Technically, zoophilia is a theme (attraction to non-sapient animals) and bestiality is an action (intercourse between a sapient and non-sapient animal.)

However, in common parlance, bestiality has been generalized to mean the same thing as zoophilia, and tags are defined based on how users are expected to use them

Zoophilia is really more psychological state than something you can see in an image.

The physical act between human/feral is bestiality. That's what we can see, that's what we tag.

So it's not so much that they are assumed to be the same tags, but that in art you can't generally tell the difference.

Also, combining avoids arguments over:
- "They are obviously in love, this should have zoophilia tag!"
- "All I see is a man having sex with a penguin, switching it back to bestiality."
- "But look how happy they both are. Zoophilia."
- "They're both just enjoying the sex. Bestiality."

Ah, I just realized something.
'Straight' and 'Gay' are also tags, but they are applied to images with male/male sex and male/female sex.
This does not mean both characters are gay or straight,
this just means the sex they're having is related to
that sexual orientation.(For some reason.)
So this also counts for the 'Zoophilia' tag. (Even though not all people who have sex with non-human animals are zoophiles, but that's how these tags work, apparently.)

Looks like the tag system works a bit different than I expected and isn't 100% accurate.

WarCanine said:
Ah, I just realized something.
'Straight' and 'Gay' are also tags, but they are applied to images with male/male sex and male/female sex.
This does not mean both characters are gay or straight,
this just means the sex they're having is related to
that sexual orientation.(For some reason.)
So this also counts for the 'Zoophilia' tag. (Even though not all people who have sex with non-human animals are zoophiles, but that's how these tags work, apparently.)

Looks like the tag system works a bit different than I expected and isn't 100% accurate.

Yeah. Technical accuracy isn't as important as a few other factors - such as ease of searchability, expected usage, and so on. This is why, for instance, pteranodon implies dinosaur, even though we know and recognize that pteranodons were not dinosaurs.

I do understand your point about zoophilia (I'm a zoophile myself, after all, and in many contexts I consider the distinction between bestiality and zoophilia to be an important one to make) in this case it just isn't worth the fights. It's too subjective.

Clawdragons said:
I do understand your point about zoophilia (I'm a zoophile myself, after all, and in many contexts I consider the distinction between bestiality and zoophilia to be an important one to make) in this case it just isn't worth the fights. It's too subjective.

Could decide e621 times! Sometimes it is extremely important to label secondary things to every detail and create tags for it. That happened with X-ray. It was absolutely necessary to be aware of the x-ray is the medical procedure, although this is completely irrelevant for the side function. Nevertheless, several pictures were renamed and the wiki changed, whereby X-ray pictures are no longer traceable and searchable.

Another time it does not matter whether rape and violence (bestiality) and love + consensual sex (zoophilia) together in a concept. Why do not terminate the term search and discussion at (for example) Cuntboy, and call all Intersex that is easier.

Especially the wrong name in the media is what zoophilia gives a bad call. Bestiality is an offense when it's on the wrong picture is similar to Cuntboy and Dickgirl. I myself know a zoophile. Bestiality provides zoophiles, with horse slaughtering on a step. At Bestiality, or Zoophilia, we are talking about more than 22,000 pictures. Maybe the half or who knows how much are actually Zoophilia.

Unlike Intersex, it is comparatively easy to find terms in Bestiality and Zoophilia. If you are in doubt, simply change bestiality through zoosex, the rest will do the standard tags (rape, questionable_consent, forced, love, romantic_couple, ....).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoophilia#Bestiality

WarCanine said:
Why are "Zoophilia" and "Bestiality" seen as the same tags?
I mean, there's an obvious difference between these two.
Can't zoophilia be tagged with posts that represent obvious love/affection between human and non-human animals, while bestiality stays the same?

What are you suggesting exactly?
Separating the tags will only do harm. As some people view the terms as interchangeable (and they actually were, not so long ago). And some languages don't have a term other than latin "zoophilia".
So for the sake of the effective search they should stay aliased.

As mentioned earlier for the love/affection there is a separate tag "romantic"

Bestiality itself is not a very good tag though, there were numerous talks about whether it's needed at all. Like, for example, in this thread forum #174754

THE TOPIC IS BACK AGAIN