CW: Not strictly nsfw but short mentioning of sexual topics

Hello dear rqd2 community!

Today I would like to talk about a book which I bought a few months ago. It’s name is “Saint Zoo” and was written by Chihiro Hamano. She is a japanese sexual scientist which got sexuality and mentally abused from her partner for over 10 years. She tries to cope with her experiences by looking into the topic power, violents and sexuality. As she got told it would be a good idea to look into the topic zoophilia she decided to do so. Soon she goes to Germany to meet some (Pro-cs) zoos so she can learn more about that topic from a other perspective.

What do I think about that book?

I think it’s very well written. In my opinion it’s even understandable for people who think it’s hard to read non-fiction books about a certain topic(like me). I also love how honest Chihiro is with her feelings about that topic and the people she meet. And how she tries to understand them. Even when she was worried at first you can see that the author is still open minded, questioning her self and tries to understand the zoos she meets and mets. Chihiro learns a lot about their perspective and is also starting questioning the roles from non-humans in our society. Even for me as a zoo(and therian) myself it helped me to see non-human animals in a other light than I saw before.

But there are some things which I can’t really agree with. It starts with the chapter “Die wahl, ein/e Zoo zu werden”(The choice to be a zoo). I know that the book mostly talks about experience from other people. But I think what they are descriping as a “choice to be a zoo” is more a life style than the actual attraction to non-humans. There is also a chapter what is called “Tierliebe und Säuglingsliebe”(Love to animals and love to babies). In this chapter Chihiro is talking about the difference between pedophilia and zoophilia which is very important I think. Since they are many people who see it as almost the same thing. But I didn’t saw a short mention that pedophilia in itsself is not an action. I think it’s important to do this because of the stigma about that topic.

All in all I really like this book. I think it shows a other side about that topic than the most other sources that I saw do. It really shows that zoos are more than “the ones who have sex with non-humans”. I think it gives people no matter if zoo or not room to questioning theirself and to learn new perspectives about that whole topic and the treatment of non-human animals in general.

If you read that book: What do you think about it and is there maybe something which I maybe got wrong in your opinion? Let me know!

The book: https://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/saint-zoo.html (German)

https://www.amazon.de/Saint-Zoo-Japanese-Chihiro-Hamano-ebook/dp/B0BGSSFK4W (Japanese)

I sadly couldn’t find a english version yet.