Complex sentence: It is extensively, and usually unsuccessfully, persecuted as an agricultural pest, but it has also often been kept as a pet, as well as being a food item and a symbol of lust and sexual potency and commonness and vulgarity.
Split into simpler sentences: It is extensively, and usually unsuccessfully, persecuted as an agricultural pest. It has also often been kept as a pet, as well as being a food item and a symbol of lust, sexual potency, commonness, and vulgarity.