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In response to an onslaught of negative press, Denmark is outlawing bestiality on the grounds that animals cannot consent to sex. Denmark is the last European country where sex with animals is legal, which explains why busloads of tourists from other countries travel there to engage in legal bestiality.

Animal rights activists have been lobbying for a ban for years, but authorities resisted due to fears that it could drive the worst offenders underground. Lawmakers also rejected the idea in the past because Denmark’s ethics advisory body said that a crime is not committed if the animal isn’t injured. That argument, however, was diminished by evidence of atrocities against animals used in the sex trade.

The 2014 documentary Animal F*ckers, which chronicles the efforts of animal rights activists to ban sex with animals, presented a nuanced view of the practice, informing viewers that zoophilia (attraction to animals) is, for some, a sexual orientation, not a fetish, and that “zoophiles” love and care for their animal companions.

In the film, Oliver Burdinski, a German man who speaks openly about his sexual relationship with his dog, says, “When I was 14 or 15, I wasn’t sure if it was right, so I tried to get human partners. But I was not happy with them. I tried to be normal. In 1994, I got internet and realized that I’m not alone.”

Oliver Burdinski says his Siberian Husky decides when they have sex. (photo: Vice.com)

If Denmark outlaws bestiality on the grounds that the animals cannot consent, then will lawmakers take a closer look at other circumstances in which animals are exploited without their consent? Gestation crates on factory farms have been banned in other European countries, yet they’re still legal in Denmark. What pig would willingly reside in an indoor crate that is so small that she can’t turn around or lie down?

Activists in Columbia are demanding an end to carriage horse abuse following several incidents in which overheated, malnourished and exhausted horses collapsed in the streets of the tourist city of Cartegena.

Horse-drawn carriages cannot be operated humanely or safely in any urban area, much less in a city like Cartegena that doesn’t regulate the industry and where the drivers are abusing their horses.  Forcing nervous prey animals to haul carriages in the streets with motor vehicles and depriving them of the ability to do anything that comes naturally to them is simply cruel.  And this anachronistic industry needs to be banned. Tradition is never an excuse for the inhumane treatment of animals.  To learn more about the plight of urban carriage horses, please see BLINDERS The Movie.