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before absenting himself. Although the local coroner pronounced the death
accidental, its unusual cause incited intense discussion about the propriety
of sex with animals - both in Washington and across the United States.
As Michael Brown and Claire Rasmussen note in their analysis of how
Washingtonians responded to the Enumclaw incident, it 'provoked near
accidental death, while many decried his sexual choices. As David Delaney
observes, 'The zoophile crosses - and in so doing, erases - the boundary
[between humans and animals]. He climbs over the barrier of disgust that
marks off the civilized from the wild' (2003: 258). In less than a year, leg-
islators in the state passed a law that made bestiality illegal, punishable by
imprisonment for up to five years. What's remarkable about this rush to leg-
islate is two things: not only was the Pinyan-Tait case the exception to the
rule (i.e. bestiality's invisibility in the public domain), but no zoophiles had
been agitating openly for bestiality to be legal in the first place. In this con-
text, not only was an anti-bestiality law superfluous but it also stood little
chance of discouraging zoophiles (given that they are highly secretive and
rarely caught). Yet it was proposed, debated and passed all the same.
The law (RCW 16.52.205, entitled 'Animal cruelty in the first degree')
came into force in 2006. It was drafted, discussed and agreed with little
or no opposition among local politicians (a Republican, Pam Roach, spon-
sored the bill). It contains a fairly stringent definition of human-animal sex.
I quote:
'Sexual contact' means any contact, however slight, between the mouth, sex
organ, or anus of a person and the sex organ or anus of an animal, or any
intrusion, however slight, of any part of the body of the person into the sex
organ or anus of an animal, or any intrusion of the sex organ or anus of the
person into the mouth of the animal, for the purpose of sexual gratification or
arousal of the person.
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Defined thus, deliberate 'sexual contact' is, according to RCW 16.52.205,
a form of animal cruelty. So too is the transmission of any images of sex-
ual contact or of 'sexual conduct' (defined in the bill as 'any touching or
fondling by a person, either directly or through clothing, of the sex organs
or anus of an animal or any transfer or transmission of semen by the per-
son upon any part of the animal, for the purpose of sexual gratification or
arousal of the person'). In this regard, Washington State has aligned itself
with many other US states and numerous countries around the world.
The speed with which Washington legislators moved to outlaw bestiality
after Pinyan's death is symptomatic of a much older and wider attempt to
enforce a human-animal divide. This divide is intended to regulate activity
on either side of, and across, the putative human-animal border. While all
sorts of human-animal interactions are seen as highly positive or else argued
to be necessary (e.g. testing drugs or cosmetics on mammals), some incite
