The Beast Within: Materiality, Ethics and Animal Porn

Abstract

Pornography has often been assumed to lack variety, value, quality, and complexity, and is usually seen as being at the bottom of the aesthetic hierarchy. But pornography is itself distinguished by inner hierarchies which rank artistic creations and porn with high production values higher than gonzo, reality and extreme pornographies. Animal pornography — also known as bestiality or sexual zoophilia — occupies the lowest levels of the strata as an illegal, or at best semi-legal, niche. This chapter explores the interconnections of bestiality and porn in the historical framework of human-animal relations — in relation to taboos and prohibitions that concern ‘unnatural acts’ and ‘acts against nature,’ and to the category of the human as it is defined and marked against and through its animal others. By considering spam email adverts for animal porn sites,1 ‘zoo porn’ sites and a viral video, I investigate the interconnections of filth, transgression, and authenticity in animal porn as they tie into questions of materiality and ethics.

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