According to various sexologist studies, donkeys are one of the most preferred animals for zoophilia. People who have sex with donkeys may face fines, imprisonment, or capital punishment, depending on the country, and references to bestiality with donkeys may be censored by some governments and publishers. Bestiality with donkeys is more common in rural areas.
Literature, art, and elements of popular culture documenting, referring to, or featuring sex with donkeys have been produced since ancient times. These include depictions on or in gas lamps, stelae, paintings, films, pornography, theater shows, cartoons, novels, poems, jokes, slang, and folk tales. There are also various religious and mythological sources containing beliefs and narratives about donkey sex. In some societies, it is believed that there are benefits to having sex with donkeys.
Etymology In Turkish slang, the term eşekçi (one who rents out donkeys) is used to describe people who are in the habit of having sexual relations with donkeys. Donkeys used for sex are called Kadifegül, Nallı Fatma, Fatmagül or Eşogelin in some regions of Turkey. In Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatnâme, the phrase eşek filan edici refers to men who have sex with donkeys. The people of the region of Colombia where donkey sex is common are known among other Colombians as comeburras, Spanish for "donkey eaters".
References to sex with donkeys may also be used as insults or racial slurs. The Russian word Oslayob means "donkey fucker" and is used as a generic insult. In Arab countries, the expression "donkey fucker" is considered a racist slur. According to Justine Hardy's book, the term "donkey boy" is used in Pakistan and North India to denigrate and ridicule men who are the receptive partners in anal intercourse.
Frequency of occurrence A meta-analysis published in 2021 estimated that about 2% of the general population engaged in zoophilic acts. Sexologists Hani Miletski, Andrea Beetz, Colin J. Williams and Martin S. Weinberg conducted a study of people who have had sex with animals and found that animals in the equine family are the most preferred animal species for zoophilia after dogs. Another survey of 171 people in 2010 reported that donkeys were the most preferred animal species for sex (73) after mares (80). Of the 144 cases of zoophilia found by Zeb Tortorici in archives in Guatemala, Mexico, Spain and the United States, 42.2% were with female donkeys.
In 2002, an online survey of men who claimed to have had sex with an animal was conducted among 114 participants with a median age of 27 years. Of the participants, 91% of whom were American and 83% of whom had graduated from a university or equivalent educational institution, 29% reported having had intercourse with a member of the Equidae family. Of those who continued to actively engage in bestiality, 39% said they have had sex with a member of the Equidae. All of those who had ever had sex with an Equidae reported having vaginal intercourse with the animal, while half of the respondents also reported having anal intercourse with the animal. In addition, 14% of those who had had sex with a member of the Equidae family said they had had oral intercourse with the animal.
History
Antiquity In Hittite laws (specifically Clauses 187–200), sexual relations with animals were strictly categorized based on the perceived religious pollution (hurkel). While acts with certain animals like cows, sheep, pigs, or dogs were considered capital offenses, having sex with a horse or a mule was explicitly exempted from punishment. Donkeys also held a complex position; while not explicitly listed as a capital offense in the same manner as cattle, they were symbols of potent sexuality, and such acts are allegedly alluded to on the Hittite Inandık vase.
Hittite ritual texts also addressed sexual dysfunction through symbolic magic rather than bestial imagery. In the "Ritual of Paškuwatti" (CTH 406), a female practitioner treated male impotence by symbolically reassigning the patient's gender: she would take feminine symbols, such as a spindle and distaff, from the man and replace them with a bow and arrow to restore his masculine virility.
In contrast, ancient Mesopotamian potency incantations (ŠÀ.ZI.GA) utilized aggressive animal copulation imagery as sympathetic magic. These texts, often mistakenly grouped with Hittite traditions in general surveys, frequently invoked the sexual vigor of donkeys and bucks. One such Assyrian ritual (KAR 236) involved the following Akkadian incantation:
In Ancient Egypt, curses inflicting donkey rape can be found from the Pharaonic period to the Coptic period, usually inscribed on stelae. According to a book written during the reign of Ramesses III, a donkey will have sex with the wife and children of one who has intercourse with it. It was also written that if a woman had sex with a donkey, great misfortune would befall her, as if she had had intercourse with an Assyrian. The Donation Stele of King Tefnakht describes a "donkey curse" for those who disturb the fields he gave to the goddess Neith:
In Ancient Greece, donkeys were viewed disfavorably; to accuse someone's mother of having intercourse with a donkey was to accuse her not just of bestiality, but of bestiality with a particularly grotesque and demeaning beast. Aristo of Ephesus was recorded to have had sex with a female donkey. Sex with donkeys is implicitly mentioned in Aristophanes' comedies The Frogs and The Wasps; according to Wolfgang Luppe, the allusions are not entirely unhistorical. In a theater performance in ancient Corinth, a woman had sex with a donkey.
Apuleius wrote of wealthy Romans having sex with donkeys. Juvenal, in his book of Satires, mentions women who were guilty of having sex with donkeys. Pliny the Elder wrote that donkey penises soaked in oil and hyena penises covered in honey were sexual fetishes of women living at the time. In History of the Wars, Byzantine historian Procopius wrote that the Heruli, especially those with donkeys, copulated in an "unholy manner"; scholars believe his claims were likely exaggerated.
Middle Ages and Modern Age In Ibn al-Jawzī's Adqiya, he mentions the brilliance of a physician who treated a patient with an unusually swollen penis. The physician guessed that the man had had sex with a donkey, during which a grain entered his penis. He then struck the man's penis with a hammer to get rid of the grain blocking it. Both European and Arab writers were cautious in transcribing this incident. In the 11th century book Picatrix, a decan description in the Pisces III chapter mentions a woman mounted by a donkey.
According to Mehmed al-Ghazali, sex with donkeys was a common male activity in Egypt, to the extent that stories about it spread and no one denied having sex with a donkey. al-Ghazali also mentions donkey houses in the region, in which men could pay to have sex with donkeys.
In early modern Europe, bestiality, more common in rural areas, was considered a threat to civilized society. At the time, animals were prosecuted for crimes, including the crime of having sex with humans; this resulted in animals being executed alongside people who had intercourse with them. In the 1575 conviction of one Legaigneux, magistrates condemned the man to be hanged after being forced to watch the execution of the donkey he was convicted to have had sex with. In the 16th century, most Europeans thought that Muslims had sex with animals, especially donkeys.
In the early modern era, trials of people who had sex with donkeys took place in many European countries. Although the records were often burned after the trials, more than 100 bestiality trials in France between the 13th and 17th centuries have survived. On January 8, 1558, in Villeneuve-l'Archevêque, a donkey rider who was tried for having sex with a donkey was burned with his donkey after being executed by hanging. On November 24, 1542, in a similar case before the Parliament of Paris, a man from the commune of Loudun was burned with his donkey after being strangled to death for having sex with it. In 1567, the Court of Aragon in Spain sentenced five men to work on a galley after they were found to have had sex with a donkey. In 1572, nine peasants were executed for having sex with donkeys or mules. In a news report dated September 2, 1595, it is written that a man accused of having sex with a donkey by 2 men and 2 women in Portugal was burned to death with the donkey in Rossio Square. According to the report, immediately after the burning, the man was found to be innocent, and those who accused him of having sex with the donkey were also burned to death. In the late 16th century, in a case of bestiality in France, it was decided that the female donkey would be stoned to death in front of the man on the gallows and then the man would be executed by hanging. In 1612, Domingos Marquez, the second black man to be burned to death in Portugal, was burned for "disgraceful behavior with a donkey in public". From the 17th century onwards, judges began to issue more pardons for donkeys. In 1750 in France, a man and a female donkey who were found to have had sex were brought to court and tried. While the court decided to execute the man, the donkey was found not guilty. The comments of the villagers about the donkey and the man were influential in this decision. When Frederick the Great pardoned a man caught having sex with a donkey, he said: "In Prussia, man has freedom of both his head and his tail (penis)".
A man who saw a British merchant held captive in Ottoman Algeria was petrified while having sex with his favorite donkey. The British merchant described what he saw as follows: "In a small meadow where excellent grass grew, I saw something that resembled a man resting on the ass of his donkey. They looked so lifelike that from a distance I thought they were alive, but when I came closer I saw that they were perfect statues." This incident was reported in the London press in 1670.
It is mentioned in the sources that some rulers had sex with donkeys. Zhu Yousong is known to have had sex with a donkey. According to one rumor, Catherine the Great had a donkey that she used for sex. According to Finucci, Caterina Sforza preferred the dried penis of a donkey for what she called a spectacular enlargement of the sexual organ.
Sex with donkeys by region in recent times Asia According to linguist Gyula József Décsy's book, sex between a human and a donkey is the main taboo in Asia related to the concept of bestiality.
West Asia According to a 1938 medical academic paper, donkeys are the most commonly used animal for bestiality among Arabs. In some plays performed in Turkey, there are references to sex with a donkey or the role of a man in such a scenario. In a scene in the Turkish play Hastane mi Kestane mi?, there is a reference to sex with a donkey. In a scene set in a hospital, the patient tells the nurse that he has no health problems except that he was kicked by a donkey. The nurse then asks why the donkey kicked him. The patient replies, "Don't question why; this is a romantic relationship." In the game of değirmen döndürme, sexuality is shown in the form of sex with a donkey. sex with donkeys is also seen in the game of Değirmenci played in Uruş and Yenice villages of Oğuzeli district of Gaziantep.