Bestiality is generally frowned upon in fiction. In erotica it’s pretty taboo as well. However, if the beasts in question are sentient, does that make it okay?

I recently was reading A Lion Among Men, the third Wicked book, by Gregory Maguire. It’s… not good. The second and third Wicked books aren’t; the first and fourth are. But I hadn’t read it in twenty years, so I figured I’d go back and give it another shot; maybe I’d like it this time around. I didn’t. But that’s neither here nor there.

In the book, Brrr (the Cowardly Lion of Oz fame) has sex with a white tiger. Both the Lion and the Tiger are sentient — they’re talking beasts. The sex isn’t shown especially graphically, but it is shown. The question is: is it bestiality? Or is it something different, because of the anthropomorphization of the characters? Both of them consent to it, and one of the main reasons bestiality is illegal is because the beasts (whatever animal they are) don’t have the concept of consent and therefore cannot consent to what is being done. There are other reasons too, but let’s focus on that one for now.

Think about the varied and sundry works of Chuck Tingle — characters have sex with Bigfoot, sentient food items, bath bombs, and even abstract concepts. In those books, there is always consent, and if there isn’t consent, the sex doesn’t happen. However, even Tingle doesn’t cross over into true bestiality — I can’t think of a Tingler where a character has sex with a sentient giraffe, or tapir, or aardvark. But in A Lion Among Men, two sentient animals have sex with each other. Does that make it okay?

The answer is: probably. I’ve read a few stories over the years where sentient, anthropomorphized animals have sex with each other or with humans. As long as there is the capacity to consent, it seems to be okay. The official definition of bestiality is “sexual intercourse between a human and an animal”, though, so it’s still bestiality when humans are involved.

Bestiality is pretty damn taboo. Most people don’t want to think about it. By putting it in A Lion Among Men, Maguire makes the reader think about it. But is it true bestiality? Or is it just animals doing what animals do?

I don’t have the answer. I probably don’t want to know the answer. But I’m sure someone’s thought about it before.