So what would you call a person who tried sex with a female as a teenager, didn't like it, then later tried sex with animals in his 20s and stuck with animals for the rest of his life? Sexuality can change as a result of experience.
If he's not into animals as an opportunistic outlet for sexual tension, I'd probably call him a zoophile.
Your analogy with the fleshlight doesn't work, because people don't define sexuality based on nonliving things.You say the distinction is the desire, but how is a fleshlight even comparable to a living creature? It's a cold nonliving object, not a warm living breathing creature.
But there are people who can and do focus on non-living things, sometimes exclusively. The point remains though that there's a distinction between someone fucking a toy because they prefer it and someone fucking it because it's all that's available.
By your definition, an opportunist is a person unable to empathize or love and only takes their own sexual desires into consideration, seeing the other only as an object.
It's important to note that this is *my distinction*, these labels aren't one size fits all and not everyone agrees and that's A-OK and why I'm being careful to indicate that these are *my* perception and not *the* definition.
That said, let me use myself as an example.
Growing up I struggled with denial quite a bit, I had numerous sexual encounters with men and women and while the physical functions operated as one would expect (spurt, spurt) I was never attracted to either, but very much attracted to some animals (not all). My desire is/was mostly for dogs and I seem to be unable to make those sorts of relationships with other humans. I'm not anti-social, I get along well with others and make friends easily, but I don't look at a human and think "Man I'd like to fuck that!" and I am not happy in long term relationships with them, I've tried.
This seems like the same can of worms that bisexuality opens. You have to always and only be attracted to one thing but never two, according to the straight / gay definitions.
Totally, the labels aren't especially useful except when one is painting with a broad brush and the terms have a long history of abuse in the community.
The reason I use them this way is to describe the following people who might engage in sex with a non-human animal....
Person A who isn't attracted to animals, but due to lack of contact with their preferred partner does so out of frustration. If provided with their preferred partner would not continue with non-humans.
Person B who isn't primarily attracted to animals but actively chooses to have sex with them because they enjoy the feelings (excitement, physical, etc) while still maintaining their other, perhaps primary, interests.
Person C who is primarily attracted to non-humans, but occasionally has sex with other humans.
Person D who is only attracted to non-humans and does not have sex with other humans, even when there is opportunity.
How does one classify these 4 distinct groups? Once you start diving them up, you find not everyone fits even into these groups as there are more and more distinctions one could make. In all cases the person may or may not care romantically about the non-human, even with person D.
My objection is to person A being grouped with person D, as their entire reason for engaging in bestility differs enormously, ergo the distinction. Again, so long as nobody is harmed or forced I'm OK with any of them doing their thing. But you agree that there's a distinction between person A and person D, as well as the others? It isn't action, as in all 4 cases it's bestiality, so is desire/preference not the distinction?