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Mark, since you've obviously seen the film because you have such a strong opinion, how do you personally feel the director portrayed sex with animals? Was he critical, approving? Was there any message that you walked away with regarding human behavior?

I know for me it would be very hard to look past such a profound taboo but sometimes it is necessary to confront our ignorance not because it might change our mind but because it can reinforce our beliefs. If I have the chance, I would like to see the film as well so I can form my own opinion, even though I seriously doubt that the animal sex taboo will be eliminated any time soon!

dearest mark:

you wrote "This was inevitible and, indeed, predicted quite a long time ago by we social conservatives - and we were shouted down back then because, supposedly, our "slipperly slope" argument was absurd."

beastality is NOT a new deviant behavior & certainly NOT newly known about due to warnings from social conservatives, or anybody else.

even more recently, tell me you've never heard about drunk farm boys having their way w sheep...or did u just snicker(?). or how 'bout gay men w gerbils?

so we have a director self-promoting his film thru exaggerated claims...whoda thunk it?

despite this, beastiality remains deviant.

Agreed Mark, get out the bull whip!

Will, you have got to be kidding! That's the absolute joke to you liberal intellects(supposed). You feel an obligation to watch this filth, just so you can form your "own opinion". Well I don't give a damn if it's clean or not, it insinuates certain things that should NEVER be tolerates in civilization. But, I'm sure you were probably O.K. with Dakota Fannings simulated sexual abuse, oops, that's right, you haven't seen it so you don't have a mind......errrr....opinion I mean. Unfrickinreal!!!

Will is apparently the new poster child for the LLL--the Looniest Loony Left. First he evidently thinks he is sounding reasonable when he admits that being hacked to death in utero "might not be the best outcome" for a helpless unborn child, and now he spouts this gibberish: "....sometimes it is necessary to confront our ignorance.." --- "our ignorance" being our belief that sex with animals is wrong.

Pretzel Boy strikes again, this time trying to twist himself into what he seems to think is a position which will show him as being oh so open minded, oh so LIBERAL, but in reality shows him only to lack a backbone.

You've got to stand for something, Will, or you'll fall for anything.

Betcha if a NAMBLA article is posted, ol' Will will be posturing about us all needing to overcome our "ignorance" and embracing this group of sick perverts.

The director of this movie said it himself. He admitted he had to "aestheticize(d) the sleaze right out of it." Don't need to DO that if the sleaze isn't there in the first place, Will.

Yeah, I read the entire article via a link on Drudge and it made me totally sick. I am a pretty open-minded guy and believe what goes on in a person's bedroom should pretty much stay in the bedroom but that doesn't include sex with animals in the wild or in the barn. Where is PETA when all of this is being perpetrated on the public? To me this is an abomination to nature and is absolutely without a doubt animal abuse. Also, I agree with bearmanUSMC when he states we don't have to see something to know it's wrong. If Will's idiotic premise is even half true then we'd all have to witness an abortion, rape, mugging etc. on film or not to determine whether or not it has some redeeming value. That just pure liberal bullshit and is resulting in the ruination of the United States. Furthermore, has anyone even considered the health hazards involved in having sex with animals that might lead to super-viruses being transmitted to humans such an Bird Flu or AIDS?

Mark, I live in Asia and frequently go to Singapore. It's a very descent, open and fine place to live and work. I mean I guess the argument could be made that the Singaporeans are being deprived of watching people screw animals and making films about it but I'm sure they can live without it, even so-called liberal ones. Your flogging idea has some merit but I think it will be a cold day in hell before that is ever implemented in the USA.

What is happening to my beloved USA? It actually saddens me to see things going downhill so fast so soon. Some people will say it's a testament to the strength of our nation and the First Amendment but I think that the earth is violently shaking because all of our founding fathers are spinning in their proverbial graves. Free speech can be taken too far and those who do not practice responsible free speech should really be ashamed of themselves

I think you are taking the word "taboo" too literally...I view it more in its anthropological context as socially-constructed "rules" that govern society. Should we not find value in trying to understand why a certain taboo is considered taboo in the first place?

And yes, I will reserve judgement about the Dakota Fanning rape scene because again I like to form my own opinions rather than regurgitate what Sean Hannity gripes about on his radio show.

It may be useful for you to explain how reserving judgement about an issue or behavior necessarily implies agreement or disagreement.

I look at this a little differently.

That the behavior covered in this movie is disgusting. And equally disgusting is the fact that the director tries to normalize this activity as merely another "taboo."

However, like so many disgusting things, when exposed to the public they have an effect far removed from the director's intent.

Howard Stern played an audio clip from the movie several weeks ago, in which a man and woman discussed their sexual relationship with a pony and, before Stern and his crew got a chance to goof on them, it was clear how comically disgusting this couple is. Of course, Stern did indeed bring his A-game is ripping into these folks.

The fact is that the director and his subjects achieve the opposite of their goal. Rather than make this behavior seem normal, they expose to the light of public view just how perverse is the behavior and those who practice it.

Will I see this movie? C'mon, get real. But its existence represents the best argument in favor of free speech. This movie is its own enemy.

Oh, and I also see absolutely no political left/right liberal/conservative angle to any of this story.

I have no idea the director's party affiliation and I can't imagine politics was on the director's mind during production.

Will,

Opposition to bestiality is not a socially constructed rule...a socially constructed rule is how much of a woman's breast may be displayed in public. What you have here is a nauseating abomination, and a man who wants to normalize it.

Robert Redford is a reprehensible human being for allowing such trash - if he does not know what entertainment then he should no longer be in the business;

Why anyone worships this man is beyond me!

"Free speech can be taken too far and those who do not practice responsible free speech should really be ashamed of themselves"

Thanks for the constitutional law lesson, Shanghai. Could you please define "responsible" free speech for us in this context, because the Supreme Court has had notorious difficulty doing so.

"Will I see this movie? C'mon, get real. But its existence represents the best argument in favor of free speech. This movie is its own enemy."

Smegma, you hit the nail on its head. In the "marketplace of ideas," bestiality has been in a perpetual recession. This movie is unlikely to change anyone's general perceptions of the practice.

Gar Wood

Mark -

Hey, as they say, dont knock it till you try it. I mean, maybe sex with animals really isnt so bad. You should try it first, THEN if you dont like it still, you can form an opinion. Same goes for abortions....

I love how the left is forcing itself to be more and more "tolerant" of anything people can come up with. Becuase if they ever draw the line (besides intolerance for christians and jews) then they will lose everything they stand for. Next they will be saying you shouldnt judge a mass murderer until you walk a mile in his shoes... ohh wait, they already do that. Cant forget the whole "I would rather have Saddam in charge of this country than bush" thing they got going on. Saddam wasnt such a bad guy, I mean he was brave to stand up against Bush. And he hated Jews too. What a good guy.

I've always thought any sexual activity inollving consenting adults should be legal, but animals aren't considered capable of consenting. Oddly enough, if the director had filmed people cutting up and devouring the beasts, it would be legal. Anyway, count me as a leftist who thinks this should remain taboo and illegal.

That said, the only reason such a film will be distributed is profit. If the studio executives think it will make money, they will buy and distribute it. A nice caning would presumably make some reconsider. We could warm up by caning Mark Foley.

Now Will is showing us how smart he is by explaining that he is actually merely viewing animal abuse and sexual aberration within their "..anthropological context as socially-constructed "rules" .." Hogwash.

Will would have been in the front of the crowd oohing and aaahing over the Emperor's new clothes, and when proved to be an idiot would have dodged and ducked by claiming he was only expressing an opinion based on the abstraction of a projection of what the clothes might have looked like, had they existed.

Pretzel Boy.

There is no "right to never be offended" anywhere in the Constitution. Actually, the first amendment pretty much guarantees you will be offended.

Someone made a movie. You don't like the subject matter. Deal with it.

You want to whip people who have sex with animals?

That's a good plan, you should write a book about it.

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Wyckyd,

Its not a matter of being offended - its a matter of bestiality being one of those things beyond the pale or rational human conduct.

Responsible free speech? Who said I was trying to interpret constitutional law. It's more of a common sense thing than anything else which obvously you and other LLL's don't have much to speak about.

Let me give you a simple example since you are obviously simpled minded. Btw, my mom always told me to be kind to animals (thus my disdain for this sort of movie) and idiots. Guess which category you belong to; anyway I digress.

Let's say a guy get's up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, goes to his office, tells his boss that he's a worthless manager and idiot, gets fired and on the way home decides to call his mother-in-law and tell her watch a bitch she has been and that he regretted the day he ever married into their good-for-nothing family. Ok, now nobody says the guy doesn't have the right say whatever he wants under the guise of free speech, right? But he can't go blaming anyone else when he gets home, his wife is packed and going out the front door and on her way out says "You should be ashamed of yourself, you'll be hearing from my lawyer".

That's what I call responsible free speech. Still don't get it? I suspect you never will.

Hmmm... well, Mr. Noonan seems appropriately disgusted by bestiality, but strangely stimulated by the idea of public flagellation. Each man to his own perversion, I suppose...

Pretzel Boy morphs into Pretzel Club.

Mark--why don't you post a thread in favor of gravity, so the PBs can denounce you and your simplistic closed-minded views and proclaim the moral and intellectual superiority of hovering three inches above the ground?

Or, as I suggested, do a thread about the degeneracy of NAMBLA, so they can dash to the defense of what is, after all, just another form of "LOVE".

Knee-jerk Pretzel Boys.