The recently reported case of Rehan Baig - a 37 year-old man from Bradford, West Yorkshire, involving the filmed sexual assault of some pet chickens - has, rightly, provoked many outraged (though often punning) headlines; for despite the perversely comic nature of the act, there's nothing very funny about animal cruelty and the zoosadistic pleasure that it provides.
Having said that, there's nothing particularly novel either about a man having penetrative sex with a chicken; avisodomy is long established and widely practiced within human culture, not least of all because of the unique opportunity afforded to enjoy a post-coital roast dinner [1].
And I'm not just referring to ancient cultures where many people farmed the land and lived in close proximity with animals; several Parisian brothels in the modern period would offer clients the use of a chicken or turkey as a kind of erotic appetiser or feathered fluffer. The trick was to ring the bird's neck, or cut its throat, just prior to ejaculation, so that the spasms of the dying fowl intensified one's own orgasm [2].
Anyway, returning to the case of Mr Baig ...
Having been found guilty of unspeakable acts of cruelty and sexual depravity, he was sentenced to three years in prison and banned from owning any animals in the future. His wife, Haleema, who pleaded guilty to three counts of aiding and abetting, avoided prison - receiving a six-month suspended sentence - because the judge believed she may have acted under coercion (though he noted she appeared to gain some pleasure from the acts recorded on video involving not only the brown and white chickens, but an unidentified dog).
Notes
[1] Due to the anatomical disparity between man and fowl, the latter will
invariably be killed during intercourse, whereas larger animals with
compatible sex organs - such as sheep and goats - can be penetrated
without too great a risk of injury or death. It's somewhat surprising,
therefore, that in many ancient cultures acts of bestiality committed
with poultry were regarded as less serious than those carried out with
mammals (presumably because birds rank lower in the order of life).
[2] I seem to remember that Sade describes the procedure in loving detail
somewhere or other in his writings. And American pornographer Larry
Flynt confesses in his autobiography to having sex with one of his
grandmother's hens, aged nine, before wringing its neck and throwing the
body into the local creek. Many years later, he would build a
three-foot replica of the bird with whom he lost his virginity in
memorial. See An Unseemly Man, (Bloomsbury Publishing, 1997).
