Sex With Animals to be Banned in Denmark

In the last three years, Germany, Norway, and Sweden have banned bestiality within their borders. And now, Denmark has finally followed suit, after the country's Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dan Jørgensen, found that the practice is "damaging Denmark's international reputation," Mashable reported.

"I have decided that we should ban sex with animals," Jørgensen said. "The most important is that in the vast majority of cases it is an attack against the animals."

This entails amending the Animal Welfare Act for 2015, which actually "already makes harm against animals illegal," the site noted.

Bengt Holst, chief of the Nordic nation's animal ethics committee, said that an amendment is not necessary due to the existing provisions supporting the ban on harming animals. This, however, has not kept Denmark from being noted for its animal sex tourism industry and the rise of underground bestial activities in the country.

"A recent Gallup poll revealed 76 per cent of Danes supported a ban on the legality of animal sex," The Independent said. "Although the amendment was already tabled by Denmark's government, Mr Jørgensen's comments are an explicit indication the change will specifically include the banning of bestiality."

"And under all circumstances, any doubts about it should go to the animals' benefit. They naturally cannot say no to going along with it," the agriculture minister also said.

VICE had reported on the subject as far back as 2007, saying that news of animal sex tours in Denmark's Jutland had surfaced 7 years ago. The chairman of the country's ethics advisory body at the time had said that "if no harm came to the animal, no crime had been committed."

This has prompted animal rights activists, like Karoline Lundstrøm, to speak against bestiality, especially with the existence of actual "horror stories about atrocities committed against animals in Denmark," such as reports of "mutilated horses with condoms strewn at their taped-together legs," as noted by the publication.

"I don't think the Danish government is doing enough to protect the animals," Lundstrøm was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying. "They need to do something to protect zoophilia in Denmark."

Ms. Lundstrøm's view may gradually change as the amendment pushes through next year.

Currently, bestiality remains legal in Hungary, Finland, and Romania. It is also actually legal in some states in the U.S.

"In fact, more than a dozen US states and territories legally permit some form of man-bites-dog action, including Alabama, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Washington, DC," VICE noted.