rape by any other name...

[sharon tupper]

i read an alarming article the other day that appalled and sickened me – well, let’s face it, there are many things that appal and sicken me about human treatment of animals – but this is disturbing on so many levels, its prevalence frightening…

"Bestiality brothels spur call for animal sex ban

 

Animal sex abuse is on the rise in Germany, with bestiality brothels being set up across the country, according to a state animal protection officer demanding stronger laws to protect mankind's furry and feathered friends.

 

Madeleine Martin, the animal protection official for Hessian state government, said the law needed to be changed to make sex abuse of animals – known as zoophilia – a crime.

 

“It is punishable to distribute animal pornography, but the act itself is not,” she told the Frankfurter Rundschau daily paper on Friday.

 

“There are even animal brothels in Germany,” she said. Sex with animals was being increasingly seen as a lifestyle choice, and thus more acceptable.

 

“The abuse seems to be increasingly rapidly, and the internet offers an additional distribution platform,” she said.

 

She said the justice authorities had found it exceptionally difficult to convict a man from Hesse, who had offered pictures and instructions for animal sex abuse over the internet.

 

“Zoophilia must be completely banned in the reformed animal protection law,” said Martin, referring to the governments plan to rework that section of the law.

 

Sex with animals was banned until 1969, when the animal protection law was introduced, but failed to include a specific ban on zoophilia, the Frankfurter Rundschau said.

 

Martin said the current legal situation makes it too difficult for authorities to intervene – an animal has to be shown to have massive injuries before the animal protection laws prescribe action."... read more at the local, germany’s english language newspaper…

 

lifestyle choice? There is no possibility of consensuality here - it’s only a fucking choice for the human scum – there’s no choice for the voiceless animals… rape is rape…

 

according to deb doxbury from bella online: the voice of women:

“Intercourse with animals is becoming an expansive legal trade throughout European subcultures. The rationalization for the existence of these brothels is that it is a "lifestyle choice," while blindly overlooking evidence that this service is a prime breeding ground for predators. Though acts of bestiality are evident around the world, Europe is unique in the fact that select countries choose to profit from this malevolent behavior.

 

European bestiality brothels state that it is illegal to harm an animal while engaging in intercourse. What these facilities fail to point out is that forcing sex on an animal is an act of unwanted aggression and is therefore harmful in nature. Female animals are oftentimes sedated, some are bound, and many experience physical complications from being exposed to repeated acts. Most of the animal kingdom view sexual encounters within their own species as a means to a procreative end and do not spend time consumed by intercourse outside of heat cycles. Therefore, not only are people physically harming these animals, they are also violating the animals’ understanding of their natural life-cycle process….”

this horror is by no means confined to europe...

"Douglas Spink Arrested in BESTIALITY Case : Mice in Vaseline, Dogs, Horses Found at Exitpoint Stallions Limitee" convicted cocaine smuggler has been arrested for running what authorities say appears to be a bestiality farm in Washington state in which visitors could engage in all sorts of twisted sex acts with animals.

Douglas Spink was arrested at his ramshackle, heavily wooded compound near the Canadian border in Whatcom County along with a 51-year-old tourist from Great Britain who is accused of having sex with three dogs." read more at huffington post

even when prosecution happens, there is no justice for the animals, the fuckers get leniency...

 "On April 14, 2010, Spink’s ramshackle farm was raided and Stephen Clarke was arrested for having sex with dogs.  The evidence against Clarke was pretty compelling and Clarke pled guilty on May 11.  Now that we have a law making bestiality a Class-C Felony in the State of Washington, the judge could have sentenced Clarke to five years in prison and imposed a $10,000 fine.

Instead, Clarke was sentenced to 30 days in jail (most of which has already been served) and was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine to the Whatcom Humane Society, who has custody of the dogs as well as several horses removed from the property.  It is estimated that the humane society has incurred something close to $10,000 by now taking care of all Spink’s animals, except, of course, for the string-wrapped, vaseline-coated mice that had to be euthanized....

...we find it outrageous that all of these criminals - these men who cruelly abuse animals - these men who have sex outside their species with animals that cannot speak for themselves - we find it outrageous that they are still getting off with tiny little slaps on the wrist.  $300 here, $1000 there, and a few days of jail thrown in ... It took Washington 121 years to decide that bestiality was a form of animal cruelty, but a Class C felony is the same charge given for Internet gambling.  What???" ... from hope for horses

 

 

 

then there're the horrors perpetrated against the likes of luna, the dog brutally raped and murdered in simcan, turkey in march, 2011... and pony, the orangutan used terribly as a 'prostitute' in borneo... you can read their stories on the animal rape and animal brothel page of pia berrands' site...

if you think it doesn't happen in your country, you may need to think again... since childhood, i remember growing up with a 'running joke' about farmers and their sheep, which brings a smirk to far too many peoples lips, the implications and inference - the abuse of animals, the RAPE of sheep - never dwelt on... no doubt this 'joke' has its basis in a reality we need to believe is merely someone's sick fantasy... 


and here it is, happening now (still?!) in australia - only recently, january 2012, candice keller reported "middle-aged south australian trio admit bestiality offence", and this from queensland in september 2011 "man to be charged with importing bestiality material..."... bestiality is illegal here but that illegality doesn't stop the abuse - animals are expendable commodities in this society so how can we ever know exactly how widespread it is...

 

and then there are the sociopaths (and we certainly will never know how many there are worldwide!!)... it is a widely held view that animal torture is the starting point for predators to perfect their later crimes against their own species - this is supported by psychologist andrea beetz in "bestiality and zoophilia: associations with violence and sex offending", and this hansard entry of the nsw parliament "animal abuse and sociopathy link"... and where pornography involving animal abuse is found, it appears you will also find child pornography - take the abc report "man charged over child torture, bestiality pictures" from january this year... or the report from may 2011 "northern man admits bestiality offences"...

and what of the brutalized animals? this from hope for horses...

"It takes thousands and thousands of dollars, and months or years (if it’s even possible) to rehabilitate animals who have been sexually abused ... These people are sex offenders, and should be treated as such.  Although many of them will tell you that they “love” their animals, that they think of them as “family,” that they have a “relationship” with them, having sex with one’s animal is no different from having sex with one’s child - presumably who is also entitled to a loving relationship as part of a family."

i am appalled at the arrogance of these humans, ashamed that my species is capable of imagining, let alone perpetrating, this cruel abuse, and i weep for the countless numbers (millions? billions?!!) of voiceless victims worldwide who have been, are, and will be, subjected to unimaginable horrors only the human species is capable of...

 

[conce nunes]

Okay okay I am not saying Spain is "perfect" or any other "country" for that matter...I am saying that my sense is the people that choose to fight for animal's rights are more ACTIVE than in Portugal and,in a general way, spanish people that I've met or seen or heard (even as tourists here in Portugal), SEEM to be more outspoken and relaxed about their views than portuguese, in general again...anyway, I don't give a damn about nationalisms of any kind.

[Natalia]

Funny to read someone thinking we are advanced with regards to animal wellfare, every day I feel ashamed of being Spanish because of the atrocities I see here, Bullfightong, Correbous, Dove trowing to shoot at them, Vaquillas (Practice of Bullfighting with very young calves) The slaughter of the pigs as a ritual, they cook and eat it as they dismember it, etc. The latest, our asshole of a King, he got hurt hunting elephants in Africa, out of tax payers money, he's hunted countless endangered species, once he even payed extra to be able to hunt an animal that it is forbidden to hunt. There are stories saying how he's so useless they had to drug bears so he could hunt them...

Anyway, what I meant is that Animal Equality do a lot of activism in verious ways and if there is nothing like it in portugal maybe you could talk to them to see how to get something started.

[conce nunes]

p.s. then I left home at 20 years og age and went back to Brazil 5 years and New York City 13 years... and later on Cape Verde Islands where I was founding member of SI MA BO, the first animal's rights and environmental rights association in the Island of S. Vicente. Sílvia Punzo, my italian friend and

President still lives there and is doing wonderfull work w street animals, spaying and rescues etc. etc.

I consider myself to have the planet as my country.

CHECK out SI MA BÔ which means "just like you" in creole. I baptized it.

[conce nunes]

No I haven't heard anything abou "equality branch" in Portugal, and as I've said to you: portugal and portuguese people in my view are generally very conservative and reactionnary and ignorant! I am half poryuguese (i.e., I was born in Lisbon) and brazilian (mother's side) but had to GOOD FORTUNE of my father being a diplomat and growing up in very different places like : Brazil, Germany (I LOVE GERMANS, tey are very progressive!), Hong Kong and Macau (Asia) and back again to Germany, and little "bits" of Portugal in the midst of this. Iwas very fortunate too to be inPortugal when the REVOLUTION happenend (1974) at an age (18) when I was already "leftist"...but as far as animal's rights NOW (almost 40 years later...) it is on a very small scale because people here really want is to be "confortable" and not have any "problems". If that makes me be called or thought of as "aggressive" or angry I wish there were more like me! I wish Spain had invaded Portugal along time ago!!!!! Even other issues like feminism or gay pride it's the same backwarddness...so I personally wich that yes there was a groupof people here that besides doing information and political and legal pressure (which I firmly believe in also) ALSO went, first of all to labs, and kennels and slaughterhouses and invaded bullring's where fighting occurs...to SPEAK OUT and PROTEST, not necessarily to destroy anything material and to take away the animals which they really need that we all do, TODAY.

[Natalia]

This is the people I mean, I thought they had "branches" in other countries since I have seen their actions in other places but maybe it's only England and Spain...They get into farms to do documentaries and act on the street, they go to circuses, bullfights, and so on.

http://www.animalequality.net/

I agree that action needs to be taken and whilst Gary Yourofski says no major change has been accomplished without breaking the law, that doesn't necessarily mean being aggressive. You can't bully people into giving up meat, when I lose it in an argument I can see how automatically stop taking me seriously. There is enough evidence for it not being necessary. Breaking into farms to film so that afterwards you can show it is breaking the law, some of them here are already awaiting trial. A lot of people react when they see the images, they do do it in big screens in the busiest square of Madrid. People really doesn't know what their meat entails, and all their lives they've been told meat is necessary to live.

The thing about bullfighting, I don't know there but here it really is dying out, I mean soon they won't be able to keep it up,  not even with subsidies, but still a lot of people don't argue against it because they have no idea what it involves, tourists come here thinking is some sort of pretty "dance" between the bull and the  "sorry excuse of a human" then they come out crying  ans saying how dreadful it is. I think that's why they are desperately fighting to keep it, they know the days of bullfighting are numbered.

My point is, I think :) that it is important to start informing people, but attacking them doesn't help. Nobody has a clue of what breeding egg laying hens means with regards to the males for example and they are seriously buffled when you explain that a cow doesn't just give milk unless she's pregnant once a year. We live in cities, most people hasn't seen a farm animal up close in their lives let alone know what goes on in a farm, espcially a factory farm, they make sure it is that way. Adverts show us cows in the country side happy to give us their milk, it is high level brain washing. 

And no, giving up meat for health reasons won't stop bullfighting but may save some cows, that is better than if they didn't give up meat isn't eat? And if that person tells another he/she feels better since not eating meat, someone else might do the same...

We need to start making it impossible for them to avoid the images of what really goes on, to cover the walls of the cities, showing what happens in farms. Seriously, the world is not going to turn vegan overnight and every step in the right direction is a good step.  

 

Don't get me wrong I feel the frustration, pain and anger every day, I want to shout at people, even hit them over the head but that'd really do more damage than good, I've had more people to listen by trying to explain the frustration, and why some people can't help but to be angry and aggressive about the subject.

[conce nunes]

Of course. But do you think someone who would stop eating meat for "health reasons" would also stop going to bullfights if they think it is "cultural"? I don't.

The same with lab w animal experiments that for me are perhaps even the WORST of all situations because they are caged, defenseless, used again and agin and sometimes while alive...do you think the person (I have a friend...) who is concerned w ebvironmental issues would be against animal experiments? She is very "big" here in portugal in the "environmental cause", continues to eat meat ("biological meat") and thinks all rotweillers and pitbulls should be killed...

What do you mean by "branch of animal equality"?

WE "have" two parties in "Assembleia" (our kind of Parliament, but different way of functioning) that supposedly should defend animal rights. One is "our" "GReen Party" which is really a farse, they allways align w the "communist Party" and only vote lamely on "ecological issues".On animals, nothing. The other is the "Bloco de ESquerda" which is more progressist and I usually vote for them and do defend animal rights but only have 3 members in Assembleia...they speak out against bullfights animal experimentation call for changing animal's legal status from "thing" to "sencient beings"...but they have no real "power". Then last year "PAN" appeared which is supoposedly another partu for animals and nature but theu got no one elected.

There are many groups an associations like I said mostly about animals of companionship and nothing else.

Worst there is a lot of ego and people wanting to "appear" and be more important than ecah other...and there many events that result in NOTHING!

I myself am not "cool" at all...I BURN.

I can't ven start "a group" because I think I am quite anti-social...!

I am trying to do my bit with sending information through the net (I speak and read in englisg a lot better than most portuguese people) like sending stuff from this page and others.

Also by challenging and confronting AUTHORITIES (on my own I am doing that in kennels, I have a lawyer to start a law suit against Lisbon's municipal kennel) and even going to the police etc. (alone)

I have started to study for a law degree this year...and I am 56!

People are too afraad in this country...the heritage of fascism is still with us, it seems.

Spain evolved much quicker and further ahead than Portugal and they "lost" FRanco after we got rid of our Salazar/Marcelo Caetano!

I was in the streets then too...it was not "sweet talk" that changed anything, it was REVOLUTION!

ANIMALS NEED A REVOLUTION made by humans without fear.

[Natalia]

I do think that however hard it is important to keep our cool, so they won't be able to dismiss the arguments saying things like "you are crazy", I can't always do it but I am trying, it is the most tolerant people who are making the biggest difference, working other angles, like health benefits or environment.  At this point  I don't care why someone stops eating animals so long as they do.

[Natalia]

I understand too, in Spain is the same, seeing people who actually enjoy and live for  the carnage of a bullfight, and I am not talking about some thug, this is upper class educated people who love their dogs and would stop their car if they saw one hurt in the middle of the road, at least some of them, they take little children and teach them that it is an art that should be preserved at all costs. At the moment the economy is in terrible terrible shape, more than 20% unemployment rate, cuts at all levels to collect more money, education and health being destroyed but keeping bullfighting alive is a priority, they take high school students on school tours to bullrings to teach them it's historical and cultural importance, they subsidized the bullfighting teaching facilities and bullfights themselves. Y guess in a way it is a desperate attempt to keep it alive when not that many people is interested but still, why the obsession with  making sure it doesn't go away?

With regards to activism, here there are many people doing things, informative tables with vegan tastings, demonstrations in front of the bullfighting rings, with naked people playing bulls with fake blood on them, protections of the farm documentaries in the middle of very busy streets...isn't there a branch of animal equality where you leave? If not maybe you can talk to them and start one :) I agree there is no point in going to scream at someone who enjoys bullfighting, they only get more stubborn about it, what we need to do is politely informing other people, the ones that don't enjoy it but don't know what it is so wrong, slipping comments about what happens on the farms, so they can't dissociate the horror from their plate, maybe it won't be so slow, the number of vegans is growing very rapidly all over the world, the more there are, the more people have to question why and whether eating meat is morally right, but yes it is frustrating.

[sharon tupper]

i understand your frustration conce - change is a long, slow process - of course, the non-human animals continue to suffer while human animals continue to ignore their own place within the natural world...

[conce nunes]

when I said information I meant stuff like Ronnie ALF was saying in his ARzone Chat about having stall to give out information etc, where as for example right where I live ther is the "bullfight arena" which's season (UGH!) "starts" this month until October, weekly. It is a weekly HORROR. One of the big "animal' rights associations" (They are vegan) usually come half an hour on the days there is "Tourada" and let thems elves be cornered in a small corner of the plaza...then they shout and yeall at the people that come watch the "bullfight"...that is, the people LESS LIKELY to hear or give a shit! Those people even make fun of them...police comes to "protect" the audienece that goes in...it's shameful! For a awhile I used to join them,then I asked: why should we be cornered in here (like cattle really) while the pro- people walk around freely? Why not come earlier during the week when they are selling the tkts and talk topeople individually, have a stall? Why not go to tourist points and campaigna against them coming? Is this not a Democracy? Well...everyone either ignores me or calls me a trouble maker and that it is "too dangerous" or something like that...it is pitifull really...