It’s a tough time to be an Arizona conservative.

I talk to a lot of them—some old friends of my parents, the older guys I hang out with in the gym locker room, just casual conversations with people—men and women—you meet and then are surprised to hear a litany of paranoia emanating from.

Our Kenyan president. Our Kenyan Muslim president. Our Kenyan Muslim socialist president.

Sheriff Joe is under attack! They’re gonna take our guns! They want the gummint to take over health care!

And the financial meltdown? It was Barney Frank’s fault!

Anyway, it’s a tough time, with all these bad things happening. And now there’s a new menace.

A sex field, stalking the night.

His target is not our daughters, but rather…

… our horses.

Now, consider this headline, currently on the front page of AZ Central.com:

Horse owner warns of animal molestation
Multiple acts of bestiality occurred on her property.

Now, you’d think, given the sentence “Multiple acts of bestiality occurred on her property,” that, well, multiple acts of bestiality have occurred on her property.

Read the story and you see something different.

Melinda Gustafson thinks there’s a horse rapist out there. The police not only aren’t so sure, they think she’s dreaming:

A detective with the Phoenix Police Department, whose officers were called to the home, told The Arizona Republic that, while there were indications Gustafson’s horse was physically abused, police believe a thief was trying to steal the animal. They found nothing to indicate the intruder tried to have sex with the horse, as Gustafson asserts.

The subject shouldn’t be taboo: There’s been one documented case of such activity recently, which I only know about because someone made a movie about it.

And if there were actual evidence of it, it should be taken seriously. But absent evidence, and with the presence of common sense, the story should have been handled by the paper with a lot more skepticism:

Following the incident, Gustafson’s friend posted details of the crime on an equine Web site. Soon after, the phone started ringing.
“I started getting calls from victims of the same nature,” Gustafson said. “They said it’s a sexual thing they (intruders) are doing with the animals.”
The horse owners claimed criminals use extension cords to strangulate the animals before engaging in intercourse with them.

PHXated appreciates the precise use of the word “strangulate,” which can be used to mean “compress or obstruct” something, like a breathing passage, but thinks it should have been replaced with “knock out.”

But note that none of the other alleged victims are quoted.

The thesis for the story is now, “A woman whom the police don’t believe says something, and there are people on the internet saying the same thing.”

It seems crazy to me a guy would go to all this trouble—and danger—when there are other alternatives available. Like Craigslist.

But it does bring new mean to the phrase “Rode hard and put away wet.”

By the way, if you are going to try to have sex with a horse, it’s good to have a safe word.

PHXated suggests “Nay.”