Is Watching Beastiality Videos Illegal in the US?
The laws around viewing or owning beastiality videos differ across the United States. This article explains which states allow or prohibit possession of this content and potential punishments. It also covers ethical viewpoints on beastiality involving animals. We’ll cover key questions like:
- What exactly constitutes beastiality or animal porn?
- Which U.S. states prohibit viewing/possessing this type of content?
- What are the potential penalties for violations?
- Is accessing beastiality videos online inherently risky?
- What moral and psychological perspectives exist around this practice?
So grab a cup of coffee, and let’s untangle the complex web of laws, ethics, and debates surrounding this subject.
What is Beastiality? Defining Sexual Acts with Animals
Before we dive into the legal specifics, it’s important to clearly define what beastiality refers to. Beastiality, also called zoophilia, involves sexual activity between humans and animals. This can include penetration, oral sex acts, masturbation of an animal, or any situation where a person uses an animal for sexual gratification.
Beastiality is widely considered a form of animal abuse, as animals cannot consent to sexual acts with humans. It is distinct from simply observing animals mate in nature for educational, scientific or other non-sexual purposes.
Federal Laws Around Beastiality and Animal Cruelty
On the federal level, there is no overarching criminal law in the United States that prohibits viewing or possessing beastiality pornography or videos. However, a few key federal laws and regulations are relevant:
The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act This 2019 law bans the creation, sale, and distribution of “crush videos” that depict animals being crushed, burned, drowned, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily harm. While not directly addressing beastiality content, it aims to combat the markets for videos depicting animal cruelty.
Uniformed Code of Military Justice For members of the U.S. armed forces, the code explicitly prohibits “unnatural carnal copulation with an animal” – essentially criminalizing beastiality itself as a military offense.
Beyond these narrower laws, the First Amendment prevents the federal government from completely banning possession or viewing of content that could be considered obscene, including some beastiality videos. Famously, U.S. laws prohibiting obscenity have a few major exceptions based on artistic, scientific, and other merits.
State Laws on Watching/Possessing Beastiality Videos and Images
Since there is no federal criminal ban, the legality of viewing or possessing beastiality pornography largely comes down to state laws. And this landscape is quite mixed, with some states explicitly prohibiting it, some states staying silent, and potential overlap with general obscenity and animal cruelty statutes.
States Where Viewing Beastiality Is Illegal
As of 2024, over two dozen U.S. states have specific laws prohibiting the possession or viewing of beastiality pornography and depictions of humans engaged in sexual acts with animals. These include:
States with Felony Penalties:
- Arizona
- Delaware
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Montana
- New Jersey
- North Carolina
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Virginia
- Washington
In these states, possessing beastiality videos or images is typically a felony offense, with potential penalties including prison time, fines, and in some cases requirements like counseling or registering as a sex offender.
States with Misdemeanor Penalties:
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Maine
- Maryland
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New York
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Utah
- Vermont
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
In these jurisdictions, possessing beastiality porn may be considered a misdemeanor offense, with penalties like fines, probation, or limited jail time for first offenses.
It’s important to note the exact criminal penalties can vary, with some states instituting harsher punishments for repeat offenses, involvement of minors, or other specific factors. Consulting a local criminal defense lawyer is advisable if facing charges related to possessing beastiality videos or content.
States Where Viewing May Be Legal
Only two U.S. states – New Mexico and West Virginia – currently have no laws explicitly criminalizing the possession or viewing of beastiality pornography and depictions of humans engaged in sexual acts with animals.
However, in these states as well as others, possessing beastiality content could potentially run afoul of:
- General obscenity laws prohibiting distribution/possession of extremely explicit content
- Animal cruelty statutes banning depictions of cruelty or abuse against animals
- Child exploitation laws if content involves minors viewing or engaged with animals
- Other public decency or morality-based laws
So while not legally prohibited in those two states, watching beastiality videos still carries risks and may violate other laws. Furthermore, states can enact new legislation to prohibit this type of content in the future.
Evaluating Arguments For and Against Criminalizing Beastiality Porn
The legality of beastiality porn is an ethically complex issue, with valid arguments on both sides of the criminalization debate:
Freedom of Expression Perspectives
A key argument against prohibiting possession of beastiality videos is one of free speech and expression under the First Amendment. While the production and distribution of this content could be reasonably regulated, the argument goes that merely viewing it privately does not directly harm anyone and should not be a criminal act.
Critics highlight the slippery slope of criminalizing private possession of any content no matter how distasteful. They argue obscenity and community standards are highly subjective.
Preventing Normalization of Abuse
The main counterargument is that allowing private possession helps normalize and enable underlying abusive and unethical acts – in this case, sexual exploitation of animals. By creating a consumer market, even just for viewing, it drives further production and animal cruelty.
Some psychologists argue consumption of beastiality videos can reinforce deviant desires and make people more likely to act on those urges illegally in the future. So criminalizing possession is a preventative measure.
Animal Cruelty Considerations
Extending animal cruelty laws to any depiction of sexual acts with animals is another argument for prohibition. Even if the specific video did not directly harm the animal during production, the reasoning is that all such content inevitably involves and glorifies animal abuse.
Laws against depictions of animal cruelty already exist for “crush videos” and the like. Adding beastiality videos is simply expanding the same ethical philosophy of preventing a market for exploiting animals.
Ultimately, it’s a complex issue of weighing individual liberties against societal protections. As with other obscenity and pornography laws, much comes down to the legal interpretations of “prurient interest” and “serious literary/artistic value” in each particular case and jurisdiction.
Accessing Beastiality Content Online – Potential Risks
Separate from the legalities, there are significant practical risks to attempting to access beastiality pornography and other related content online:
Terms of Service Violations
All major online platforms and websites prohibit uploading or sharing any illegal pornography, including videos depicting beastiality and sexual acts with animals. Violating these policies can result in account termination, loss of data, etc.
Security Risks
Much of this content exists only on sketchy websites and dark web sources known for malware, viruses, and other security risks. Attempting to access it puts your devices and data at risk of compromise.
Stumbling Into Illegal Territory
Even if not your intent, it’s possible to inadvertently access or download illegal content like child exploitation videos when navigating unvetted sources for beastiality videos. This could lead to serious criminal liability.
Digital Footprint & Monitoring
Depending on your specific Internet activities, your attempts to find beastiality videos may be logged or tracked by your internet service provider, employer network, or law enforcement agencies monitoring for explicit content.
Given the significant technical and legal dangers, accessing this type of pornography online is simply not worth the risks for most general users. It’s wiser to avoid it entirely.
Ethical and Moral Perspectives on Beastiality
Aside from the legal issues, beastiality itself is considered unethical, immoral, and cruel by most of society. There are several key arguments against engaging in sexual acts with animals from an ethical standpoint:
Inability of Animals to Consent
The core issue is that animals do not have the cognitive ability or legal capacity to consent to sexual activity with humans. Engaging in such acts is a form of exploitation and abuse, similar to sexual abuse of children or adults who cannot provide meaningful consent.
Psychological Viewpoints
From a psychological perspective, the motivations behind human desires to engage in beastiality are seen as deviant and a potential sign of deeper mental health issues or paraphilic disorders. Beastiality is classified as a crime against nature.
Many psychologists and animal behaviorists argue that animals simply do not have the biological hardwiring to derive pleasure or satisfaction from sexual interactions with humans. So in addition to consent issues, the acts are inherently abusive and distressing for the animal.
Animal Welfare Concerns
There are also ethical concerns around the physical and emotional welfare of animals subjected to beastiality. Aside from issues like physical injuries, diseases, or trauma, there are worries about deep psychological scarring in creatures unable to process the violation.
Even if an animal is not visibly distressed or injured during the act, advocates argue they still suffer by being objectified and deprived of their natural behaviors and habitats. Condoning beastiality is seen as devaluing the lives of animals.
Moral Depravity Arguments
More broadly, critics view beastiality as a depraved and unnatural act degrading to humans and a violation of moral values around appropriate sexual conduct. It is seen as a step too far, even compared to relatively more accepted areas like pornography or sex work.
Religious institutions and social conservatives frequently cite beastiality as a violation of divine principles of humans having dominion over animals rather than subjugating them in service of lust or depravity.
While ethical stances are more subjective compared to legal arguments, the inability of animals to consent makes beastiality very difficult to justifiably defend from a moral perspective for most of society. The practice is considered cruel and abusive to animals in addition to being a deviant human behavior.
Slippery Slope Concerns
There are also worries from some critics that normalizing or legalizing beastiality could start society down a slippery slope towards eroding other moral boundaries around appropriate sexual conduct. The fear is that if society accepts human-animal sexual relations, it could open the door to accepting other unethical activities like bestiality involving children or non-consenting adults.
Of course, others would argue this is an exaggerated slippery slope fallacy. But it highlights how controversies around perceived moral depravities often involve existential concerns about protecting the very fabric of a society’s values and ethical norms.
Psychological Harm to Humans
In addition to the ethical issues around animal welfare, there are concerns that normalizing beastiality could have negative psychological impacts on humans as well – especially children and abuse victims exposed to it. Psychologists worry it could distort developing perspectives around healthy sexual boundaries and relationships.
There are also fears that a cultural embrace of beastiality could cause psychological harm to humans by normalizing the objectification of non-human beings unable to consent as acceptable. This could reinforce abusive mindsets and make such objectification and lack of consent more acceptable in other contexts as well.
Defense of Beastiality
While arguments defending beastiality as ethical are quite rare in modern discourse, a few have been made by fringe sources and philosophers over the years:
- Highlighting boundaries between humans and animals are artificial social constructs without rational basis
- Arguing animals can derive pleasure from acts if unforced
- Equating to ethical non-mainstream practices like BDSM between consenting adults
- Challenging implied superiority of human species over animal species
However, these arguments are routinely dismissed by ethical scholars and lack widespread acceptance. The moral consensus is quite clear that beastiality represents an unethical violation of an unconsenting party unable to give meaningful permission.
Rejecting Consent Arguments
Those arguing animals can consent to or derive pleasure from sexual acts with humans are swiftly rebutted. Credible experts across fields like psychology, zoology, and veterinary science robustly assert that animals do not have the cognitive ability or biological hardwiring to Welcome or enjoy such acts in any way akin to human consent.
Distinguishing From BDSM
Equating beastiality to BDSM or other ethical practices between consenting adults is seen as a false equivalence. With BDSM, there is mutual agreement through safe words, negotiations of boundaries, and the ability to revoke consent. None of those protections exist for an animal unable to understand or agree to sexual acts.
Respecting Boundaries
Challenging human-animal boundaries as arbitrary constructs is viewed as an untenable stance by most moral philosophers. While human superiority over animals is a debated concept, most believe dogs, cats, horses and other domestic creatures lack the cognitive and emotional capacity of adult humans. Therefore, clear boundaries must exist to prevent unethical exploitation and abuse.
Psychological Underpinnings
Ultimately, most dismiss pro-beastiality arguments because they fail to grapple with the disturbing psychological underpinnings of a human desiring to use an animal for sexual gratification. This behavior is seen as a significant mental disorder or paraphilic issue requiring therapeutic treatment – not rationalization or decriminalization.
Even if hypothetically no criminal act was committed in a specific case of beastiality, the moral consensus is that it represents a person acting on psychologically unhealthy and unnatural urges that should be condemned and deterred by society, not enabled. The behavior is viewed as deviant and a slippery slope towards much darker moral depths if legitimized.
