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Zoosadism issexual pleasure derived fromcruelty to animals. It is aparaphilia, where people are sexually aroused by torturing animals.[1] Zoosadism is part of theMacdonald triad, a set of three behaviors that have been considered a precursor topsychopathic behavior.[2]
Some studies have suggested that individuals who arecruel to animals are more likely to be violent to humans. According toThe New York Times:
TheFBI has found that a history of cruelty to animals is one of the traits that regularly appear in its computer records ofserial rapists andmurderers, and the standard diagnostic and treatment manual for psychiatric and emotional disorders lists cruelty to animals as a diagnostic criterion forconduct disorders.[3]
Helen Gavin wrote however inCriminological 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.
Serial killers such asTed Bundy,Edmund Kemper, andJeffrey Dahmer were known for torturing and killing animals in their youth.[6][7]
In September 2018, awhistleblower tweeted a link to a Telegram channel named "Zoosadist Evidence" which contained images, video, and discussion of extreme violence to animals; the whistleblower alleged that the members involved were specific individuals in thefurry fandom.[8][better source needed] One zoosadist exposed during this scandal was an adult member of the furry fandom inCuba, by the name of Rubén Marrero Pernas, also known as "Woof". Pernas was found to be raping, torturing and killing dogs and puppies and recording the acts online for a group of zoosadists onTelegram who found this to be sexually gratifying.[9] Pernas being exposed lead to public outrage,[10][11] and eventual legal reform.[12]
ACanadian man, Leighton Labute, known as DollyFlesh online, was arrested in 2020 for torturing and killing threehamsters, and uploading the video to social media.[13][14]
ZoosadistAdam Britton, who mainly usedTelegram to distribute recordings of his rape, torture and murder of dogs, was arrested in 2022 and plead guilty in 2023.[15][16][17]
In June 2023, theBBC uncovered a globalmonkey 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, theUnited 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 forfreedom of speech.[20] TheUnited States Supreme Court affirmed the Third Circuit's decision inUnited 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 prohibitsinterstate 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 theAnimal 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 maliciousanimal 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 ofcriminology at theUniversity of Southern Maine, has criticized existing studies for ignoring socially accepted practices of violence against animals, such asanimal slaughter andvivisection, that might be linked to violence against humans.[28]
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