 | This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies.(January 2024) |
Zoosadism is sexual pleasure derived from cruelty to animals. It is a paraphilia, where people are sexually aroused by torturing animals. [1] Zoosadism is part of the Macdonald triad, a set of three behaviors that have been considered a precursor to psychopathic behavior. [2]
Some studies have suggested that individuals who are cruel to animals are more likely to be violent to humans. According to The New York Times :
The FBI has found that a history of cruelty to animals is one of the traits that regularly appear in its computer records of serial rapists and murderers, and the standard diagnostic and treatment manual for psychiatric and emotional disorders lists cruelty to animals as a diagnostic criterion for conduct disorders. [3]
Helen Gavin wrote however in Criminological and Forensic Psychology (2013):
This is not a universal trait, though. Dennis Nilsen had difficulty initiating social contact with people, but loved his faithful companion, Bleep, a mongrel bitch. After his arrest, he was very concerned for her welfare, as she was taken to the police station too. [4]
Alan R. Felthous reported in his paper "Aggression Against Cats, Dogs, and People" (1980):
A survey of psychiatric patients who had repeatedly tortured dogs and cats found all of them had high levels of aggression toward people as well, including one patient who had murdered a boy. [5]
This is a commonly reported finding, and for this reason, cruelty to animals is often considered a warning sign of potential violence towards humans.
In September 2018, a whistleblower tweeted a link to a Telegram channel. [6]
“Zoosadist Evidence” was the name of the channel which contained images, video, and discussion of extreme violence to animals, and the whistleblower alleged that the members involved were specific individuals in the furry fandom.
One zoosadist exposed during the 2018 zoosadism scandal was an adult member of the furry fandom in Cuba, by the name of Rubén Marrero Pernas, or simply known as “Woof”. Pernas was found to be raping, torturing then killing dogs and puppies and recording the acts online for a group of zoosadists on Telegram who found this to be sexually gratifying. [7] Pernas being exposed lead to public outrage, [8] [9] and eventual legal reform. [10]
Even years later, the effects of this are still evolving, most notably with the 2022 arrest and the 2023 guilty plea of notorious Telegram zoosadist Adam Britton. [11] [12] [13]
Serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Edmund Kemper and Jeffrey Dahmer were known for torturing and killing animals in their youth. [14] [15]
A Canadian man, Leighton Labute, known as DollyFlesh online, was arrested in 2020 for torturing and killing three hamsters, and uploading the video to social media. [16] [17]
In June 2023, the BBC uncovered a global monkey torture ring, where participants would produce and distribute videos of monkeys being hurt and killed. [18]
In 1999, the United States Congress enacted a statute affecting the legality of crush films which criminalized the creation, sale, and possession of depictions of animal cruelty, though with an exception for "any depiction that has serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value." [19]
In 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit invalidated the ban on the sale and possession of such films (if not otherwise obscene) as a violation of the Constitution's guarantee for freedom of speech. [20] The United States Supreme Court affirmed the Third Circuit's decision in United States v. Stevens , finding the law unconstitutional because the law was so broad and vague that it included any portrayal of an animal in or being harmed such as by hunting or disease. [21]
On November 28, 2010, bill H.R. 5566, which prohibits interstate commerce in animal crush films, was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and on December 9, the bill was signed by President Obama becoming the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010. [22]
On September 8, 2015, a Houston woman pleaded guilty in the nation's first federal animal crush video case. [23] [24]
On November 25, 2019, President Donald Trump signed into law the PACT ACT, the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act, [25] which authorized the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies to prosecute malicious animal cruelty. [26] The PACT act defines animal crushing as when "one or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles or amphibians is purposely crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury." [27]
On the other hand, Piers Beirne, a professor of criminology at the University of Southern Maine, has criticized existing studies for ignoring socially accepted practices of violence against animals, such as animal slaughter and vivisection, that might be linked to violence against humans. [28]
A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people, with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separate events. Their psychological gratification is the motivation for the killings, and many serial murders involve sexual contact with the victims at different points during the murder process. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking, and killings may be executed as such. The victims tend to have things in common, such as demographic profile, appearance, gender, or race. Although a serial killer is a distinct classification that differs from that of a mass murderer, spree killer, or contract killer, there are overlaps between them.
Sadism and masochism, known collectively as sadomasochism, are the derivation of pleasure from acts of respectively inflicting or receiving pain or humiliation. The term originates from the names of the Marquis de Sade, a French nobleman known for his libertine sexuality, and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian writer who described masochistic tendencies in his works. Sadomasochism is a subset of BDSM, a variety of erotic practices or roleplaying involving bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, and masochism.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing animal cruelty. Based in New York City since its inception in 1866, the organization's mission is "to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States."
The Film Classification and Rating Organization, also known as Eirin (映倫), is Japan's self-regulatory film regulator. Eirin was established on the model of the now-defunct American Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association's Production Code Administration in June 1949, succeeding the US-led occupation authorities' role of film censorship during the Occupation of Japan. It classifies films into one of four categories depending on their suitability for viewing by minors of different ages.
Lust murder, also called sexual homicide, is a homicide which occurs in tandem with either an overt sexual assault or sexually symbolic behavior. Lust murder is associated with the paraphilic term erotophonophilia, which is sexual arousal or gratification contingent on the death of a human being. The term lust killing stems from the original work of Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his 1898 discussion of sadistic homicides. Commonly, this type of crime is manifested either by murder during sexual activity, by mutilating the sexual organs or areas of the victim's body, or by murder and mutilation. The mutilation of the victim may include evisceration, displacement of the sexual organs, or both. The mutilation usually takes place postmortem. Although the killing sequence may include an act of sexual intercourse, sexual intercourse does not always occur, and other types of sexual acts may be part of the homicide.
An animal control service or animal control agency is an entity charged with responding to requests for help with animals, including wild animals, dangerous animals, and animals in distress. An individual who works for such an entity was once known as a dog catcher, but is generally now called an animal control officer, and may be an employee or a contractor – commonly employed by a municipality, county, shire, or other subnational government area.
Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse, animal neglect or animal cruelty, is the infliction of suffering or harm by humans upon animals, either by omission (neglect) or by commission. More narrowly, it can be the causing of harm or suffering for specific achievements, such as killing animals for entertainment; cruelty to animals sometimes encompasses inflicting harm or suffering as an end in itself, referred to as zoosadism. Divergent approaches to laws concerning animal cruelty occur in different jurisdictions throughout the world. For example, some laws govern methods of killing animals for food, clothing, or other products, and other laws concern the keeping of animals for entertainment, education, research, or pets. There are several conceptual approaches to the issue of cruelty to animals.
Articles related to criminology and law enforcement.
A crush fetish is a fetish and a paraphilia in which sexual arousal is associated with observing objects being crushed or being crushed oneself. The crushed objects vary from inanimate items, to injurious and/or fatal crushing of invertebrates, or vertebrates.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New York City, with offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., as well as Nairobi. It was established in 1986 to use the unique skills and credibility of health professionals to advocate for persecuted health workers, prevent torture, document mass atrocities, and hold those who violate human rights accountable.
In criminology, public-order crime is defined by Siegel (2004) as "crime which involves acts that interfere with the operations of society and the ability of people to function efficiently", i.e., it is behaviour that has been labelled criminal because it is contrary to shared norms, social values, and customs. Robertson (1989:123) maintains a crime is nothing more than "an act that contravenes a law". Generally speaking, deviancy is criminalized when it is too disruptive and has proved uncontrollable through informal sanctions.
The Macdonald triad, also known as the triad of sociopathy or the homicidal triad, is a controversial hypothesis that suggests a link between three childhood behaviors – animal cruelty, firesetting, and enuresis (bedwetting) – and later violent tendencies, particularly serial offenses. First proposed by psychiatrist J. M. Macdonald in 1963, the triad has been widely taught and remains influential in some circles. However, subsequent research has largely failed to validate the hypothesis, and it is now considered by many to be an urban legend.
Zoophilia is a paraphilia in which a person experiences a sexual fixation on non-human animals. Bestiality instead refers to cross-species sexual activity between humans and non-human animals. Due to the lack of research on the subject, it is difficult to conclude how prevalent bestiality is. Zoophilia, however, was estimated in one study to be prevalent in 2% of the population in 2021.
Courtship disorder is a theoretical construct in sexology developed by Kurt Freund in which a certain set of paraphilias are seen as specific instances of anomalous courtship instincts in humans. The specific paraphilias are biastophilia, exhibitionism, frotteurism, telephone scatologia, and voyeurism. According to the courtship disorder hypothesis, there is a species-typical courtship process in humans consisting of four phases, and anomalies in different phases result in one of these paraphilic sexual interests. According to the theory, instead of being independent paraphilias, these sexual interests are individual symptoms of a single underlying disorder.
The Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010, Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law 111–294 (text)(PDF), 124 Stat. 3177, enacted December 9, 2010, was a United States bill that addressed the banning of depictions of cruelty to animals to satisfy a crush fetish. The bill, H.R. 5566, was introduced by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and primarily modified 18 U.S.C. § 48. The law was upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in USA v Richards.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human sexuality:
Sexual sadism disorder is the condition of experiencing great sexual arousal in response to the involuntary extreme pain, suffering or humiliation of other people. Several other terms have been used to describe the condition, and it may overlap with other conditions that involve inflicting pain. It is distinct from situations in which consenting individuals use mild or simulated pain or humiliation for sexual excitement. The words sadism and sadist are derived from the French writer and libertine Marquis de Sade, who wrote several novels depicting sexualized torture and violence.
Aleeta Raugust (b.1997) is a Canadian convicted of being a serial killer of cats. In March 2023, Raugust pled guilty in the Alberta Court of Justice to ten criminal charges nine of which were related to animal abuse and a single count of threatening property damage. On September 15, 2023, Justice Mike Dinkel sentenced Raugust to 6.5 years in prison, the longest sentence in Canadian history for animal abuse. Raugust admitted to torturing nine cats of which she killed seven. Raugust advised the Calgary Police Service to victimizing other cats, adopted from Kijiji, by throwing them into the river. These attacks occurred in Calgary, Alberta, Canada from 2018 to early 2023.
Adam Robert Corden Britton is a British-born Australian zoologist and convicted animal abuser, zoophile and zoosadist. In September 2023, he was charged with 56 offences related to the sexual abuse and torture of animals, as well as possession of child abuse material. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in August 2024.
Monkey hate is a form of zoosadism where humans have a hatred for monkeys and take pleasure in their suffering. The phenomenon drew public attention after a global monkey torture ring was uncovered by the BBC in 2023.
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