fchan

>>397

Consent (intransitive verb) - to give permission or approval for something to happen; acceptance of or agreement to something proposed or desired by another

Acquiesce (intransitive verb) - to agree to or comply with something passively rather than expressing approval or support.

Synonyms: agree, comply accept, CONSENT, assent, give in, submit, go along with, yield, concede, concur.

Antonym: Resist
(Definitions and synonyms were taken from the Encarta English Dictionary.)

So, in other words, Animals can consent through "acquiescence".  Acquiescence has held up in court in cases of sexual harassment.  If you treat somebody sexually at the workplace, and the person you are treating sexually does not say no, but instead automatically silently files a suit, they have no case!  In order to win a sexual harassment case, you must make it clear that sexual advances are unwanted and unwelcome.  Only then does a sexual harassment victim have a case if the advances continue.  Legally, not saying “no” is the same as saying “yes”. 

Since animals lack a speech center in there brain, they are only able to communicate via body language.  Therefore, we can assume that “residence” which is negative also means “no” which is also negative.  “Acquiescence”, which is positive, can be equaled to “yes”, which is also positive.  Why is this so difficult to understand?

But what about this “informed consent” I keep hearing people talk about?  Let’s look at a definition of informed consent before I continue this discussion.

Informed Consent (noun) - agreement by a patient to undergo an operation or medical treatment or take part in a clinical trial after being informed of and having understood the risks involved. (Encarta English Dictionary)

Informed Consent n.  Agreement to do something or to allow something to happen only after all the relevant facts are known. In contracts, an agreement may be reached only if there has been full disclosure by both parties of everything each party knows which is significant to the agreement. A patient's consent to a medical procedure must be based on his/her having been told all the possible consequences, except in emergency cases when such consent cannot be obtained. A physician or dentist who does not tell all the possible bad news as well as the good, operates at his/her peril of a lawsuit if anything goes wrong. In criminal law, a person accused or even suspected of a crime cannot give up his/her legal rights such as remaining silent or having an attorney, unless he/she has been fully informed of his/her rights.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/informed+consent

From Wikipedia: Informed consent is a legal condition whereby a person can be said to have given consent based upon an appreciation and understanding of the facts and implications of any actions. The individual needs to be in possession of all of his faculties, such as not mentally retarded or mentally ill, without an impairment of judgment at the time of consenting. Impairments include sleep, illness, intoxication, drunkenness, using drugs or other health problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent

Of these definitions, two of them pertain to medical procedures.  Sex is not a medical procedure, so it does not apply to the cases of rape or acts of bestiality.  But for the sake of the discussion, let’s toss out the medical connotations of informed consent for a moment.

Basically, informed consent is where all relevant parties are of sound mind and body, and understand the significant of the agreement being reached and all risks involved, if any.

Sex is a very basic function that even animals can understand.  It isn’t hard to figure out because it is so reflexive and automatic in many stages of its natural progression. 

Now, lets look at the two main halves of informed consent: physical condition and understanding and see if how well they apply to an animal’s perspective.

If one is to engage in sex with an animal one must first make sure that the animal is of sound mind and body.
1.    Does the animal have any mental handicaps or impairments?
2.    Has the animal been drugged (such as been given tranquilizers to make it more docile and compliant)?
3.    Does the animal suffer from a mental illness?
4.    Does the animal have any other health problems or issues that would impair its judgment?

If the answer to these questions is “no” then the first qualifying half of “informed consent” has been met.  Next, we need to look at the risk and significant of sexual relations with animals.

Risks
1.)    Injury could be incurred if the female’s vagina is too small to accommodate a male’s penis.  If the female is large enough, then this point is irrelevant.
2.)    If the human has a disease that could be transmitted to the animal, then the animal should know about that disease.  Since it is impossible to explain this to an animal, any human with such a disease should never have sex with an animal.  On the other hand, a human who is clean need not explain anything of this sort, which makes this point irrelevant.

Significance
1.)    Sex has the potential to create emotional bonds which may amplify separation anxiety.  (Actually, this may be more significant to the human than to the animal, since animals do not seem to exhibit the sentimentality that humans do.)
2.)    Sex with a human will never result in the production of offspring.  (To my knowledge, animals do not have any emotional ideals pertaining to the creation of offspring.  This is often pointed out by those who encourage spaying and neutering.  No need to inform the animal about this because the fact that sex is unproductive is not relevant to them.)
3.)    Sex has the potential to feel quite pleasurable.  (This point is both relevant and obvious to all parties involved.  No need to inform the animal because it is so obvious.)

Conclusion: Animals are capable of informed consent because sex is a very basic part of life, which means that it isn’t difficult to figure out.  Hell, even some bacteria can do it, and they don’t even have a cell nucleus! 

If sex is so hard and so difficult to understand, is it because we humans have complicated it so much.  We are the ones who have the hang-ups and the fetishes, not them.  Animals keep sex simple because it is simple.  Because sex is so simple, animals are informed by default.  So, as long as an animal remains receptive to a human’s advances, informed consent, not just regular consent is given through acquiescence.

This is ironically, very similar to what humans do with each other.  If the other party does not resist, is not under duress, and is a legal adult then the sex they have is not rape.  It does not become rape until one of the two people either resists or says “no”, or one of the individuals is under the age of 18 (legal minor).  This whole idea behind “informed consent” to qualify “animal rape” is really quite absurd because not even humans go through this ridiculous checklist to make sure that the sex they are having with each other isn’t rape.