rape by any other name...

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's the horrors perpetrated against 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...

this graphic sums up exactly how i feel about the human species at the moment...

are you over it?

i wasn't actually going to blog today, but then i read this article on the huffington post website and thought i'd share it...

it's by eve ensler, activist, actor and playwright (remember 'the vagina monologues'? she was the author) ... i'm reproducing the whole article because it needs to be read in its entirety... it's powerful, so i really couldn't just give a short excerpt and link - finding the 'right' excerpt was impossible, it's too important to break down to a small 'snippet' (but you're more than welcome to read it at it's source, here, if you prefer...)

 "Over it...

I am over rape.

I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.

I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.

I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.

I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don't have a sense of humor, and women don't have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don't think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.

I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.

I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.

I am over rape happening in broad daylight.

I am over the 207 clinics in Ecuador supported by the government that are capturing, raping, and torturing lesbians to make them straight.

I am over one in three women in the U.S military getting raped by their so-called "comrades."

I am over the forces that deny women who have been raped the right to have an abortion.

I am over the fact that after four women came forward with allegations that Herman Cain groped them and grabbed them and humiliated them, he is still running for the President of the United States.

And I'm over CNBC debate host Maria Bartiromo getting booed when she asked him about it. She was booed, not Herman Cain.

Which reminds me, I am so over the students at Penn State who protested the justice system instead of the alleged rapist pedophile of at least 8 boys, or his boss Joe Paterno, who did nothing to protect those children after knowing what was happening to them.

I am over rape victims becoming re-raped when they go public.

I am over starving Somalian women being raped at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.

I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it's their fault or they did something to make it happen.

I am over violence against women not being a #1 international priority when one out of three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime -- the destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life itself.

No women, no future, duh.

I am over this rape culture where the privileged with political and physical and economic might, take what and who they want, when they want it, as much as they want, any time they want it.

I am over the endless resurrection of the careers of rapists and sexual exploiters -- film directors, world leaders, corporate executives, movie stars, athletes -- while the lives of the women they violated are permanently destroyed, often forcing them to live in social and emotional exile.

I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you? You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren't you standing with us? Why aren't you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?

I am over years and years of being over rape. And thinking about rape every day of my life since I was 5-years-old. And getting sick from rape, and depressed from rape, and enraged by rape. And reading my insanely crowded inbox of rape horror stories every hour of every single day.

I am over being polite about rape. It's been too long now, we have been too understanding.

We need to OCCUPYRAPE in every school, park, radio, TV station, household, office, factory, refugee camp, military base, back room, night club, alleyway, courtroom, UN office. We need people to truly try and imagine -- once and for all -- what it feels like to have your body invaded, your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need to let our rage and our compassion connect us so we can change the paradigm of global rape.

There are approximately one billion women on the planet who have been violated.

ONE BILLION WOMEN.

The time is now. Prepare for the escalation. Today it begins, moving toward February 14, 2013, when one billion women will rise to end rape.

Because we are over it."

you can read more about the billion womyn rising campaign here....

the same fight, a different name...

the first melbourne  SlutWalk hit the streets this weekend - heartening that an estimated 2500 took part...  the SlutWalk demonstrations began in canada after a toronto police official said that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised"…

there are varying views on the controversial name, but the SlutWalk is nothing new - its themes far too familiar... we used to call them reclaim the night rallies - i went to many over the years - we demonstrated in support of womyn's fundamental right to freedom from violence, rape or fear – i remember the feeling of empowerment and the camaraderie of the sisters and supporters as they chanted ‘yes means yes, no means no, however we dress, wherever we go’…

which makes it even more frustrating, angering and unbelievable that we are still fighting the perception that womyn are to blame for their own rape - that we get raped because of what we wear - that we ask to be raped because of where we go and what we do... the facts certainly don't bear this out - but unfortunately the myriad rape myths overshadow the fact that rape is about power...

sadly, as Hilary Beaumont so rightly states... 

"Society teaches 'Don’t get raped' rather than 'Don’t rape'"