The Importance Of Bestiality

I found our first readings in this chapter to be slightly intriguing and rather repulsive all at the same time. All along, I’ve never even though of the idea that humans would could or would want to have sexual relations with animals, after all, we do need nourishment and some type of nutrition, all of which we gain from consuming meat and other various items that come from animals. In today’s society, bestiality is not at all accepted. What were seen in western Christian traditions, homosexual activities as well as bestiality were known to be something dreadful, as well as a sin against the lord. Sex was used for a form of procreation, and anything else was known as nothing short of sinful, and if you did it out of wedlock, let alone at animal, it would directly affect god in some sort of way. In the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries followed later in the National Law Codex of 1442 in Sweden, Bestiality was named as a capital crime. In the reading it seemed as though bestiality was near inevitable for young boys to get in too at the time. Along with infanticide, bestiality was named the most serious problem faced in Sweden with regards to homosexual activities. There were few crimes in the bible that were labeled as capital, however, they later were seemed to be accepted by or from the Mosaic rule, nonetheless, cases of bestiality were still exceptionally harsh in society, as members of law enforcement kept strict rules, and weren’t afraid of prosecution, and most of the time death. There was no protection of any sort when it came to the protection of young males in society. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, bestiality was a significant part of myth and folklore in Sweden. Religion, specifically Christianity...

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... along side with abstinence and bestiality were the root of male ambivalence per Liliequist. Young boys often got excited at the sight of animals mounting each other, and were nonetheless curious about married and sexual life. Young boys often taught each other how to explore their bodies with the farm animals.
Liliequist makes a great argument in this chapter in the book. I would not have thought that upper class and lower class were given different rights in terms of bestiality to start. With all the reading done, in my overall opinion given the strict rules for engaging in sexual acts at the time, it seemed inevitable especially for young males to engage in the act. I thought that Liliequist did a great job backing up his events with statistics, historical accounts and records, and even pictures to give us a better account of what had happened during the time.