The A to Z of Sexual History: A – Avisodomy: The act of a human engaging in sexual activity involving a bird.

Of all animals, having sex with birds is the most impractical. Firstly, the buggers can fly, which makes them tough to woo/catch. Once you have pinned them down they probably flap like hell anyway, shedding telltale feathers everywhere. There’s also a clearly impractical size disparity. Whereas a cow, donkey, horse or other usual targets for animal lust, might not be too bothered by certain types of violation, screwing a bird will probably push its brains out through its eyes.

Despite the clear impracticability, it’s an age-old practice. In the Old Testament, sex with any animal is punishable by death, but other ancient laws differentiate between species. Sex with birds was deemed less offensive. Thirteenth century penitential codes distinguished between bestiality with a mammal and with a chicken, and avian sex carried a lower penance because fowl were less costly to replace than farm animals. However, eating the bird after making love to it was frowned upon and could land you with two or three years of fasting.

The bird gets a bad deal no matter what though. If it wasn’t killed during the act, it would most likely be slaughtered because it was unfit for human consumption or even put on animal trial. Yes, animals were put on trial. Between the 9th and 17th centuries, there were cases of animals going to court on accusations of bestiality, who would face the death sentence if found guilty – as was the fate of two turtledoves in the 1600s (what exactly they did was unclear).

The most famous case of bird sex involves the Greek mythological figure Leda, the mother of Troy, who was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan. Judging by the common pictorial depictions, it looked like she actually quite enjoyed it and they had a feathery cuddle afterwards while she laid some eggs. Somehow Leda became a bit of an iconic sex kitten in the Renaissance. It was deemed more acceptable to portray her swan-loving than paintings of human coitus, so was as close to porn as a lot of people could get, and most likely engendered centuries of avisodomists who spent their Sundays feeding the swans.

The daddy of all perverts, the Marquis de Sade, wrote about the process as practiced in one Parisian brothel where they employed a turkey. He writes, “The girl holds the bird’s neck locked between her thighs, you have her ass straight ahead of you for prospect, and she cuts the bird’s throat the same moment you discharge.”

It was commonly known in rural areas that if you penetrated a bird and wrung its neck a moment before ejaculation, the bird’s sphincter constricts and spasms before death causing allegedly pleasurable manipulations of the penis.

Examples of avisodomy continue throughout history. Most amusingly was Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, who admitted at the age of nine to having sex with a chicken – which in the hollows of Eastern Kentucky wasn’t all that unusual. Older boys told him that a chicken was as good as a girl – so he tried it. In his autobiography, An Unseemly Man, he writes, “I caught one of my grandmother’s hens out behind the barn, managed to insert my penis into its egg-bag, and thrust away. When I let the chicken go it started towards the main house, staggering, squawking and bleeding. Fearing that my grandmother would see what had happened, I caught it, wrung its neck and threw it in the creek.”  In later life, he built a three-foot replica of the chicken he had violated in his youth in his faux-hillbilly cabin. “Who said I’m not sentimental?” he added.

I’ll leave you with these people for consideration, who are into erotic play with their falcons. The RSPB would certainly not approve.