system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If bestiality is criminalized, shouldn't more animal interactions be criminalized?

Back when people were saying that gay sex would lead to beast sex, I wondered whether or not this was a valid statement: in favor of bestiality.  Bestiality is criminalized in most first-world countries using the argument:

>an animal cannot consent to sex

Sure, this statement may be true, but does this justify outlawing bestiality?  I think it is a strong argument.  However, I think that if we accept this argument as true, then there are several consequences we must also accept when we apply this very human attribute to an animal:

1. We own animals as property without their consent.  Even if an animal could consent, they should not be able capable of consenting themselves to ownership.  Nobody can consent to sell themselves into slavery.

2. We butcher animals daily.  Surely raising an animal to be butchered and then carrying out the act is worse than having sex with a non-consenting animal.  I think most people would agree that it is worse to be dead than to have been raped.

3. If an animal cannot consent, then why do we allow animals to have sex with each other?  It is technically illegal in most countries for two minors to engage in sexual congress (though it is generally not criminalized), why then do we not take precautions to prevent animals from having sex (even if it isn't criminalized, it should still be illegal if we want to remain logically consistent).

4. Petting an animal without getting its consent is the equivalent of molestation if bestiality is the equivalent of rape.


To me it seems as though we need to do one of two things:

1. We accept that bestiality is a good justification to criminalize all of these others 
interactions people have with animals.

2. We legalize bestiality.

Is this something we will decide in the future?  Will our next social revolution be the acceptance of paraphiles as it was with racial minorities and now the LGBTQ community?
gpt
It's not about the welfare of the animal. It is about constraining individual from doing what we disapprove of. What we disapprove of is an aesthetic statement and does not have to be justified or proven, kind of like saying "vanilla tastes better than chocolate".

Bestiality is illegal because enough people find the idea repugnant and that apparently is sufficient grounds for criminalization.  (funny thing, decriminalization is part of the (chrome) spell-check dictionary but criminalization isn't)