E-Paper
US professor's post asking people to read on sex with animals stirs row. Netizens say ‘Someone check his hard drive'
"Another thought-provoking article is ‘Zoophilia Is Morally Permissible’… which is just out…" Singer wrote on X.
A professor from an Ivy League institution in the US, known for its advocacy for animal rights, recently expressed support for a study endorsing bestiality, describing it as "thought-provoking."
Princeton University's bioethics professor Peter Singer, also a co-founder of the ‘Journal of Controversial Ideas’, shared the study, asserting that the article challenges societal ‘taboos’ related to engaging in sexual activities with animals.
"Another thought-provoking article is 'Zoophilia Is Morally Permissible' by Fira Bensto (pseudonym), which is just out in the current issue of (the Journal of Controversial Ideas)," Professor Singer wrote in a post on X.
"This piece challenges one of society's strongest taboos and argues for the moral permissibility of some forms of sexual contact between humans and animals. This article offers a controversial perspective that calls for a serious and open discussion on animal ethics and sex ethics," he added.
The professor further encouraged people to ‘read and ponder’ the study promoting sex with animals and shared its link.
Reacting to the post a user wrote, "There is nothing to ponder. People (almost always men) who rape and sexually molest animals should be in jail and on the sex offender register. Sex with someone who can't consent is rape. Next!" while another commented, “Peter, you have been arguing for decades that we need to rethink bestiality… I thought it was sick then. I think it's sick now. But I appreciate that whatever keeps you in the public eye is what works.”
“Someone should probably check your hard drive,” a third user wrote.
After his post stirred controversy, Singer said that he did not express agreement with the premise of the essay and that it was only published in the journal. “I didn’t write the article on the permissibility of zoophilia. It was published in the Journal of Controversial Ideas, a journal that pushes back against “cancel culture” by providing an outlet for controversial ideas, which authors can publish under a pseudonym,” he wrote on X.
Singer is best known for his 1975 work ‘Animal Liberation,’ in which he advocates against most animal experimentation.
