The Other Taboo: Humans and Animals and the Line

On Votaries, I have written about untamed horses and their connection to a human. 

Here, I am writing about the taboo: falling in love with an animal. 

Catherine the Great supposedly had sex with horses. According to Virginia Rounding and other historians, the event never happened, but "Catherine's sex life was...a common subject for ribaldry" in Petersburg and countries of Europe (Rounding). 

Ribaldry is the common response. According to my cursory research on the subject, falling in love with animals is apparently not the same as bestiality. People who actually get emotionally and romantically attached to an animal rarely have sex with them. Bestiality is more about, ah, convenience, and it is treated with amusement. 

As a character relates in A Prairie Dog's Love Song by Eli Easton--after the main male character informs the townspeople that he intends to bring a young male citizen of the town home and marry him--

"Then Old Jenks stood up. You know how crazy he is about Old West history. He said cowboys humped each other all the time, back in the day...and some of 'em even paired up for keeps...And about then Ike said 'better a good-looking boy like Ben than sheep.' And I swear that was aimed at someone in particular." 

The story of Catherine the Great was always told as a salacious "ha ha" story when I heard it growing up. And when Boston Legal had a subplot where a man wanted to marry a cow, the casting director chose Michael McKean to play the man--could (would) anyone else have taken the part? And of course, there's Bottom from Midsummer Night's Dream.

What fascinates me here is that generally speaking, having sex with an animal is considered taboo and funny. But having sex with a shapeshifter is entirely okay.  

Granted, I'm talking about romance/fantasy here. But the idea appears in mythology as well. Belle's Beast is humanoid enough to be non-taboo, even before he turns into a human prince. Sex with sirens and enchantresses, even those with cloven hoofs, also okay (if dangerous). Mer-people in general: okay. 

It's almost the opposite response to incest. With incest, the appearance of a sibling connection calls the relationship into doubt. With bestiality, everything is okay until the beast actually turns into a non-speaking, non-sentient animal. 

Humans are mammals after all.