Interview with Dr. Stetina

Please note that this transcript is automatically generated and contains many inaccuracies

[00:00:00] Toggle: Welcome back fellow zoos you We are joined today by Birgit Stetina, who is the head of the Department of Clinical Psychology in the Sigfrid Freud University in Vienna, Austria. Welcome.

[00:00:13] Birgit: Hello. It’s good

to be here.

[00:00:16] Toggle: We’re super happy to have you. Thanks for coming.

[00:00:18] Birgit: It’s a pleasure.

[00:00:19] Toggle: so let’s not waste too much time. Let’s go ahead and jump right in.

So, you guys are doing a very interesting study. Can you tell audience what this study is actually about? Like the overarching

[00:00:32] Birgit: yeah, yeah. yeah. to speak about the study, I think it makes sense that I start speaking about where I started my research process, I think around 20 years ago.

Uh, because, yeah, because when I did my. master’s degree, I was already working with hidden populations and trying to, get an idea of, what hidden populations need and, try to break some taboos.

So my target population was recreational drug users then. and so that was the first hidden population that I, ever researched. And,

I was always working with human technique interaction. And at the same time as a young clinical psychologist, I also started working with human animal interaction.

So we worked with animal assisted therapy in the very, very early years, starting in 2000, actually, doing that when I was still, a student. And relatively fast, I was seeing many, many layers about the human animal interaction, and that was what, prompted to look at the different layers and, I would say trying to explore the population of people, uh, with zoophile interests is, following up on Researching hidden populations, using technology to do that, because that’s possible nowadays, that’s a lot easier than it was 20 years ago, right?

[00:02:13] Birgit: And try to understand something, that’s tabooed in society. You know, we clinical psychologists, We try to observe, we try to explain, and of course, we also try to predict classification is a big part of our studies, but for the explanation, we need to go in deep because we need models and, I like to look at, populations, from the human animal interaction, topic.

in depth, and this is, how I got to you. And this is how I got to, to the topic, but I also started with, I think the first master thesis that I supervised on that was 2010, also a long time ago. ago already it was Marion Nasswetter and she was, doing that in the German and in the English speaking part, of the internet already so it developed into that direction, from a very quantitative approach to the study that we’re doing now at the moment.

with the target to understand how sexual behavior, in zoophile people developed. So that was the part of the interview study to get a concept, to get an idea how, sexuality in zoos as you, I hope I can also use the term, I hope that’s okay for you,

[00:03:43] Aqua: Yes, definitely.

[00:03:44] Birgit: how sexuality in zoos. develops.

[00:03:48] Toggle: Super interesting. Now, this is all part of an overarching study. Goal, as you mentioned, to understand the interactions between humans and animals in general.

[00:03:59] Birgit: yes, definitely. Yeah. and this, I would say this is my life project

to look at that. at the beginning, we’ve been researching positive aspects of human animal, interaction. And very, very soon, some of the aspects that are a bit problematic, showed itself.

Things like, throughout the pandemic, for example, when the media presented a picture of, well, everyone should get a dog, that you’re not that lonely, if you cannot see other people, where we said, is that really something that we want? Are there

only positive aspects? For humans as well as for animals.

And as human psychologists, we started to research the negative effects on humans as well. especially during critical life events and the pandemic, for example, we found out that it’s actually more difficult to live with an animal during a critical situation in life than to not have to care for an animal.

This will Probably not be surprising for, for you, but the whole field, it was extremely surprising and

media is still not very happy with us that we have results like that.

we also found out that, for example, people suffering from lung the ones who also have to care for an animal are worse off.

Than the ones without animals, you know,

things like that. We are allowed to say that nowadays, about children, for example. So people, I think everyone would agree that children can be a burden as well, but, we’re not allowed to say that, about our pets. And this is something that’s also tabooed in society, you know, we’re not allowed to, get that full picture.

Either we have that rosy, unrealistic picture of the family with the dog who’s always happy to have that, that there are no negative side effects, or we have the super extreme examples, you know, things like

animal hoarding, for example, that we also, Try to research. There is no in between. So it’s, the interesting thing for me and for my whole research group is that when we try to balance that picture with journalists, for example, they always come with a fixed idea.

And whatever we bring, in the end, the product will be the idea that they had at the beginning. So they would, for example, just not talk about the negative findings that we have,

only talk about the positive findings that we

have about our studies. So I would say In my life project of trying to get a better understanding of human animal interaction, zoophilia is, one of the human animal interactions that I’m researching.

Does that help to get the big picture?

[00:06:59] Aqua: Oh,

[00:06:59] Toggle: Yeah, absolutely, definitely.

[00:07:01] Aqua: I don’t know if it’s made it over to Austria, but stateside, we have a term for that dynamic with, the media that you described. It’s called data journalism.

[00:07:12] Birgit: Uh, huh,

[00:07:13] Aqua: and it’s the idea that someone has an idea for a story and they have a perspective and a punchline all figured out. All they need is the data to support the

[00:07:24] Birgit: exactly, yeah,

[00:07:26] Aqua: so, at any point during the, pandemic, and, your study. I’m a little surprised to hear your findings also. I understood that women were going to bear the brunt of the pandemic’s effects. Uh, again, over here, earning potential is somewhat lower than men. Substantially lower, in

fact.

and it didn’t absolve anybody of parental duties.

[00:07:48] Birgit: yes, exactly,

[00:07:50] Aqua: one of the early predictions that we had in our group, and that we shared with, our friends on the veterinary medicine and animal rescue side of things is that a few years after the pandemic ended, there would be an enormous number of animals surrendered to shelters, pandemic puppies, if you will, who, were never properly socialized because they had no opportunity to do it.

Uh, and sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

[00:08:20] Birgit: yes, here as well, yeah, we have exactly the same picture, so shelter is Are speaking about that. Exactly. And it seems that it still didn’t stop at least until the last winter break, you know, times of, typical vacation times, you know, holidays would be, would be the time when people surrender the animals say, and

they have been speaking about that.

[00:08:47] Toggle: Just get a dog sitter. I

[00:08:48] Birgit: Yeah, I know, yeah, we see it the same way. So, but shelters are, speaking about high numbers and, all shelters are full. And, In Austria, we have a relatively strict no kill policy, so you say that’s

quite, yeah, that’s quite different from some parts of, the U. S. for example, yeah,

[00:09:13] Toggle: All parts of the US.

[00:09:14] Birgit: really?

Would you

say all parts of the U.

S. okay?

[00:09:18] Toggle: There’s nowhere in the US where having no kill shelters is mandatory. It is always the

[00:09:25] Birgit: Oh, okay. I see. It’s always the

exception. I

thought that There, are some places.

[00:09:30] Aqua: there are some organizations that Do everything possible to avoid, euthanasia, but it tends to show up in policies, like, found or rescued dogs, and cats and other animals can be adopted very early, like, in as little as, 72 hours.

So, there isn’t much time for, their person to find them and locate the shelter and say, oh yes,

[00:09:56] Birgit: Oh, I get it. Wow.

[00:09:57] Aqua: it, so that occasionally goes really badly.

[00:10:00] Birgit: I can imagine. Yeah.

Wow.

[00:10:03] Aqua: so, I wasn’t aware that your interest in this went back decades.

[00:10:06] Birgit: Yeah, it did.

[00:10:08] Aqua: that’s great to hear. I wonder if you can explain why You felt it was important for you to get zoophiles, involved in your study at all, because, that’s not, a usual consideration for, the, like, it makes sense to me, but, it’s not often we see projects, including us.

[00:10:27] Birgit: I started as a quantitative researcher. I feel quantitative research is a lot more detached from the actual target group that you are researching. This is why I’m also using the word target group because it’s like, it’s very from the outside. You know, you are researching the population. You are just looking at it from, the outside.

Right? And that. Went well, I feel, maybe like 10, 12 years, and, 2012, when I started at Sigmund Freud University, I met, um, Many very interesting people who were qualitative researchers and, with their input, I got a deeper understanding that if that idea, what I have about clinical psychology and what the, of course, all people would, would agree, speaking about the explanation, you know, trying to explain something.

You have to have the subjective viewpoint of the people that you’re talking about, you know, you’re not talking about symptoms that you can take away from the actual humans that you’re talking about. So you have to ask about the subjective perception and only the subjective perception is going to give you a deeper insight.

And this is what changed my approach completely. and at the moment I would say we’ve been trained quite well by our qualitative researchers at our university and we try to work with mixed methods. I still think that quantitative research makes a lot of sense and, we got lots and lots, of data from your group, which we’re going to, analyze that gives us.

some understanding about subgroups or about classification, as you both know that I’m, that, we are working with and try to see what are the groups of people that exist, but the qualitative interviews give us the idea of your experience. It’s not possible to understand a dynamic.

If I don’t speak with the person who’s within that dynamic, you know, I can

only explain from the outside, but not really understand. So I feel a theoretical conception of, a form of sexuality like that is not possible to explain without talking to the people who are in that dynamic. So this is why we said we need mixed methods.

And, the grounded theory that we used made a lot of sense because this is the approach that you would usually use if you don’t know anything. And this is where we, came from thinking. We actually don’t know anything. yes, we have some scores from some of the tests and we have, data on gender or type of animal or something like that, or, preferred type of sexual contact or something like that.

But we don’t know anything about the subjective experience. We don’t know anything about the subjective perception. And this is how we went into that to try and understand how that looks from your perspective. This is why we felt that we needed to do that. and my team did agree, obviously.

[00:13:51] Toggle: Yeah, that makes sense to me. Obviously, you probably did some kind of literature review as you were preparing for your study. And you have all these quantitative data points, and I think this is coming from your, your initial survey, is that right, that you’re talking about when you say that? Okay. so when you were trying to prepare for that, what did you find existed already and what were you hoping to contribute to the collective understanding about zoophilia?

[00:14:18] Birgit: when Agrawal’s publication about the classification came out in 2011, I’m sure that know about that, he tried to, find theoretical classes, so far behavior is based on his knowledge about necrophilia.

[00:14:37] Toggle: oh

[00:14:39] Birgit: so this is how he came to his, classes. so it was only a theoretical approach and I can see how he, He got the idea to, to do it that way because looking at the classification manual, zoophilia and necrophilia would be in the same category.

So the assumption for him as a researcher was close to say, okay, I can, deduct from knowledge of that one thing. And get some idea about the classes of another behavior. And we felt that from a methodological standpoint, that doesn’t make any sense. And I had, the first study with, Marion Naswetter already that was done, two years before that, we only asked explorative questions then, you know, but quantitatively.

And I felt that this is not how the population looks like. and so the first step was, and that was several years ago, that with, Lisa Emmett together, who was doing her, PhD then, we tried to find out how that classification more or less really looks like, in the sense of in what classes do we find people?

You know, I can assume a lot. If I don’t find anyone who actually does that, it’s a non existing class from my viewpoint. So I cannot do a classification based on theoretical assumptions. I need to look at the population. And this is how we redid the classification. So this was, I would say one of the, most relevant, theoretical approaches that we looked at to try and make it better.

And, I’m in that network of researchers in human, animal interaction. So of course we do speak with each other. I know that Andrea Bitts from Germany, for example, also did some research on zoophilia for her, PhD, but I would say maybe it’s a handful of people all in all who have ever tried to analyze, what we were talking about in our interviews and have tried to understand the dynamics.

So there’s not a lot where I would say the literature review, was not very extensive. You know what I mean? I mean, you could, you could research very, very long, but there’s not a lot, not a lot out there. , and I would say more or less everyone knows what exists so far. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:23] Toggle: right. So, like you said there’s not a lot out there and it kind of makes you wonder Why not? So I wonder how you went about actually finding the people you needed to talk to How did you get people involved and how did you find the people that you actually ended up? You know interviewing and talking to

[00:17:43] Birgit: Yeah, the fact that the topic is tabooed is not only visible in the general public, it’s also visible in research. So even from my team that I would say maybe only 50 percent are willing to touch upon the really tabooed topics. And, I have other team members who would just say they don’t want to be involved in topics that are, from their viewpoint too problematic, what I totally respect.

Because what we do is, We go online and try to be, as open as possible and try to find places where people with certain wishes. would go to. This is what I’ve done at the very beginning as well, researching recreational drug users, you know, trying to put yourself in the position of such a person, knowing that Because of the taboo, it’s very difficult and you need information.

You’re doing something that’s problematic for the general public, but you still want information. So researching like that, I feel, paved the way for us, to get to you. And I feel due to the fact that we’ve been doing research, on zoophilia for quite a while now, there are people who are reaching out to us.

There are people who are interested in that research. And I would say for at least the last, maybe 10 years, zoos have been out to me, have been reaching out to Lisa. and this is the connection that we used. What we’ve also done is. Of course, we’ve also looked into places online that are more problematic, so, I mean places like the dark web, I mean places where we maybe can observe things, but would usually not find people that are willing to talk to us.

it’s already quite difficult to even enter and then try to interview someone is nearly impossible.

So I feel this is why there’s a part of the population that we haven’t talked to yet. we would have a lot of clinically relevant behaviors in the dark web that we, could not analyze the fall and that we probably will not be able to analyze to be honest. So when you’re asking how I got to you, how we got to you, I feel.

because of the fact that we’ve done research, for quite a while now, and, the personal connections that formed because of that, we find more people that are willing to talk to us. Does that answer the question? A bit at least?

[00:20:38] Toggle: Yeah, absolutely. Actually, it’s a lot more information there than I expected, so that was actually really cool. like, the idea that you guys have been talking to zoos for like a decade now,

[00:20:47] Birgit: Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[00:20:49] Aqua: Yeah, that’s actually encouraging. you know, you’re correct in that, as a, a marginalized group that concerns itself with a taboo subject, for a couple of decades, at least in the United States, zoos have not really wanted to be seen. And, there’s a number of reasons for that, but in our absence, of course, time and law marches on.

And, we are just now coming to terms with the impact, that resulted from our absence there. there were many conversations and legislative efforts to recriminalize, bestiality. but only in a zoophilic context, not in a

[00:21:29] Birgit: Mm-Hmm.

[00:21:30] Aqua: with little to no resistance. Because who would dare, oppose a law, That, protects, industry unless there’s an economic impact.

[00:21:40] Birgit: Mm-Hmm.

[00:21:41] Aqua: Nobody is, is concerned about, a small, relatively hidden, sexuality.

[00:21:47] Birgit: Mm-Hmm.

[00:21:48] Aqua: that’s part of our effort, to try to make ourselves more available, to study and to conversations. you know, to at least be present and, and have a say in what happens next.

[00:21:57] Birgit: Mm-Hmm. .

[00:21:58] Aqua: Yeah, so your study accomplishes something that’s kind of unprecedented, and that is, on the qualitative side, you arranged for dozens of recorded interviews

and

looking back through, the research that we can find, except for Dr.

Kinsey in the fifties, we can’t find any examples. Of anyone, except maybe Hanne Maletzky, who met with a handful of people in person,

[00:22:25] Toggle: Now when we talk about recording these interviews, we’re talking about video interviews. Face to face, seeing humans on the other side of the screen interviews. Not like the interview we’re doing right now where we’re just talking basically over the phone.

[00:22:40] Aqua: that hasn’t been done for 70 years, if ever. This might be the first one.

[00:22:45] Birgit: Yeah.

[00:22:46] Aqua: how did that happen?

[00:22:47] Birgit: the fact that we knew that we need yours objective perception to get closer to. A model to understanding the sexual dynamic, made us think about how to approach that. And for, the methodological part of the study, we actually only need the text. So this is what I also explained to all participants.

So, we said that, We need the audio interview just to make sure that, , we have the text to analyze it so we’re not only going over the text and, you know, quantitatively looking at topics, we are actually going in deep with, the concurrent methods to try and understand what it is. Each person is saying or how they try to reveal their subjective perception.

And we said, there’s an option to make that easier. And this is something that we learned throughout the pandemic. Maybe we wouldn’t have thought about it before. And this is just video, you know, video feels almost real. We have so many studies that show. Video intervention when we work with patients are similar, nearly similar to, face to face intervention.

And we wanted to give the topic a chance. We wanted to really understand the people that we are talking with. And I feel doing video and having you see us as researchers, as people, makes it possible for us to see you. as

people as well,

and to get closer to, an open conversation about a difficult topic.

There are not many people who like to talk about their sexuality, uh, in an interview. There are not many people, who are very open about that. And we wanted to know everything as much as possible. Of course, within, the personal limits of each person, but we wanted to go as deep as possible.

And we felt that we could enhance the relationship, we could create it. Hopefully a trusting, a trustful interaction with using video. So this is why we said that we would like to try it. Not everyone wanted it, I have to say that. but many, many did. And, I felt that it was a good experience. this is my very subjective, , perception.

that I could also see your faces and, Get an idea. And I hope that every single one who had the video interviews also felt more heard because of that. but I think you would have to ask others what they say or how they feel about it.

[00:25:43] Toggle: I will say for my part, I, I thought it was awesome.

[00:25:47] Aqua: Yeah, I can only speak from my experience, but it was cathartic.

[00:25:51] Birgit: That’s good. We also had the feeling that some of the interview sessions were, more or less even therapeutic, you know, people starting , to talk about things that they maybe have never talked about with someone from the real outside, you know? So, I think it can be a good process.

Yeah. And we did not only talk about, The zoophile interactions we talked about, how life developed, for, the people who talk to us, how sexuality developed in general, how the human animal interaction developed, what role the online world plays and played, because this is a very relevant topic, for us.

So there were many, many things that we talked about that. I hope it’s going to help us to create that model that we’re looking for, that model that explains a bit more how zoophile, behavior develops. We don’t know that yet.

[00:26:51] Aqua: About how many interviews did you end up getting?

[00:26:53] Birgit: It was over 30 in the end. So when we’re telling that our qualitative experts, they say that we are crazy, to be honest, because they never do more than 15. because it’s just a lot of work, you know, and

we’re, and we’re just starting to, analyze the text. So you can, think about each interview, having around, I think between 80 and 120 pages print.

Yeah. So this is the text that we’re going to go through. I would say. If we think about it on a timeline, we give ourselves a year. So as we’re now analyzing the quantitative results and, have the first, preliminary ideas about the results there, or at least some points, we’re going to continue that for probably one or two months.

And then during summer, we will start to analyze in depth the qualitative part. And. We want to be fast enough to submit that to conferences next year. So 2025 will be the year where we, present the qualitative results. And,, we’ve also been in contact with, some publishers. Usually they are not very happy, about publishing a taboo topic, but we’re still trying to find a big publisher, as big as possible, that we can, give the interviews room.

You know, it will not be enough to write papers about that. Of course we will do it, but that’s not the point. I think we need more room. We need, a book to go into depth and, explain what we learned talking to you.

[00:28:39] Toggle: Wow.

[00:28:40] Aqua: so we’re going beyond, published, research papers and, talking about, like a full length book at this point.

Is that a possibility?

[00:28:47] Birgit: Yeah,

I would say so.

[00:28:49] Aqua: Oh, that’s awesome. Okay.

[00:28:51] Toggle: That’s really cool. So, I know things are still preliminary, I know you did the, the quantitative survey also happened, and the qualitative one, you’ve got a good way to go. but are there any results that you can actually share yet? Did anything jump out at you that you didn’t expect?

[00:29:08] Birgit: the process, of interviewing that we used is, based on grounded theory. Grounded theory means that after every few interviews, we interviewers met and discussed the topic. The answers to the questions that we had creating new topics for the next interviews, you know, so we had very, very open questions and during the open questions, when we asked if there are additional topics, topics came up and we use that to ask the same topics that have been mentioned before in the future interviews.

And you do that until you get. theoretical saturation. So until it’s sufficiently grounded, you continue, you continue, you continue. So we would have reached that point after I would say around 20 or 21 interviews. but of course we wanted to continue because there were more, people that wanted to talk to us and we wanted to give everyone, the chance and I feel it’s going to make the study better.

So it was not necessary. This is why. People from, uh, the qualitative department are saying that this is just way too much, but I feel we’re getting additional information and, the group is so diverse. So, I think it’s good. I think it’s good that, that we have that. And I hope that I will be able to tell you more in, the future, not the near future.

And obviously working qualitatively isn’t ever the near future. But, during the next month, the quantitative things will be, will be analyzed, completely. And, in addition to, the conference talks that we submitted where we’re still waiting if we’re accepted or not, I hope that we’re accepted.

I hope that, it’s an oral presentation and then we can usually talk a bit more. So if we do that before we go to the conferences. You, as a group, of course, will get the information, of, the data analysis and, what we found out.

[00:31:17] Toggle: Hmm. Exciting.

[00:31:19] Birgit: I hope so. Yes. was there. in the interviews, based on what you already kind of had an idea of, was there anything that popped out just kind of informally that was like, Oh, that’s kind of a surprise?

Yeah. There were several topics that were, I mean, if we base it on, our theoretical knowledge, then maybe it was not a surprise, but we didn’t expect it. So one was the topic of religion that was brought up a lot.

You know, so we, added questions about, religion and spirituality in general. We added, how sexuality was handled within the family as a topic, because we also found out that this was relevant for, some of the people that we talked to.

We added specific, questions about, informed consent. Because we heard that, several of the people that we interviewed were specifically talking about consent and that this was a very relevant topic.

[00:32:25] Aqua: It’s a topic that normally is brought to us by our detractors, but, you know, we’ve given a lot of thought to it.

[00:32:32] Birgit: Obviously, obviously, because the way it was brought up, it made us feel that, we need to ask specifically. And we also added questions about, you know, subjective theories, how did I become the person that I am today? How did I become that person with? Those sexual needs that we’re talking about, how did that develop?

What’s my explanation on how that develops in animals, for example? All those things were questions that we did not Know about before that we just added is that giving a bit of an insight?

[00:33:09] Toggle: Yeah, actually, that’s exactly what I was asking. So yes, 100%.

[00:33:13] Aqua: so on the topic of stigma and anxiety, Your proposal letter to Z. T. Horse, who runs the Zooville forum, he posted that alongside the link to the survey once it was ready to go, and it was really clear to us that you understood the gravity of the situation that zoos find ourselves in.

and that’s legal and social, et cetera. , but we’re finding now, after four or five years of doing this, that, that sensitivity , is not unusual, pretty much everyone who’s approached us with a project more or less gets it. either right away or after a conversation with us. so, I’m wondering how you relate that to your findings, and, and what do you think the message to other zoos should be about being seen, by researchers and by academia?

[00:34:07] Birgit: That’s a very good and difficult question. on one hand, I feel you can, only break a taboo by speaking about it. But it only makes sense to speak to the right people. so I felt that the contact and the interaction with zoophiles made us go into the direction that we headed towards. So without the input, I feel maybe we would never have come up with interviews, you know, so I feel, it needs people that are open and approachable and willing to talk about their behaviors, whatever it is, you know, as I said, hidden populations In general, and on the other side, and I’m happy that, you have the experience that, you get that form of approach from, from researchers. I still feel that you need people that are willing to listen. and I feel that for us as clinical psychologists, it’s from a theoretical perspective, it’s easier because our profession is not about judging anything, you know,

I told you

it’s trying to understand, it’s categorizing, it’s explaining, it’s predicting, it has nothing to do with right or wrong.

And I can imagine that there might be other professions, and it could be difficult for them. You know, everything that has to do with, the legal framework, and aspects like that. So, I think that if you continue talking to social, psychological experts, um, I feel someone is going to hear, about all the burdens that come along with zoosexual behavior.

This is why we also asked what is most problematic in the life for a zoosexual from a, subjective perspective. and I feel. Yeah, that’s something that, people need to hear to get a more balanced, view on you as a group. Does it make sense to you, what I’m

saying?

[00:36:35] Aqua: definitely.

our position has been that, formal research like this is. One of the few safe and structured settings where we can have a conversation without much risk to, particularly to our animal family. outside of that environment, the risk goes up. And people’s attention and, objectivity, starts to, either because it’s an emotional topic or because, there’s less training, potentially to separate one’s moral position from, uh, the other.

you know, the, the topic at hand,

[00:37:11] Birgit: yeah, yeah. Um,

[00:37:12] Aqua: So, you know, as we’re looking for ways to make ourselves known and try to improve the portrayal of zoosexual people, who have always been here, this is one of the first places that we need to be. And, you know, and it has the added benefit if it’s published that, the work is maybe not forever, it is lasting.

It’s more than just a conversation or an argument that you happen to win, that may or may not be seen by anyone who can do anything about it and might be gone in a year.

[00:37:46] Toggle: So I want to go back. Can we talk a little bit about the call? this is referring to a conference call with a group of zoos that had been gathered by ZT, which anecdotally I remember I was like driving somewhere,

and uh, I was really mad that

we were doing this, this call where like part of it was going to be written in text, and then some of it was going to be spoken, and so, I remember starting that a little annoyed, but, It ended up being good.

Aqua, what was, what was your experience there?

[00:38:22] Aqua: I squinted a little bit because it was disjointed. I remember there was a text chat where we were supposed to be asking questions, and not everybody was doing that, but again, because of, everybody’s safety protocols and, security postures and things, it made it kind of difficult to participate in real time.

so a lot of us ended up just listening and hoping that our concerns would be answered just in due time, and they work. We made it work, which is great. So by the end of it, it was totally worth it.

[00:38:54] Toggle: I just want to say like, during that call, I’m driving down the road, I’m wondering what this is going to be about, and there were a few things that happened on that call that made me go, this is absolutely something I’m going to participate in. So, This is less maybe questions for you, but just kind of like

[00:39:12] Birgit: Feedback. Yeah, feedback! That’s actually feedback. Thank you.

[00:39:16] Toggle: Yeah. I think the first thing that stood out is the purpose of your study. There are a lot of people that approach us, like researchers that approach us from various different angles. a lot of them are, just kind of focused on zoos as this singular, group of people. that are of interest because of the taboo nature of it, or there are various different ways to

do it, and a lot of them feel very valid, but what really sold me on your study and why I really wanted to get in front of you with video interviews was because you were approaching this from an entire standpoint of like, we want to study all aspects of human and animal interactions and relationships, and that can’t be done without video.

involving zoos. and that just the very premise itself was, first of all, super important. But then the other thing that was really important is the way you discussed, you know, Privacy and security concerns and all of the concerns that people have as being a part of a population whose sexuality is criminalized in a lot of the world.

you know, you’re very straightforward about, you know, how you’re going to handle the data. Actually, and to that end, just very briefly, can you talk a little bit about how You handled, like, the, the data with the interviews and how that kind of a thing would, would go down.

[00:40:36] Birgit: What we did is, although of course we used modern technology to be able and, call the participants, so we used telegram video in, in most cases there were some individuals who wanted other platforms,

[00:40:52] Aqua: I apologize in hindsight for that.

[00:40:57] Birgit: We tried to mostly use, telegram video for that and, what we did is we used the very, very old school technology to record videos, you know, so it was not connected to the computer. we used, you called it dinosaur technology, . I’m not sure if it’s a dinosaur. I actually got to know it when I was studying.

So, uh, but I know it’s called dinosaur technology, so it’s not connected to the interview. So very, very, all traditional, audio, recording devices and, Afterwards, the interviews are transcribed and, we have a very, very strong, data protection law, so that’s only allowed to be on a local drive somewhere.

the law for us psychologists in Austria even says that information about clients and also information about research has to be on, an external drive that’s locked away really locked away in. a place where you also, have a door that you can lock with a key. So we have the double and triple protection.

and this is how we store the information about the interviews. So in our clinic. where we have, the patient files. We have, a very specific cabinet where we have a special key and that’s in the storage place that has a door where we have an additional key. So this is where we store the data.

But I feel what was most relevant for you all was that, we were using old audio recorders and not just, Recording that on the phone or, on the laptop to have it in a digital way to to, to maybe use it online or something like that.

[00:42:54] Toggle: Actually, I think, for me, all of that was important. The idea of, it’s like, you need this key, and this key, and this key. And,

you know,

[00:43:02] Birgit: sometimes it’s annoying, but this is what the law says, here and the external drive. So you even have to have the external drive. .

[00:43:11] Toggle: Well, I remember there was also, like, we could requ like, you hold it for a certain amount of time, but it can be requested to be, like, completely expunged at

[00:43:19] Birgit: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it’s 10 years. So we have to hold it for, for 10 years. And if we want to, continue analysing it, then we can put in a request in our ethical board. So of course we also have an ethical committee that looked over, the study and, we had to write a proposal and they, again, added all the information about how we should work with the data.

So we can, use it for a longer period of time. It has to be kept at least 10 years, but at any time point participants are allowed to be, excluded. from the study, and then everything would be, deleted.

[00:44:06] Toggle: We have only a couple more minutes, so I do want to get to this last, this last question. Obviously some of your things, you’ve had a little bit of stuff peaked shown at conferences so far, correct?

[00:44:17] Birgit: Mm hmm.

[00:44:17] Toggle: have you experienced any reception or criticism? Like, you know, what do you expect people to react like and how maybe they already have so far?

[00:44:27] Birgit: it’s always a topic that stands out. sometimes that means that it’s not accepted at all. Sometimes it means they say, we don’t want you to give an oral presentation, just put it on the poster and stand somewhere in the corner that not everyone sees what you’re talking about. But that’s not only because of zoophilia.

I have experienced that with online pornography. I’ve experienced that with, as I said, recreational drug use, all things people. don’t want to hear about. sometimes it’s something that people don’t want to see. and sometimes the opposite happens, and then we’re invited for an oral presentation, and I hope that this is happening this summer.

I will let you know, of course.

And that gives us the audience to discuss a behavior, um, that many people don’t even know about. And, I think knowledge is the key. And, so we submitted to the International Congress of Psychology, and we’re going to submit to the International Society for Anthrozoology.

So those are the people who research human animal interaction. I have been presenting the topic in earlier years, At those conferences, it has been accepted before, but it really always depends on how judges, view, if that’s something that they. want as part of the conference or not?

[00:45:57] Aqua: So it depends on the, culture of the institution then.

[00:46:01] Birgit: yes,

[00:46:02] Aqua: Okay. Do you find that extends to, ethical approval or to funding?

[00:46:08] Birgit: I’ve never tried to get funding, for, any of the topics that I’ve been doing with hidden populations because I’m already aware that, That’s nearly impossible,

to be honest. So,

uh, we try to fund our research, you know, cross funding with, other areas that we’re interested in. So at the moment, for example, what we are, researching is, a combination of quality in life of people who have, a pet that’s chronically ill.

And at the same time, we are developing a questionnaire for, animal handlers, to judge quality of life in their animals. And those are things that are, how should I put that, that everyone agrees that this is relevant,

that we get, that we get funding for something like that. So we would just cross fund.

I have people who I pay out of those projects. And usually in their own time, or also, of course, because of their academic career, they also take part in studies like we are doing. So we actually have no funding for what we are doing.

[00:47:25] Toggle: wild, ha ha ha wow, well that makes it even more special that you guys are taking the extra time to do all of these extra interviews and things like that because I, I know that’s, that’s definitely a lot of manpower so we

[00:47:39] Birgit: Yeah, it is.

It is. But, you know, when you are a researcher, you have a vision of you want to accomplish. And I told you, I have that idea of, trying to get. At least ideas of the whole spectrum of human animal interactions during my research career. So this is why I really enjoy to use my time to do things like that.

[00:48:08] Toggle: Well Dr. Studina, we are at the end of our time but I want to give you an extra, A moment to give a last word, anything you want to say to zoos, or anything you want to promote, any, uh, contact info, upcoming presentations, things like that.

[00:48:23] Birgit: I think I said a lot about upcoming presentations already. I’m very happy to share as soon as I know if we’re going to be part of the conferences this summer, 2024. I would like to thank you too, I would like to thank all participants. Because I feel without your openness and without your willingness to participate, we would have no research at all, so thanks a lot.

[00:48:49] Toggle: Thank you for taking the time to actually do the research, because we appreciate that as well. thanks for everybody for listening, and Zooier Than Thou as always.