You raise some interesting questions which I am totally unqualified to answer. Perhaps regyt could her apply her JD to your concerns?

I do note that the story in question comes from fairly liberal Washington. If they have Georgia like statutes on "deviant" sex then lemur_catta and I are in deep shit. As it was, the worst we got busted for in Seattle was the evil crime of drinking beer with a picnic dinner at a fireworks exhibition. Perhaps, though, there was more to Mt. St. Helens than we realised.

OTOH, sxually tolerant Massachusetts is notorious for having had (may still have) exceptionally stringent bestiality laws and there is at least one recorded case of the public execution of both man and beast.