As taboos go, bestiality is right up there with incest, smoking and blowing your nose in the tablecloth. But following in the footsteps of the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, fringe bioethicist Jacob M. Appel contends that there are no logical reasons to ban it.

Singer has not argued the case for bestiality in academic journals. However, he did write a short article in 2001 for an on-line magazine suggesting that it might not be abusive. Since then, some American states and even the Netherlands have made it a criminal offence.

Now Appel, who is not adverse to taboo-smashing, has defended it in similar terms. "The burden should be placed upon the prohibitionists to explain why a small minority of individuals with non-mainstream sexual interests pose a threat to our overall societal welfare... The test of a truly enlightened civilization is one that lets people alone, to pursue their own predilections, even when the majority of us prefer to live our lives very differently from theirs."

In response, bioethics writer Wesley J. Smith argued: "The great philosophical question of the 21st Century is going to be whether we will knock humans off the pedestal of moral exceptionalism and instead define ourselves as just another animal in the forest... Nothing would more graphically demonstrate our unexceptionalism than countenancing human/animal sex." ~ Oppposing Views, Mar 15