Feeling Goatish?
Peter Singer is ahead of his time.

April 5, 2001 9:00 a.m.

rinceton Professor Peter Singer, perhaps the Ivy League's most quoted thinker, has recently inspired a new barrage of spirited invective, this time over his defense of expanding sexual standards, which would in Singerland be very expansive indeed. Those views, to be discussed in finer detail below, are offensive to civilized people, as are his opinions that humans of imperfect construction, along with those who are old and in the way, be subjected to Ye Olde Drowning Bucket.

Yet it should first be said that Singer has a strong wind at his back. He should not be considered as a mad professor who has gone off the rails, but as a fellow very much on track. He knows the way the culture's flowing. He can see lifestyle and legal developments before they actually happen. The way things are going, he may be Chief Justice some day.

This latest uproar concerns Singer's opinions about screwing dogs, as in humans screwing dogs. One might initially assume that the professor may be having a hard time getting laid up at Princeton. But he is a serious ethicist. Singer understands, as his critics do not, that screwing dogs really is a philosophical question for our age. Many will line up to debate him on the issue, but the fact is, Singer's holding most of the cards.

He rightly notes that taboos against various sexual practices have fallen quickly over the past decades. Why should the taboo against sex with animals not fall as well? It all boils down to this: Who sez people shouldn't screw the dog? On what grounds is this pleasure denied?

The answer used to be that screwing the dog (or poking the goat, etc., etc.) broke the laws of God and man. Singer recognizes, and is not afraid to say, that God has been pushed off the cliff. Dostoevsky was right: If there is no God, all is permissible — at least among consenting adults. So long as the dog is willing — and what dog isn't? — everything's okay. (Warning: Do not try this in Islamic countries, where the dogs and the magistrates hold to the old ways).

Singer's position, while jarring at first, is bound to eventually gain support. It passes the consenting-adult test. It expands the sexual frontier. And let's be honest, if we can eat a goat, why can't we poke it? What do you say, Mr. Chief Justice? After some initial hesitancy, the helping professions can be expected to get on board. After all, for those having a hard time getting a date, this is a real option, and because of the likelihood of scoring on the first outing is high, self-esteem should soar. Hosing the hog may also be promoted as a way to curb male aggression in public schools. The business community, meanwhile, would enjoy brisk trading in swans and apes, and the struggling vacation industry could boost itself up by offering a sex safari, in which the great beasts of Africa could be made available for lovemaking (with the help of heavy sedation). Customers might advertise their prowess with bumper stickers proclaiming "I Bonked a Croc!" And so forth.

To be sure, the civilized mind will never accommodate all this, and in a sensible world professors would be scandalized as well. For despite the accolades, Singer is no advanced thinker. More to the point, assertions that he is a symbol of academic freedom and intellectual inquiry make it clear that both are currently defined as anything that will alarm a Baptist minister. Some standard — yet it is the one on which Singer's world is built. It is a world where every kennel is a harem; every watermelon patch, Club Med.

Civilized people will be appalled, but they can be content with knowing that their suspicion of Ivy-League decline appears to be on target. Princeton was once associated with the brilliance of Albert Einstein. It is now proud home to a fellow who promotes drowning poor grandma, then retiring to the boudoir to screw her poodle. The battle cry of the mind has gone from "E=MC squared!" to "Let's have a go at Fido!" Thank God Mr. Ed isn't alive to see this.