Best Law Text Footnote Ever

[major_clanger]

Remember this query? Well, I noticed that Chambers' library has a copy of Rook and Ward on Sexual Offences, the standard practitioner text on the subject. (A 'practitioner text' is a book, usually by experienced lawyers, that is respected enough that you can generally get away with citing it in court.) I looked up s.69 SOA 2003 and sure enough R&W says that "The offence cannot be committed if the animal is dead", so my understanding was right - necrophiliac bestiality isn't an offence.

However, in reading the relevant section I noticed that the authors comment on how the interpretation section of the SOA includes a provision at s.79(10) that in relation to an animal, references to the vagina or anus (which form part of the definition of the offence) include references to any similar part. As they go on to say, "It is not clear what lies behind this provision, i.e. what animal might be involved in [bestiality] that does not have a vagina or anus but has a "similar part".(fn22)"

I reproduce footnote 22 verbatim:

"There is an anecdote to the effect that a learned academic criminal lawyer, having pondered this provision for some time, telephoned the Home Office to ask what animal they had in mind. After mature deliberation, they called him back with the answer "a lobster". We have been unable to confirm the truth of this story."

Comments

[attimes-bracing.livejournal.com]

Lobster? I'm sure there's porn for that...

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

And if not, there is now...

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

Accelerando meets Rule 34, and autopope's head hurts...

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

!!!

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

According to Jonny Interweb, there are very few animals that don't have an anus (at least, very few animals large enough to commit bestiality with) - lobsters are certainly provided for in that department. The best I can come up with is a flatworm, which apparently has no vagina or anus, but does have a mouth half-way along its underside. As undigested material is regurgitated through the mouth, I'd say that's a "similar part".

Clearly whoever drafted the SOA was keen to ensure that flatworms still enjoyed the full protection of the law despite their physical shortcomings, and for that, we should all be thankful.

[flick.livejournal.com]

What about birds? I thought they just had one hole, the name of which I forget?

[miramon.livejournal.com]

Cloaca

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Damn, I thought there was probably something a bit more obvious than flatworms...

[quercus.livejournal.com]

There are even a few mammals (even some placental mammals, i.e. not marsupials) that have a cloaca too.

[steer.livejournal.com]

You are thinking here of monotremes such as the echidna and platypus surely? They are not placental though but not marsupials though often confused with them. According to wikipedia monotremes are the only class of mammal to have a true cloaca.

Sharks and rays also have this feature.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Oh, well if Wikifuckingpedia says so...

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly confident it's correct. Monotremes are unusual enough in the feature that they are named for it.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Cloaca, as others have said - also seen in reptiles

There's one barn every minute...

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Owls would present particular difficulties.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

That, m'lord, would be the cloaca.

For bonus points, drop in a reference to the song 'Platypus Bestiality' by Bakteria. (How I wish I was making this up.)

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

High school biology is about 15 yers in the past for me, but any non-mammal, IIRC. As to practicalities of having sex with non-mammals... well to be fair, I don't particularly want to consider the practicalities of having sex with non-humans of any kind actually. ;-)

this is all your fault

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

Guided by a vague memory I absent-mindedly googled lobster bestiality.

Turned up some Saatchi/Ramsay/Nigella slash (where the bidge between shlock modern art and celebrity cheffing is a working class lobster called Trevor).

I should know better really.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

I immediately thought monotremes, so that's platypi and echindnas. And to think a certain song confuses echidnas with hedgehogs!

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Platypuses! (Many critters of the same species)
There's only one platypus species, so there are no platypi.

However there are two echidna species, so you could talk appropriately about either the echidnae (the species), or a pen full of echidnas (critters).

[redbird]

Also because the correct Greek plural form would be "platypodes," not "platypi." (It's the same -pus signifying "foot" as in "octopus.")

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced the distinction you make exists between the different plural forms for many of the same species and many of different species. Given that there are extinct species then if there were a species plural one could use it in a historic setting.

Here's a Merriam-Webster editor addressing the similar octopus/octopi/octopuses/octopodes issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFyY2mK8pxk

She goes for octopuses and octopi as both correct but octopodes as acceptable but rare in British english (though she does pronounce it peculiarly I think). She doesn't mention any change in word for a species plural though.

[pwilkinson.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't one of those putative plurals be platypodes?