By Lisa Wade McCormick
ConsumerAffairs.com
September 15, 2010
Senators on Capitol Hill today heard gruesome testimony about a dark and seedy industry that profits from the sale of videos depicting animals crushed by women in stiletto heels.
The testimony that graphically detailed images of screaming and bleeding puppies, kittens, and other animals came during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on legislation designed to ban the sale of vile and repugnant animal crush videos.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) plans to introduce the bi-partisan legislation with Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and Richard Burr (R-North Carolina. The measure has already won unanimous support in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Animal crush videos are one of the most abhorrent forms of extreme animal cruelty our organization has ever encountered, Nancy Perry, vice president of Government Affairs for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), told the committee. In a typical animal crush video, a scantily-clad, high-heeled woman or young girl is seen stomping, squishing, and impaling an animal to death for the titillation of viewers with a sexual fetish for animal crushing.
The cruelty inflicted on these animals is unimaginable, Perry said. The animals are often secured to the ground so they cannot escape, but free enough to move so that their writhing in agony is clear to the viewer, she said. This sickening torment is drawn out for many minutes or even for hours, during which time the animals cries and squeals are featuredas they are crushed to death.
The sale of these grisly videos has risen in the wake of a recent http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2010/04/scotus_animal_cruelty.html Supreme Court decision that pitted animal rights activists against First Amendment advocates, Perry said.
The High Court in April struck down a 1999 law that banned the sale of these crush videos, saying it was substantially overbroad, and therefore invalid under the First Amendment.
HSUS officials immediately garnered bi-partisan support from Congressional leaders, who quickly introduced legislation to counter the courts decision.
Federal lawmakers wrote a more narrowly-crafted bill designed to give law enforcement the tools needed to crack down on people who traffic videos that show such heinous acts as the intentional crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating and impaling of puppies, kittens, and other animals.
The market for animal crush videos all but disappeared after Congress banned the creation, sale, or possession of those films in 1999, HSUS officials said. But demand for these macabre crush videos -- which generated nearly $1 million in sales back in the late 1990s increased while the constitutionally of the law was on appeal.
Constitional debate
That debate started in 2005 when a Virginia man was sentenced to three years in prison under the law for selling dogfighting videos. Robert Stevens of Pittsville, Virginia, appealed his conviction on the grounds it violated his right of free speech.
The U.S Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia tossed out Stevens' conviction and ruled the 1999 law was unconstitutional. The Department of Justice later appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.
Since the High Courts ruling overturned the 1999 law, animal rights organizations have seen a massive resurgence in the sale of these animal cruelty videos on the Internet.
The crush video industry is thriving, in the wake of U.S. v. Stevens, Perry said. The sheer volume and steady stream of new offerings in the wake of the Supreme Courts decision is overwhelming with more than 700 different titles offered on just one of 50 separate top shops specializing in crush videos
In just the past two month, the HSUS has uncovered information about online forums selling crush videos for $80 each. The HSUS learned about the forum through a tip from a Russian investigator.
His investigation found dozens of video clips showing young girls and women maiming and killing animals including dogs, goats, monkeys, rabbits and pigs, Perry said.
The HSUS later watched previews of those clips, which Perry depict horrifying forms of animal cruelty.
Some of the more chilling images, she said, include:
• A girl wearing stiletto heels poking a heel through a live dogs eye socket. The dogs front legs are tied behind his back and his mouth is tied shut, but he screams and screams in horrendous pain as the girl relentlessly stabs her heel through his eye socket, Perry said. At one point, her heel goes all the way in and makes a cracking sound, but the dog is still alive and screaming;
• A girl wearing a short, tight, patent leather mini-skirt and stiletto heels who pokes the heel of her shoe through the eye of small money. In another video, a girl in stilettos crushes a small monkey while the monkeys tiny hand keeps trying to hold on to her foot as she crushes him, Perry said;
• A live dog that Perry said looks like its been skinned and is lying in a pool of blood. He flinches and raises himself up to try and escape when a girl cuts his tail off with a hammer and hatchet, she said;
• A scantily-clad girl in stiletto heels crushing a rabbit, which screams as its hind legs are smashed;
• A girl wearing stiletto boots and a short mini skirt who stabs her heels through a dogs abdomen;
• A live puppy crushed by a girl wearing stiletto heels. As she crushes the puppys head, blood comes out of his nostrils and the eyeball nearly comes out of his head, Perry said.
Congress must pass legislation immediately to prevent the prolonged, sadistic torture of thousands of helpless animals, Perry testified. It is impossible to overstate the depth of the depravity of this sexual fetish or the despicability of those who seek to profit from it.
She added: We do not have an exhaustive picture of all the hard crush and soft crush videos being produced and peddled, but we know the problem is very real and cries out for action by Congress.
The Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA) also said it supports legislation to ban the sale of crush videos.
It is clear to law enforcement that animal crush videos are created for and sold to viewers who find this particularly heinous sexually deviant behavior appealing, David LaBahn, the groups president, wrote in a letter that Perry submitted to the committee. Those who produce and market these videos and those who carry out the animal cruelty in the videos do so in order to profit from appealing to the prurient interests of those with a sexual fetish involving specific forms of animal cruelty and suffering.
LaBahn said federal action is urgently needed to address this pernicious problem.
State laws prohibiting animal cruelty are not sufficient to enable prosecutors to crack down on the perpetrators because these videos are made secretively and anonymously, he wrote. Even if identities can be determined, it is often impossible to prove where and when the videos were made in order to establish jurisdiction and that the crime occurred within the relevant statute of limitations.
We hope Congress will pass legislation swiftly to provide law enforcement the necessary tools to fight the spread of crush videos that involve horrible animal cruelty and undermine the safety and wellbeing of our society as a whole, he added.
Sexual gratification
During todays hearing, a psychology professor also told the committee that people watch animal crush videos for sexual gratification.
Dr. Kevin Volkan with California State University cited three paraphilias -- the need for extreme or dangerous stimulation to achieve sexual arousal -- related to crush videos: fetishes, sexual sadism, and sexual masochism.
Simply put, the crush paraphilia can be thought of as an extreme version of a foot fetish where the individuals with the paraphilia derive sexual pleasure from watching the object of their desire crush a living creature to death, Dr. Volkan said. It is possible that masochists identify with the animals being tortured and killed, actually seeing themselves as the animal being crushed, and these individuals obtain sexual gratification through this identification.
He added: In these videos the torture and killing of animals becomes associated with something males normally find sexually arousing, such as a beautiful woman.
Dr. Volkan said people with these sexual disorders rarely seek treatment.
Typically, people who have a paraphilia do not seek treatment unless the paraphilia has resulted in legal consequences, he said, adding many people with these issues are unwilling to acknowledge theyre engaged in these activities. Treatment is not likely to prevent the acquisition of a crush paraphilia, curb the current practice of this paraphilia, or prevent a relapse.
The best treatment, he said, is legislative action.
I believe that a prohibition on the sale of crush videos is one of the few ways in which the practice and enjoyment of crush paraphilias can be reduced, Dr. Volkan testified.
The Humane Societys Perry urged senators to take swift action and approve the proposed legislation for the protection of animals and for the millions of Americans across the country who have been horrified and outraged by the resurgence of vile and sickening animal crush videos.
