A masked person will hold up an animal affectionately. Then the suffering will begin. Titillated viewers will see the fear in the eyes of the animal fighting for its life.
HAVEN ORECCHIO-EGRESITZ: Many “animal crush” videos will start the same. A person whose identity is masked will hold up an animal, like a cat or dog, and pet them affectionately. An audience will get a chance to see the animal alive and healthy, maybe not yet aware of what its future holds. There will be a build-up, where the person on camera shows off the devices — shoes, knives, or ropes — they will use to inflict harm on the helpless animal. Then the suffering will begin. Titillated viewers will see the fear in the eyes of the animal fighting for its life.
For the average person, it can be hard to fathom what might incite someone to carry out or watch such horrific violence, but every year the Humane Society of the United States receives between one and two dozen new cases involving the illegal torture porn, according to Janette Reever, a senior specialist on the organization’s Global Anti-Dog fighting, Animal Protection, and Crisis Response team.
While much of it exists on the dark web and can be hard to find and track, sometimes it can be found on mainstream social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. These companies say they do what they can to detect and remove this kind of violence, but some of it slips through, and animal rights groups believe they could do more… The distribution of these videos has since been criminalized… The first law prohibiting the creation or distribution of animal crush videos was signed in 2000…
The prevalence of the content has created a cat-and-mouse subculture of attention-seeking animal abusers, and volunteer web sleuths who work around the clock to suss them out. Experts say those who make the videos, many of whom have a cult-like following, are likely psychopaths…
Kevin Volkan is a psychologist who specializes in the bizarre. In 2010, he testified about the sexual nature of animal crush videos before the US Senate. Volkan, a professor at California State University Channel Islands, told Insider that fetishes or paraphilias — sexual fantasies that are acted out in real life — are quite common… In some cases, the creature being killed is often something small, like a bug or a mouse.
Those who victimize larger domesticated animals, though, have the characteristics of psychopaths or sociopaths who have no conscience and are only interested in satisfying their own urges, Volkan said. Some may have been the victims of physical or sexual abuse, he added. Volkan believes many of these killers are motivated by sadistic urges…
FBI research indicates that most serial killers, school shooters, and mass murderers tortured animals as children… “A lot of psychopaths torture animals as children, it’s one of the warning signs,” Volkan said. “So the idea they could do bad things to humans after hurting animals is not far fetched.” SOURCE…
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