A new documentary reveals that bestiality is alive and kicking

Late one evening in July 2005, a 45-year-old Seattle Boeing engineer named Kenneth Pinyan was dropped off at a hospital in rural Washington state, suffering from a perforated colon. He died hours later. When a subsequent investigation revealed that Pinyan's injury had been sustained during anal intercourse with a horse, and that he had been part of a community of equine-curious men who would meet periodically at a farm to film their sexual escapades with stallions, a tabloid story was born. Local and national media had a field day mocking not only the group, but the state of Washington itself, which, astonishingly, had no laws prohibiting bestiality at the time (the state has since banned the practice).

It's not the most shocking thing in the world. If you figure someone can fit his arm inside somebody, a horse is not that much bigger. It's just that people do different things to get their kicksSeattle filmmaker Robinson Devor saw a larger story behind the snickering—a man had died, after all—and went to work on Zoo, an uncomfortably sympathetic look at the Emunclaw, Washington, horse-fucking scene, due in theaters this May. Featuring audio interviews with several of the self-described "Zoophiles," all of whom refused to appear on camera, Zoo relies heavily on gorgeous, impressionistically shot re-enactments to illustrate Pinyan's story. (At the request of his family, he's referred to only by his Internet handle, "Mr. Hands.") After the film's premiere at Sundance, Devor sat down with Radar at his Park City, Utah, lodge to discuss the intersection of art, empathy, and bestiality.

RADAR: Your documentary is about a group of men who meet regularly at a farm outside Seattle to party and have sex with horses. Is it tolerant of that behavior?
ROBINSON DEVOR:I suppose so. I think it was an opportunity to look at the world through someone else's eyes. I have my own way of trying to do that. I was trying to counterbalance what was clearly going to be perceived as an unattractive subject matter. We had to do something that was aesthetically more pleasing, so it might seem as though we're romanticizing or showing tolerance. But I wouldn't say I'm against them. I think the main thing is to try to give them their voice.

When you hear about men having sex with horses, initially it's kind of confusing to the layman as to precisely what that means. How did you broach that subject?
How does it happen mechanically?

Yes.
I was shown things that made it very clear. You wonder about how this happens, and you're shown examples of animals behaving a certain way without constraints and things and that has its factor to it. But that doesn't mean there isn't certain conditioning involved, and some people might find that conditioning to be the very core issue that isn't appropriate. But the thing they had said is that as a living creature, if you're open to something and you put out a vibe, that creature will respond to you. It's not an unreasonable thing to say.

Isn't there a part of you that wants to mock or ridicule people who do that? Isn't it just sick?
My reaction to this is pretty obvious. I still have a tough time getting my head around it as vividly as I could, and I protect my own self, because it is nothing I want to do, so I use aesthetics to allow me to go some place and I protect myself with an atmosphere or a mood or something that is acceptable to me in terms of storytelling. I think if it came down to me witnessing something like this I might have a totally visceral reaction to it that could go either way. I might not feel great about it—

What was your reaction when you saw tapes—
I'm talking about live. There was a time when I was invited to see something like that, it never happened, but—

Why didn't it happen?
The invitation was rescinded. That was back in the time when we weren't really trusting one another, and then we got a good rapport and then it was just too late. I kind of see this as human behavior, as a different kind of community and I'm interested in depicting it as best I can. For me, I was aestheticizing it, anestheticizing it with beauty. The world that they were part of, and the animals, were all innately beautiful things, and as long as there was no undertone of violence or uncomfortableness and if I felt there was sincerity in there concern for animals and their ability to show love and remorse for their friend who died ... those are all things that I think are okay.

So the movie shows a second or so of actual videotape of one of these men getting, um, mounted. What was your reaction when you saw the footage?

I wouldn't say it was anything that really shocked me terribly.

Wouldn't it shock most people?
In this day and age, the fact is—let's say you're in Seattle and someone talks to you about fisting in the gay community. That's just something you hear about. It's not the most shocking thing in the world. If you figure someone can fit his arm inside somebody, a horse is not that much bigger. It's just that people do different things to get their kicks.

The thing that's shocking though, is that it's a monstrously powerful entity over you. It's not even the sexual aspect. It's the danger, the sheer audacity of a fragile human being. Do anything under a horse and you're in danger. That's the shocking thing to me; a human looks very delicate compared to a horse.

Why do you think people wind up wanting to do this?
Some people might say that they might be hotwired that way biologically. That's a difficult thing to say. I think some people would say it's not so different from other orientations. But the sexual aspect, for zoophiles, is not the essence of what they're drawn to. For instance, the gentleman who died, he was a city person, working in a military complex, a very high-tech, brilliant engineering mind. He wanted to have the simple life. He owned horses and wanted to go out and be on a ranch on the weekend. There is this blending of the archetypal farmer and outdoorsman, for some it would be a contrast to their 21st century life to reject that for a few days and spend time out on the grass with animals. Crossing over into something sexual is a whole other thing, but the definition of zoos is—that is something that can happen, because there is a close affection and affinity and caring that is going on, a bond between owners and animals.

Did you find many other examples of this kind of behavior? Humans and horses have been around for a long time.
What you hear in rural communities is that farmers have been lying down with their animals to keep warm for the longest time. I don't know if you remember Brother's Keeper, the documentary, but incest happens in those situations too. It's a warmth thing, and somebody gets excited or something in the night. It happens. It's funny, the further out we get from the city the more somebody would cooperate or talk with us about it. Of course, the Kinsey report, back in the 1950s—I can't remember exactly, but it was a pretty high percentage of people who had sex with animals. I think it was like 7 or 8 percent. It was high. [Editor's note: It was 8 percent of all males, and 17 percent of male farmers.]

I would never have predicted I would do a movie about this. And having sex with animals is one of the least interesting things about this. It's more about what a diverse group of people these men were, how they got together, what they would do when they hung out together, how wonderful and boring every day was, what the geography of their place was, how they were treated, how they feel now. So again, I kind of distance myself a little bit from the sex with animals discussion, which was at its core. It's more a movie about people than having sex with animals.

Sure, but it's only surprising or interesting because of what they do.
No, you are absolutely right. It has to have that fulcrum.