, or who know little about zoophilia, often regard it as an extreme form of animal abuse and/or indicative of serious psychosexual issues."). While I tend to agree that that's the case, the article should not come to any conclusions on the matter. BabyNuke 09:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The article's been round in this form for the best part of 1.5 years now, a long time of near total stability for a controversial topic. The issue of balance has come up before. There's roughly as many that view it as neutral and informative, as view it as biased, and inappropriate or unhelpful pro-zoophilia edits get removed often, as do against-zoophilia edits, if the edit history is checked.

Part of these issues probably comes down to this: Popular impression differs strongly from such research as has been done. Most of this article has been gone over with a fine toothcomb at some time or other, and most editors have carefully avoided bias towards any given view. We have to be careful to report the public perception, which is done in many places (it's very very clearly stated that it is condemned very strongly). But we also must accept that pretty much all those who have actually and seriously researched zoophilia in general separate from a criminal justice system prior context (and there are a fair number of serious peer-reviewed studies now) report that certain popular perceptions are not in accordance with reality. This is in part why the notes are long -- exactly recognizing it's not what one would intuitively expect from stereotypes.

For example, the serious psychological profiling of zoophiles in the psychological community says that zoophiles are on the whole, more empathic, less pathological, and less interested in power and control than the average citizen (discussed on this talk page some long time ago). To say "Research says that zoophiles are generally more empathic and less manipulative than the average person" might well sound "alarmingly pro-zoophile" to the average lay-person, but it's nothing more nor less than the current scientific findings. That's in part why the subject is controversial. That's the function of science, to test and form views on matters of popular belief and interest.

As to weasel words: There are indeed a large number of "some people". That's because we know from research that such views exist and are notable. But research has been qualitative not quantitative (as stated) so we do not know exact numbers. So "some" is often the best we can do. So we know tendencies more often than exact percentages for many features of the topic. That's inherent in the subject (as with other sexual topics) and discussed carefully under "extent" so that the reader understands the issue.

I imagine it will leave questions but that's the nature of the topic. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:52, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it could benefit from a peer review especially requesting a look at neutrality. Get some fresh looks at it. BabyNuke 21:13, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Part of the difficulty is that Wikipedia reports facts, rather than individual editors opinions. The facts are substantially drawn from research, since research is in general the main source of knowledge on this subject. In its way, it is a huge subject. Partly why the article is long is that it is covering the view of experts as opposed to only lay people or media beliefs, and expert information is a view with some 50 - 100 years of research behind it. You can see that from the biliography. Most articles are shorter because they are split into many sub articles (eg look at BDSM or homosexuality or such: homosexuality and religion, choice and homosexuality, gay culture, societal views on homosexuality, gay rights, homophobia, LGBT history, ex-gay, homosexuality and christianity, homosexuality and psychology, homosexuality in china, anti-gay, LGBT media, timeline of LGBT history, gay news, gay agenda, gay friendly, gay pornographic magazines, homosexuality in ancient greece, homosexual laws of the world, homosexuality and medical science, gay stereotyping, ... or BDSM: BDSM, dominant (BDSM), slave (BDSM), consent (BDSM), play (BDSM), list of BDSM terms, domination and submission (BDSM), list of BDSM organizations, power exchange (BDSM), subspace, list of BDSM equipment, BDSM activists, BDSM film-makers, fantasy, pornography, BDSM contract, defence of masochism, edgeplay, erotic denial, fear play, female dominance, foot worship, greenery press, handkerchief code, gorean BDSM, ... 187 articles and 12 subcategories...)

So there is a lot more being said or to incorporate than meets the eye, and a lot more than people would think to the issues surrounding it, which the article touches on. If you feel there is research which is not represented, then that's worth adding... which is of course how this and most articles mature. FT2 (Talk) 23:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't help the antis that there is, what, Dr. Laura on their side, who is not only not a psychologist (her doctorate's is in Biology), but considers homosexuality a disease requiring a cure as much as zoosexuality. I have yet to see an anti-zoo argument that actually holds water, from "unnatural" to "can't consent" to "animals=children." Really, I think spaying/neutering children is not such a bad idea ... --Chibiabos 13:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Welcome, Chibiabos. Its important on this debate to read the various policies about content. The problem is, it doesn't matter what "you or I" think, but what is verifiable and notable. We may agree with it or not, but we don't have the right to base editorial decisions upon what seems right to 'us'. We instead base them upon what seems to be representative perspectives of credible research and the like. We also don't tend to think in terms of "pro" or "anti"s. They are simply, different viewpoints on the same debate, two of many views that we have documented. Three good pages to read: WP:NOR, WP:NOT and WP:NPOV. They guide our editing here, and I hope they give you some ideas how to help this article be better! :)

One way you can help is, you posted the following in an edit summary: "Religious perspectives - 'Most' is inaccurate. In fact, most religions in the world are still tribal, and many tribes in South America and Africa are known to practice forms of bestiality". is this verifiable from third party writings or sources? Do you have research or a soruce to back it? Or is it simply personal belief? if it has some form of credible backing or source, can you say more below, for possible inclusion. :) FT2 (Talk) 14:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

My source was actually a college anthropology class I took about 10 years ago. Our study was Chagnon's Yanomomo, and we watched part of a video documentary of Chagnon's return to the Yanomomo tribe, and class discussions included how procreative heterosexual sex was actually viewed as something of a sacrifice on the part of the man, and that before marriage, sex between men and women was frowned upon. The professor answered questions from several of my classmates that tribal cultures in many parts of the world are remarkably similar in their approach. It is a fact that Judeo-Christianity is still found in only a fraction of the world's population and while Western culture continues to destroy what tribal cultures are left, there are still quite a few left. Judeo-Christians remain a highly ethnocentric bunch, and still tend to regard other cultures as "primitive" and "barbaric," and readily discount the value of their beliefs. The sense that most people in the world are Judeo-Christian (which is false; Judeo-Christianity is a minority), that there are no more tribal cultures in the classic sense (also false), that what few people there were have all been 'successfully converted' by Missionaries and no longer engage in these acts of "barbarism" (also false, though the trend continues and any true and blue anti-ethnocentric anthropologist will tell you that the permanent loss of cultures in this way is a loss to us all) is the basis I see for such arrogant and unsupported claims that 'most cultures in the world abhor bestiality' and other similar claims. I do not recall what the title of the video was. I could probably drag up my Chagnon book on Yanomomo, I think its buried with my stuff in the basement presently, if you aren't familiar with it, but Chagnon is a fairly noteworthy name in the field of anthropology.

An NPOV does not necessarily mean you should dress up one side to make it seem sensible; the anti-zoophilia crowd has yet, from all that I have seen, to come up with a genuine explanation as to why sexual mutilation in the form of forced (and by definition anti-consentual) spays and neuters and forced sex in the form of breeders for profit is okay and acceptable, yet consentual activity is not (and then rely on the argument that humans are the only species of animal capable of expressing like or dislike, which there is no reasonable basis for). Further, I don't view NPOV as necessary in discussions on the Talk page.

Further, is there any evidence to support the original term of 'most'? Did anyone count cultures? I challenge any such claim that there was any basis or reasoned thought into the word "most" used there. --Chibiabos 05:58, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Now those are good points. If you can drag it up and quote whatever you think relevant here, with a page/s and book/s citation, it'd be good, as you say most of us are not anthropologists so we probably are not aware. One of the good things, everyone brings some new information. Some solid quotes on this, and indeed on the prevalence of judeo-christianity vs tribal beliefs, wouldnt hurt either, to educate us. FT2 (Talk) 09:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Just throwing in my 2 cents to add that after reading through this, I believe that this article is alarmingly biased in favor of zoophilia. Counter-arguments are shot down quickly and the imagery and tone of the text sounds more like a pro-zoophilia editorial than a wikipedia entry. (Please refer to the Neutral Point of View article for more information on this.) Furthermore after reading things here I come to discover that this article has existed in this fashion for over a year, thanks in no small part to pro-zoophile people. I personally believe this article too far gone, as it reminds me of NAMBLA editorializing in an attempt to normalize sex with children. An article of this nature should have no place in wikipedia, and it is a crying shame that it has existed in this state for so long. 68.5.45.126 22:30, 19 November 2006 (UTC)Gerald M.

Though I won't say "too far gone", I'll agree with you in general. Perhaps when I find the time / motivation in the upcoming days I'll try to rewrite certain sections. Especially the arguements section could be improved, since it's more or less a random list of arguements against it which are then countered again. I'm sure a better format can be found for this. The line drawings I also find worth including since they paint a much more realistic image of bestiality than "Lena and the Swan" does without being too explicit. As mentioned before, weasel words are an issue and need ironing out. edit: I've added a NPOV dispute template for now. BabyNuke 16:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion it needs severe editing to the point that it would practically unrecognizeable from its current incarnation. It should also be very considerably shorter than it is, since the bulk of it consists of unecessary romanticizing of zoophilia. I will admit that the subject of beastiality makes me physically ill so I have my own bias, but this current article is still a terrible emberassment to wikipedia. In fact I actually found out about it because someone linked it as an example of how wikipedia can get really biased due to POV manipulation by obsessive biased authors with an agenda to wage. In this case, internet beastialists using their group-jargon to butter up the article with heavy romanticizing and POV abuse over a prolonged campaign attempting to 'normalize' an incredibly biased article. To me this would be like creationists manipulating the "science" wiki page to include frequent counter-arguments against the scientific method. Or as previously stated, like pedophiles manipulating the wiki pedophilia page to make child molestation seem more normalized. This is wrong, and I hope someone with a strong sense of neutrality puts their foot down to stop it. Additionally, I would like to add that the current wikipedia entry for "homosexuality" is only slightly shorter than this one is - and that one is currently flagged for being too long. Something is terribly, disagreeably wrong here, and it needs to be addressed as soon as possible.66.75.238.69 13:18, 24 November 2006 (UTC)Gerald M.

I've made a first set of changes. The sections "Perspectives on zoophilia" and "Arguments about zoophilia or zoosexual relations" require massive work but I'm not too clear yet on how best to rework them. BabyNuke 15:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The newcomer's question "I just read this and it sounds biased" has come up before. Whilst understandable, the problem is that Wikipedia has to represent what's actually researched and known, not just echo popular beliefs. In this article, where a view is required, the majority view is clearly stated or indicated to be the majority view, and the minority view is clearly stated to be the view of a specific (relevant) minority. Where actual factual information on zoophilia is required, such as how zoophiles feel, what kinds of people zoophiles are, how arguments are perceived, and how peer reviewed researchers view the subject, this is sourced from research, and presents the majority view (from credible peer reviewed research by acknowledged respected specialists in the field) as the majority view, and presents the views of specific (relevant) minorities as minority views.

It is understandable that newcomers may not be familiar with the Wikipedia approach and expectation of neutrality. Such readers may be reassured by the fact that this article has already been through a full 3rd party (non-article-editor) review process and critique on the Featured Article page. In this process, editors who have no connection with the article or subject critically review it and look for flaws, for whether it meets the highest level of Wikipedia policies (including neutral presentation and citing of credible and bona fide source material), and whether it meets the highest standards on these counts. The article has not significantly changed in approach or balance between then and now. The criticisms on that review are given in the section below, and are all to do with layout issues, including presentation and use of lists, summarisation and moving of some topics to their own articles, and the like. Neutrality questions were not rated as an issue of any real significance by the time a consensus formed on the article. The highly experienced Wikipedia editor Raul654 (who has acted on Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee and is also in charge of maintenance and selection of Featured Articles, themselves Wikipedia's top accolade for editorial quality) was actively involved in the above process personally. Had there been any serious question by any third party editor in that review as to neutrality or quality, or by Raul himself, he would have certaintly made clear that Neutrality and Sources were an issue. He didn't. His comment was that "I've made a number of fixes to this article and I think it is looking good now." At the end of the review process, he had only three remaining issues (listed below) -- none of which were to do with neutrality or sources. Hope this helps. If you want to address specific concerns in more detail, or discuss the article and where you feel it's not representing the facts appropriately, then of course this is the page to do it, and editors (on all sides) will listen and try to help. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:54, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

FT2, I find your condescension unwarranted and rather hypocritical. This article was very recently reviewed and rejected by reviewers in late october 2006 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review/Zoophilia ) for reasons similar to what I am stating here - it is overlong, and a mess that is not even worth reading until it is considerably reduced in size and drastically improved in clarity. This is why I am advocating it be rewritten from scratch and simplified - then the POV or lack thereof can be properly addressed. 66.75.238.69 09:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Eh? You obviously haven't noticed the pro-zoophile edits also removed over time. What I have done, is to be careful about critically reviewing edits on both sides, and those which are emotively or agenda based (on both sides) have been critically examined, with care to explain the exact issue and encourage neutral contributions, and these have not been carelessly removed or edited without careful explanation. A quick example can be found here (Talk:Zoophilia/Archive16#Canid_pair-bonding) which was removed, then re-added fixed by the author, and re-removed again, due to pro-zoophile non-neutrality issues.

As for the peer review, you're mistaken. Zoophilia was put up for peer review by BabyNuke, himself a contributor here, to state his own personal concerns and seek review, which is both his right as an editor, and is rarely a bad idea. The article length is in fact appropriate, for WP:SIZE says the important length is the main body, excluding footnotes, and if you look at Archive 18 you'll find the article length was exactly in the middle of the stated acceptable level (6-10k words expected, 7.6k words in this article main body). The reviewer concerned is mistaken, or possibly not familiar with that guideline. The only other reviewer to comment stated as their view that summary format should be more used, which was a conclusion of the FA review, which I noted as conclusion #1 in this talk page myself (below); we have been doing that on this article since the FA review. Those are the only two comments, and both relate to length and not neutrality. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's but one example of the POV abuse I'm talking about: "People's views appear to depend significantly upon the nature of their interest and nature of exposure to the subject. People who have been exposed to zoosadism, who are unsympathetic to alternate lifestyles in general, or who know little about zoophilia, often regard it as an extreme form of animal abuse and/or indicative of serious psychosexual issues." The citation for this statement is also sloppy and has more to do with people's attitudes towards homosexuality than zoophilia. The segment preceeding it consists of one-line arguments that are given neither credence nor depth in the form of soundbitten quotes. This makes the segment read like a pro-zoophilia page lining up anti-zoophilia arguments to be shot down. I could go through the article with a fine-toothed comb to find more examples, but that is not my place - instead I feel very strongly that this article would be better served if it were started again from scratch. 66.75.238.69 09:33, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Notes from Featured Article page

Main page: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Zoophilia

Major points carried over from FAC page comments:

1. Several sections should be moved to their own articles (legal and religion especially)
2. Lists should not be used, or not used in some sections at any rate, in favor of "prose" style (arguments and religion especially) (part done by user:Raul654, thanks!)
3. Title change to "books and documentaries" (done)
4. Legal status omits large parts of the world.
5. Consistent citation method should be used.
6. Add paragraph summaries under blank sections, not just an article link. (done)
7. Add citations to sections such as "zoophilia and other groups".

FT2 (Talk) 10:32, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Followup to work done by Raul654 on the article:

Thanks for the work, it does show. A couple of edits only cause me concern, in part because there wasn't discussion and I do have real concerns about the information removed. A quick review of the article as it stands:

1. The intro header, highlighted that zoosexuality covers the field from a point of view of "sexual orientation". There's a subtle and important distinction between two articles (same subject area, different aspects, technical term). I've clarified the terms better in the "terminology" section to cover the ambiguity.
2. I understand you prefer "see also" sections removed, and I grant you have more knowledge and experience than I do by far. But even so, I do not see any proposed solution for others to find these useful articles, nor do I yet see editor consensus on this one issue or a serious breach of style guides by including it. I am therefore proposing to revert it for now, and perhaps discuss it here, and hope that you will be willing to see it discussed and alternative ways to provide the same information identified if necessary, before simply deleting the information.

   (As a quick aside I just opened 20 featured articles at random from throughout WP:FA. 16 featured articles had "see also" sections. By contrast with some, the section in this article is useful, relevant, and short.)

3. Points raised by others, such as inline links, inline cites, and certain italicised quotes, need addressing.
4. I would like to see two fairly easy sections substantively moved to their own articles: legal (done: Zoosexuality and the law), and religion.
5. I would also like to ask for discussion of a separate article, Society and zoophilia or Societal attitudes towards zoophilia. The sections on society and zoophilia are long, and perhaps better in their own article, much as arguments for/against homosexuality are summarized in that article and have their own articles discussing in more detail. The exact scope of that article would determine its title, hence discussion.
6. A nagging concern that the shape of the debate is such that article structure would now benefit from editors' review. The material's good but is that all. I'd like to bring forward the abberation v orientation issues a bit sooner, since they provide a context for the entire subject and its development.
7. Finally and a big project, it would be sensibel to have an article, "research into zoophilia" -- a neutral summary of the research and exactly who concluded what where, will mean that common information doesn't have to be repeated so much.

FT2 (Talk) 13:25, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Removed in old "ciz" vandalism days.

Just came across this:

"Emotionally and psychologically, research suggests that zoophiles have above average empathy. It is unclear yet from research whether this is a cause or a result of zoophilia. In other words, they may be close to animals because they empathize well, or have developed empathic skills because of intimate closeness with animals. As a group they have a lower level of psychopathy and need for control than average, and a higher level of sensation seeking and involvement in animal protection than average. They also have an above average level of social individualism, which can be either inhibitive (eg, shyness) or empowering (eg, independence of thought). Other research gives similar findings." [1]

FT2 ^{(Talk | email | contribs)} 23:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess there's no reason why that wouldn't be valid anymore. I even recall there being a more extensive list of traits, but I can't seem to find it in the article's history. Perhaps it was mentioned elsewhere. BabyNuke 21:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Definitions

The multiple definitions in the field bother me, not least because they lead to the article titles being ambiguous too. I think we need to make it easier to see them compared. The following is a bit long, but what do people think about the following as a possible way of summarizing and contrasting them? Can we use something like this?

Term	Usage	Primary users	Notes
Zoophilia	A sexual attraction towards animals, or a person who has sex with animals	Popular usage	Individuals with a sexual attraction to animals, or who have sex with animals
	A psychological paraphilia, defined by strict criteria such as exclusivity and psychological suffering	Psychologists and psychiatrists	Technical term for a sexual fixation meeting specific clinical criteria
	An affinity for (or affective bond between) humans and animals.	Sociologists and anthropologists	Anyone closer to animals or more bonded to them than "the norm". Anyone with an affinity for animals. The nature of the interest (sexual or non-sexual) is not significant.
	A relational attraction to animals	Zoophiles and sexologists	Individuals with an emotional attraction or sexual orientation to animals, of a relational, lifestyle or non-experimental nature.
Zoosexuality/ zoosexual	A person who has sex with animals	Popular usage	Individuals with a strong sexual interest or attraction towards animals.
	A sexual orientation towards animals	Psychologists and sexologists	Technical term for a sexual orientation towards animals that meets strict criteria for an orientation, comparable to heterosexuality and homosexuality, regardless of nature or whether acted upon. According to Beetz (2002) "Not all people who have sex with animals are zoosexuals", but this is not clarified. Presumably she means to exclude those whose interest is not relational.
	A spectrum of erotic and sexual attraction towards animals	Zoophiles	A spectrum of sexual or emotional attraction or erotic interest in animals, of whatever nature
Bestiality	A sexual act between a human and an animal	Universal	Applies to the act not the person. Ambiguous as to which acts are included. Out of favor with both zoophiles and professionals, the former considering it pejorative, the latter because it problematically confuses two different groups, severing the act from the intra-subjective context needed to interpret it.

Edits to the above table welcome. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 12:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it might be good to use more definitions for bestiality to help show the reason why it is considered to carry a bias with it (as well as the range of opinions on it). For example the inhumane acts (usually in warfare) version of it. Also do you think a table like will draw criticism if it was included in the article? I remember when the article was nominated for featured article status, some people criticized it for that (or was that cleared up?). Just some quick thoughts for consideration. --Steele the Wolf 17:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Just had a though, is their a way to do a mini table or something that can be put to the side? If you look at animal rights [2] they have a table for links to the related topics on the side (note is doesn't use up a whole new section. Maybe we could do something like that with these definitions? If not that it would be worth considering using that tool to help organize this topic (when we start splitting them off into their own sections.)--Steele the Wolf 17:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

You're thinking of section template indexes, for sections such as "sexuality" or "jesus" or "mathematics" where a sort of sidebar index to the main subject areas is useful. A subject needs a certain size and range before that kind of index and "quick finder" is really needed. As to the other, what you're describing is a look at the term bestiality, and how it's perceived. I'm not sure we can say much on "why is bestiality seen as bad" that isn't already said. What I was asking was, about looking at the meanings of different terms that have multiple contradictory meanings and confuse the subject area, and a way to summarize the different meanings for the main words used. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 17:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I feel the difference between a sexual orientation and a sexual attraction is not obvious, hence making the difference confusing. Also, since the term zoosexuality is hardly ever used, I feel the term "popular usage" does not apply. Keep zoophilia and zoosexuality as synonyms, I feel it has been sufficiently shown that these terms are nearly always used as such and this will keep things transparant. BabyNuke 18:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Good points all, Nuke. I agree the distinctioon's not obvious to most. I'm not sure that zoosexuality is "hardly ever used", because in this context it's not *that* uncommon, but its a confusing set of distinctions for sure. As for synonyms, I can see both sides... I don't really know what to think. The words we have in English just arent very helpful. In an ideal linguistical world, I suppose we could take "homosexuality" as a parallel: - zoosexuality would be the main term, and zoophilia would be a deprecated technical term in psychology (much as zooerastry, or homophilia are not well used terms). There's times that calling it all just "human-animal intimate relationships" seems so appealing :) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

The word zoosexuality does not appear in any dictionary and gives me less than 900 hits on google (compared to well over a million for zoophilia), and I should note that a considerable amount of those 900 hits are from duplicates or excerpts of wikipedia articles. So, I would say that it isn't used much. An uncommon term with an unclear definition that I have not seen used in any other way but as a synonym for zoophilia - I do not believe that warrants a different definition, let alone its own article as it is now. As said, keep it simple. BabyNuke 09:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree fully with the point that this is certainly a more pro than con article. It should be taken into consideration that this is a subject matter more likely to be looked up by zoo's than those apposed to it (Unless they have a strong moral objection to it, in which case they are equally dangerous editors). I also agree that this article uses more waeasel words than the Fox News Network. The Pro's and Cons section is without a doubt the most biased. It is clear that the editor is attempting to make the pro section look ignorant. I respectfully request this be seriously looked into and considered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Losthwy (talk • contribs)

This question comes up regularly. The answer has been discussed quite often in the past. The difficulty is that we (all editors on Wikipedia) are here discussing what is verifiable and known, and the facts about the opinions held under each significant view. It is undeniable that the main lines of debate are roughly as stated, but there is no one "editor". Its a communally created article, worked over by dozens of people for and against, over a period of some 3 years, and it is unfortunately the case that while it discusses popular stereotypes, it also covers in much more depth the actual known information in the field. This is presumably what you find troublesome. Perhaps reading up the research pointed to will help (that's true of any subject). In the meantime it's hard to discuss such a generalized question. If you have specific edits or points that seem needed or comments in the article which seem incorrect or poorly representing either side, or you wish to bring to discussion, that's probably best. Wording improvements are always a good thing. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I've put it up for peer review - hopefully that will result in more suggestions on how especially the neutrality can be improved. BabyNuke 14:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Line drawings

68.88.200.230 added some line drawings found on commons, a change which was reverted. Now, I can understand the reason for the revert, on the other hand, the images aren't exactly hardcore pornography and are a more realistic depiction of bestiality than the current artwork. I'd incorporate them in to the article, even if I do understand people finding this objectionable. Feelings? BabyNuke 13:28, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

My primary concern is that the line drawings in question look a lot like they were scanned from a printed source - in other words, a probable copyvio. (Yes, I'm aware that the images in question are tagged with a free license - but I'm still kind of suspicious, and curious where they came from if they are freely licensed.) Beyond that, I'm honestly not that sure how well those four images represented the variety of things which zoophiles do. Zetawoof^(ζ) 10:17, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps - obviously it's impossible to say for sure what the source is. Possibly the uploader could elaborate. As for the acts - the goat image seems a bit odd but the others seem reasonable. BabyNuke 10:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I've added the source info you requested to the drawing's information page

"There has been some concern as to where this line art came from. I can assure you that I (Human_sexuality78) am the originator of this work. This is my drawing that I have provided. And I turn it over to the wikipedia commons for any sort of use."

• Man having sex with a female dog
  Man having sex with a female dog
• Male dog mating with a woman
  Male dog mating with a woman
• Man having sex with a doe goat
  Man having sex with a doe goat
• Man mating with a pony mare
  Man mating with a pony mare
• Stallion receiving oral sex from a woman
  Stallion receiving oral sex from a woman
• Man receiving oral sex from a cow
  Man receiving oral sex from a cow

I hope this reduces the confusion. If you have any requests for additional drawings I'll see what I can do. (Note: My user ID is from the commons). Human_sexuality78 12 November 2006

You'll have to excuse me for remaining somewhat skeptical about the sources of these images. How were they created? Zetawoof^(ζ) 08:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I drew them. There is no source and I'm afraid that because of this, it makes it very hard to prove. I suppose you could have me draw something, then you'd see that I'm the creator of these works. Human_sexuality78 (commons) 13 November 2006

Fair enough in my opinion. BabyNuke 14:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Proven copyright violation

I've just confirmed that at least two of these images are tracings of commercial publicity stills. As they aren't freely redistributable, I haven't uploaded them to Wikipedia; however, confirmations are available at my personal site:

Image:Zoophilia Man Sex with Dog.png is a tracing of http://petlust.com/images/previews/M25-11.jpg: overlay available at http://zeta.woofle.net/Zoophilia_Man_Sex_with_Dog-trace.jpeg

Image:Zoophilia Man Sex with Goat.png is a tracing of http://petlust.com/images/previews/M21-08.jpg: overlay available at http://zeta.woofle.net/Zoophilia_Man_Sex_with_Goat-trace.jpeg

I haven't tried to find sources for the other four, but it's pretty much a given that they're traces as well: all six images are done in the same unusual style. As such, I'm removing that image from the introduction and working on getting them deleted from the Commons. Zetawoof^(ζ) 23:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and relevant policy from WP:FU:

Simply "tracing" copyrighted material does not make it free.

Zetawoof^(ζ) 23:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's then at least find a more suitable image than "Lena and the swan". Odd that tracing a photo is a copyright violation though. BabyNuke 11:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the image should depict the reality of this activity, not a motif from Greek mythology, in which Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan. It's très tasteful, I'm sure, but could appear to be an attempt to gussy up this page - more pamphleteering, readers may think. I know there is some art somewhere, old art from 17/18th century, that depicts the reality of bestiality. I'll see if I can find something on the 'net and upload it. Skoppensboer 11:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Here we go, take your pick. The website claims these paintings are up to 1,000 years old. Some examples: [3] [4] [5] [6] Skoppensboer 17:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if those would qualify as fair use. Some of them would work though, others still seem too artistic. BabyNuke 17:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Those ancient works are in the public domain, surely. No need for fair use at all. Skoppensboer 18:22, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Only applies if they're actually unembellished pictures of ancient artwork, of course. Which isn't a given - I wouldn't be surprised if there had been some significant touchup work. You'd probably better ask them before you snag it. Zetawoof^(ζ) 20:59, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Health and Disease Issues

Health and Disease issues must not be trivialised, minimized or glossed over. Many of the edits made to this section have attempted to hide the consequences of the behaviour from readers. First the markers that defined subheadings for each disease were removed, then text was amended to imply that the threat is small. But the threat is NOT small. For instance, while Brucellosis infections are relatively rare in the USA (~100 per year), they are very common in many other countries (it causes more than 500,000 infections per year worldwide), and in these countries sexual contact with, say, a dog, would most likely lead to infection. Brucellosis can kill but more commonly, it disables --a truly horrible disease! It is a chronic debilitating illness with extensive morbidity. Skoppensboer 19:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I wonder about that. None of the diseases mentioned seem to be a true STD, so I wonder if they can be seen as risks specific to sexual contact with animals, or if you could also just get them from frequent close contact with animals in general. I'd believe so. I suppose research on it isn't available though. BabyNuke 19:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Wonder no longer. Animal semen is a potent vector for some of these diseases, and fellating or rimming an animal exposes humans to many times the number of, for instance, toxocara larvae, than would normally be the case in everyday life. The CDC (see page on toxocara) only call toxocariasis a mild disease in adults because they do not expect adults to be eating dirt like a child would, and so the exposure is expected to be small. I suspect the CDC would give far more urgent guidelines about this disease, which can threaten eyesight, if they knew that it could be an STD. Skoppensboer 19:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• I need to add that the edits I removed had an inexplicably US-centric slant, as if all the readers of this page are US residents. That is not the case. Just because a disease is relatively rare in the USA does not mean the WP should be written to suit that one audience. This is ethnocentrism at its worst. There are about 192 other countries to consider. Skoppensboer 19:41, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

There's without a doubt healthrisks, but it can't be said this view can be considered neutral either. By deleting the statement that "Most of these are transmissible in everyday life, and are known to farmers and the like, and occasionally seen by vets." it makes it seem that these diseases are bestiality-specific. Dog roundworm is labelled as a "major problem", whilst it is in general considered to be benign and can be obtained in various ways, sexual contact probably not being the most common one. I am not interested in fighting a POV war, so I am not going to edit the section again. Criticism is welcome as this article often tends to be a bit pro-bestiality, but be careful not to push it to the other side either. BabyNuke 21:04, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with you inserting a statement along the lines that these diseases can be contracted in various ways, not only through sexual contact, although it must be highlighted that the intimacy of sexual contact makes transmission much more likely, as explained above. In the case of the nastiest disease, brucellosis, semen and blood are specific risk factors, so sexual contact greatly increases the risk. Skoppensboer 21:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

---

I think you're misrepresenting the issue. The majority of the edits you reverted were ones which gave specific information regarding the relevance of these diseases to bestiality. For example, in the section on brucellosis, you removed the text:

"It is most common amongst cattle, and in puppy farms and breeding establishments lacking proper medical controls, with the secretions of pregnant animals being a common carrier."

- which gave relevance to the disease in this article - with some generic text describing treatment for brucellosis, which really belongs in an article on brucellosis in general, as it's in no way specific to brucellosis contracted through sexual contact. Let's continue: Above that, you removed a citation (!) on zoonotic diseases. Below the section on brucellosis, you reinserted some totally redundant content ("ocular involvement can cause loss of visual acuty" - gee, really? worms in your eye can cause you to not see well?) and reinserted another redundant sentence at the end ("allergic reactions [...] may include a severe allergic reaction" - no kidding?).

The US-centrism which you're citing as a reason for reverting is a red herring. Inserting information about the relevance of these diseases in the US isn't "US-centrism" - it's adding context where none existed. Please read before you revert. The main changes made were cleaning up and expanding upon your contribution, not "whitewashing" it. Zetawoof^(ζ) 01:46, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

1) Brucellosis is vectored by semen. It's a major threat to anyone handling animal semen, such as people doing animal husbandry in the form of artificial insemination. Do some research before spouting off. Talking solely about "puppies" and "pregnant animals" minimizes the risk and must not stand. It is extremely common in dogs in many countries, so citing cattle is irrelevant and tends to minimize risk, once again 2) The effects on the eye are very important and should not be deleted. 3) The possibility of anaphylaxis, a reaction that can cause death, to animal secretions is a serious health threat and should be mentioned. It is not a vanishingly rare occurrence either. 4) Modifying this international encyclopaedia for the US audience is not wise unless you preface such comments with text that allows non-US readers to realize you are talking about a particular country. Please discuss all future edits here first. Skoppensboer 04:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The term "brucellosis" is most commonly used to refer to Brucella abortis, a bacterium which affects cattle and other ruminants: see the eponymous article. Brucella canis - which is, in fact, a separate organism from Brucella abortis - is most common in dogs involved in breeding programs (references available if necessary), as it spreads primarily "through breeding and contact with aborted fetuses" (again, quoted directly from Brucellosis). It's virtually unknown in the household pet population in the US - this is probably worth mentioning, just as one might mention that, while mosquitoes can carry malaria, it's only a threat in certain regions such as sub-Saharan Africa.

"...spreads primarily "through breeding and contact with aborted fetuses" - you seem intent on making my case for me. Skoppensboer 06:56, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Mentioning that an allergic reaction can cause anaphylaxis is redundant. Anaphylaxis is a term used to refer to the immune response present in any allergic reaction. Anaphylactic shock may be what you mean, but that's still really a non-sequitir - anaphylactic shock can occur as a response to any severe allergy; there's nothing specific about animals' bodily fluids (semen, vaginal secretions, etc) which makes the risk any different or any worse than any other allergy. Animal allergies can cause anaphylactic shock, but so can any other allergy.

Zetawoof^(ζ) 04:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Zetawoof, I find your comments unhelpful and inaccurate. I know exactly what I'm referring to when I use the term anaphylaxis, whereas you apparently do not. Semen IS a specific risk factor, as the scientific literature shows (see my citation on main page). I'm afraid I shall not respond to you further because there's just too much polemic and unscientific confusion in your arguments for me to pursue this. Sorry. Skoppensboer

---

• The exact texts that are in contention are below:

While standard STDs – syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes – are human-to-human, not animal-to-human, any zoonotic diseases [those transmitted between animals and humans] that people could get through casual contact with animals, they could also get through sex.

The problem with this reassuring sentence is that it misses the point that the intimacy of sexual contact vastly increases the transmission of many diseases. Skoppensboer 04:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not the point. That sentence already says more or less what you're recommending: Human STDs don't exist in animals, but some zoonotic diseases can be transmitted through sex. I don't exactly see how you're reading this as "reassuring". Zetawoof^(ζ) 04:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I have a separate concern with this. It's got too much loose wording for an alarmist statement. "Vastly increases" for "many" diseases is a very strong expression. Does it? For "many" diseases? Which ones are at "vastly" increased risk (however this is defined) compared to intimate but non-sexual contact (farming, animal care, usual pet ownership or animal love, etc)? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

... that sometimes gives false negatives, and double testing is required according to the CDC.

This text must stay, for it alerts people to the possible inadequacy of simple blood tests. I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but this is reality. Skoppensboer 04:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm still not sure how it's directly relevant, though. The source doesn't even say that this is due to the "inadequacy" of such tests - it just recommends that two tests be performed. For all we know, the test could be perfect, and the double testing could be there to exclude the possibility of reinfection. In any case, that's general information which probably belongs on brucellosis, not here. Zetawoof^(ζ) 04:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Details on brucellosis testing regime belong in brucellosis. This is excessive and remote detail for the main zoophilia article. There's no conspiracy -- other material (on both sides of the debate) is brevified too, for identical reasons. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Most of these are not sexually transmitted diseases and therefore not specific to zoophilia; for example, rabies is transmitted through the bite of an infected animal, and Lyme disease is transmitted when ticks are brought into the home by pets.

Keep that sentence if you add that zoophilia increases the risk of transmission, or else the effect is to minimise the perception of risk, and encourage risky behavior. Skoppensboer 04:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

So, then, why did you remove it rather than fixing it? More to the point, though, the assertion that the risk of transmission is increased by sexual contact is unsubstantiated. There is, for example, no verifiable evidence that Lyme disease can be transmitted sexually at all, even in humans; evidence of transmissibility between animals and humans is entirely lacking. Zetawoof^(ζ) 04:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm unaware of any evidence that ownership and close contact plus sex increases the risk of rabies and lyme disease, compared to (say) ownership and close contact without sex? The original sentence seems entirely accurate, the concern of editors is not to bias our articles in order to encourage or discourage any activity, but rather, it is simply to provide information. The diseases where increased risk seems plausible or documented should state this; but those where it is not at increased risk or there is no (or inadequate) evidence or increased risk should not be exaggerated to say that such increase exists. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

and these may include a severe allergic reaction or anaphylaxis

Why would you want to remove this simple medical fact? Unless, of course, you have an agenda here. Skoppensboer 04:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Answered this one above. Anaphylaxis is an allergic reaction. Zetawoof^(ζ) 04:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

An interesting question would be: are the health risks of intercourse with animals greater than that of intercourse with humans? Especially if you want to use it as an arguement against bestiality, this would be interesting to know. BabyNuke 22:21, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Allergies to animal fluids can include allergic reaction. But this seems relatively uncommon, and relatively few people report "severe" allergies to animal fluids, much less anphylactic shock as this sentence seems to imply. Again, there is a strong sense of exaggeration of risk and severity when I read the present suggested edits. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment on health issues - summarize and brevify

User:Skoppensboer commented: "Why would you want to remove this simple medical fact? Unless, of course, you have an agenda here."

Its important to note that we, as editors, should neither encourage nor discourage any specific behavior. It's relevant to report what may happen, and also relevant to report if this is common or rare in different places (Skoppensboer's point which I agree). But it's also important to balance the article, and to summarize the several views that seem to have come up. These seem to be the key points in the current debate on zoonoses:

1. Zoonotic diseases exist and are common in many countries, so in many countries there is perhaps significant risk if engaging in sex with animals of unknown health.
2. In others, including most of North America and Europe, most zoonotic conditions of serious concern to humans are comparatively rare and will not often be encountered by domestic pet owners, and there is little risk. So the risk in such countries should not be exaggerated.

   (The low incidence of notifiable diseases such as brucellosis in North American and European countries compared to the millions of people believed to be practicing zoophilia in those countries, may put the risk in some kind of context.)

3. Most diseases which might be vectored through zoophilia, can and usually are caught through non-sexual contact. So the risk to be aware of is of easier transmission if the animal engaged sexually happens to be a carrier of some sexually-transmissible illness.
4. Animals kept as domestic pets in general good health are (in the West especially) least likely to be covert carriers of dangerous diseases.
5. There has been no specific study of health risk in zoophilia.

"Zoophilia" is a broad article that has to cover a lot of material. Health issues are comparatively a small part of a large field. It may be worth moving the detail to an article "Health implications of human-animal sexuality" if the full detail is really important and if it's not provided in existuing articles (which I think it probably is). But in this article the detail provided is just too much for good balance and readability in an article on zoophilia.

We do not need to give all details of all diseases. That belongs on pages dealing with the specific diseases concerned. This article has had a lot of material brevified, and this section needs that too. It's pretty inappropriate to list each and every disease in detail for this article. I would suggest therefore a simple summary as follows, for zoonotic illnesses:

"Conditions which people can catch from animals vary by country. In many countries conditions such as brucellosis, a disease often associated with cattle and dogs, are endemic and may infect a significant number of animals, whilst in other countries such as North America and Europe the same diseases may be comparatively rare (according to notifiable disease reporting statistics), and are often not an issue in a domestic context. Such diseases may not show symptoms. Zoonoses are usually transmitted non-sexually when humans catch them, and are well known to farmers and breeders. For the majority of zoonoses, sexual contact would not be a specific high-risk factor (non sexual intimacy or high levels of close contact would be an almost-equal risk), but for a few conditions, sexual activity or body fluids may create a significantly elevated risk of transmission. Examples of zoonotic diseases include:

• Brucellosis - dangerous, infectious and potentially life threatening in humans. Very rare in North America (100 cases/year USA, 500,000 cases/year worldwide), but carried by up to 10% of dogs in many countries. May not show symptoms. Double blood testing required for diagnosis according to CDC.
• Dog Roundworm (Toxocariasis) - infects the intestines and feces of almost all puppies at or shortly after birth, where the mother is herself infected, and easily caught by dogs thereafter through contact with infected feces of other dogs. Generally benign to dogs, and routinely removed by means of worming tablets. The zoonotic illness involved, T. canis, is almost always a benign, asymptomatic, and self-limiting disease in humans, although (rarely) brain, ocular, pulmonary or hepatic involvement can cause severe and potentially life-threatening conditions.
• Other dog-bourne diseases - a variety of diseases can be transmitted by dogs to humans. Sexual activity may increase the transmission risk in some cases. In others the disease is transmitted by parasites (eg, tick or insect bites) rather than body fluids and there is no increase in risk.

This is a short, simple, accurate summary of zoonoses. I think given the balance of the article, the section needs to be summarised. Details on all the above as ever are accessible through the usual internal wikilinks for anyone seeking further reading. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 04:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• FT2, I like your concise summary, albeit with the following caveats:

1) brucellosis is very common in parts of Europe, so remove "Europe" from your initial paragraph. Additionally, since this is by far the worst disease you can catch without getting bitten (rabies), the fact that semen and blood are laden with bacteria, and are thus to be avoided in endemic countries, should not be overlooked or minimised by stating that "Zoonoses are usually transmitted non-sexually when humans catch them...For the majority of zoonoses, sexual contact would not be a specific high-risk factor (non sexual intimacy or high levels of close contact would be an almost-equal risk)." Both T. canis and brucellosis are Skoppensboer 17:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC) Brucellosis is much more likely to be transmitted with sexual contact. I really believe that stating that sexual contact is as risky as casual contact is as dishonest and misleading as saying the same about human-to-human disease transmission. I can name any number of diseases you can get with far greater frequency by having sex with someone rather than shaking their hand and saying "Hello". Please, let's not play games.

2) In all cases, make wikilinks of the relevant diseases

3) do not lose the helpful and informative CDC and other links I provide in paragraph one that allow the interested readers to explore further

4) Anaphylaxis, a life-threatening event, which I now use with a perfect citation on the page, is not that uncommon on exposure to animal semen. Doing a little research, today I found a website called Beast Forum that has at least two posters asking about what are clearly episodes of anaphylaxis in their "Zoophilia" section (hives, dizziness, swelling, painful rash, difficulty breathing). Others members of that website actually encouraged the posters to repeat their contact with the animals, a course of action that may literally kill. I believe this sort of dangerous ignorance would be counteracted by a proper wiki page.

5) The statement "variety of diseases" could be linked to a footnote that lists them.

6) The physical threats (not my edit) should be left intact. Skoppensboer 05:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I am also absolutely agreeable to the entire health and safety section getting its own separate wiki page. I think the subject matter is serious enough to warrant it, if it is to be covered in depth. Skoppensboer 06:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Regarding brucellosis, here's an anecdote that may be useful: I once saw a TV program on a female artist, whose name I forget, and who lived in Spain with her young boyfriend and a pack of dogs. She had cat-like tattoos all over her face and her paintings mostly depicted tasteful renditions of her bestiality fetish. This woman nearly died from brucellosis, as she related in a later TV interview. It took a year of antibiotic treatment to recover. Now that's just one person, but this is not an area of special interest to me, and yet I've already come across the phenomenon in the general media - an ominous sign. Does anyone know this person's name? Skoppensboer 06:14, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Let us never lose sight of the fact that the plague of modern times, HIV/AIDS, started off in animals and was transmitted to humans in Africa, probably via the consumption of improperly cooked "bush meat". Had the Africans had sex with the primates instead of eating them, the transmission would also have occurred. Terrible diseases can be and are transmitted from animal to man, and the closer the contact with the animal is, the more likely we'll contract the disease/s the animal is/may be carrying. This is true of any sort of disease: viral, parasitical, bacterial etc. Pick any disease ... leptospirosis, let's say. Do a search for "leptospirosis semen" and you'll see that animal semen is the main vector and risk factor. So it goes for many animal (and human) diseases. In addition, bestialists mouth kiss animals, fellate them, and carry their sperm in their rectums and vaginas. This is infinitely more dangerous than patting a dog on the head and saying "Nice dog." So sorry to have to break this to you, but someone has to say it. And this information should not be suppressed by people with sexual fetishes who are attempting to create a pro-bestiality atmosphere on this page. Skoppensboer 06:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I wanted to watch the debate a while before diving in, to see what issues come up. My main concern is the appearance of 'original research' or "OR", (wishes or views of individual editor masquerading as verified neutrally presented fact), which is what needs checking before any final edits. Thoughts on the specific points mentioned are:

1. How much and which parts of Europe are "very common" for bvrucellosis? Some examples? Are we talking Eastern and Southern Europe, or Western European countries such as UK, France, Germany, Holland, etc as well? How common is "very common" there, do we have any stats on it?

• From the CDC:

... although brucellosis can be found worldwide, it is more common in countries that do not have good standardized and effective public health and domestic animal health programs. Areas currently listed as high risk are the Mediterranean Basin (Portugal, Spain, Southern France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, North Africa), South and Central America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

1. I'm concerned about stating that zoonoses are "much more likely to be transmitted with sexual contact". Even if true for T.canis and brucellosis (as you cite), these are only two of many zoonotic infections, I don't see evidence that any more than a minority of zoonotic diseases have significantly elevated risk via sexual contact (compared to say prolonged and close nonsexual contact). Your evidence seems to be "I really believe..." but what you believe isn't the point, we need more than what some wikipedia editor believes to add such a view to the article. Even amongst the two infections you state are elevated risk with sex, one is dubious: T.canis is intestinal and so far as I am aware not a high risk to be obtained through either penile penetration of a human by a male dog, or vaginal intercourse with a female dog (I might be wrong, but as far as Im aware there's little evidence that any of canine sperm, the usually-concealed part of the canine penis, or the interior of the canine vagina, are likely key vectors for roundworms, all sites mention feces as the main vector). Your comment on this ends by analogy with human sex: " I can name any number of diseases you can get with far greater frequency by having sex with someone rather than shaking their hand" which again is only useful in terms of specialised infections from human to human. Its too much an attempt to apply personal "X is a risk, so my opinion is Y is a big risk too" logic and personal concerns, to a scenario where the ground assumptions differ. You just can't do this kind of fallacious inductive step in a Wikipedia article without good grounds.

• If we need to grade each of the dozen or so infections mentioned according to their elevated risk of spread through zoophilic activities, I'm prepared to take the time to do the research to do that. I'll grant you that T. canis was not the best example and we can't have inductive reasoning in WP. If you want more exact data, I'll get it. Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Anaphylaxis can kill (anaphylactic shock). Its pretty rare to be that seriously allergic (except for a few well known allegens such as nuts or bee stings, a list not known to include animal fluids). I've just checked your source, and good job on the research. My concern is that beastforum today states it has 254822 users, a relatively plausible number if there are nearly 500 simultaneously online at this moment. Of these 1/4 million, two represent themselves having allergy issues, and even for them you haven't provided the citations to show how serious the issue was. It seems to me if the issue was clinically serious, they wouldn't be asking about how to repeat their activity; they would either be in hospital, dead, or swearing never to go near animals again. Allergic reactions vary and a person who has a mild to moderate reaction to some allergen on one occasion (0.001% of Beastforum by your sample?) is still by no means visibly evidenced as being at any significant risk of "a course of action that may literally kill". Again, this seems alarmist, and merely confirms what's already known about allergies, that allergic reactions to animal fluids are uncommon, and within allergic reactions strong/potentially fatal allergic reactions are very much a tiny minority.

• Let's reduce this to its essentials: animal sperm allergy exists, and it can be serious. Anaphylactic reactions can occur and get do progressively worse, no matter what the allergen involved. The first reaction may leave you wheezing and covered in hives, do it again and you'll die. This is not an exaggeration, and anaphylaxis should not be removed from the article. We cannot use Beast Forum stats to decide what to include and exclude. PubMed is a far better source. Even if one in 1000 people are at risk, it should be mentioned. If it's "too much detail", then I suggest a separate page for health concerns. Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Looking up Beastforum again is instructive in regard to zoonotic risk. In 250,000 members, and 1.3 million posts, can you let me know the proportion of (presumably bestialists/zoophiles) who report having encountered a zoonotic disease through a sexual vector? I've just checked on www.zoophile.org and in close to 2000 threads there isn't one mention of a person who wants to ask if their disease came from sex, or let others know they caught a (significant?) disease via sex, or has a concern some (noteworthy) disease was received from sex, even though people there do regularly ask and let others know of all other types of information. The conclusion I come to is the same conclusion others seem to have come to -- such conditions transmitted sexually are vanishingly rare, at least amongst English-speaking countries such as North America, Australasia, and Europe, where such forums have the majority of their members.

• Once again, Beast Forum is not a definitive source, with over 80-90% of its contributors from the USA, an area of relatively low risk for most zoonoses. I know it's hard to think globally, but we must. Secondly, people do not trumpet their medical problems on such eroticism-oriented fora, as should be obvious. Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

1. You end with 2 bullet points, both of which are pretty much just personal experience. You have come across a brucellosis victim in the media. I've come across things in the media in the course of my life that are also vanishingly rare. I haven't come across brucellosis in the media, but that doesn't seem to be proof of anything either. I'm not sure what it proves except that you are media aware and the media emphasises the unusual and eyecatching (even if extremely rare) over the mundane. Likewise your point about HIV may be an important point in politics, but Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, our job isn't to judge the need to exaggerate to warn people off, on the speculative basis that it might (or indeed might not) eventually lead to emergence of some possible disease that would scourge humanity. (And the obvious opposing view is that probably over the thousands of years of intimate daily contact, including large periods of time where bestiality was not uncommon worldwide, and including free transmission of fluids, breeding, blood, killing, and such, anything serious that dogs or other common domestic species could transmit to people, has already evolved and transmitted and become part of the human world.) We can't write the article slanted because of a speculative risk that if we don't exaggerate someone may have sex with an animal leading to a plague of some new disease. Thats not what Wikipedia's about.

• With 500,000 new brucellosis infections annually, you shouldn't be using the term "vanishingly rare" in this regard. I made the error of including an anecdote to illustrate the definite possibility of infection occurring in zoophiles, since many here seem to believe the whole idea of infection is trumped up and agenda-driven on my part, and now this is used against me as an example of POV thinking? Come on. The HIV comment was also meant to underline the reality of zoonotic risk. There are also emerging zoonotic risks, like equine-borne viral diseases that are poorly understood at this juncture. People do have sexual contact with horses, as we know, and there is a risk in this regard of a new HIV-type disease emerging, e.g. Hendra virus and other novel zoonotic viral diseases Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Last, notice the exaggeration in the same paragraph, "infinitely more dangerous". It's indicative of the same problem. Your concept of "infinity" seems to need careful rethinking.

• My hyperbole is for effect. This is not the WP page, it's the discussion page Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Finally, your final comment, "So sorry to have to break this to you, but someone has to say it. And this information should not be suppressed by people with sexual fetishes who are attempting to create a pro-bestiality atmosphere on this page" - please be aware that using Wikipedia to further an agenda (either for or against any stance) is not okay.

• I have no agenda against bestiality, but I do have an agenda against ignorance and tragic illness. Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

(You might also want to read Wikipedia:No personal attacks whilst on this subject, since you are presumably accusing specific editors of bad faith editorship.)

• Someone before me (see above) mentioned the pro-bestiality slant this page has long had. I'm not the only one to see it. Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

As you can now begin to appreciate, this page has stabilised in the way it has, mostly because it has been carefully balanced by many editors over time, to present valid (rather than exaggerated) information on each side, and both sides of any debate. If your concern is that somehow there is a conspiracy to present a "pro bestiality" page, then you need to stop and look hard at your edits, because in the same way Wikipedia is not an appropriate place to push for pro-bestiality agendas, it's also not an appropriate place to push an anti-bestiality agenda via exaggerated statements or personal opinion through the health issue. Neither side and no information needs exaggeration here. People will rely on the information given, and to exaggerate a danger in a covert attempt to present an agenda against such acts (however well-meaning), would be as wrong as using the article to present an agenda for them. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:27, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• I repeat, I have no agenda against bestiality, but I do have an agenda against ignorance and tragic illness. Skoppensboer 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed edit of Health and Safety Issues, discuss

Here is my current proposed edit, please comment:

Health and Safety There are many infections that are transmissible between animals and humans, called zoonoses, as documented by the National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Some of these diseases may be transferred through casual contact, but others are much more readily transferred by activities that expose humans to the semen, saliva, feces and blood of animals. This means that sexual activity with animals is, in some instances, a high risk activity. It is advisable for practitioners of zoophilia to assess their relative risk, since risk varies for each species involved, for each disease mentioned below (and others not mentioned), and for each region in the world. Brucellosis Brucellosis in humans is a potentially life-threatening multisystem disease that is extremely difficult to treat, and in many countries up to 10% of dogs carry this bacterium, which is a major threat to the health of veterinarians and people who handle the blood or semen of infected animals. In the USA, there are only about 100 cases of human brucellosis diagnosed per year (although some sources consider it underdiagnosed and underreported), but many other countries have much higher rates. There are about 500,000 animal-to-human infections a year worldwide, according to the CDC. High risk areas include the Mediterranean Basin (Portugal, Spain, Southern France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, North Africa), South and Central America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Dogs can be infected with Brucellosis without showing any signs or symptoms, and infection can only be diagnosed with specific blood tests. General dog-borne diseases Dogs, the most popular animal for zoophilia activities, in addition to Brucellosis (semen transmission) can also transmit Campylobacter (campylobacteriosis, fecal-oral transmission), Cryptosporidium (cryptosporidiosis, fecal-oral transmission), Dipylidium (tapeworm or flea tapeworm, flea transmission), Giardia (giardiasis, fecal-oral transmission), Hookworm (fecal-oral transmission), Leishmania (leishmaniasis, sandfly transmission), Leptospirosis (semen transmission), Lyme Disease (tick transmission), Q fever (Coxiella burnetii, semen and urine transmission), Rabies (saliva-to-mucous membrane transmission), Ringworm (casual contact transmission), Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (tick transmission), Salmonella (salmonellosis, fecal-oral transmission) and Toxocariasis (dog roundworm, egg/fecal-oral transmission), according to the CDC. Other species-borne diseases Each animal species may carry a specific range of diseases that can be transmitted to man. Some species, such as horses, carry emerging viral diseases in some regions of the world, for example Hendra virus. HIV HIV (the "AIDS" virus) is fragile and only lives in primates (humans, apes and monkeys) and is not believed to survive long in other species. Allergic Reactions Sensitization and resulting allergic reactions to animal fluids, such as semen, can sometimes occur, ranging from mild irritation to anaphylaxis. Allergies to pet hair and dander are very common. Trauma, bites and other physical injury Animals may be injured by humans through ignorance of physical differences, forcefulness, or, for female animals, excessive friction or infection. Humans may also be at substantial physical risk and seriously harmed by sexual activity with animals. Larger animals may have the strength and defensive attributes (e.g. hooves, teeth) to injure a human, either in rejecting physical or sexual contact, or in the course of sexual arousal. For example, the penis of a sexually aroused dog has a broad bulb at the base which can cause injury if forcibly pulled from a body orifice, and equines can thrust suddenly and "flare", and many animals bite as part of sexual excitement and foreplay. In July 2005, a 45 year old aerospace engineer, Kenneth Pinyan, died in Enumclaw, Washington from internal injury after being anally penetrated by a stallion. Pregnancy Humans and other animals cannot impregnate one another.

Skoppensboer 19:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Nearly there. Cut the bit about the brucellosis blood test giving false negatives - that's a given for all blood tests, and there's no evidence in the linked page that it's any more common than usual, as I mentioned earlier. (The linked page says that double testing should be performed. Whether that's to rule out false negatives, to check for reinfection, or something else, though, is entirely a guess.) There's some other work to be done to distinguish better between B. canis and B. abortus in that section, though. Then, in the section on "general dog-borne diseases", something should be said about those diseases not being specifically sexually transmitted. It's significantly more general, and more useful, to just note that a number of other diseases can be transmitted between animals and humans - no need to be canid-centric here. :) Zetawoof^(ζ) 22:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Blood test text modified. Modified canis/abortus text, and made a footnote thinking of making it a footnote (will investigate markup). The proviso for "not being generally sexually transmitted" is catered for in para. 1, and note that some of the diseases, e.g. leptospirosis, is specifically transmitted by semen. Yes, the text is a little canid-centric, but this is based on a poll at aforementioned forum that showed the majority of zoophiles engaged in canid-oriented sexual practices. Skoppensboer 22:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Moved dog roundworm to "General" area since it is of limited significance in this context. Skoppensboer 23:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

• Beginning attempt to codify disease by transmission type to help readers isolate sexually transmitted from other. Using color coding as per allowed by Manual of Style.

Color works nicely for a table, like the article's got right now. For running text, though, it's a little bit garish. (I actually rather like the tabular treatment - it's probably superior to the paragraph on dog-borne diseases that's drafted above.) Zetawoof^(ζ) 19:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

New table format works well for me too. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 06:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Continued attempts to nullify health issues

• I reversed the changes made by FT2 on the grounds of "saving space" (very odd, when the page is otherwise chock-full of rambling drivel and hot air just begging to be culled, as numerous others have noted on these discussion pages). I shall continue to do so, and if this gets into a war I shall escalate it as far as I can. I believe the current edit is factual, informative, concise and fair. It took me a long time to put it all together. Looking back, I see that FT2 and this page's other habitual editors have allowed the health section to exist for a long time in an appalling format, and I quote from a few months ago: "Infections due to improper cleaning could be an issue for either party. Most viruses are specific to particular species and cannot be transmitted sexually, so humans and animals cannot catch many viral diseases from zoosexual acts." This misinformation and mealy-mouthed trivialization of peril borders on the criminal, like telling people not to bother wearing a condom when exposing themselves to HIV (a zoonosis itself!). "Improper cleaning" - pshaw! I have to wonder why it was allowed to exist in this blatantly incorrect form by the perennial editors of this page, like FT2 (who professes in his User Page to have a special interest in Science issues!) Skoppensboer 19:11, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

It would help if, instead of seeing antagonism, you would look to see that we have all been pretty much working on the same "side" as editors. In the course of this article, several sections have been cut down, often significantly, and others have over time only developed when specific attention has focussed upon them. For example, the health section you are focussed upon, was introduced by JAQ in his January 2005 edit (before after), which was a brevifying edit and reworking of the article.

In the same edit, the entire section of research was taken out of the article. Perhaps that will give you some idea how tight space has been considered here - that the actual core research of the entire field was removed in order to leave room for other key points in the article. You can see that in the same diff. You'll also see that it was not contested by myself or others; because by consensus the article needed trimming down and some sacrifices of space were needed.

• There clearly has been little to no attempt to save space in this article in a rigorous way. I'm thinking of calling for some sort of admin oversight to cut some of the fat and bloat from it. I see a lot of baroque flourishes that only people who are themselves involved with this fetish (I see zoophilia as a fetish, although it's a paraphilia in DSM-IV, but either way it's classed as a mental disorder by psychiatrists) would entertain or find relevant. This article seems to have become a place for members of the public with a rich fantasy life in this area to expand upon their obsessive thoughts and encourage each other. That's my honest impression. I'm not "sickened" by this article, as many commentators have stated, but I do find it to have strayed off course, away from encyclopedic towards something else. Definitely. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Far from "mealy mouthed trivialization bordering on the criminal", the health and safety section was made possible by that loss of other important research information, and contained in summary the key information that a person researching the field might expect in an encyclopedia article. That is why it was short; space was at that tight a premium. As Wikipedia states, it is not a medical guide, and it was agreed the article on zoophilia did not need to rehash all known information on clinical conditions which may be better suited to their own articles. The edit by JAQ and writing of the medical information was agreed by consensus, and has stood by consensus. The facts stated in it are accurate as best I can tell, and your current edits have not shown any great inaccuracies in any of them:

• I find the H&S section is nothing more than a summary as it stands. Come on, FT2, we're talking about an activity that is about as serious medically as an activity can get. Interspecies sex = disease transmission central. Any veterinarian or doctor will tell you that. It's nonsensical to relegate these important albeit distasteful facts to stubs, footnote, or wikilinks, ostensibly to save space, but more likely because it clashes with the romanticized and proselytizing tone of the rest of the page. I could easily make the H&S section into an entire page of its own - do you want that? There's a LOT more detail I could add in. Wow, this is a huge subject, all the species, all the different diseases, methods of spread ... zoonosis would become a vast science with many zoonotic specialists if zoophilia became a really widespread activity. So no, ther is no way this tiny section contains "all known information on clinical conditions". Not even close, but nice try. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

"Most sexually-transmitted diseases are specific to particular species and cannot infect others (factually accurate). Some less common but treatable infections such as canine Brucellosis [LINK] can be transferred (factually accurate). Animals' standards of hygiene usually differ from humans', and as with intimate human-to-human contact, inadequate cleanliness can lead to infections [...] for either participant (factually accurate). Animals' and humans' bodily fluids are not inherently harmful to the other, but allergic reactions occasionally occur (factually accurate)."

• "Most sexually-transmitted diseases are specific to particular species and cannot infect others (factually accurate) Factually inaccurate. Provide a link that states most sexually transmitted diseases (which include simian HIV, brucellosis, leptospirosis etc) are species-specific. It's not a statement I've come across anywhere, so it looks like original research. And even if in the main they were species-specific, the statement is an example of non-information designed to reassure rather than inform. Readers do not need to know vaguely that many diseases are species-specific, they need to know, urgently, that many major diseases are NOT species-specific, and that these diseases are in some instances very serious. That's why I said a lot of this is "mealy-mouthed". It's like inserting a sentence saying most people don't have HIV/AIDS onto a page about HIV/AIDS. What possible purpose could that serve other than obfuscation? People need to know factual risk statistics, not be vaguely reassured of non-risk ... unless your intention is to encourage the behaviour. "Some less common but treatable infections such as canine Brucellosis [LINK] can be transferred" (factually accurate) But vague, and not accurate for all areas of the world. Infection rates with canine brucellosis can run up to near 50% in places, so why are we deciding for the reader that this is a "less common" condition? Are we writing for the US audience again, showing our ethnocentrism once more? "Animals' standards of hygiene usually differ from humans', and as with intimate human-to-human contact, inadequate cleanliness can lead to infections [...] for either participant" (factually accurate) No, this is completely laughable nonsense, absolute rubbish in fact. Please put this comment to a MD or vet, if you know one, for comment. I simply cannot be bothered arguing science with someone who thinks personal hygiene would affect disease transmission outside of simple contagious diseases. "Animals' and humans' bodily fluids are not inherently harmful to the other, but allergic reactions occasionally occur" (factually accurate). 1) "Fluids are not harmful to each other"? What sort of absurd non sequitur is that? It reeks of more vague, irrelevant, unscientific "feel good", pro-bestiality twaddle to me. Allergic reaction is mentioned, but not the possibility of a severe reaction. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

What you have done, is to make the existing statement more precise, and rigorous, and rounded the meduical side out, and that's valuable, and nobody has objected. But the original statement is fairly accurate and was written with balance in mind and supported by broad consensus. That it can be improved upon and made more clear does not make it appropriate to talk with hostility about the several authors nearly 2 years ago who wrote that section as it stood, and to make your dissatisfaction a source of exaggerated personal attack. And it is not appropriate to make threats to any editor (myself or others here) to make and escalate some kind of "war" on the basis of such hostility.

• When I say "war", I mean escalation to admin powers. Their input here is sorely needed anyway, so keep on administering death by a thousand cuts to the H&S section and you'll drive me into their arms, leading in all likelihood to a severe curtailment of the excesses of the article. Your choice. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

You then reverse the following edit en masse on the basis it is "wrong in many ways". Here are the two versions, with some differences highlighted:

Skoppensboer version	FT2 edit of that version
There are many infections that are transmissible between animals and humans, called zoonoses, as documented by the National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Some of these diseases may be transferred through casual contact, but others are much more readily transferred by activities that expose humans to the semen, saliva, feces and blood of animals. This means that sexual activity with animals is, in some instances, a high risk activity. It is advisable for practitioners of zoophilia to assess their relative risk, since risk varies for each species involved, for each disease mentioned below (and others not mentioned), and for each region in the world.	Infections that are transmissible between animals and humans are called zoonoses. Some of these diseases may be transferred through casual contact, including farming, breeding, or ordinary pet care, but a few are very easily transferred via semen, saliva, feces or blood of animals. Risk rates vary from extremely low (many western domestic pets) to moderate (certain countries or animals not subject to regular high quality veterinary care). In some countries, certain zoonoses have a fairly high endemic rate. This means that sexual activity with animals is, in some instances, a high risk activity. It is advisable for practitioners of zoophilia to assess their relative risk, since risk varies for each species involved, for each disease mentioned below (and others not mentioned), and for each region in the world. Further information on several well known zoonoses can be found on databases operated by the National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
Each animal species may carry a specific range of diseases that can be transmitted to man. Some species, such as horses, carry emerging viral diseases in some regions of the world, for example Hendra virus.	It is possible, although uncommon, for animals to carry emerging viral diseases in some regions of the world. For example, Hendra virus was originally found to stem from flying foxes but is capable of transmission between horses and humans by means of "direct exposure to tissues and secretions from infected horses" [7]. The first outbreak of hendra known to clinicians happened at a farm in Brisbane, Australia in 1994, and killed 13 horses and one human.

Perhaps you might point out the "many" errors of fact you are referring to? I can't see them.

The many errors are: 1) moving the paragraph on a disease (brucellosis) that threatens the most zoophiles worldwide to a footnote, a scandalous attempt at threat minimization and obfuscation in my eyes, especially since that paragraph itself contains many key footnotes in turn, that were then lost. 2) Introducing mealy-mouthed and misleading statements about diseases being transmitted through "ordinary pet care", when the table makes it clear that semen, vaginal fluids, urine and feces are involved. It's a total waste of space and an act of intellectual bastardry to imply that f**king an animal is really no more serious than brushing its fur, which is the impression a casual reader would get from phrases like "extremely low" (true in SOME western countries only). Then to highlight the Hendra virus (vanishingly rare) while banishing the info on brucellosis, you effectively allow readers to get the impression that zoonoses are, like Hendra (one human death), of little real significance to them. That was a really underhand move on your part: promoting to prominence a non-threat while hiding to footnote the biggest actual threat. But it was a transparent move. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

In fact, the right hand versions seem more factual, and balanced though, they start with a definition as is good practice as well. The alarmist tendency of your previous edits is at issue in the version you wrote, still. I'd be interested whether others have a preference for either versions of these paragraphs?

• You characterize the current edit as "alarmist"? Please give the exact phrases that are alarmist, and I'll work on them. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Last, I come back to the approach. You need to tone down statements that could come over as personal attack or otherwise untoward aggression. For example, threats to escalate rather than collaborate if your view is not agrreable to others in some areas, and bad faith casting such as "allowed to exist" and such with associated finger pointing. As explained above, the rationale for space is a historic one on this article. The fact that your personal pet section is not necessarily able to take all the space it might need is addressed by my earlier comment (which you have agreed) that a separate article on health aspects of zoophilia may be valuable. That would be the appropriate approach. Not hostile editing and threats of edit warring. Not misdescribing edits as some attempt to "nullify". And not from someone who has already stated a preference for hyperbole and using Wikipedia's article to make a point and whose understanding of the subject is limited to lead them to describe the article as "chock-full of rambling drivel and hot air". Thats... not very likely to get anyone much respect. Your good points are respected, but that doesn't mean your edits are unable to be improved and made more neutral.

• This is all argumentation and could equally apply to you. After all, who went ahead and completely rewrote the section without seeking any consensus here first, despite being so requested? Is this not the sort of behaviour likely to provoke disharmony? Think. Your sense of ownership of this page is a little inflated. Take a deep breath please. My other issue with the paragraph above is that some editors are so intent on expounding on their subject from a certain angle that for them, making an edit "more neutral" is tantamount to watering it down to suit an agenda of which they themselves may not be fully conscious. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

In the meantime perhaps now the steam is blown off, you can revisit the two versions above and check if there really are "many errors" (and if so perhaps name them), and calm down, realise we're on the same team, and understand that what you see as well edited, others have seen as including exaggeration, hyperbole (by your own admission) and alarmist statements that are factually untrue at the extent claimed. That is why your edits are reworked, and rightly so. Not because of some cabal or conspiracy. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'm going to reply to this at length in the next couple of days, so stand by. I understand what you are saying, but I have specific issues with some of your wording which, for me, has a reassuring tone that is utterly inappropriate and more than a little disturbing. I'll expand on this later. I also take issue with the relegation of the entire Brucellosis paragraph to a footnote, effectively banishing it from the casual reader's attention, when 1) canids are the most common animals involved with zoophiles and 2) in many countries, 10-45% of canids are carriers of this awful disease. But it's a long weekend, and I'll go into details later. Meantime, study the current version of the Health and Safety section as it stands, then scan carefully through the rest of the page and ask yourself what material may sensibly and profitably be cut. I can spot a lot of flatulence and argumentation, can you? Skoppensboer 04:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

One more quick thing: the creation of the floated table to the right was done with the express purpose of greater clarity and space saving. The text to the left of the table is almost the same length as the table, so it is a specious argument to say that deleting text from the Health section will save on scrolling and length. Skoppensboer 04:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Something that nobody seems to have mentioned (or, at least, noticed) yet is that there's a serious undue weight problem here. I'm not sure if you're seeing it - but in all of your edits, there are implicit assumptions:

• That these diseases can be sexually transmitted between animals and humans. It's likely for a few of the diseases you've mentioned, but there's no hard evidence that it is - and anything else is considered original research.

• If you are saying that research into animal-to-human disease transmission based on bestial activity is lacking, you are correct. However, veterinarian and animal husbandry workers handling urine, semen and other fluids have been infected, so it is a logical deduction that introducing the infected fluids into the human urethra (males) or vagina (females) or rectums and mouths (both) would carry not only the same risk as those exposed occupationally, but a far greater risk. I suggest to you here, and this may be prescient, that the inevitable future research on bestiality will show that I have been circumspect and measured in my statements, and that the risk is really very high indeed. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• That these diseases are common in animals which zoophiles have sexual contact with. The "10-45% of canids" infected with canine brucellosis are likely to be heavily skewed towards feral animals, which will generally flee from or attack humans (including zoophiles) - making sex kind of difficult. This is original research too, but the fact that I can't cite anything is instructive:

• Nonsense. That high figure is from canid research in China, see footnotes. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

This highlights an important part of the original-research policy: Deductive reasoning isn't exempt. Unless you can point out a source which uses the same logic to arrive at the same conclusion, the article shouldn't draw that conclusion. Wikipedia is for presenting facts, not opinion and speculation.

• Straw man argument. First show how my reasoning is substantially faulty. To use the well-known lack of research into bestiality/zoophilia as a reason to exclude pertinent information is agenda-driven, in my opinion. Humans can be infected occupationally, ergo sexual activity will carry the same if not far higher risk. This is common sense rather than OR, and I'd like to see this put to an impartial judge if you continue to contest it. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Also: article length refers to the number of words - the length of the text, that is, not the physical length that it shows up as on screen. The fact that there's a table alongside that particular bit of text is irrelevant. Zetawoof^(ζ) 06:49, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• The article is full of fat. The medical stuff is some of the most solid and impartial. I'd welcome editorial oversight by someone at wikipedia. Perhaps I should seek it out. Skoppensboer

---

It's probably worth waiting for your fuller comment, but in the meantime I do have a couple of brief thoughts to bear in mind.

Yes, brucellosis can be an "awful disease". But in the context of Wikipedia it's just information, same as everything else. We are not writing an editorial piece. There are many "awful" things described on this encyclopedia, and that they may be considered "awful", is still not a valid basis for exaggerating them, or giving them excessive placement. A full clinical description about Brucellosis is however awful, still only a side-issue to an article on an emotional/sexual matter, exactly as HIV is a side-issue on homosexuality. I'd like you to go and look at how much space the far worse condition HIV gets there, for comparison. That is what inter-article wikilinks are for. (Zetawoof correrctly points out that WP:SIZE is about textual length and word counts in the main article, not column centimeters.)

• "A full clinical description about Brucellosis", for instance, would run much longer than this entire article, so that's a silly comment. And you fail to acknowledge that I have excluded a host of other, less serious diseases from more than vestigial mention. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Referring to your comment about how little space is devoted to HIV on the homosexuality page, I need to point out to you that your argument is illogical. Most HIV transmissions in the world occur through heterosexual sex, so why should HIV be given heavy weight on a page on homosexuality? In the case we have under discussion here, semen-vectored diseases like brucellosis should indeed be give at least one paragraph, considering the 500,000 human infections each year, and the gravity of the disease. Skoppensboer 16:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

My other concern is that given some of the comments to date, your ability to "spot a lot of flatulence and argumentation" is surely suspect. Here are some examples:

• Your posts contain numerous exaggerations which seem quite exaggerated or alarmist. We know this because we've been trying to spearate fact from exaggeration the last while over them, as you're aware.
• You state in your talk page posts that the evidence for much of this is your own personal beliefs, and your own personal inductive logic, and mix these with bona fide information to support the conclusion you seem to wish to present.

Please point out my beliefs that stand apart from facts. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• You have in some instances picked examples carelessly or wilfully, that are deeply flawed or irrelevant, but that prima facie support the view you feel supportive towards.
• You imply that some issues are higher risk if sexual activity occurs, when in fact clearly and very evidently on close examination they are not.

Examples? Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• You willingly cite "Beastforum" as a source for allergy issues - then immediately it's pointed out that 2 of 250,000 users is tiny you reverse your view and state instead "We cannot use Beast Forum stats to decide what to include and exclude".

Let's stick to the facts. This looks like a squabble and argumentation. Please take the actual section as it stands now and contest it, not my character or past statements. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• You do not check your facts, for example the claim that people do not trumpet clinical issues on erotica boards when it is clear they do discuss such aspects when they feel the need (and especially on www.zoophile.org which is a major zoo support site already checked out by contributors as being used by bona fide zoophiles, for non-erotica issues). This has been checked as the question was raised, and the complete absence of serious reports on not one, but 3 very different and popular boards with entirely different populations, is rather telling.
• You use (in your own words) "hyperbole" for "effect", rather than neutrality.
• You add a long list of possible zoonoses a number of which you knew were irrelevant or at best only remotely relevant to zoophilia, such as rabies, again leaving the clear impression you are trying to create an impression to support such a view.

Rabies is NOT irrelevant to zoophilia. Mouth kiss an infected dog and you'll get rabies. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• You respond to criticism by assuming bad faith, and by claiming that information is being "suppressed by people with sexual fetishes who are attempting to create a pro-bestiality atmosphere on this page" followed immediately by a claim that "I have no agenda against bestiality". But you do sound like you come here with an agenda and a bias, and that's just not right for a wikipedia article.

Argumentation. Pointless. Just the facts, please. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• A final problem is that you clearly have not even fully read, digested, and understood the article you are trying to edit on. If you had, you probably would not insultingly and dismissively label editors who might critique your edits, as "people with sexual fetishes", but would have gained a better awareness that the term "fetish" means something completely different, and that current scientific understanding does not consider zoophilia a "fetish".

A sexual focus on a non-human object or life form is a fetish, as far as I am concerned. But again, this is irrelevant to the H&S section. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately the impression to date, from your edits and own choice of words, is that you wish to present a view to support an argument 'zoophilia is a problem because it has very great health risks that can seriously hurt or kill'. Whatever our moral judgement of the subject, neither you nor pro-zoophile editors should use Wikipedia to make a point. It seems several of your examples and wording have been selectively chosen not to be neutral, but to support such an agenda/view, and that whilst there is a kernel of truth that all sexual acts can transmit disease more readily than non-intimate contact, the degree of risk is not as you present it, but seems to be relatively low: very low in the USA and much of the West, and even in third world countries maybe lower than many human STDs. I hope this impression of your editing is not so, but you need to be aware that rhetoric and poor precision can leave a poor impression when proposing edits for an article like this, where high quality edits and low rhetoric are historically the norm.

"Kernel of truth" - ha! You are now arguing medicine with me, and I suggest you get 3rd party input here, because you are wrong. Again, I'd welcome expert arbitration on these topics. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I hope you see the problem, from my point of view. This simply appears like yet more agenda-based editorship, using exaggeration of health issues as the means. I do accept you are adding and substantiating valid information to a section that will benefit from it, and hope you can see in fact your information is being very carefully checked and questioned for precision (not censored), that good information is being retained and poor information filtered out, and that the issues being raised are in fact valid. In other words, please do edit - but edit with care.

Tit for tat. To my reading, which is perhaps wrong, your own editorship absolutely stinks of partiality and POV motivations. You have and continue to try to censor my little contribution, and I shall continue to oppose it and watch it indefinitely. And when I say "war", I mean bringing in the big boys. This article could benefit from a major overhaul anyway. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure we will discuss this field more, but for your own credibility's sake I would strongly ask that you check your facts and arguments better, do not exaggerate risks or occurances, do not pick and choose (or change) whether you like a given source depending whether it supports your view or turns out to undermine it, do not employ personal views as Wikipedia source material, do not assume others who critique your material (as they would all material) are "against" you or are "people with sexual fetishes" intent upon "suppression", ..... you get the idea. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:38, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• I could level many of these statements back at you, as others already have in the past. But it's becoming a food fight now, so please let's get back to the actual section in question. Post below the changes you still feel are necessary, and why. Skoppensboer 15:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

I see a lot of aggressive posturing, and yet more assumption of bad faith, none of which is needed.

I am going to suggest that the two of us directly seek mediation - specifically around this section, and in more general terms around the question of neutral editing and appropriate style of discussion and interaction on the talk page. In more detail:

• I feel your current comments exaggerate matters. More specifically, I am concerned that they may be semi-deliberately exaggerated to support an agenda. You seem to disparage material which in fact, is not inaccurate, try to impose material which is irrelevant but would support the case you seem to be trying to present, and you seem to have a habit of assuming hostile motives to edits which do not fit your preferences. That's not an editing style with which I feel I can work productively, until you becomes a little more willing to relax and talk mutually without hostile assumption and language.
• The issue isnt to score points, it's to ensure the article is the best it can be. It is clear you feel strongly. It is clear (to me) that you have taken a stance on the subject and on this section particularly, which is problematic to me when reviewed in the context of the article. The above discussion shows strong signs of going off at a personal-attack tangent and that's not the primary goal - ensuring the article is good, and compliance with core Wikipedia policies.
• We could both edit, but it looks like you are threatening reversion issues. That doesn't bother me, but I'd rather sort out issues then edit, rather than the other way round.
• There is probably enough material on this talk page and edit history already, that we both know where we stand, so mediation may be an early call, but is probably no bad idea.
• The issue is in depth enough that I am not convinced RFC is going to help, since RFC is more about requests for simple opinions and not an in depth mediation service.
• There are a number of personal allegations raised which muddy the waters; so this is about editorship and not just facts. Specifically, you are raising trust as an issue for you, and essentially alleging bad faith on behalf of a cabal of editors, and from where I stand you have come here with accusations and have tried to use this section to promote an agenda. People who lack trust and carry personal agendas tend not to be able to work well together with others on their common goals.

Rather than spiral, set an unhelpful example, and waste effort, I would rather we took the early step of asking a reputable and neutral third party member of the mediator committee to mediate and help us get the basics of this discussion back on an even keel, if you are willing. The focus would be twofold:

1. This section specifically, and
2. Reaching mutual understanding of acceptable v. nonacceptable issues in the approaches seen, so that there is clarity whether any of the mutual concerns over editorial approach are merited and if so to resolve them by means of mediation.

Let me know if this is agreeable to you. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 01:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• I really can't respond to all the interpersonal issues that you broach, FT2, because I'm not here to network with people and schmooze, and I'm prone to plain speaking and calling it like I see it. This seems to have upset you because you have a consuming interest in this topic and you virtually own this page, looking at the history. I didn't know this was how WP worked, that it allowed single individuals, or a group of like-minded editors, to take ownership to this extent, and then high-handedly reverse edits without discussion, even when asked to discuss, like you did recently. I'm simply interested in the page representing a fair version of the facts, especially in the Health and Safety area. I'd welcome mediation on this one topic, but I specifically want the mediator to be knowledgeable in the medical/health area. I suggest we ask for someone with a medical degree to make a judgement here. If that can be arranged, I'm more than willing to stand by what he/she decides. Skoppensboer 02:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have expert adjudicators as you seem to imagine. The concern here is bias in editorship, failure of the collaborative system, and policy related issues, and these tend not to need experts with degrees in the specific subject to be detected.

You cannot adequately adjudicate medical questions without someone trained in the medical sciences. Skoppensboer 12:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

My concern with your editing is not your medical knowledge, but your agenda driven approach in demanding it should be given exaggerated presentation, and the personal attacks and bad-faith accusations you resort to when this is frustrated.

You make bad faith accusations against me with every comment you make here! "Editorship to an agenda" indeed! I suggest you stop this childish process of venting your miffed feelings at great length and instead seek an expert editor post haste. There are numerous doctors and veterinarian editing WP so finding one to adjudicate should be easy. Skoppensboer 12:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

For example, looking at your work on other article you put significant work into, I find a similar statement of editorship to an agenda on the section Talk:Matt_Drudge#Poorly_sourced_and_potentially_libelous_edit, that you in part edit for the purpose of putting your own view of things in the public eye, and that other editors (at least on that page) have taken strong exception to that. (I admit to being unfamiliar with that article; my main purpose in referencing it is to see if this pattern is a unique issue here or if you edit in a way that concerns others elsewhere too. Clearly the latter is the case).

This is bad form! Going to other pages I've worked on and looking for other conflicts to support your position (in that case a true cabal of conservatives control that page, and bad faith is clearly present) is really annoying to me. Good job on building consensus here with that attack. Skoppensboer 12:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I object to the ongoing personal attacks.

So do I, so please stop them immediately. Skoppensboer 12:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You'll notice from my user page that I edit on a wide range of articles, and that this is only one of a large number of articles I'm active on. I take an interest in it, and regularly return to it, because it interests me, and I watch for policy compliance on it since it is a controversial topic with few people involved in it and much misinformation abounds.

But when any attempt to put negative information into that article is made, even if it is factual, you either delete or "tone it down". Your history on the page is clear for all to see. This is why Citizendium is becoming a necessity. You still have provided no reasonable objection to my H&S edit, and now ALL of your comments are long-winded ad hominems, to which I shall henceforth cease responding. Skoppensboer 12:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

So this is the point: I'm not "upset" or emotional with you. I'm simply seeing a new editor on the block, who has explicitly stated they edit against Wikipedia policy (with "hyperbole" to make a point), ...

Oh please, stop being so obtuse! I said I used hyperbole (once) by using the phrase "infinitely more" during argument on the talk page, for effect, as people do in argument, and which is perfectly reasonable. It has nothing to do with "editing against policy" and the fact that you should attempt to caste it in that light shows that (a) you have a reading comprehension issue or (b) you are deliberately conflating events to make a meretricious point. I suspect the latter. Skoppensboer 12:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

... whose edits seem to include bias, who has edited here and elsewhere in a manner that more than one editor has felt contained a personal agenda, and who has little knowledge or understanding of the subject beyond their pet interest and wishes to bias the article towards their area with little understanding of the article overall, leading to a potential emerging undue weight, neutrality, and personal attack problem.

If you think a few paragraphs on health and safety gives "undue weight" to this serious issue, while retaining screeds of nebulous text and copious footnotes about how zoophiles think animals are honest, or devoting an entire paragraph to showing how zoophiles are not related to people who act like animals during sexual play, etc, then you clearly have a poor understanding of editorship, and the issue, in my opinion. Skoppensboer 12:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not okay and mediation seems to me the obvious answer, since you are unable to accept these comments from article editors. It's for that reason I suggest mediation, to discuss the differences in approach, which allows each of us to discuss our mutual concerns on an equal footing. If you agree, then let me know. if you disagree then please also state this for the record. Either is okay in the Wikipedia community; mediation is not compulsary. You might wish to read Wikipedia:Mediation before deciding. Note that mediation will be likely to cover approach not just content, and (as with mediation in general) its aim is to help people who are not seeing eye to eye to reach some level of agreement, rather than to provide an expert opinion on a field of content. Please either way, and without a speech, let me simply know if you accept or decline this. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The second step in a dispute should be to step back and bring in another editor. I have suggested a medically trained editor. That could completely settle this issue without the need for a long and time-consuming mediation. An RfC is a good first step. Skoppensboer 12:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Its unfortunate you see things that way. The issue here is more about policy compliance. The information itself is not at issue. What is at issue is (to my mind) personal approach based. In that context, seeing how you edit elsewhere is completely normal here. After all, if you obtain comments that suggest you engage in personal attack and agendas elsewhere, then this reflects on your neutrality as an editor, which is at the heart of the issue here. And when we look elsewhere, we find that your editorship on other articles gets comments that you are less familiar than you think with core policies, that you are running agendas there too, that others seem to have the impression you have a predetermined intention for at least one other article, that you make "personal attacks" there too, and that this too centers around sexuality related issues. Of course that's relevant. Of course your editing history on Wikipedia as a whole can suggest more relevant interpretation of your editing history here. I admit to not being an expert in that article, but the opinion of more than one other editor there seems very similar to the impression you give here. To date even relatively mild and usual suggestions here are resulting in personal attack, which is a hinderance to neutral editing.

By example, your comment on the edit above, where I asked what "many errors" you found:

• Moving the paragraph brucellosis -- giving a section different emphasis is not any kind of factual error, editorializing this as "scandalous" and an "attempt at threat minimization and obfuscation" is rhetoric and personal opinion of imputed bad-faith motive, no key footnotes were "lost", and whilst we do not know how many zoophiles are threatened, in the subject of zoophilia overall, brucellosis is a corner of the health field, which itself is only a corner of the field overall, and that leads to an undue weight issue as zetawoof points out.

If brucellosis infects up to half of all dogs in some areas of the world, and routinely infects 10% in many areas of the world, nobody in their right mind would characterise it as a "corner of a corner" issue, or consider giving it one measly paragraph as "undue weight". This is the heart of our dispute. Skoppensboer 16:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Introducing mealy-mouthed and misleading statements about diseases being transmitted through "ordinary pet care" -- Most zoonoses are transmissible through ordinary animal or pet care. The table makes clear that for a few - and only a few - zoosexual acts are known to be a significantly heightened risk. For the majority they arent, or there is no scientific basis stating they are, or for a few they are only relevant for practitioners of anal-oral acts upon animals. Your past examples of tick and flea bourne disease are classic examples of the kinds of conditions that you cite as fear factors but which are transmitted through ordinary pet or animal care and not sexually mediated, as are several of the others, and that matters to make clear.

There is every scientific basis for stating that zoosexual acts are risk heightening. The studies showing how many animals are infected by zoonoses is the scientific basis. You cannot deny it and still pretend to have an open mind on this issue. It is a real risk, and a very significant risk in many parts of this world. I have never cited flea or tick borne diseases as fear factors, although you are undeniably at greater risk of having contact with these insects if you engage in sex with animals, especially farmyard livestock. Skoppensboer 16:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• It's a total waste of space and an act of intellectual bastardry to imply that f**king an animal is really no more serious than brushing its fur, which is the impression a casual reader would get from phrases like "extremely low"... - I don't think I implied that. I stated that "Risk rates vary from extremely low (many western domestic pets) to moderate (certain countries or animals not subject to regular high quality veterinary care)." This is clinically accurate. The incidence of sexually transmissible zoonoses is extremely low in many western domestic pets, and is moderate in certain countries or places without good control, so that is what is stated. That is factual even if it is not what you would like to hear. It's also backed by sources you suggested, showing that neither zoosexuality forums with 1-2 million posts, nor zoophilia researchers, highlight disease as an issue they have encountered.

Why do you feel it is necessary to state that the risk is "extremely low" when it is only low for some people in some countries? That is the interesting issue. And why reduce my exact list of countries to the vague "certain countries"? Why give less information rather than more? And please stop raising the beast-sex erotica forums of the internet as proof of any darned thing, ok? It just looks silly. I only used that example to show that severe allergic reactions can and do happen. I'm surprised anyone had the guts to raise their anaphylaxis to dog sperm at all, given the sweaty, breathless atmosphere that prevails in such forums. Skoppensboer 16:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Then to highlight the Hendra virus (vanishingly rare) while banishing the info on brucellosis... - You mentioned Hendra, not I, initially, raising the alarmist impression that many exotic conditions were awaiting transmission. As is appropriate, I did not prejudge this. I researched it, and then added in the factual information about Hendra to round out your addition, ie when it was identified and the like. If you wanted to introduce an exotic condition (non sexually related) to "prove a point", then you must expect that point to be put into a balanced form. In fact most exotic conditions are very rare, that is precisely why they are exotic. We discussed your exaggeration and that wikipedia is not a crystal ball, earlier.

As we argue on this, thousands of dogs (inter alia) are being killed to stop the spread of bird flu to humans. So exotic conditions are awaiting transmission, indeed. Skoppensboer 16:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• That was a really underhand move on your part: promoting to prominence a non-threat while hiding to footnote the biggest actual threat. But it was a transparent move. - again, more personal attack. As you can see, there are no errors of fact referred to. The differences are all about editorial balance and personal attack with allegations of bad faith. That is why mediation is an appropriate recourse.

I stand by what I said. Your edits all tend to minimise perceived risk and your intention is clearly to give the entire topic a gloss of safety and normality, I presume for personal reasons. Let me ask you directly: are you a zoophile? We should be told. It would certainly help to explain your edits made without consensus-seeking. Skoppensboer 16:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Your personal opinion of what the "next step should be" is partly correct, it is to include another editor. The editors who specialize in editorial dispute are the mediation committee. The content here is not much at issue, but your editorial approach is (for me). Again, yes or no, are you agreeable to requesting mediation on this? And this time may I have a yes or no, rather than your own opinion how Wikipedia's dispute resolution process should (in your opinion) work. I'm happy to work with a medically skilled editor for the record, my concern here is that I don't think thats the heart of the issue. As discussed, we actually don't disagree much on the actual medical side; we agree on most of the science, it's presentation and weight and editorial collaboration that are the more significant issues. For example, the question is not "how serious is brucellosis", it's whether given it can be a serious condition if caught, but is to a significant degree tangetial to the article and has its own article for fuller detail, should it be wikilinked, or described in a footnote, or described in the main text, and so on. That is a mediation issue not an expert opinion issue.

If you don't like me, and want to take me to task, that's one thing, although I'm not interested in your interpersonal issues, your proprietorial air and sense of outrage, as I stated. But if you actually have no problem with the Health and Safety edit as it stands, just leave it be, and you won't have to deal with me again. Problem solved? Skoppensboer 16:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The other question is that given the almost non-mention of zoosexual-transmitted illness on any related website (despite having millions of posts searched on the site you yourself suggested for the purpose) and a near-complete non-emphasis in academic and clinical articles related to zoophilia (for and against), should we over emphasise the fact that some (a small number but uunknown) of conditions can be sexually transmitted, and should we use conditions not at all related to zoophilia to give an exaggerated impression of realistic clinical risk when these do not seem bourne out in practice. Again, this is editorial approach and neutrality, not expert testimony.

Again, please stop using pornographic erotica forums for proof of what we should or shouldn't say here. Skoppensboer 16:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

You have stated you are prepared to "escalate" it, apparently having a somewhat limited notion of how Wikipedia works. You are very sure that your accusations of bad faith, and that editors here are "people with sexual fetishes" intent upon "suppression", are justified. I would like to ask, are you prepared to back your words with an agreement to request mediation with me to resolve this, as I have suggested? And will you agree to work at resolving our current differences in good faith if agreed and accepted? Again, a definitive one word answer, yes or no, is requested, please: yes, or no.

At this stage, no. I want to go step by step, getting comments first, as WP allows. Skoppensboer 16:02, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Last, a request, for ease of reading please place your comments, in their entirety, in one block at the end of the section, rather than "threading" them which makes it hard to read others complete comments. Thank you. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

NPOV and edits

I'm a bit concerned about some of the edits that have gone in, the last two days, mostly by babyNuke.

The things that concern me are:

• Cited useful material removed (including valid useful material), with the deletion slipped in under innocuous edit summaries.

Example: An edit of the term "Common Culture" in the intro modified to "Western Culture" and edit summary "Weasel construction, tweak". Its unclear whether this is "weasel construction", because it is common throughout much of the world (not just "Western culture"). But in the same edit, a cited quote was removed that removes from the introduction a notable balancing point of view, that some notable people consider it not unethical if no harm were done. That is not a trivial view, and was in the intro to balance the clearly stated majority view that "all zoophilia is abusive". Removing it under an inaccurate edit summary and without discussion is not really ok.

• The quote from Posner was reduced to a sentence, which is fine, but in doing so a key point was deleted carelessly, that early laws were primarily concerned with the offense to community standards.
• Notable cited legal views were removed. Abbreviation might be appropriate, but complete removal of the factual cited statement that a country's consultation over the law with their own veterinary body, concluded no evidence to support a ban, is not really ok. It's relevant to this article, not just to the legal article.
• The size estimates for the furry/zoophile crossover were removed. This is a question of notable interest to a significant number of people (including non-zoophiles) who regularly ask whether and to what extent furries are zoophiles. In fact the footnote was inserted originally because of the feeling actual data was needed, and the data and its presentation was discussed on the talk page to ensure a reasonable consensus and neutral presentation. As far as I'm aware the facts have not changed, and even if we don't know precise figures, we have at least two surveys making insightful comments on the matter, both of which we can cite for whatever use as data they are to readers. The bottom line percentage is unknown and uncertain, but we can certainly cite the sourced and known survey results for such surveys (performed by non-zoophiles) which do exist. Readers can then draw their own conclusions from that data.
• An entire section of material is deleted. The justification given is that the section title (which could have been edited if a problem) was biased. There is no discussion of the data, nor attempt to fix any perceived bias in title, just mass deoletion of entire section of material. Reinstated. If title needs fixing then fix the title.

I'd also like discussion of what kind of picture should be in this article. The subject of the image was changed from leda and swan to a line art sketch. I don't have strong feelings about it but I'm not convinced this is accurate. The article is about a lot more than just sex, and to use a sexual image reinforces a viewpoint that may correspond to popular perception rather than accurate knowledge. Discussion appreciated but no change made.

Last, the subject of NPOV has come up many times, and usually stems from a mis-perception of some reader new to the subject, about the subject, its facts and research, and a perception that pushing a popular viewpoint is more appropriate than covering 5the actual sourced science and knowledge. Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy either of zoophiles views or popular perceptions' views. It is a place for neutral presentation of views. I, personally, and others, regularly remove zoophile hyperbole as well as its opposite. If there is still any major NPOV issue, which is unlikely given the intense review this has had over the last 2 years, then to clear it up will need clear discussion and specifics, not just underhand deletions of valid useful cited material. (Also see comment/discussion thread above, on neutrality.) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:20, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I sadly see you've decided to revert some of the edits I made, so let me clarify why I made them:

• The "some, such as Peter Singer, argue" line is almost a text book example of a weasel word construction. To quote the wikipedia policy: "Weasel words don't really give a neutral point of view; they just spread hearsay, or couch personal opinion in vague or indirect syntax."
• The furry percentage I disagree on. We've had the discussion and no conclusive numbers came up, with polls coming up with radically different outcomes. This makes any such number unreliable. And even if is noted that a number is unreliable, as soon as you put it in the text people will start using it.
• The mis-citation of research seems to only be about discrediting the argument that those practicing bestiality will in nearly all cases go on to commit violence against humans because this claim is based on mis-cited research. This can be said in two sentences and doesn't require an entire section. Wikipedia is not aimed at monitoring the neutrality of other organisations. It's worth noting the number given is not accurate, but by making this section which suggests this is common for organisations to mis-cite research on the matter despite only giving one example it could create the impression that animal welfare organisations in general manipulate research to support their agenda. I feel this section only has a right to exist if you could find half a dozen more examples of such mis-cited research. BabyNuke 11:12, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Health and Safety Issues

This dispute centers on the content and length of the Health and Safety section of the page on Zoophilia.

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

• I find the current format (length and content) both concise, fair and germane. Editor FT2 does not. Details above. I seek comment especially from medically trained wikipedians. Skoppensboer 12:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment by FT2

My concern is that User:Skoppensboer has stated his approach to include "hyperbole", examples that are not germane, and an aggressive personal attack style, and that whilst we do not in fact disagree much on the facts of the matter, the due weight and emphasis is a concern.

Attempts to rely upon a wikilink or footnote to brucellosis result in personal attack; this user wants the entirety of brucellosis as it might apply to humans, included in the body of this article, whereas it is a corner of the health issue, itself only a corner of the full field. I've sugested a summary style section with a fuller article on health and such where it can be expanded at length, this has been agreed but not yet been taken up. The issue I have here is that brucellosis is less of a concern to zoophiles even by Skoppensboer's own sources, and that he is trying to make a point that the article should present zoosexual acts giving the impression of high risk, when in fact actual sources indicate this is unproven or far from the case.

Skoppensboer has not hidden that he is hostile to this subject and is hostile and suspicious of the good faith of its editors, who he accuses in general terms of being "people with sexual fetishes" seeking "suppression".

The editorial style has included personal attack and agenda driving, and a pattern that has happened twice now is that User:Skoppensboer has introduced material to make a point and when this has been reviewed has alleged that attempts to look neutrally at the material are cause for yet more personal attack. Two examples of this:

• To show that allergic reaction was an issue (which it shoudl be noted was already included in the article) Skoppensboer introduced that two users from a zoophile web forum called "beastforum" had reported allergies. So I looked at this forum to confirm the matter. When I pointed out that 2 comments out of 1/4 million users and 1.3 million posts, and those moderate or queries only, actually tended to support the existing view that this was not a major problem, his response was that whilst 2 reports of allergies were validly citable, the complete lack of any other significant zoonosis (on the same board of 1/4 million users and 1.3 million posts and two other major boards) was unacceptable to be cited and showed editorial bias.

• To add a section about animals containing a resevoir of exotic conditions which could be transmitted to humans through zoophilia (which has never been the source of a study in the field), Skoppensboer dug up a virus I had never heard of, called "Hendra virus", and added a section which made it sound as if these were common. Upon researching I found this was not the case, and added what is factually known, namely when it was found, where it came from and what happened. User:Skoppensboer used this as the basis for a further personal attack.

The risks of zoonoses in zoophilia were also quite exaggerated in presentation, and several cited examples also turned out to be non-sexually transmitted (tick based infections etc). Here are a before and after of two paragraphs that are alleged by User:Skoppensboer to be edited "scandalously", with "many errors". A fuller discussion can be found above.

Skoppensboer version	FT2 edit of that version
There are many infections that are transmissible between animals and humans, called zoonoses, as documented by the National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Some of these diseases may be transferred through casual contact, but others are much more readily transferred by activities that expose humans to the semen, saliva, feces and blood of animals. This means that sexual activity with animals is, in some instances, a high risk activity. It is advisable for practitioners of zoophilia to assess their relative risk, since risk varies for each species involved, for each disease mentioned below (and others not mentioned), and for each region in the world.	Infections that are transmissible between animals and humans are called zoonoses. Some of these diseases may be transferred through casual contact, including farming, breeding, or ordinary pet care, but a few are very easily transferred via semen, saliva, feces or blood of animals. Risk rates vary from extremely low (many western domestic pets) to moderate (certain countries or animals not subject to regular high quality veterinary care). In some countries, certain zoonoses have a fairly high endemic rate. This means that sexual activity with animals is, in some instances, a high risk activity. It is advisable for practitioners of zoophilia to assess their relative risk, since risk varies for each species involved, for each disease mentioned below (and others not mentioned), and for each region in the world. Further information on several well known zoonoses can be found on databases operated by the National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
Each animal species may carry a specific range of diseases that can be transmitted to man. Some species, such as horses, carry emerging viral diseases in some regions of the world, for example Hendra virus.	It is possible, although uncommon, for animals to carry emerging viral diseases in some regions of the world. For example, Hendra virus was originally found to stem from flying foxes but is capable of transmission between horses and humans by means of "direct exposure to tissues and secretions from infected horses" [8]. The first outbreak of hendra known to clinicians happened at a farm in Brisbane, Australia in 1994, and killed 13 horses and one human.

Skoppensboer has a history of being reprimanded for alleged agenda driving, and civility/personal attack issues and such in the sexuality field by more than one editor, on at least one other article's talk page (Talk:Matt Drudge). I have explained that here we follow a neutrality policy and offered mediation, this has resulted in further aggressive accusations and inappropriate editorship. I have requested mediation one more time, and in the meantime this too, in case RFC can help. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• You are deliberately flouting WP rules for RfC here. Please remove this long argument. The rule states:

Instructions

1. Create a section for the RfC on the bottom of the article talk page with a brief, neutral statement of the issue. Example

Skoppensboer 15:31, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Correct. And you have done this. But WP:RFC does not gives direction to other editors how to state their concerns in response. My main concerns here are about conduct and policy compliance, more than content, as you know, and that's what is described. If you want to limit the RFC specifically to a 3rd party opinion "how serious are zoonoses in zoophilia" and exclude the editor conduct concerns of others, then you need to be careful to assure existing editors that your interest is in that question only and this issue of your conduct and approach isn't going to be a problem that immediately repeats on other sections or articles ("But if you actually have no problem with the Health and Safety edit as it stands, just leave it be, and you won't have to deal with me again" [9]), and will not be used as a basis for continued breaking of other policies such as WP:AGF, undue weight and neutrality, WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA.

(If that statement is sincere and intended in good faith, then I don't mind dealing with the limited topic of health and zoonoses balance/emphasis as a content issue. If it's not a genuine statement, but merely another means of gaming the system by deflecting concerns about conduct, then we're back to conduct issues as above.)

Coming back to the conditions and purpose for of RFC, RFC also requires you to work with other editors, to Be civil, and assume good faith in other editors' actions." You have not "worked towards resolution", rather (as with more than one other article) you have edited with aggression and made bad faith assumptions on all other editors, with an agenda, with strident demands, and when disagreed with have launched personal attacks rather than factuality and added emphasis that you will escalate "however high" is needed to make your view win against consensus. You have not been civil. You have assumed from the outset bad faith, with hostile assumptions towards all editors and especially those who differ with you even when reasonably explained. That is why I feel content RFC is not helpful here, and why I have suggested mediation. My concerns are as to your editorial approach more than the content, since you have implied an intent to treat the entire article and all editors of the article similarly. Those are my concerns.

However I am willing to try and make RFC work if it can, and for that purpose offer this suggestion: that we both take a week's break from significantly editing the article (or at least the health section), and ask other editors to accept the same, to see what RFC turns up. if it helps then good, if not then we're back to mediation - which at that point I will ask you to accept if the position and approaches haven't seemed to change. Are you agreeable to this? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• I am of the opinion that your repeated attempts to steer this issue towards a debate about my style as an editor, and way from the actual content of the article, are designed to change the goalposts halfway through the game. You persist in accusing me of a variety of editorial sins while yourself indulging in long-winded denunciations of my person in a way that can only escalate hostility. You have yet to address the fact that you significantly re-wrote the Health and Safety section without any attempt to seek consensus, despite my explicit request for such and despite Zetawoof's friendly participation in that consensus, and despite Zetawoof's agreement to the look of the section as it stood. So really, you are the one whose editorial style needs careful examination rather than I. I would hope any mediator would be able to see through the logorrheic thicket of words you spin, with your endless invocations of Wikipedia rules and tenets in a manner designed to cloak you in an aura of righteousness. I still await comment on the actual text, and hopefully some will be forthcoming. I suspect you know you are on shaky ground with this, for the text stands up well, hence your refocussing of the discussion with interminable ad hominems. As for taking a break, I'll take a permanent break if you agree not to gut the Health and Safety section again. I am also agreeable to spinning it off as a separate page with a {{main| tag linking it to the Zoophilia page H&S section, as I've offered before, and to which you have never agreed, your recent comment about this notwithstanding. Skoppensboer 05:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

First mention of creating a separate article:

• "Health issues are comparatively a small part of a large field. It may be worth moving the detail to an article 'Health implications of human-animal sexuality'..." FT2, 04:57, November 18
• "I am also absolutely agreeable to the entire health and safety section getting its own separate wiki page." Skoppensboer, 06:06, November 18

(Your memory seems to have failed you, or else perhaps you were waiting for my agreement, which had already implicitly been given when the suggestion was made.)

The more significant point is, I am not seeking to lose your input on facts. I am concerned about your editorial approach and conflictive style, and I want to know if that is something I and others have to address or not. If I don't then the health and safety section is simply a content issue. If I do then the health and safety section becomes an example of a bigger problem over conduct, and it's likely that dispute resolution will escalate. I would rather a hundred times over that the article retained good editorship from all types of approach, and that this resulted in a better written article, even if there was incidental stress over friction though.

On a pure content level, I list below my main concerns, one per minor section, to see if we can at a content level, discuss them independently and neutrally from a clinical perspective. I hope this make my concerns clear. A fair bit of research has gone into this and I cannot find any credible source describing zoosexual acts as high risk from a zoonotic perspective, and much evidence that taken together says it is probably not. 11:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Concern #1: undue weight (brucellosis placement)

Brucellosis as a full description in the main article is undue weight. It either needs to rely upon a wikilink, or the detail goes in a footnote or a separate expanded article. Any of those will do. The content is valuable and needs to be "somewhere" readily findable, but it doesn't have the urgency for main column inches that it presently is given in a dense article that has to cover everything. That decision has been made equally on various sections (both pro- and anti-zoosexual) in the past. A separate article on health and safety would be fine, if it gave a balanced view of risk which reflected fairly what is known about disease issues within human-animal sexuality in clinical science, epidemology, the zoophile world, and zoosexuality research. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Concern #2: range of risk (very low to moderate) should be fairly represented

The section should make clear equally that some places and conditions have higher risk, but other places and conditions much lower risk. You seem reluctant to concede the obvious point that stating some animals/places are extremely low risk is equally notable to the fact that other animals/places have moderate risk. I'm looking for neutrality that gives recognition to both these and that the article cannot give the impression of universal high risk if the evidence simply isn't there. Some populations will have very low or near-zero risk and some will have quite high risk. The practitioner needs to evaluate their own situation, and need to know both extremes can exist without bias. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Concern #3: Absolute disease risk levels should be fairly represented

It is notable and can be cited, that disease is not usually considered an issue by the online zoophile community (generally the western developed english speaking nations such as USA, canada, europe, australia, but also germany and russia where email has achieved the same check), on several major forums with upwards of a million a posts where zoophiles meet (already checked) or in clinical research on zoophilia. It's also got enough of a reputation for safety that the notion "people have sex with animals to avoid diseases such as HIV" is widespread in underdeveloped countries and documented by researchers and the media. They may be underdeveloped there, but given that Kinsey found 50%+ incident rates amongst rural/farming communities in the modern USA, there's a fair chance that if zoonoses in zoophilia was any kind of significant risk in reality, then cultures such as the Masai, the Riffian, the Tswana, the Gusti, the Appennine shepherds, the Tamil, the Gauchos of South America, and a hundred other cultures where such activity was quite common, would have noticed an epidemic of zoonotic conditions from it by now or would have ceased the practice long before it became documented.

Tribal peoples are very aware of such aspects of nature (witness the keen awareness of how different parts of different plants in their locale have different medicinal properties if prepared in different ways, even amongst primitive peoples) and a higher rate of illness following sex with animals would surely have been noticed over time in such cultures. It seems no such epidemic is reported either medically or in folklore, or indeed in modern communities or research into them. Additionally, current brucellosis (or other disease) levels are not claimed by any medical publication to be related in significant part to zoosexual activity. In fact there is no measure I am aware of that indicates a high practical level of infections resulting amongst zoophile practitioners in any country, and there are multiple routes such a fact could and would have emerged by now if it was the case. Insofar as this is verifiable, it is important that when we describe risk, we don't misrepresent the actual risk that seems to be "out there", even though in some places the conceptual risk is higher (which we must also document). FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Concern #4: for most zoonoses, sex itself (compared to other forms of contact) is not a major risk-increasing factor

It is important to distinguish that we know of relatively few zoonoses where zoophilia/zoosexuality is a specific risk factor. Obviously commonsense suggests that for conditions spread via sexual fluids or saliva this is an issue, and yet relatively few (under half a dozen) well known zoonoses we have discussed are documented as being spread through saliva and sexual fluids from animals to humans. For most zoonoses, sex is not a factor - tick and other parasite bites are not sexually mediated, for example, and in rabies any oral contact is a risk factor, including mere licking of skin. (The number of rabies cases caught via kissing, as you describe, is likely to be minimal bordering on zero, and the risk is there for other oral/saliva contact, so this not a major risk in relation to the "zoophilia" article.) The issue is contact (not sex) for most zoonoses, and contact is associated in general with pet care, farming and breeding. For a minority of zoonoses, as stated, absence or presence of a sexual connection appears to be a significant issue.

That is because of two issues: 1) the majority of zoonoses are non-sexual contact mediated (including urine/feces contact which are far more associated with farming, breeding and pet care than zoophilia) rather than sexually mediated and will give a risk to all persons in close contact, and 2) in any case only a relatively small number of zoonoses have anything like real notability in epidermological terms and a significant number of these seem to be of the kind where zoosexual acts are not very implicated.

(The anal-oral route is agreed to be a higher risk activity within zoophilia, especially with unwormed animals, and it may be worth mentioning this, but it doesn't seem to be a very common activity nor an essential part of zoosexual activity, and relatively few zoophiles report engaging in it.FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Concern #5: Exotic emerging zoonoses, if rare, should not be implied to be other than rare

If we are going to introduce new and exotic conditions, or state that animals form a pool of these (as you have), then it's important to equally note the rarity with which they actually are "out there" infecting humans. For example (your insertion) Hendra is indeed a zoonotic infection transmissible via fluids. But a balanced view would note that with very few cases worldwide, it is exceedingly low risk as far as any individual zoosexual practitioner goes, whether they are in America, or Africa, or even in Australia where the outbreak occurred. If that changes then so be it. But for Hendra it hasn't yet and Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.

The other possible concern, that there are many virii and therefore a high risk for humans, is probably clear original research since we have no way to know how many diseases in the animal kingdom are posing what degree of risk, or how many will emerge to humans or how easily or localized/widespread. We only see that in fact very few such diseases actually do emerge.

As an afterthought, because most domestic animals (in whatever locale) have probably shared whatever communicable illnesses they currently have with local human carers, an emerging exotic zoonosis will usually requires a new infection to a domestic species, which itself must then infect a human through a sexual route. Wild animals would be a higher risk for this cause, but research suggests zoosexual acts are almost entirely restricted to domestic species in the vast majority of cases. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Page Split on Health and Safety Issues, Summary

I actually asked you several times in this discussion if you would like the H&S issues split, but you never answered the question directly. Never mind. It's quite pleasant to find that you are addressing the issues today.

Yes, the page needs to be split, if only because it is around 40KB and 32 KB is the recommended wiki limit. But we need to be careful we do not create a POV fork, so what is said here must agree with the text on the new page. The text that remains here should be carefully parsed, the less said the better, I would imagine. We have to look at naming conventions too so that the page is clearly related to the word "zoophilia".

I'm flying out of town for a meeting today, but I'll continue this in the next day or two. I'll answer each of your concerns then. I think we are headed in the right direction now. Skoppensboer 16:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC) Snowed under with work, but back on this soon, days not weeks. Skoppensboer 20:42, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• The title should be "Health and safety aspects of zoophilia" or "Zoophilia and health" Skoppensboer 01:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)