Several years ago, I was dating this guy who, along with his roommate, sometimes made references to a documentary about bestiality. The documentary was called Animal Passions, and one of the…uh…practitioners, I guess? featured was some dude in Missouri who lived in a trailer (obviously) and was once featured in the RFT for trying to marry his horse. The attempted ceremony happened before he tried to fuck his horse bride one day, which made her angry enough to kick him in the face and partially blind him for life. But they’re still together, I guess, and some British film crew did the movie with him in it.

Back then, I was intrigued by this documentary. I wasn’t intrigued by bestiality, you fucking perverted weirdos who should get away from here and never come back, I was intrigued by what I was sure to be the absolute hilarity of people who not only had sex with animals, but who viewed it as a natural and legitimate way to conduct a relationship.

“I want to watch this movie,” I said to the guy I was dating.

“Trust me,” he warned, “you do not want to watch that movie.”

But his roommate had it on his laptop one night, and because I was still convinced of its potential for hilarity, I watched about 30 minutes of Animal Passions. The documentary itself was probably over an hour long, but I would never reach the end of it because 30 minutes was enough to make me feel physically ill. The guy I was dating was right. I did not want to watch that movie. I should not have watched that movie, because it made me feel so nauseous and so disturbed – and this was without any actual bestiality scenes, mind you – that the only way I could possibly cope was to tell as many people as possible about it. This is how I deal with all terrible things I experience. I tell people about them. Not like in a weepy, group therapy, please-Bob-hug-me-with-your-bitch-tits kind of way, but like in a creepy, misery-sharing, horribly funny kind of way. I will make jokes about almost anything except for rape and the Holocaust, so being hilariously skeeved out by people who enjoy fucking donkeys was not all that difficult.

Also around the time that I watched 30 minutes of the most awful documentary ever (and that includes the body modification people who did suspension work in their backyard which was in Arizona so of course it had no grass and looked like a cat’s litter box), I met a Furry. I didn’t know he was a Furry when I met him and I only met him because he was an acquaintance of someone I knew, but later, when our mutual friend told me about his hobby, I wasn’t all that shocked. I mean, it was shocking to know that I knew a Furry, but I guess that shock was on the same level as the shock I felt when I learned that some of my friends were active swingers. Second, Furries aren’t really that bad when you think about it. They’re weird for sure, but they’re still people under those suits, ears, and tails, and if Law & Order: SVU does a show about them, then they’re at least a little bit mainstream. Lastly, let’s not forget that I’ve been reading Savage Love since I was 16. I’ve known about this stuff’s existence since I was sexually aware, and while not a one of them interested me, at least I could be prepared for the people I’d encounter and the things I would read on the Internet.

Bestiality, as my experience watching Animal Passions proved, is another thing entirely. Bestiality is not okay, and while I have never knowingly encountered a whatever-the-fuck-you-call-one-of-those-people in real life, I have read about them on the Internet and am now sharing this terrible thing with you.

I’m sorry, okay, but telling you is the only way I’m going to feel okay about the world again. And I won’t even go so far as to link the page, because while anyone will click on a link, most people are too lazy to Google something like “JohnofE” on their own, even when the suggestion is as explicit as “JohnofE and Norbert the Beaver.” I can’t help what you do with this information. I absolve myself of all responsibility for your Internet research decisions, as I assume that you are an adult person with your wits about you who should be able to control themselves around Google. I won’t blame you if you’re not, though, but I will demand that we go have beers and tell strangers about what we have seen.