Zoophilia is not a mental illness

In the current version of the DSM (DSM-IV-TR), zoophilia is not diagnosable as a psychiatric disorder unless it causes distress to the individual or harm to others. The DSM-5 draft adds a terminology distinction between the two cases, stating that "paraphilias are not ipso facto psychiatric disorders", and defining paraphilic disorder as "a paraphilia that causes distress or impairment to the individual or harm to others". This will make a clear distinction between a healthy person with a non-normative sexual behavior and a person with a psychopathological non-normative sexual behavior.

Charles Allen Moser as well as Peggy Kleinplatz criticized aspects of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, arguing for the removal of paraphilias from the manual. They wrote, "The equating of unusual sexual interests with psychiatric diagnoses has been used to justify the oppression of sexual minorities and to serve political agendas. A review of this area is not only a scientific issue, but also a human rights issue." Kleinplatz wrote, "The DSM criteria for diagnosis of unusual sexual interests as pathological rests on a series of unproven and more importantly, untested assumptions"