Just how dangerous is a guy who had sex with a sheep?
Michigan county prosecutor John Hallacy says it’s in the same category as sexually exploiting a child or sexually assaulting an adult.
Jeffrey Haynes is already in prison (for 2½-20 years) for what state judges describe as his “abominable and detestable crime against nature.” But that isn’t enough for Hallacy, who is dismayed that Haynes doesn’t have to register as a sex offender—because his victim isn’t a human.
Haynes’ activity “exemplifies a dangerous and deviant behavior that ought to fall under the registry requirements,” says the prosecutor, who has clearly thought a great deal about sex and sheep. Or sex and this particular sheep; it isn’t clear which.
Haynes is no Boy Scout (well, perhaps he is), having previously been convicted of burglary and forgery. But he has no prior sex-related arrests. Nevertheless, a county prosecutor has decided that Haynes is so dangerous that after leaving prison he should report his whereabouts and keep away from children, parks, and churches.
Perhaps Hallacy is afraid Haynes’ “deviant behavior” will prove so intriguing to others that there will be an epidemic of sheep-sodomy. Or perhaps Hallacy doesn’t realize that his amateur psychoanalysis linking sheep sodomy with child sodomy is pathetically amateurish, verging on Entertainment Tonight gossip. And simply wrong.
Freud first mapped the defense mechanism he called “projection” in 1895—in which a person, anxious to distance himself from feelings too troubling to acknowledge, attributes those feelings to someone else. We can’t really say why Hallacy finds the (admittedly peculiar) Haynes-lambchop sex so frightening. But his determination to see Haynes as a rapist and to subject him to lifelong punishment is rather interesting.
If Hallacy wants to visit Haynes to discuss their respective sex lives, there’s no need to involve the criminal justice system. A simple invitation to coffee would probably do.