Social Scientific Analysis of Human-Animal Sexual Interactions

• Main Authors: José María Valcuende del Río, Rafael Cáceres-Feria
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-10-01
• Series: Animals
• Subjects: bestiality; human-animal sexual relations; zoophilia
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/10/1780

An ontological shift has led to a revitalisation of the research area that, within the social sciences, deals with the interactions between humans and animals. However, there are topics which are still taboo: interspecies sexuality. Sexual practices between humans and animals have been fundamentally analysed from a medical perspective, failing to consider the influence of cultural context. Departing from a thorough bibliographical revision, here we revise the approaches that, both from sociology and anthropology, have been used to analyse this phenomenon from different perspectives, including bestiality, zoophilia, and zoosexuality.