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Frederick II (the Great, 1712-1786), King of Prussia, ignored the religious tradition of severely condemning human sexual contact with animals.
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Auguste Forel
(1848-1931) demanded the abolition of laws against human sexual contact with animals.
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In the18th century, the “age of enlightenment”, the religious condemnation and criminal prosecution of human sexual contact with animals gradually became less severe in most Western countries. For example, Frederick the Great of Prussia, who considered himself an enlightened ruler, did not feel bound by religious dogmas, and in sexual matters he was simply pragmatic. When one of his cavalry soldiers was dicovered having intercourse with his mare, the king meted out a simple punishment: “The fellow shall be transferred to the infantry”.
The 19th century saw a steadily diminishing religious influence on European civil and criminal legislation, and finally, in the early 20th century, the eminent Swiss psychiatrist Auguste Forel very drastically pleaded for the abolition of all “sodomy” laws: “When a poor imbecile… copulates with a cow, the latter is not injured in any way; neither is the owner.…Moreover,... the judge punishes sodomy even when the culprit owns the animal. How does the law obtain the right to punish an act which does no harm to anyone? It is evidently a vestige of religious mysticism, something like punishment for sinning against the Holy Ghost.” (1)
Indeed, in the following decades, many Western countries began a critical review of their penal codes and eventually abolished their laws against sexual contact with animals. Today, such laws continue to exist only in very few places.
(1) Forel, A. The Sexual Question (German original edition.1905), engl ed: New York 1926., p. 400
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