Terminology
There are three terms that are most commonly used in regards to the subject: zoophilia, bestiality, and zoosexuality. The terms are usually relatively interchangeable. Zoosadism, sodomy, zooerasty and zooerastia are other terms closely related to the subject but are less synonymous with the former terms and/or are not commonly used. "Bestiosexuality" was discussed briefly by Allen (1979), but never became established.
The term "zoophilia" was introduced into the field of research on sexuality in Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) by Krafft-Ebing, who described a number of cases of "violation of animals (bestiality)", as well as "zoophilia erotica", which he defined as a sexual attraction to animal skin or fur.
Zoophilia can refer to sexual activity with non-human animals (bestiality), the desire to do so, or to the paraphilia (atypical arousal) of the same name which indicates a definite preference for animals over humans as sexual partners.
Some zoophiles and researchers draw a distinction between zoophilia and bestiality, using the former to describe the desire to form sexual relationships with animals, and the latter to describe the sex acts alone.
Bestiality is frequently misspelled as "beastiality". Even when spelled "bestiality", the word has two common pronunciations, (/ˌbestʃiˈæləti/ or /ˌbistʃiˈæləti/), with the first syllable sounding either like "best" or "beast", The latter is more frequently used in the United States.
Masters (1962) uses the term "bestialist" specifically in his discussion of zoosadism, which refers to deriving sexual pleasure from cruelty to animals. Stephanie LaFarge, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School, and Director of Counseling at the ASPCA, writes that two groups can be distinguished: bestialists, who rape or abuse animals, and zoophiles, who form an emotional and sexual attachment to animals. Colin J. Williams and Martin Weinberg studied self-defined zoophiles via the internet and found they saw the term as involving concern for the animal's welfare and pleasure, and an emphasis on believing they obtained consent, as opposed to the zoophile's concept of bestialists, who zoophiles defined as a group who focused only on their own gratification. Williams and Weinberg also quoted a British newspaper as saying that zoophilia is the term used by "apologists" of bestiality.
Read more about this topic: Animal Pornography