Can Animals (Legally) Consent?
It's kinda neat how often conversations around consent seem to spring up when it comes to zoos. I think as a community we're pretty settled on the whole thing. It's extremely clear that animals can consent, and it's equally as clear that people frequently violate that consent when it comes to practices like animal agriculture, the use of dogs in work roles, or even basic things like adoption. However, all of that is boring heady philosophical stuff. Instead, I wanted to approach things from a legal perspective. People accuse zoos of sexually abusing animals, but is that true? What are the actual words around what abuse and consent are in various places? Can animals actually legally consent?
Let's start with the good 'ol United States of America. In the US, different states have different laws when it comes to sex and consent, but I'm going to use some general common points and averages here. Considering in some states bestiality is just outright legal it feels unfair to the point of the article to use those, so instead we'll be taking a general overview.
To start off with, there's obviously the basics. Age of consent. While dogs aren't generally getting to 18, the actual number here depends a lot on where you are. And, more importantly, it's not like the thing that's being factored when it comes to age of consent is the number of trips around the sun. It's about maturity. And animals are absolutely able to become sexually mature, so that's a check.
Next, there's some other common ones. The people in question need to be awake and conscious. Animals can definitely do that. They also need to be sober and not incapacitated by alcohol or drugs, and if your animal in question is blasted we've got bigger problems, check on that one.
Finally, they need to be free from intellectual disabilities that would prevent them from making a decision. There are definitely neurological disorders that affect dogs, but assuming you're not in that position, that's another checkmark there.
Next up is that consent needs to be given voluntarily. All parties need to be able to give a clear "yes", whether verbal or non-verbal. That's specified in a lot of the official wordings by the way, the non-verbal part. You also can't have consent if any party is unwillingly restrained, is being emotionally pressured, being coerced against their will, or being threatened. All of those are pretty easy benchmarks to pass for normal zoo relationships.
There's also the idea that there are no simple signs that indicate consent. You can't say that someone was wearing something or said something flirty, and that's why it was okay to have sex with them. It's also not something that extends past when it's given. So, if someone gives consent and then revokes it, that's the end. For animals, I think this is pretty doable as well. We've always stressed that arousal doesn't automatically mean consent, and likewise the idea that a horse might give you the sexy eyes and that's the end of the story is just not what any zoo would want. Nothing about zoo love means that any of these conditions can't clearly and easily be met.
So yeah, it seems like based off general law in the United States, animals are absolutely legally able to consent to sex with humans. But I want to do at least one more. I didn't want to start linking various penal codes from various states all over the place, that would get messy quick. But what if we look at a country that does govern its laws. What if we looked at Canada, America's neighbor to the north.
There's a lot of similarities here, but I want to dig into the actual wording a little bit more there. In Canada, sexual consent is governed by the criminal code
**R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46**. Let's take a look at the wording they use.
To start off with, they qualify consent as
"Subject to subsection (2) and subsection 265(3), consent means, for the purposes of sections 271, 272 and 273, the voluntary agreement of the complainant to engage in the sexual activity in question."
Don't worry if that doesn't make sense, we're breaking it down here. Subsection 2 is things that would nullify consent being given even in the case of voluntary agreement. We'll be getting to that. Section 265(3) is about violent abuse and assault, things we can all agree are bad, so no need to look at those. Sections 271, 272, and 273 are all about the punishments, not the definitions of the crime, so we can ignore those. The "complainant" in this sentence is the person who's giving their consent. So, in general, this means "Consent is the voluntary agreement of someone engaging in sexual activity. But of course, that definition is incredibly vague, so let's see what's in those subsections, starting with subsection 2. It reads..
"For the purpose of subsection (1), no consent is obtained if
(a) the agreement is expressed by the words or conduct of a person other than the complainant;
(a.1) the complainant is unconscious;
(b) the complainant is incapable of consenting to the activity for any reason other than the one referred to in paragraph (a.1);
(c) the accused induces the complainant to engage in the activity by abusing a position of trust, power or authority;
(d) the complainant expresses, by words or conduct, a lack of agreement to engage in the activity; or
(e) the complainant, having consented to engage in sexual activity, expresses, by words or conduct, a lack of agreement to continue to engage in the activity."
Alright, let's get through this really quick, since we covered a lot of this in the last section. First of all, they've once again carved out a section to confirm that the conduct of a person can count as consent, verbal words are not at all required. The next section is pretty vague, saying that the person in question needs to not be unconscious, or "incapable of consenting to the activity for any other reason". Which does feel like it covers a pretty broad scope. That said, considering it's in line with the unconscious point, I'm going to take that to mean other states of incapacitation. Being drunk, asleep, etcetc. Otherwise, everything else is pretty standard. It can be a little weird reading these in reverse, in the context of "here's the things that violate consent", but basically so long as there isn't an abuse of power, the person in question doesn't say no, and the person in question doesn't change their mind, you're good to go.
So that's another legal system where animals are absolutely able to consent with no problems. I haven't bothered to do it, but I bet if you go through most countries legal definitions for what sexual consent is, and what it's not, you'll find that animals totally pass that bar. Of course, many places have different laws that specifically target bestiality, usually tied with laws around buggery or sodomy, non reproductive sexual activities. But that's a different conversation. I just think it's really interesting that for all that people say that animals can't consent, based off the letter of the law, it certainly seems like they can.
Now, I'm no lawyer, I wouldn't try and take this argument to court or anything, but I do think that firm understandings of what consent means to the average person is really going to help to break away from the notion that animals are incapable of it. Next time you're talking with someone that tells you animals can't consent, feel free to hit them with a dramatic Um Actually, and tell them that legally they actually can.
Article written by Tarro (October 2025)
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