Section 69 Essay

The majority of people would consider sex offenders as people who rape, sexually assault or even exploit children. However, sexual offenders are also people who commit sexual acts on animals. Section 69 makes it an offence for a man to intentionally penetrate the vagina or anus of a living animal with his penis where he knows or is reckless as to whether that is what he is penetrating. Subsection (2) of section 69 makes it an offence for a person intentionally to cause or allow her vagina or his or her anus to be penetrated by the penis of a living animal where he or she knows or is reckless as to whether that is what is doing the penetrating.( s.69) The offence covers both aspects, it protects the animal from being penetrated and it protects the animal from penetrating. However, there are criticisms within the offence. S. 69 is an exceptional example of a criminal offence which cannot be justified as a logic and consistent piece of legislation.
A person to sexually violate a non-human without a compelling reason is seen as immoral, one of the main
This lacks consistency and logic as the offence focuses so much on ‘penile’ penetration that it’s moral judgement would not extend to non-penile penetration. The offence could be seen as prejudice as it is stating that the act must be a penile act for it to be criminalised, take Harris’(J. Harris, The Value of Life (Routledge: London, 1985) 175 ) view into consideration, were he asks whether this act would be wrong if one disregarded the sexual desire element. The answer would be yes, discomfort, fear and pain would still remain. However, Devlin argued that disgust was sufficient justification for the criminal law to be invoked. P. Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1965) 17. Considering Harris' view, raises the question; why isn’t this act covered by animal cruelty