A Top Lawyer Explains What You Can Legally Do to a Pig, Sexually Speaking

If you were dead or asleep in the last 12 hours, you have now woken up in a world where the current British prime minister has been accused of allegedly fucking a dead pig's head.

An unauthorized biography by a former Conservative peer, Lord Ashcroft, claims that David Cameron once "put a private part of his anatomy" into the mouth of a deceased pig during an initiation ceremony for Piers Gaveston, an elite Oxford University society. The all-male society is described in the book as specializing "in bizarre rituals and sexual excess."

Ashcroft's source also claimed to have seen a picture of the alleged event in question. The Spectator quotes from an excerpt of the book, Call Me Dave:

Downing Street has declined to comment on the allegations, which have been trending all day in the UK under the hashtag #piggate.

Men-only drinking societies have been part of Oxford history for centuries, with Piers Gaveston (or "Piers Gav") reputed to be the most debauched of them all. One Oxford alumnus told Tatler, "Everyone secretly longs to be invited to the Piers Gav, because it's exclusive, regardless of what they might say. It's basically a very well-organized orgy."

All Piers Gaveston events are invite-only, culminating in a massive ticketed party only open to members of the society and their friends. Guests allegedly leave their phones behind before being blindfolded and led onto a bus, which then takes them to a private location in the countryside for the event.

However, even those guests disavow the allegations of pig-fucking, saying that this is not par for course at most Oxford societies. A female Oxford graduate who attended the Piers Gaveston party in 2013 said that the society had changed since Cameron was a student. "As far as I know there are no rituals now," she said. "It's basically considered the artsy, gayer Bullingdon Club [another all-male Oxford society]. My friend who was a member told me that it's still an old boys' club in that everyone there was mad rich […] but that there was nothing crazy other than the fact that they'd go out drinking and spend hundreds of pounds on good whiskey and such."

An anonymous Oxford graduate who knew several Piers Gaveston attendees told Broadly that the general view is that "Cameron was just an exceptional weirdo whose particular group chose to do awful things, rather than the societies themselves being indicative of debauched behavior."

So what should you do if you ever find yourself in the alleged position of being asked to place your penis into a dead pig's mouth in order to impress your university pals? Good news, bros: It's totally legal in the UK.

While you may face up to two years in prison if found guilty of intercourse with an animal, putting your penis (or vagina!) in or around a dead pig's mouth does not constitute bestiality.

Myles Jackman, the UK's top obscenity lawyer, explained that this was because "the pig is dead, and therefore it's not bestiality. It's also not anally or vaginally penetrated."

Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, intercourse with an animal is defined as penetrating the anus or vagina of a living animal with one's penis. Simulating oral sex with a dead one, on the other hand: totally OK. "For example, one of my clients committed analingus on a dog," Jackman told Broadly, "and that is not an offense of bestiality either."

So why isn't allegedly mouth-fucking a pig covered under the law? "I can only put it down to very sloppy drafting," Jackman said. "I don't think anybody thought the PM would insert his member into a dead pig's mouth when they were drafting the law."

Consent is a moot point, too. "Animals and cadavers cannot give consent to sexual contact with humans, and therefore that whatever the case were—alive or dead—consent would not be an issue," Jackman explained.

He cautioned that the only potential legal implications arise from possessing an image of the fact. "Someone with a photo of it could be committing a possession offense of possessing extreme pornography."

Jackman said of the allegations made against Cameron: "He's damned if does, and he's damned if he doesn't. Any attempt to deny will be scrutinized very closely, and every attempt not to comment will be scrutinized very closely; he simply cannot win in this media war."

Whatever you think about Carly Fiorina's garbage dump of Planned Parenthood lies or Donald Trump in general, consider this: At least they've probably never been accused of placing their genitals anywhere near a dead animal to impress their college friends.