Love, violence, and sexuality in relationships between humans and animals

The here presented research addresses relationships between humans and animals. Various aspects of connecting to nature, of biophilia, are described, and in particular loving, violent, and sexually intimate relations between humans and animals are investigated in more detail in three studies. In the first study the connections between preferences for different species and human personality are reviewed. It has been proposed before, that persons chose and love species as companion animals that can satisfy certain needs, like needs for affiliation, dominance, or nurturance, er aesthetic needs, and that have a symbolic meaning for them. These assumptions are affirmed by the here presented research. Persons seem to like animals whose characteristics fit to their human personality and that address their unconscious needs and motives. Mainly violent interactions with animals represent the subject of the second study that investigated the animal-related experiences of male juvenile sex offenders and their connection with personality, especially psychopathy and Sensation Seeking. These juveniles who often came from an abusive background reported very elose and loving relationships as well as a high percentage of violent and cruel actions towards animals. Circumstances of abusive acts are found to be re1ated to the investigated personality constructs. Overall, an ambivalence of these male juvenile sex offenders in regard to animals became obvious, and findings support former assumptions, that there exists a connection between animal abuse and interpersonal violence. The third study tries to explore a scarcely investigated subject, the sexual interactions and relations between humans and animals, normally referred to as bestiality or zoophilia. In contrary to the prevailing negative attitudes towards persons who engage in bestiality data suggest, that these persons are not necessarily more violent, psychopathie, or intellectually impaired, or have a stronger need for dominance. Love can play an important role in this sexual interspecies relationship. However, it was also found, that zoophile men seem to have more interpersonal problems. Overall, the here presented research provides some new insights into the variety of human-animal relationships and adds knowledge of the influence of human personality and motivation in this context.