Originally Posted by
tropicalslavic
Right. When I think of what looks like sexual violence between dolphins or cats (apparently the male cat's penis is very painful to the female cat due to it's texture), I wonder if there could ever be an objective measure of whether or not this counts as rape. On one hand, they are just animals who operate on instinct, don't have a conscience, and nature only cares that they reproduce and don't die prematurely. On the other, you can see that they are in pain and seem to sometimes have painful/forced sex as a bonding/leisure activity (bonding for a group of male dolphins for example).
I think this also ties in with my belief that people are really stupid when they project human emotions/intentions onto animals ("my dog loves me unconditionally", "my cat won't like you if you're not a good person"), because we are talking about animals with no moral compass and very limited emotions. They eat their own babies and have excruciatingly painful sex for the sole purpose of procreation. I'm not sure they are capable of much more than this.
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