The Open Fields

Photo taken from cattlemarket.com
By: Chris Valletta

As soon as the DVD menu came onto the screen of a horse gracefully standing in a field at night, I knew that "Zoo" was not going to be an average documentary. Zoo revolves around the lives of certain individuals in a small corner of the Northwestern United States who are referred to as "zoos", or those who have a closer affinity to animals (zoophilia). The documentary was filmed in an intriguing method, with great camera work and tastefully done re-enactments of the occurrences from these people's lives. While the documentary acknowledges some of the burning questions these men have, such as "Why am I this way?", and "What is my purpose?", there is never any concrete analysis into answering these questions.

The documentary begins by showing certain people's individual lives and their past (briefly) that led up to them connecting together in Washington. The internet was the largest factor in making this happen, where for the first time many people saw that there were others that had the same desire as them. One of the men was a coal miner in Virginia who discovered a whole new world when the internet came out and eventually packed his bags and moved out to Washington. Another man nicknamed "The Happy Horseman", was a truck driver but spoke to people all over the world about his secret desires, including soldiers in Iraq. A man named "H" had an interesting piece, as he shared with us that when he was a horse hand, his employer found out about his secret pleasure after years of loyalty and service, then all of a sudden he was a viewed as bad person.

Zoo also clashed upon the paradigm of religion and pleasure. One of the men said that he was raised as a strict Baptist and was told his actions were immoral and evil, yet he said that God doesn't hate anyone. He also noted according to the same beliefs that he was not harming or hurting anyone with his actions as well, so how could they be wrong? The pleasure of being with animals, in this case horses, is seen as an actual love for the creature. As one man described this love, he said it is the same as one's love for his wife. Just as you may hang onto the strength of a significant other when you are feeling weak, the same holds true with the relationship to the horse.

The euphoria of being with a horse for these men was a way to escape the realities of the world. At the house where these men stayed, they threw parties with plenty of alcohol and enjoyed this "classless society of theirs." As they put it, they were simply connecting with an intelligent being that was equally happy and willing to participate in the act with them. The world of the horse and being out in the middle of the fields is a simple and plain world. One of them described their feelings as "very intense and wonderful." I would assume from some of these comments that the reason for this intense and wonderful feeling is being immersed in another world with total freedom and separation from everything else. Its a place where they feel safe in doing what they feel is right for them. I also believe this feeling is related to finding purpose in this life, which relates back to one of the questions posed by the men in the beginning of the documentary. Our society tends to pin the belief on us that when we find our purpose in life, we will find our pleasure.

The climax of the documentary involved a man named "Mr. Hands", who was a member of this circle of men in Washington. One night, he was in the barn and was injured and had to be rushed to hospital. He later died that night due to internal bleeding. When the media caught wind of what happened, one thing led to another and the real story came out about this man and what he was doing that night. The men of the house where he received his injuries were forced to leave due to shame and the law, and as a result bestiality was officially made illegal in the state of Washington. The crime of bestiality can now result up to ten years in prison for a class C felony. The rest of society began to see these acts as animal cruelty, yet the animal was not being injured. As a matter of fact, the animal would not have participated in the act if it didn't want to.

Overall, Zoo was a well-done documentary on giving insight into the world of these men of zoophilia. However, the focus was more on the exploitation of the acts and the death of "Mr. Hands", rather than the real pleasure and origins of these feelings. Although the pleasure subject is breached with the love attraction to the horses and the feeling of euphoria with their being, the real reason and origin for this behavior is not fully developed. This leaves the viewers to ponder why instances such as this happen, and also leaves us wanting to explore more why certain humans find different things pleasurable, even if it is outside our own species.