For centuries, people with unusual obsessions and inclinations have found it hard to engage communally in their predilections, especially when the latter are of a somewhat taboo nature. But the Internet is changing things, perhaps not entirely for the better.

Most speciality forums cater to people whose interests the general population would find strange but harmless. But there are some online forums that might upset even the most open-minded of individuals. In fact, they are horrifying. Perhaps the very worst of these is BeastForum, the world’s premier bestiality website, which claims to have over 1.6 million members from around the world.

Warning: some of what follows is of a graphic and disturbing nature.

Bestiality for dummies
BeastForum is a two-pronged operation, serving as a forum platform and a traditional porn site, albeit for very niche and perverted interests. All members have access to limited amounts of BeastForum’s pornographic content, but by paying to upgrade their membership, users can gain increased access to a vast repository of animal porn, as well as access to what is claimed to be the biggest bestiality chat room online.

There’s a wide breadth of content on the forum but the most common type of post is from newcomers who, to put it bluntly, want to know how to have sex with animals. For example, a newbie member we found called brendaann, who self-identifies as a 60-year-old “in quite good shape,” recently enquired about the physical mechanics of having sex with a dog.

She found what she was looking for: there are comprehensive guides available for every common human/animal combination. On the topic of female humans and male dogs for instance, the most revered guide is penned by Lady Rottweiler who offers hard-earned wisdom such as “You should always put sweat socks on his front feet, or wear a sturdy shirt, to avoid scratches.” The rest is far too graphic to reprint here.

It can be hard to process just how sick these people are. Questions are posed in a disconcertingly matter-of-fact way and are answered in kind. What is remarkable about these websites is how many people seem to be active on them, and the horrific scale of the animal abuse described in such cold terms by posters, including graphic details of animal anatomy.

Another common theme in the forums are warnings about the about the dangers of pursuing carnal canine relations. For instance racoolman warns about aggressive natured dogs. “An aggressive natured canine may not be the best type of canine to try to tie with. There is a since [sic] of helplessness and uncertainty, a since of violability that comes with being tied.”

While dogs are the most frequently discussed animal, members of BeastForum lust after a diverse array of creatures. Horses, donkeys, sheep, goats, cows, pigs… four-legged mammals appear to be the most common fantasy. There is extensive discussion about all of these animals, ranging from the mundane to the terrifying “Nastystallion’s Guide”, which aims to prepare forum posters for sex with horses. While most people have heard rumours of disgusting pornographic material along these lines, few realise how many people on the internet are actively soliciting advice on how to recreate it.

All you need is love
While much of BeastForum is preoccupied with sexual attraction towards animals, the subject of romantic attraction is a recurring theme. It’s clear that most members consider themselves capable of having romantic feelings toward an animal. In fact, many feel that they are only capable of having romantic relations with a dog, as illustrated by this post made by jamagh.

“Everytime I have fallen in love with a woman, I have had it thrown back in my face. She has either ignored it, used me, or just walked all over me. After a while, you get tired of having your heart broken. I found love with my dog. She does not care what I look like, or anything. All she cares about is that I am there. No silly games. Be right back. I am going to go hug her.”

Many experienced members offering advice on bestiality counsel building a relationship with the animal before embarking on anything more carnal. In the memorial thread, a place dedicated to deceased animals, the strength of the bonds members have formed with animals becomes apparent.

“Two days ago I held my best friend and my first lover in my arms as he closed his eyes and kissed away my tears for the very last time. After 12 amazing years my Doberman was taken from me by age and cancer. He’s no longer in any pain and I find myself feeling selfish for my tears. Life is so cruel. It wasnt enough time.”

For pet owners who aren’t zoophilically inclined, these declarations of love are extremely upsetting to read. Most people love their pets and find the concept of having an emotional bond with an animal relatable, but a sexual relationship repellent.

Moral ambiguity
For outsiders looking in, BeastForum could appear at first glance to be a morality-free zone. The unbridled free expression of ideas outrageous to ordinary people can make pursuing BeastForum disconcerting experience. One suspects that if it wasn’t for BeastForum, most of its members would never have had the opportunity to express themselves in the way they do.

Shocking ideas are normalised in an arena of enforced civility. The forum rules are both extensive and heavily enforced. This can lead to the odd spectacle of someone’s description of sex with a dog being moderated so the word “f*****” is starred out. But the graphic descriptions are complete with links to presumably even more graphic imagery are fine.

Despite this normalisation of deviance, BeastForumers abide by an ad hoc moral framework of sorts. For instance, while dogs and horses are a yes, those attracted to birds and fish are condemned as outcasts: “If you tuely love a bird, then you’ll obviously do nothing to hurt it, and you must accept the fact with small fowls, like ducks, gees, chickens, ectra it will all ways result in sever internal injury.”

Dissenters are shut down and banned from the forum as in the case of Eel-lover who tried to defend the harm their attempts to copulate with an eel might cause. The responses to Eel-lover was unanimous.

“That kind of sexual behavior is a pathology and needs psychological treatment, whatever the forum you’re posting in. There are multiple sexual activities to choose; choosing a sexual activity that hurts without consent is against the freedom of the creature involved…its stupid, ignorant people like eellover who give us a bad name… Its paramount in my opinion that no animal should come to harm or be used simply as a sextoy”

Fantasy
Knowing that much of BeastForum isn’t fiction makes reading the parts that are explicitly devoted to fantasy all the more difficult to comprehend. Fantasies of having sex with unicorns and dragons are spelt out in the same lurid prose as the realistic fantasies of having sex with horses and dogs. It can be difficult to know where reality ends and fantasy begins.

If it’s on BeastForum and it’s not mythical, people may well try and translate fantasy into reality. And even if it is mythical, BeastForum members will still give it a good go, if the avid online community of dragon dildo enthusiasts are anything to go by.

Porn
With sites like BeastForum it can be hard to distinguish fact from fantasy and if it weren’t for the vast catalogue of user submitted photos and videos it would be easy to picture many of the posts in the same light as that of teenagers bragging about their sexual prowess on obscure imageboards. We elected not to click through to any of this material, as doing so would be illegal here in UK, but we could see the names of threads and the number of posts and views.

There were over 2,000 threads in the commercial photos section, the most popular of which – “Male Dogs And Their Lady Friends” had over a million views. The collection is big, but it has nothing on the user submitted homemade section that is kept fresh by a clever BeastForum policy. There’s small amount of freely available content, but if members want lots of downloads and don’t want to shell out for the elite membership they have to upload content of their own. For each pornographic upload, they receive two downloads.

The policy appears to have been a success, with tens of thousands of homemade uploads available. The most viewed thread “Enigmatic Vixen’s Gallery” has over 2 million views alone.

It’s also clear that large numbers of people don’t have any content to upload but are desperate to start – a popular thread sees members offering to take part in movies. All over the world people post these ads on a regular basis, almost all of which receive replies. But this is small fry compared to BeastForum’s pièce de résistance: the “Personal Ads & Dating” section.

Plenty of fish in the sea
Stepping inside the personal ads section is like entering a parallel world. In just about every country in the world, people are pimping out their pets for sex. Nothing brings the influence of BeastForum home to you than discovering your neighbour wants to nosh off a horse. Even in the middle of the obscure county in England where I live, someone was looking for a “trained dog” and someone has offered to help out when their “wife is away.”

The scope of the personal ad section really is astounding. Nowhere else on the internet so openly hosts so much solicitation for illegal activity. BeastForum is at at the same time both one of the most banal and one of the most shocking destinations on the internet: a melting pot of radical online freedom, self-indulgence and dark, perverted desire, it is a deeply troubling testament to the modern age.