In his essay on sociobiology beginning on Page 31 of this issue, Andrew Ferguson notes that Peter Singer -- the creepy Ira W. DeCamp professor at Princeton's Center for Human Values -- has been trying to debunk "the distinction that has traditionally been made between human beings and animals." And how.
In a new essay for the webzine Nerve.com, Singer takes his anti-"speciesist" campaign to one of its logical conclusions, with a full-throated defense of bestiality. Striking a celebratory note, Singer observes that "one by one, the taboos [about sex] have fallen. The idea that it could be wrong to use contraception in order to separate sex from reproduction is now merely quaint. If some religions still teach that masturbation is 'self-abuse,' that just shows how out of touch they have become. Sodomy? That's all part of the joy of sex." Alas, though, "not every taboo has crumbled. . . . Sex with animals is still definitely taboo." But not for much longer, if Singer has any say in the matter.
Much of what he goes on to argue is unprintable here (THE SCRAPBOOK is still a taboo-upholder). There is a vile section on dead chickens that defies summary (suffice it to say that if Frank Perdue is thinking about contributing to the Princeton endowment, he'll want to think again). There is a cliche-ridden discussion of girls and horses. There is learned discourse on faculty society at Princeton: "Who has not been at a social occasion disrupted by the house-hold dog gripping the legs of a visitor and vigorously . . . "
Singer concludes with a story about a woman's romp with an orangutan -- in which the orangutan makes like a drunken frat boy, and the woman takes it in good humor. This, he suggests, is because -- well, mainly it's because "fighting off so powerful an animal was not an option." But Singer prefers to think that it also "may be because [she] understands very well that we are animals, indeed more specifically, we are great apes." And once we also understand this, "sex across the species barrier" will cease "to be an offense to our status and dignity as human beings."
Maybe by then, Princeton will have come up with a less Orwellian name for its Center for Human Values.