There is, indeed, no need to go beyond Europe even in
her moments of highest culture to find a religious sanction for sexual
union between human beings, or gods in human shape, and animals. The
legends of Io and the bull, of Leda and the swan, are among the most
familiar in Greek mythology, and in a later pictorial form they constitute
some of the most cherished works of the painters of the Renaissance.
As regards the prevalence of occasional sexual intercourse between men or
women and animals among primitive peoples at the present time, it is
possible to find many scattered references by travelers in all parts of
the world. Such references by no means indicate that such practices are,
as a rule, common, but they usually show that they are accepted with a
good-humored indifference.[48]
Bestiality is very rarely found in towns. In the country this vice of the
clodhopper is far from infrequent. For the peasant, whose sensibilities
are uncultivated and who makes but the most elementary demands from a
woman, the difference between an animal and a human being in this respect
scarcely seems to be very great. "My wife was away too long," a German
peasant explained to the magistrate, "and so I went with my sow.
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