Friday Lore Post: Bestiality on Nova

“And in that wretched city, men and women laid with beasts as with each other, and their offspring were demons, serving the devil in all his maleficence…and for the sins of consorting with beasts were they cast into the deepest torments of hell.” (From The Life of St. Simon, ch. 3 l.6, ch. 9, l.18)

“The Empty Lord’s servants performed marital duties with all manner of beasts, from frothing dogs to stampeding cattle to swimming creatures and all manner of birds, and their sin spread across the world, a hoard of rot that consumed the righteous and poisoned the land.” (From The Revelation of Gabriel, ch. 12, l.19-23)

“All those who enact sexual congress with an animal shall be castrated by order of the crown.” (From The Legal Code of Dolovai, Code on Sexual Conduct, by order of Queen Gabrielle ven Sancte XI, DN 1725)

“The act of copulating with an animal is punishable by public flogging.” (From The Kyainese Crown’s Laws, Section Eleven: On the Treatment of Animals, Part 8, ratified by King Franco DiGorre IV, SC 3710)

“We’re all goatfuckers here!” (From The City of Beasts, Act V, Scene II)

One of few hard and fast sexual taboos across Menechit is bestiality. It is both a heinous sin according to Catechism scripture and a serious crime according to the laws of both Dolovai and Kyaine, under different statutes—in Dolovai, bestiality is considered a sex crime, and in Kyaine it is considered a form of animal abuse. This is not to say that the act never happens, of course, but when it does, it is almost always kept secret for fear of retribution. As far back as records go sex between humans and animals has been forbidden in both countries and the countries they absorbed, with a few notable exceptions.

The major exception, and the one that persists until this day in Dolovai especially is in plays. A variety of plays depict sex between humans and animals, and historically it was common for the animal characters to be played by actual trained animals, with dogs, goats and sheep being the most common. For centuries, exceptions existed in the legal codes of both Dolovai and Kyaine for “entertaining depictions of depravity,” which allowed bestiality to be performed live by actors on stage. That clause of the Kyainese Crown’s Laws was removed by Franco DiGorre VI sixty years ago and replaced with a refusal of the legality of this practice, and a similar clause in the Legal Code of Dolovai was also removed shortly thereafter, but not replaced by a condemnation, leaving the status of bestiality on stage in a legal loophole of non-illegality. On-stage bestiality has been growing less common in Dolovai even though it is not technically illegal, as it is also not technically legal, but theatre experts have also noted that productions that don’t replace their trained animal actors with human actors for the sex scenes seem to draw in more revenue, presumably because of the taboo nature of the production.

Slavery is the other major exception to Dolovai’s bestiality laws in particular. In Kyaine, slaves are subject to the same laws as everyone else, and it is illegal for a slaveowner to compel a slave to have sex with an animal, both because it is dehumanizing for the slave, and because it is seen to harm the animal in question. In Dolovai, it is illegal for a person to have sex with an animal, but a slave isn’t fully considered a person, and therefore a master can compel his or her slaves to engage in bestiality. This is not something that occurs commonly in the modern age, though of course if it did nobody could stop them. Historically, forced rape by an animal was a punishment for slaves who were felt to have tried to rise above their station, as it was considered the most dehumanizing act to be forced upon a slave. This practice has fallen out of favour recently, mostly because Dolovin distaste for slavery in general was exacerbated by practices such as this, and it was felt to be in the best interests of northern culture to avoid such punishments as part of the process of making slavery more palatable to the crown. The Dolovin crown periodically makes noises about outlawing the practice, but as it is practiced so infrequently these days, this is considered a low priority.

Bestiality is a capital crime in Ech’kent as well and historically was punishable by death, though since the colonization of the territory, public flogging is a more common punishment. There have been disturbing reports out of the plateau in recent years of the Sorcerer King’s goons using trained dogs to rape people in order to keep them in line, but these have never been substantiated.

Outside of Menechit, the situation is slightly different. In most of Yavhore, bestiality is socially taboo, but not legally forbidden, though abusing animals is. Though they do not advertise this, many brothels across the continent will have an animal on staff who is available for hire for sexual purposes, usually in conjunction with a human prostitute who will ensure the animal’s well being. On the southern end of the continent, legal proscriptions against bestiality are becoming more common, but these have remained local laws to specific cities or towns, and not caught on widely. Part of the reason for this is the influence of colonizing Aergyre.

Bestiality is a crime in the empire, and like many crimes, is punishable with enslavement. Imperial law, however, does not recognize slaves as human, and does not prohibit bestiality between enslaved humans and animals, so long as both the slave and the animal belong to the same master, or to two masters who have consented to the act between their property. Increasingly, bestiality is performed publicly in gladiatorial arenas—sex between combatants after a battle is growing increasingly common to replace blood sports, and this is also true in animal combat, where many arena animals are now trained to fuck their opponent instead of mauling them to death.

In Djyekkan, bestiality is illegal continent wide, with the exception of with the Tobal Monkey. This monkey is about half to three quarters the size of the average adult human, and is believed to be intelligent enough to consent to sex with a human. In many places, Tobal monkeys will instigate sexual encounters with passing humans, even occupying some towns and villages seemingly for this specific purpose.

In most of Enjon, bestiality is a crime, with the caveat that this only applies to livestock animals. Wild animals are exempt from the law and may be sexually interacted with without legal repercussion, except in places where Aergyre has begun to exert legal control. Yassar is the only nation on Nova that has no bestiality prohibition whatsoever, and even allows marriages between humans and certain animals, mostly yaks.

It is thought that the presence of werewolves across the continent of Enjon may be part of the reason for the relatively lax prohibitions against bestiality. Werewolves broadly speaking do not practice bestiality by their own standards, but they do consider humans and canines to be of equal ability to reason, and have no more objection to a werewolf having sex with a dog than they do to a werewolf having sex with a human.

Among other nonhuman species, elves practice bestiality with any of their pets they see fit (including humans), and in regions where they share caves with large reptiles or mammals, it is not unusual for goblins to capture them for sex, or to go out on quests to fuck one to prove their bravery or virility. It is not at all uncommon for young merpeople to have had at least one sexual experience with an octopus or a squid, which in many places is almost an unofficial rite of passage into adolescence, done in a group, but rarely spoken of outside of that context. Dragons are well known for fucking anything that moves, but they’re far more likely to eat a goat or mountain lion than they are to have sex with one, and non-shapeshifting dragons are too big to fuck most animals anyway. Harpies ride griffons into battle, and the training of those griffons always has a sexual component—it has been found that fucking a griffon into submission for the first few weeks of its training cements in its mind its status as a mount, and remaining sexually active with a griffon mount throughout its service creates a bond between rider and mount that will make the mount supremely loyal to its rider.

There are ongoing ethical debates in various places about what exactly constitutes bestiality—for example, in Enjon, some wonder whether a human and a werewolf engaging in sex is bestiality. Similarly, a few Dolovin instances of goblin gangbangs have been met with raised eyebrows and discussions of whether goblins are similar enough to humans to be exempt from bestiality laws (with most agreeing that they are). Interspecies sexual relationships between intelligent, rational species are not unheard of, especially recently as various nonhuman races begin to have more and more contact with their neighbouring humans (this has been noted in many places; it is unclear if these events constitute a pattern or simply a coincidence) and of course nobody is going to tell a shapeshifting dragon not to fuck his favourite human or vice versa, or an orc warrior not to fuck his human spouse. The general rule of thumb followed in most places is that if a nonhuman can talk, then having sex with him, her or them is not inappropriate, or at least that it’s not bestiality. To claim otherwise would be racist, or speciesist, though how human cultures plan to accommodate those nonhumans who have less prohibitive opinions about bestiality is an open question in many places.

From “The Definitive Atlas of the World, Vol. 4: Desires and Behaviours,” by Pascal Tiberius Naoton Quimbell Haeverine anNatalie, published in White Cape in DN 1997.