Sometimes this kind of academic stuff is serious, in the sense of being a serious thought experiment, but not necessarily meant to be translated into action. You see papers like that in philosophy fairly often and unless they are a controversial topic that puts them in the public eye they don't cause a stir.
Though one of the things that seems particular to queer theory and gender studies is that they actually want this stuff instantiated in the real world.
As far as I know this kind of thinking is not new within queer theory, but I do think that it's likely that as long as queer theory continues to make inroads into mainstream thought it will become more mainstream as well.
There was an article at Unheard a few weeks ago arguing the idea that our concept of consent being the reason that bestiality is wrong doesn't hold much water, at least for those of us who aren't ethical vegans. It could have been quite interesting because it brought out a real contradiction and questions about consent as an adequate framework for sexual morality, but it kind of fell flat, mainly because Chivers, the author, is not one of their stronger writers and tends to be a shallow thinker generally He was on to something with his observation but couldn't carry the question any further - like, maybe there are things besides consent involved in sexual ethics which is where the article could have been quite interesting.
But the fact that he thought it, and wrote it, in a fairly well-read platform, suggests to me that the whole idea of bestiality being ok is floating around in the air at the moment. The intellectual environment, at least among a certain sector of society, is just right to nurture those kinds of ideas. Maybe in large part because for many people, consent is the only measure they have for sexual ethics, the same reason they can't see what is fundamentally problematic about porn or prostitution.