Animal roleplay is also known as bestiality in its archaic definition the stupid brutal quality of a beast as applied to a human as opposed to anthropomorphism applied to an animal thus giving it human qualities Bestiality has been used to refer to sexual activity with animals this terminology is perhaps wearing off a little with people naming it zoophilia instead since zoophilia sounds less pejorative in the sense that the animal isn t derogatively classed as a beast The fetish of animal roleplay may also be considered reverse anthropomorphism something notable in furry yiff role players whom also do this by fursuiting or online interactive virtual reality or MUCKs i e like those in Second Life The interest in yiff sexual human animal roleplay and bestiality etc may be collectively caused by mixed fetishes and or paraphilias towards animal traits or simple although scientists are now debating over whether the sexual attraction to animal traits is a real sexuality or not and if it is on re thinking sexuality altogether as written in a recent article by the Scientific American