Greetings from Santa Cruz

Just hanging out this afternoon with friends here on California's beautiful Central Coast, where it has been raining just about non-stop since I arrived. What a terrific vacation. And then I get to go home to Los Angeles on Monday and start my new video store job. 2005, here I come!

I'm just being curmudgeonly because my three more musically-inclined friends have been downstairs attempting to play "I Am The Walrus" on a set of acoustic guitars for about the past hour, and I'm getting a bit tired of hearing Aaron screech the part about custard dripping from a dead dog's eye over and over again. But the feeling will pass. Tonight, we're headed to the San Francisco area for a bit of New Year's celebrating and whatnot, but there really isn't anything more exciting than that to report, I'm afraid.

Oh, yeah, there was one more thing to talk about. I got a very intriguing comment on my previous "bestiality" post from the same guy who informed me that the word is spelled "bestiality" as opposed to "beastiality." He goes by mynym, in case you're interested.

Anyway, in response to my declaration of opposition to sex with animals on the basis of consent, here's what mynym had to say:

Consent cannot be the real reason that you want to keep that sexual taboo, given what is done to animals without their consent. I.e., hunting, butchering, etc.

It's certainly a unique argument...If you extend it far enough, it states that carniverous people by definition have no rational basis for opposing animal cruelty. You approve of killing animals for food, therefore you approve of doing anything you please to an animal.

The idea of animals consenting to something like "hunting" is also amusing to me. Kind of defeats the purpose of hunting, if you're going to have to ask for permission from your prey. Like, "Well, Mr. Deer, I'd really like to shoot you this afternoon. If I could just get you to sign this consent form...Oh, you have no opposable thumbs. And you don't speak English. Well, how about you just make a mark with your antlers?"

He also implies that I hold certain moral values merely because they are commonly acceptable, and that he's insightful whereas I am closed-minded, which is always appreciated. That's the fun of having a blog, really. Not getting any comments in response to your constant posting, except for the occasional philosopher who swings by to inform you that you're ill-informed.

Unfortunately, mynym's main argument, though appealing in its casual dismissal of commonly-held moral conceits, makes little sense. I'm okay with raising and slaughtering cows to provide hungry people with a meal, sure. Would I be in favor of slowly torturing this cow for several hours until it finally died from pain and fatigue? Of course not.

There is a big difference between finding the consumption of animal flesh acceptable and finding the torture of animals acceptable, and having sex with an animal against its will would certainly classify as torture. Or, at the very least, we consider it torture if you do it to a human being.

Certainly, mynym is aware of this, which just leads me to wonder if he is playing Devil's Advocate. I mean, I like beef and pork and chicken a lot, but that doesn't mean I think it's okay to cruelly gratify one's sexual urges on a helpless living creature.

So, that's something (albeit something unpleasant) to think about this lazy afternoon while I wait to ring in the New Year. It beats listening to my guitar-happy companions, who have now switched over to "Come Together."