Today’s discussion is super intense. It’s a very hard issue that a lot of victims often find they are unable to speak about. To them, this is beyond humiliating and can make them fall into a whole new level of shame and depression. I’m talking about the victims that suffered through acts of bestiality.
Bestiality, for those that don’t know, is the act of having sexual relations between a person and an animal. It is also known under other names such as zoophilia and zoosexuality. Statistics on the subject are basically non-existent due to lack of victims willing to some forward. The overall consensus is that if one is a victim of rape via bestiality at the hands of their rapists, then the laws against such should be waved since it was against their will and completely without their consent. It’s always best though to ask a law for your state if you decide to press charges on your rapists. Also, rapists could be charged with animal cruelty by forcing acts of bestiality on victims as well, if that state considers it an illegal act.
“In many jurisdictions, all forms of zoosexual acts are prohibited; others outlaw only the mistreatment of animals, without specific mention of sexual activity. In some countries, such as Denmark, bestiality is not outlawed. It is currently illegal in Canada, Netherlands, 32 U.S. states.”
Here are some recent news stories on the subject:
Mum blames daughter's rape on bestiality
Ark. Man Confesses To Child Rape, Bestiality
Child Rape & Bestiality Arrest
Whether this has become a more common issue, or women finally feel they are able to speak about it, I’ve found a growing number of victims have began to come out about the bestiality that was forced on them by their rapist. Unfortunately, it’s been introduced more frequently in counseling groups and therapists offices than in courtrooms. Everyone, from 5-year-olds to grown adults, have suffered at the hands of their rapist who indulge in bestiality fetishes.
The Humane Society and the Vermont Animal Cruelty task force put together a great fact sheet of information on abuse of people and animals, here are some prevalent statistics on the subject (to read more click the link at the end of the blog):
“Although there has been little research to date on animal sexual abuse and its perpetrators, case reports and anecdotal accounts indicate that men are the primary abusers, although women and children may be forced or coerced into sexual acts with animals or may be abusers themselves. Reports indicate a wide age range of abusers. Abusers may feel isolated, insecure, and powerless. They may have difficulty in forming healthy interpersonal relationships with other adult humans and may have experienced neglect, physical abuse or sexual abuse as a child. Some may suffer from mental illness. In a study published in the International Journal of Psychosomatics (Alvarez & Freinhar, 1991), psychiatric patients exhibited a significantly higher prevalence rate (55%) of bestiality than control groups of medical inpatients (10%) and psychiatric staff members (15%).
Batterers, rapists and pornographers may force women, children, and other vulnerable individuals to have sex with animals in order to humiliate, dominate, control, and exploit the human and animal victims. Children who have been sexually abused may act out their abuse on animals in an attempt to gain a sense of control. Some people may derive sexual gratification from the pain and suffering inflicted while sexually abusing animals. This type of sadistic sexual abuser will probably injure or kill the animal.
The sexual abuse of animals is often linked to the sexual abuse of women and children (Kowal, 1998). This form of domestic violence involves the use of animals for degradation and sexual exploitation of the battered partner. According to Lenore Walker (1979), bestiality may be a part of further tormenting and humiliating the victim. In Walker’s (1984) interviews with battered women, bestiality was mentioned as one of the “unusual sex acts” desired by their partners. In a test group made up of women who had past relationships with battering and nonbattering partners, it was found that this experience occurred with 41% of the battering partners and 5% of the non-battering partners. Child sexual abusers may also exually abuse animals to enhance, expand or extend the abuse of the genuinely powerless and unsuspecting victim (Adams, 1994). Some case studies of sexual abuse of children include reports of forcing children to interact sexually with animals (Ascione, 1993). A child’s sexual abuse of an animal may be a warning sign that the child is a victim or witness of physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Research also indicates a connection between animal sexual abuse and other types of violent crimes. According to a 1986 study, forty percent of the perpetrators of sexually motivated homicides who had been sexually abused as children also reported that they had sexually abused animals (Ressler, et al. 1986).”
If you’ve read my story in past blogs here, you know that I’ve been a victim of bestiality myself. I’ve known survivors that have been kind enough to share their own stories with me as well. If you take nothing else from this blog, I want you to take this: You are not alone. No matter how awful and ashamed these events make you feel, it was not your fault. You did not ask for this. Also, if you’re a victim of abuse and you’ve started taking it out on your pets, please I urge you to seek help. It’s never too late.
You never know what others have suffered. I never came to grips with what happened to me till I was finally able to say it out loud. It took a long time, a lot of work, and an unwavering trust in someone not to judge me. If you don’t feel like you have that in your friends or family, I urge you to seek the help of a professional counselor. They are there to help you deal with things like this. Please don’t suffer in silence any longer. Don’t give your abuser that power any longer.
Info on legal stats
Vermont Animal Cruelty Task Force
Check out more about R.I.S.E. at any of the following:
Website: avoiceforheather.tripod.com
Myspace: myspace.com/avoiceforheather
Blog: avoiceforheather.blogspot.com
Facebook:www.facebook.com/avoiceforheather
Twitter: www.twitter.com/VoiceforHeather
Email: VoiceforHeather@yahoo.com
R.I.S.E. (Rape Incest & Suicide Education) You Are Not Alone!
Monday, August 8, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
SAFER Petition
A group on facebook called TeamStrick has sent R.I.S.E. a petition that I feel very strongly towards, and I would like to share it with you today.
KaDee Strickland and RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) came together to form TeamStrick, a non-profit organization that dedicated to raising money and awareness for RAINN. It was inspired by the actress and advocate KaDee Strickland.
KaDee’s best known for her film roles in The Grudge and Fever Pitch, along with her minor roles in The Sixith Sense, Anything Else, and Something’s Gotta Give. She’s also been known to be drawn towards strong female roles to avoid sexualizing or sensationalizing her self-presentation as a woman.
The petition TeamStrick is asking people to sign is called the SAFER Act to End Rape Kit Backlog. What does this mean? Well I’d tell you, but the petition pretty much speaks for itself.
“The SAFER Act, H.R. 1523, is a no-cost bill that will lead to the elimination of the DNA backlog of evidence collected in rape cases (commonly known as rape kits). Currently, there is a tremendous backlog of DNA evidence from unsolved rape cases that has never been sent to the lab for analysis. Until we test this evidence and identify the rapists, those criminals remain free to attack more victims.
The SAFER Act will establish better standards for future tracking, storage, and use of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and create the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Registry (SAFER), which will track the status of DNA evidence collected in rape cases. The registry will allow victims to monitor the progress of forensic evidence in their own case using a non-personally identifying ID number online, anytime.
The SAFER Act will bring transparency to the testing process, help us efficiently target resources to areas that have the biggest backlogs, and empower survivors with up-to-the-minute info about the status of their case. It will also inform law enforcement and the public about the extent of the DNA backlog throughout the country.
The SAFER Act will increase the efficiency of the criminal justice system by more effectively targeting areas with the most significant backlogs, while making the entire process transparent to the public. Processing this evidence from rape cases quickly will help to ensure justice for survivors of this violent crime by taking rapists off the streets, and create safer communities.
The bill has strong bipartisan support, and RAINN is optimistic that it will move quickly through the U.S Congress with your help! Contact your U.S. Representative today to express your support for the SAFER Act, H.R. 1523.”
Our founder, Kylie, found some great information about these rape kits. The following is from our R.I.S.E. facebook discussion page:
"A rape kit consists of small boxes, microscope slides, and plastic bags for collecting and storing evidence such as clothing fibers, hairs, saliva, semen or body fluid, which may help identify a rape survivor's attacker for use in prosecution. The process of collecting the evidence for the kit takes hours.
Although a rape kit's contents may vary by location, it may include:
* Instructions
* Bags and sheets for evidence collection
* Swabs for collecting fluids from the lips, cheeks, thighs, vagina, anus, and buttocks
* Blood collection devices
* Comb used to collect hair and fiber from the victim’s body
* Clear glass slides
* Envelopes for preserving the victim’s clothes, head hair, pubic hair, and blood samples
* Nail pick for scraping debris from beneath the nails
* White sheets to catch physical evidence stripped from the body
* Documentation forms
* Labels
In the United States, rape kit costs, availability, proper implementation of the invasive exam, and backlogs have historically presented problems for survivors of rape seeking justice.
As of May 2009, the federal Violence Against Women Act of 2005 went into effect, requiring state governments who wish to continue receiving federal funding to pay for "Jane Doe rape kits" or, "anonymous rape tests", which allows victims too traumatized to go to the police to undergo the procedure at hospitals, which will maintain the collected evidence in a sealed envelope identified only by a number, unless police access its contents upon the victim's decision to press charges. While the practice had been recommended by the Federal Bureau of Investigation since at least 1999, and was already followed at some health clinics, colleges and hospitals, and in the state of Massachusetts, many jurisdictions up until then refused to pay the estimated $800 cost of the rape examination without a police report filed by the victim."
(See our discussion page for more interesting and sad statistics about rape kits state-by-state)
I think the ability to track your own case and get that up-to-the-minute info on it, to me, makes this worth signing. Think of how much emotional anxiety this will relieve so these victims can begin to heal faster. Not to mention this might not only solve some cases, but might mean more offenders are brought to justice, a huge load off any victims back. Now this can’t do much for the people that don’t report their rape, but if people start seeing even a slight improvement with these changes in the justice system, they might just be willing to come forward more often.
If you believe this is a good idea, please click the link below and sign the petition. No changes come from those who take no action.
SAFER Petition
Check out more about TeamStrick at:
http://teamstrick.org
http://twitter.com/TeamStrick
Check out more about R.I.S.E. at any of the following:
Website: avoiceforheather.tripod.com
Myspace: myspace.com/avoiceforheather
Blog: avoiceforheather.blogspot.com
Facebook:www.facebook.com/avoiceforheather
Twitter: www.twitter.com/VoiceforHeather
Email: VoiceforHeather@yahoo.com
KaDee Strickland and RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) came together to form TeamStrick, a non-profit organization that dedicated to raising money and awareness for RAINN. It was inspired by the actress and advocate KaDee Strickland.
KaDee’s best known for her film roles in The Grudge and Fever Pitch, along with her minor roles in The Sixith Sense, Anything Else, and Something’s Gotta Give. She’s also been known to be drawn towards strong female roles to avoid sexualizing or sensationalizing her self-presentation as a woman.
The petition TeamStrick is asking people to sign is called the SAFER Act to End Rape Kit Backlog. What does this mean? Well I’d tell you, but the petition pretty much speaks for itself.
“The SAFER Act, H.R. 1523, is a no-cost bill that will lead to the elimination of the DNA backlog of evidence collected in rape cases (commonly known as rape kits). Currently, there is a tremendous backlog of DNA evidence from unsolved rape cases that has never been sent to the lab for analysis. Until we test this evidence and identify the rapists, those criminals remain free to attack more victims.
The SAFER Act will establish better standards for future tracking, storage, and use of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and create the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence Registry (SAFER), which will track the status of DNA evidence collected in rape cases. The registry will allow victims to monitor the progress of forensic evidence in their own case using a non-personally identifying ID number online, anytime.
The SAFER Act will bring transparency to the testing process, help us efficiently target resources to areas that have the biggest backlogs, and empower survivors with up-to-the-minute info about the status of their case. It will also inform law enforcement and the public about the extent of the DNA backlog throughout the country.
The SAFER Act will increase the efficiency of the criminal justice system by more effectively targeting areas with the most significant backlogs, while making the entire process transparent to the public. Processing this evidence from rape cases quickly will help to ensure justice for survivors of this violent crime by taking rapists off the streets, and create safer communities.
The bill has strong bipartisan support, and RAINN is optimistic that it will move quickly through the U.S Congress with your help! Contact your U.S. Representative today to express your support for the SAFER Act, H.R. 1523.”
Our founder, Kylie, found some great information about these rape kits. The following is from our R.I.S.E. facebook discussion page:
"A rape kit consists of small boxes, microscope slides, and plastic bags for collecting and storing evidence such as clothing fibers, hairs, saliva, semen or body fluid, which may help identify a rape survivor's attacker for use in prosecution. The process of collecting the evidence for the kit takes hours.
Although a rape kit's contents may vary by location, it may include:
* Instructions
* Bags and sheets for evidence collection
* Swabs for collecting fluids from the lips, cheeks, thighs, vagina, anus, and buttocks
* Blood collection devices
* Comb used to collect hair and fiber from the victim’s body
* Clear glass slides
* Envelopes for preserving the victim’s clothes, head hair, pubic hair, and blood samples
* Nail pick for scraping debris from beneath the nails
* White sheets to catch physical evidence stripped from the body
* Documentation forms
* Labels
In the United States, rape kit costs, availability, proper implementation of the invasive exam, and backlogs have historically presented problems for survivors of rape seeking justice.
As of May 2009, the federal Violence Against Women Act of 2005 went into effect, requiring state governments who wish to continue receiving federal funding to pay for "Jane Doe rape kits" or, "anonymous rape tests", which allows victims too traumatized to go to the police to undergo the procedure at hospitals, which will maintain the collected evidence in a sealed envelope identified only by a number, unless police access its contents upon the victim's decision to press charges. While the practice had been recommended by the Federal Bureau of Investigation since at least 1999, and was already followed at some health clinics, colleges and hospitals, and in the state of Massachusetts, many jurisdictions up until then refused to pay the estimated $800 cost of the rape examination without a police report filed by the victim."
(See our discussion page for more interesting and sad statistics about rape kits state-by-state)
I think the ability to track your own case and get that up-to-the-minute info on it, to me, makes this worth signing. Think of how much emotional anxiety this will relieve so these victims can begin to heal faster. Not to mention this might not only solve some cases, but might mean more offenders are brought to justice, a huge load off any victims back. Now this can’t do much for the people that don’t report their rape, but if people start seeing even a slight improvement with these changes in the justice system, they might just be willing to come forward more often.
If you believe this is a good idea, please click the link below and sign the petition. No changes come from those who take no action.
SAFER Petition
Check out more about TeamStrick at:
http://teamstrick.org
http://twitter.com/TeamStrick
Check out more about R.I.S.E. at any of the following:
Website: avoiceforheather.tripod.com
Myspace: myspace.com/avoiceforheather
Blog: avoiceforheather.blogspot.com
Facebook:www.facebook.com/avoiceforheather
Twitter: www.twitter.com/VoiceforHeather
Email: VoiceforHeather@yahoo.com
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