Are there any U.S. states or countries that still lack explicit laws against bestiality?
Executive summary
Available reporting indicates that nearly every U.S. state now has an explicit statute banning sexual activity with animals, with advocacy groups and legal trackers naming West Virginia as the last state without a specific antibestiality statute as of early 2025 [1]. Internationally, a handful of countries historically permitted zoophilia but have moved recently to ban it — after Denmark’s 2015 law the BBC listed Hungary, Finland and Romania as remaining EU outliers at that time [2]; global coverage is patchy and nation-by-nation status maps exist but vary in currency [3].
1. U.S. picture: “One state left” narrative — what the data say
Animal Legal Defense Fund’s 2025 statement and several legal summaries report that West Virginia remained the only U.S. state without an explicit criminal statute proscribing bestiality as of their publications, asserting that every other state had passed antibestiality laws [1]. Legal research compilations and specialist tables (Animal Legal & Historical Center) document the rapid change in state codes over recent years and note that even where explicit bestiality statutes were absent previously, prosecutors sometimes relied on cruelty, obscenity or other laws [4]. Academic and law-review visuals prepared earlier also reflected that by the mid-2020s only West Virginia lagged behind in having a statute explicitly referencing human-animal sexual contact [5].
2. How “loopholes” complicate the claim that bestiality was legal
Multiple sources caution that absence of a named “bestiality” statute does not always mean acts were legally permitted: prosecutors historically could pursue charges under animal cruelty, public morals, obscenity, or related statutes where those laws covered sexual abuse or aggravated cruelty to animals [4]. Media summaries that earlier identified several states as “legal” relied on the fact those states lacked a dedicated antibestiality provision even if other statutes might be usable [6]. Therefore headlines saying “legal” sometimes reflected a legal gap in naming and sentencing, not an endorsement or clean safe harbor.
3. Recent state-level change and advocacy pressure
Reporting shows a wave of legislative activity in the 2010s–2020s aimed at closing these gaps: for example, Wyoming enacted a ban effective July 2021 after a high-profile local incident highlighted prosecution difficulties under existing codes [7]. Advocacy groups and petitions pushed for uniform laws — the Change.org petition and ALDF publications explicitly sought statutes in every state and cited that only 46 states once had specific prohibitions [8] [1]. These organized efforts help explain why the U.S. landscape shifted from many patchwork laws to near-uniform explicit bans.
4. International context: EU and beyond — uneven reporting
International coverage is less consolidated in the supplied material. BBC reporting from Denmark’s 2015 ban noted that after that law Hungary, Finland and Romania were identified as EU countries where bestiality remained legal at the time [2]. Global maps and compilations (a Wikipedia file on legality by country) exist but their accuracy depends on updates and local legal nuance [3]. Other sources mention that in some countries depictions in pornography may be regulated differently — for example, Brazil’s rules on pornographic depiction and New Zealand’s classification of bestiality as objectionable material — showing that criminal, obscenity and media laws intersect in complex ways [9].
5. Disagreements, limits of the sources, and what’s not covered
Sources used here differ in emphasis: advocacy groups (ALDF) present a clear, up-to-date campaign framing that West Virginia was the sole holdout [1]; older media and aggregator articles list several U.S. states that used to lack specific bans [6]. The supplied materials do not include a comprehensive, current worldwide ledger of which countries still lack explicit prohibitions, nor do they provide a definitive legal code text for every nation — available sources do not mention a complete, authoritative global list [3] [10]. Where a provided source explicitly refutes a claim, I have noted it; where sources are silent I state that omission.
6. Practical takeaway: law vs. enforcement and why it matters
Even where explicit antibestiality statutes exist, enforcement, penalties and case law vary widely across jurisdictions [4]. The legislative trend in the U.S. has been to remove ambiguity by enacting specific prohibitions — driven by advocates and high-profile incidents that exposed prosecutorial limitations [7] [8]. Internationally, recent bans (e.g., Denmark) show a movement toward explicit criminalization in Europe, but patchy reporting and differing legal frameworks (criminal statute vs. obscenity or animal-cruelty law) mean any claim about “where it’s still legal” must be qualified by date, jurisdictional substance, and the specific legal instrument cited [2] [9].
If you want, I can compile a state-by-state summary from the Animal Legal & Historical Center table and ALDF notes, or search for up-to-date, country-level statutes outside the current set of sources to map remaining legal gaps more precisely.