Canada, Obscenity, and the Rise of Puritanism

A few days ago, I was talking with a zoo friend of mine. They're Canadian, shout out to all the Canadian zoos out there. They mentioned that they were thinking of moving, and I asked where to. They said "Maybe the US or something". I was pretty surprised, they're a trans person and in general they are opposed to facism, so I asked why they were thinking of moving. They said, and I quote, "At least I wont be arrested for art there". 
I was pretty confused. I'm no Canada expert or anything, but they linked me to a new bill that went into effect June 18th. It's called the "Protecting Victims Act." It's a bill that, as per it's description, is..
 
"Comprehensive legislative reform touching on timely justice, sentencing integrity, gender-based violence, and privacy protection. The Bill proposes measures to reduce unreasonable judicial delay, prevent the imposition of sentences below statutory minima, clarify the rules governing sexual activity and private records, refine prohibitions on deepfake imagery, and introduce new offences addressing coercive control and feminicide, while broadening the scope of restorative justice."
 
 
All of that sounds... pretty good, right? I mean, it's nice to see a government trying to proactively get ahead of AI's power to make porn of anyone at any time. It also doesn't really sound like it has anything to do with bestiality in any capacity. But, I was curious, so I kept reading.
The bill..
 
"Expands laws against non-consensual image distribution to explicitly include sexual 'deepfakes' and threats to share explicit images", it "modifies the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights to ensure victims receive automatic information on restorative justice and protection measures, while making testimonial aids more accessible in court." It "amends sexual offence laws to explicitly criminalize inviting or inciting a child to expose their sexual organs, and criminalizes the distribution of visual representations of bestiality."
...
 
 
Wait, hold on, what was that last part there? 
 
 
I had to reread that sentence four or five times, trying to put together whatever the hell it meant. First of all, why would those two sentences ever be put together? But also, what the hell is a "visual representation of bestiality?" 
 
 
It's described on the official Canadian Justice website like this:
    
 
"Section 160 of the Criminal Code prohibits the commission of bestiality, which is defined as any contact, for a sexual purpose, with an animal. The bill would introduce a new offence of knowingly publishing, distributing, transmitting, selling, making available or advertising any visual representation that is or is likely to be mistaken for a photograph, film, video or other visual recording of a person committing bestiality."
 
 
I'll admit, I was glad in some ways to see the actual reading of the text. For a moment there, I thought it was going to be much more strict. "Visual Representations" could have meant a lot more than just photos and images that look like real photos. But also, that's not exactly a great answer either. I've always hated laws that are based around the concept of what a "reasonable person" might believe. There have been many many clips that have gone viral of old people seeing GTA5 footage and mistaking it for real life, and I wouldn't necessarily say that game is particularly life-like at this point. There's a whole lot of 3D artists doing amazing stuff in blender that's clearly fake to someone who watches porn, but looks much more realistic than GTA5. If I put 100 mods on Skyrim to make it look amazing, and then play a zoo mod for that game, would that count as close enough to real life? I wouldn't think that a game could be "mistaken for a photograph, film, video or other visual recording", but that's a possibility for someone old enough (no hate to old people). And if the game itself doesn't become illegal, what if I screen recorded it and then posted it online? Would that suddenly be more illegal than the game itself? 
 
 
I want to come back to this question, but I'm not done with this bill quite yet. The website gives a rationale to the new law. 
 
"The provision serves to protect animals and children from the harms caused by the distribution of visual representations of bestiality. Animals are harmed in the production of visual representations of bestiality, and making these materials available may lead to greater rates of offending. Harms also include the use of visual representations of bestiality in the sexual exploitation of children, in particular to manipulate them for sexual purposes. The protection of freedom of expression is premised upon fundamental principles and values that promote the search for and attainment of truth, participation in social and political decision-making and the opportunity for individual self-fulfillment through expression. Visual representations of bestiality lie far from the core of the free expression guarantee, meaning limitations on this kind of expression may be more easily justified under the Charter."
 
 
 
I know that was a lot, so let me go through it with more detail here. 
 
 
"The provision serves to protect animals and children from the harms caused by the distribution of visual representations of bestiality."
 
 
 
This starts off weirdly. What are the harms caused by the distribution of visual representations of bestiality? And, furthermore, what are the harms caused to children? Does a child get shot every time that I open up a Pog Benis video? 
 
 
"Animals are harmed in the production of visual representations of bestiality, and making these materials available may lead to greater rates of offending."
 
 
The fact that the government is saying that depictions of harm lead to real world harm blows my mind. It's been a scientifically established fact for decades now that engaging with something in media does not predispose anyone to engage with that thing in real life. This is a moral panic that's been around for forever, disproven time and time again, that seems to always find its roots into people.
 
"Harms also include the use of visual representations of bestiality in the sexual exploitation of children, in particular to manipulate them for sexual purposes."
 
 
 
I wish I could say that I was confused why this was in here, but it's hard to not see this as what it is, which is just explicit language here thrown in as rationale to try and make the problem seem scary. I actually agree that people shouldn't be sharing zoo porn with minors. In fact, I'd argue that they shouldn't be sharing any porn with minors. So the fact that they felt the need to make a carve out here feels insane to me. Especially when there are other laws that already cover that as a topic.
 
 
"The protection of freedom of expression is premised upon fundamental principles and values that promote the search for and attainment of truth, participation in social and political decision-making and the opportunity for individual self-fulfillment through expression. Visual representations of bestiality lie far from the core of the free expression guarantee, meaning limitations on this kind of expression may be more easily justified under the Charter."
 
 
This final line really gets me as well. I love that they decided to mention that there is protection for freedom of expression that's built into the law. But, actually for some reason this doesn't count. They make no effort to explain why, or rationalize how someone creating zoo porn shouldn't have the right to that same free expression. Instead, it's just "far from the core of the free expression guarantee. 
 
 
So yes, while I am happy that it seems as though the ban is focused mostly around a very specific slice of content, at the same time I'm not exactly thrilled that Canada is doing this. I mentioned a few examples of weird gray areas already, but there's one more point to consider here, and that's that technology is always getting better. Even though AI isn't exactly popular in our circles, the technology is getting better and better. And not just that, but there are other artistic tools that are aimed to capture the look of real life. Is there going to be some point where all artists looking to make fictional zoo or even furry porn have to keep their resolution low enough for it to not be illegal? It feels unintuitive to say that someone gets good enough at blender that their work suddenly becomes illegal. 
 
 
The issue with laws around censorship, or conversely, around obscenity, is that they're never clear cut. You can say "murder is illegal", and that's a fairly understandable thing. You can't kill other people. But when you say "Visual depictions of bestiality are illegal", that could mean a whole lot of things. Censorship also has a way of ending up larger than it starts. Say, for instance, you ban all depictions of children having any kind of sexual encounter in media. There are probably people that are out there right now reading this that support that. But, what if there's a film maker that's trying to make a coming of age story about a young couple, and feels it's important to give the context of their first intimate experience together. Both the actors are adults, so that's not a concern, but where do you draw the line on what's acceptable and what isn't? If they kiss, is that sexual? What if they make out? What if they get a little handsy? Is it okay if you have a cutaway to banging noises coming from the other room? What about if you just show them in bed together afterwards? Did you still depict a sexual act? It's not hard for me to imagine a movie about two queer kids in a repressed part of the world who struggle to accept themselves, that frames their first moment of intimacy as an important part of the narrative, in a way that's not weird, but instead builds on the point of the story. In fact, I'm sure that there are movies or shows out there already that do this in healthy and artistic ways. It's so easy for overzealous censorship laws to suddenly make that something illegal and wrong. 
 
 
There's a term that I think sums all of what we've talked about so far nicely, and it's "puritanism". By definition, puritanism comes from the church back in the 16th century. The idea started out as a movement of people who felt like they needed to purify the church, society, and the world. They felt like the church was becoming much too moderate, and that there needed to be a line in the sand drawn. Such people still exist nowadays. Puritans are people that believe strongly that the degradation of society is being caused by perceived vices that are ruining the moral framework of society. Maybe, it's the people turning away from god. Maybe, the drinking, or drug use. Maybe, it's sexual promiscuity. Or maybe, it's porn.
 
 
Puritanism is a movement that's absolutely on the rise. We're seeing more and more malicious individuals, governments and corporations that want everything to be more restricted, from people's actions to people's words and beliefs. There are more countries than ever prosecuting people for the fictional content that they happen to have on their devices, even if there is no evidence at all that real harm is done in any way. And famously, big companies like Mastercard and Visa have been clamping down on the kinds of content that they'll allow to be purchased through their services, acting like a high level moderator with absolute power. 
 
 
For instance, incest porn is banned in the UK. The people involved don't even actually need to be siblings, just framing porn as incestuous is illegal. And of course, they use similar language to the Canadian law, in that it's based off what a "normal person" would believe, so there's no real carve outs for realistic looking fictional content either. They go so far as to say that adopted family ties still count as inappropriate, so no step-sister loophole for the Brits out there.
 
 
And, of course, there's the ABDL discourse in the furry fandom. For those than don't know, ABDL stands for Adult Baby Diaper Lover. There's a range of ways to engage in being ABDL, but the community generally faces the same criticism. Why would anyone be into this if they aren't pedophiles? Even in a community as generally accepting as the furry fandom, puritanism finds its ways to try and shoot people down without any reason or evidence. Because in the group where everyone pretends to be fake animal people, god forbid one of them is quadrupedal, or younger, or whatever. 
 
 
This article may feel a little disjointed, so let me bring it to my main point. There has been a global rise of people offended by media lately. We can see it in governments, in corporations, and even personally in our own spaces. I would say that that's a bad thing. Not just for us zoos, but for society in general. 
 
 
There's a chance that you, out there, reading this right now, might believe in some level of censorship. You might think that thing A is fine, but thing B should be restricted. I would invite you to challenge that notion by asking yourself just who should be in charge of defining what gets to go in the good pile, and what goes in the bad pile? Is it you? Because unless you happen to be a huge political figure, chances are it's not, and the people that do are less likely to carve out nuances for the things that you like than you might personally be. 
 
 
Puritanism is dangerous. It's so easy for it to find ways to crawl back in. And it's so hard to push back out. No politician wants to be the one to stand up and say "actually I think we should accept digital zoo porn". That's not exactly a popular stance. And yet, it's something that needs to be done. For that to happen, we all need to take local action. Changing the entire world is unlikely, but changing your bubble is easier. 
 
 
Make it clear to people that you support controversial art, even if it might not be for you. Make sure that your friends know that you have space for them in your circle even if they do like weird stuff sometimes. And make it clear in any spaces that you exist in that you're not going to put up with puritanism. Because, if you don't stand against puritanism when it's coming for others, then you might find yourself without friends when puritanism comes for you. And it will eventually come for everyone.
 
 
 
Article written by Tarro (July 2026) 
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