Interview answers...

[altivo]

Answers to five questions posed by calydor, original meme can be found here.


1) We've never finished this discussion, and you're likely expecting the question. No worming out of it this time. You say that you fear a relationship with an animal may be psychologically damaging, but you've never defined in what way.

Well, given what I know of you, I've never explained in detail because I expect you to just reject the whole idea. However, my observation (backed by some accepted theories) is that physical sexuality tends in many individual humans to short-circuit emotional and psychological learning paths that take much longer to develop. In part, this is what lies behind the longstanding taboo in more complicated human societies against early expression of sexuality. Humans are animals, yes, but also more than animals. We have these huge and very complicated brains that take years to program. The complexities of our social interaction unfold more slowly for us than our physical bodies do. Thus a boy and girl of 15 are almost certainly not ready to have children and care for them adequately in our culture. But also, for both males and females, physical sex easily seems to become an end unto itself that precludes the development of the much more complicated social and emotional interactions and interdependencies of which we are capable. This will be true regardless of the nature of the relationship: straight, gay, or zoo.

My direct observation leads me to the conclusion that many (if not all) younger people who identify as zoo and seek sexual liaisons with one or more animals are in fact also showing signs of delayed social development. Painful shyness, inability to cope with members of the opposite sex (or the same sex if gay), fear of emotional intimacy. These are things that are remedied with time and experience, and what I would call "hormonal pressure" would only serve to provide impetus to the necessary social development. Once those overflowing hormones are diverted into zoosexuality, that impetus can be lost, in some cases with disastrous consequence.

To put it another way, I believe that the human mind and soul require (yes, require) the communion of equals, not necessarily sexual but certainly intimate communication and sharing with our own kind. Without that, we lose touch with our humanity, become withdrawn and callous or even hostile toward other human beings, and fail to develop our full potential. Yes, I'm sure some have managed to achieve this while their physical sexuality was diverted elsewhere, just as some achieve it without any physical expression of sexuality at all. But for most, sexuality plays an important role in the development and maintenance of this crucial linkage.

2) Pokey asked you if you'd accept an offer to be a turned into a horse, and you said no. How about an offer to be reincarnated as one? Even if you don't believe in reincarnation, just assume the immortality of the soul for a moment.

I do suspect that some form of reincarnation is possible and frequent if not actually the usual rule. And yes, horse is one of the few species that would be at the top of my list if I had a choice. I say that even knowing that many of them come to very sad and painful ends.

On the other hand, given many of my normal character traits and preferences, horse may well be what I just bounced out of in my last or next to last incarnation. (Or possibly some other equine: donkey, mule, zebra are all certainly possible. Donkey may fit better than horse, actually.)

I would accept an offer of the ability to transform myself at will into a horse and later return to human form. I would accept an offer to be transformed into a horse permanently if I could retain my human mind. I might even accept an offer of transformation that would happen at intervals without my ability to intervene (werewolf-like existence.) I just don't see much point in the transformation Pokey described, which would completely erase my present identity and memories. That might appeal to someone who hates themself and their life, but I don't qualify on those grounds.

3) Here's something different. If you'd ever had a son IRL, what would you have named him?

I have never had the least desire for offspring. I believe we have discussed this before. But if I had to name a male, human offspring of my own, I would choose Laurence (my father's and my younger brother's name) or Guy (my father's only brother who survived into my lifetime.) I would never give a son my own name lest he be called "Junior" all the time, but if Laurence and Guy were not suitable for some reason, my middle name Lee would do (grandmother's maiden name, and one of my father's brothers who died young.)

4) And a daughter, for that matter?

Grace (maternal grandmother's name) probably.

5) And the one most would shrug at, but that could potentially be embarassing for a librarian. What's the longest overdue you've ever kept a library book/CD/whatever?

The length of a weekend, two or three days. Typically we are very careful to return or renew materials precisely because it looks so bad if we don't.


Hmm. I sort of thought you'd make it much harder for me than that. ;)

Comments

[moose-93395.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I have to say that you've got a point about how turning sexual attraction solely over towards animals at the formative years could make someone emotionally and socially stunted. But just because one has found other species to be attractive or alurring, doesn't mean they've ceased to find humans to be as well. Part of the hostility towards humanity that one might feel as a zoosexual person also stems from the fact that they would be consided vile or disgusting because of the choice they have made and so preemtivly see all of humanity to already be at odds with them.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, except that all of humanity doesn't see it quite that way (I myself am proof of that fact) and in fact, the same could be said with greater force of gays and lesbians. I can assure you that the negative impact of being called "queer" and "sissy" (for reasons no more valid than having declared a liking for the wrong music or being caught reading a book) is similar. And while I have heard anti-queer vitriol of the worst sort, and seen and experienced both threatened violence and actual violence, I never during those same years heard "sheep-f**ker" or other such negatives used at all. I can only conclude that the zoo's fear of rejection, though probably no less real, is more based on internal conflict than on external evidence.

And in any case, I think the same elements apply, though in lesser degree, to any kind of sexual activity engaged in before a certain degree of mental and emotional maturity is achieved. Now someone is going to ask me to name an age that makes it OK, and of course I can't. Everyone is different. However, since that essential communion that I mentioned in my answer is all but impossible to achieve with a non-human, the dangers inherent in physical expression of zoosexuality seem greater to me. You yourself seem to have been very cautious in that respect, which I think both does you great credit and also may be a contribution to the considerable respectability I perceive in you. ;)

[calydor.livejournal.com]

I could have made it much harder, yes, but I always believed there's a line between asking questions and prying. I prefer to do the first.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We are good enough friends that I doubt I'd consider anything you asked to be prying, though I might decline to answer or at least to answer in public.