Instigator / Pro
7
1574
rating
10
debates
80.0%
won
Topic
#1080

Bestiality should not be illegal in all cases

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
0
Better sources
2
0
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
0

After 1 vote and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

PsychometricBrain
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
One day
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
1
1435
rating
15
debates
33.33%
won
Description

Bestiality - Sexual intercourse between a human and a non-human animal
--Structure--
R1. Pro's case; Con's Case
R2. Pro Rebuttal; Con Rebuttal
R3. Pro Rebuttal & Summary ; Con Rebuttal & Summary

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

First of all: Again, gross!

Gist:
Gross. In fact, about 20% more gross than the previous debate on this (they expended a couple of their points slightly, almost nothing is really changed). To match them, I’m going to include at least one extra instance of the word gross in this elongated RFD…
Got to say it, con tried to dismiss harm to animals from consideration, which leaves harm to willing humans as his only line of attack, which doesn’t make any sense; the logical leap would be mental illness (a skip and a hop away from proving a law is needed), but such was not done.

1. consent
Great apes are smart enough to communicate, and dogs initiate sex. Some back and forth, a livescience article proving animals enjoy orgasms (con tried to end the debate by denying the existence of that evidence, wtf?)…
“A person masturbating a horse might cause the horse to ejaculate. Just because this physical response occurs, doesn't necessarily equate to "pleasure". Who knows, maybe the horse feels regret and remorse after such an encounter? Of course, this all PRESUMES that animals have "feelings" as humans do.” Was a particularly weak point for con, as it bases the damage on mental anguish, then outright attempts to dismiss that animals can be mentally harmed from consideration.

2. purpose
This was the more palatable of pro’s arguments, as it showed no point to duplicate animal protection laws. John Stuart Mill’s harm principle was a very smart inclusion (particularly its role in legalizing deviant sex that could not lead to children), as it ends up pre-refuting con’s objections.

3. Masturbation
“I would argue it's unhealthy, much like having sex with a tennis racket…” what actual harm was shown? Some articles on hospitalizations could have gone a long way.

4. Non-selfless acts
This fell flat to me, probably because I don’t believe every sperm is sacred. All men who jack off should go to prison, same with women… This needed a massive amount of support which was not there. BrotherDThomas could have done better on this, in fact I if I scroll through the comments, I suspect I’ll find just that.

5. Unnatural
“Bestiality is not natural to humans” wholly agreed, but this debate is about if we should have specific laws about it (as predicted, pro caught this). Bad food is a poor comparison given that the harm is known, but con insists within the comparison that it should be legal…

---

Arguments:
See above review of key points. Pro won by every legal standard raised. Con did well in the entertainment area, but probably lost his potential audience with the puritan thou must not masturbate talk (and if going that route, don’t forget to at least mention the harm of millions of souls flushed down a toilet)

Sources:
If numbering sources, I suggest including either a list at the end of the round or the end of the debate.
I was going to leave this tied (due to not wanting to look at them), before con attempted to challenge (via an argument by assertion) the validity of them.
So pro had a bunch, con had none. The book about sexuality in animals was well leveraged, showing 450 animal species actively partaking in sex for non-reproductive purposes (God’s will? Probably God's will, to test us.).

Conduct:
Con choose to break the rules for round order, even after being told previously of this error. The other debate had a confusing remark about this, but this one had it spelled out clearly what happened. Further, con dropped this when it was called out.