Dissertation
"In Certain Western Areas of the United States": Bestiality, Sexuality, and Animals in the American West, 1880-1975
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2021
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006439
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/119286
Abstract
What is the historical relationship between the rise of modern sexualities, changing understandings of animal welfare, and how Americans discuss and regulate sex with animals? I place the late-nineteenth creation of a sexual identity of “zoophilia” alongside the creation of other sexualities in the United States at that time, with especial reference to homosexuality and antivivisection debates. I explain how and why laws prohibiting sex with animals in the American West began shifting from a sodomy and sex-crime focus at the turn-of-the-twentieth-century to an animal welfare, physical-harm focus in the 1950s. The regulatory efforts of an American animal welfare movement, focused on physical harm to animal bodies, was increasingly codified into law by the early years of the twentieth century. My analysis of humor and pornography depicting bestiality during the early twentieth century demonstrates the widespread and sometimes contradictory ways these ideas were discussed by Americans. Lastly, I show how the 1948 publication of Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male fundamentally altered both the sexology and criminal status of bestiality, pushing animal welfare concerns to the margins of bestiality law later in the century.
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Details
- Title
- "In Certain Western Areas of the United States": Bestiality, Sexuality, and Animals in the American West, 1880-1975
- Creators
- Brian Stack
- Contributors
- Peter Boag (Advisor)Jeffrey Sanders (Committee Member)Matthew Sutton (Committee Member)Jennifer Thigpen (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of History
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 292
- Identifiers
- 99900591957501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation