Kevin will be making his on-camera TV debut as a bizarre creature 'expert' in the next few weeks. The show is Lost Tapes on the Animal Planet network. Times and subjects of the episodes are:
09/28/10 10:00 PM Zombies
10/05/10 10:00 PM Strigoi
10/05/10 10:30 PM Poltergeist
10/19/10 10:00 PM Wendigo
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Prohibiting Obscene Animal Crush Videos in the Wake of United States v. Stevens - Written Testimony of Kevin Volkan, Chair & Professor of Psychology, California State University Channel Islands
Hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Prohibiting Obscene Animal Crush Videos in the Wake of United States v. Stevens” September 15, 2010
Written Testimony of Kevin Volkan, Chair & Professor of Psychology, California State University Channel Islands, Camarillo, CA
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, for inviting me here today to testify. My name is Dr. Kevin Volkan. I am Chair and Professor of the Psychology Program at California State University Channel Islands, where I teach courses on atypical psychopathology and culture-bound syndromes. I was formerly a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and I have training in both clinical psychology and public health. I also author a blog titled “Bizarre Behaviors and Culture-bound Syndromes” with my colleague Dr. Neil Rocklin, who lectures in my department and who has been in private practice for the last 35 years. Dr. Rocklin co-authored this written testimony.
My testimony today will focus on explaining the sexual nature of “crush” paraphilias, and describing how crush videos are sexual in nature and that those who watch crush videos do so to obtain sexual gratification. I will also explain the nature of this paraphilia from a variety of theoretical viewpoints.
Paraphilias are sexual disorders that involve recurrent and intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges or behaviors related to non-human objects, non-consenting persons or children, and the suffering and/or humiliation of oneself or a partner. Generally, to be considered pathology, a paraphilia should result in clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning (Association & DSM-IV, 2000). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Association & DSM-IV, 2000) lists the following specific paraphilias that we believe are related to crush videos: fetishes, sexual sadism, and sexual masochism. In my professional opinion, the crush paraphilia and crush videos contain elements of these specific forms of paraphilia in varying degrees and I believe that the crush paraphilia and crush videos are clearly sexual in nature.
Fetishes
A “fetish” is a strong recurrent sexual attraction to a non-living object. The most common fetish objects are clothing such as underwear, shoes and boots. With regard to the crush paraphilia, the fetish aspect is likely most related to the object that is doing the crushing–most often a foot or shoe. Crushing objects can vary and may include objects such as the buttocks or even a car. In fact one of the most notable crush fetishists who enjoyed the crushing of live animals, Bryan Loudermilk, was himself crushed to death by a vehicle in a scenario where he voluntary had a car driven on to his abdomen. (Reischel, 2006). Simply put, the crush paraphilia can be thought of as an extreme version of a “foot fetish” where the individuals with the paraphilia derive sexual pleasure from watching the object of their desire crush a living creature to death.
Sexual Sadism
The desire to see animals crushed to death by the fetish object (foot or shoe) may be explained in terms of sexual sadism and masochism. Sexual sadism is where sexual gratification is achieved through the fantasy of harming a partner or as a consequence of directly subjecting the partner to pain and humiliation. Typically, sexual sadism involves a human partner. In the case of crush paraphilias the partner is an animal. The animals used for sadistic purposes range from insects to larger mammals such as dogs. Many crush videos use small mammals such as mice, rats, puppies and kittens but regardless of the “victim,” the cause and purpose of the action appear to be the same. (1)
Sexual Masochism
This is the feeling of sexual arousal or excitement resulting from receiving pain, suffering, or humiliation. The pain, suffering, or humiliation is real and not imagined and can be physical or psychological in nature. Many who are involved in crush paraphilias take sexual pleasure in being crushed, squashed, or being put under pressure. Masochists often suffer from personality disorders in which they are only able to experience feelings in the context of situations where they are hurt or in pain. These people need to surrender their needs and identity and experience extremely disturbing things to feel that they exist and to feel pleasure (Saretsky, 1976). Masochism in which a person receives sexual gratification from being crushed has been reported in academic literature, but such reports are uncommon (Shiwach & Prosser, 1998), perhaps due to a paucity of reporting of such cases. There are also reports of autoerotic asphyxiation due to chest compression, which may involve a masochistic component (O'Halloran, R., & Dietz, P., 1993). In terms of the crush paraphilia, it is possible that masochists identify with the animals being tortured and killed, actually seeing themselves as the animal being crushed, and these individuals obtain sexual gratification through this identification.
Discussion of Crush Paraphilias
Paraphilias and fetishes (which are often not well-differentiated in the psychological literature) have been described as far back as the turn of the last century as the association of something pleasurable (usually sexual) with some object other than a whole human. These early writers also noted the association of sexual gratification with pain (Binet, 2001; Krafft-Ebing, 1922). Freud associated fetishes with the fear produced by the castration anxiety of the Oedipal complex. In this conception using the fetish object for sexual gratification was safe (Freud, 1961/2001).
Sexual sadism is thought by Freudians to be a defense against the anxiety produced by an aggressor. The sexual sadist identifies with this aggressor which reduces the sadist’s anxiety. Masochism on the other hand represents pain that has become associated with pleasure. This also has a defensive characteristic in that by accepting the pain that is given the individual may avoid worse pain. Freud also talked about masochism being sadism turned in upon itself; from being active to passive.
Most of the psychoanalytic explanations refer back to the original idea that paraphilias serve to ward off castration anxiety and this explanation would explain why most individuals who derive sexual gratification from paraphilias are men. While psychoanalysis does not have anything specific to say about crush paraphilias it would recognize the relationship of crush paraphilias to humiliation. As Susan Creede, a police investigator with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office, testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary in 1999, (Creede, 1999), crush videos primarily appeal to men and are of most interest when the person doing the crushing is a woman. Men with this type of masochistic fantasy have, through personal life experience, linked their sexual gratification with personal humiliation. Exhibitionism is an example of this process. Personal humiliation causes an unacceptable amount of pain and risk, so these individuals resort to watching the torture of animals, imagining what it would be like if they were the animal being tortured and/or squashed by a controlling, domineering, over-bearing female partner. The ultimate sexual release occurs with death, but the benefit of killing an animal is that the crush practitioners can return the next day for another opportunity to fulfill their sexual needs.
Other explanations of the causes of paraphilias typically involve the association of pleasure with varying stimuli during childhood. These associations are reinforced and the person learns to experience sexual pleasure from the stimuli when they are older. This conditioning model has been verified in a series of studies done in the 1960s and 1970s (Marquis, 1970; Quinn, Harbison, & McAllister, 1970; Rachman, S., 1966, 1968). These researchers were interested in whether or not normal males could be conditioned to acquire a fetish. In one experiment, males were shown pictures of nude women while simultaneously viewing pictures of fur-lined boots. Penile plethysmography was used to measure the presence of arousal. After repeatedly seeing nude women with pictures of a variety of footwear, the men began to be aroused at the sight of the footwear alone. With regard to crush videos this type of association may be seen in the foot that is doing the stomping. The act of stomping found in many crush videos typically features women’s feet or shoes doing the stomping. The association of the foot with sexual pleasure may have pre-existed the sadomasochistic response to crushing animals, or the foot may have became eroticized by association with the abnormal sexual response to scenes of animal torture and killing. Both explanations are possible.(2)
The greater capacity for paraphilias in human males may be a byproduct of the successful evolutionary strategy whereby human females remain fertile throughout the year instead of seasonally like most primates. For fertility in females to be useful, males also need a correspondingly greater interest in sex, i.e. a stronger sex drive. This obviously had survival value for our primate ancestors. However, access to primate females exists in the context of a male dominance hierarchy that may not allow all males easy sexual access to females. Therefore human males, like other primates, may have evolved the behavioral capacity to find substitute sexual outlets (Wilson, 1987).
Treatment
Typically, people who have a paraphilia do not seek treatment unless the paraphilia has resulted in legal consequences. Treatment modalities include psychodynamic psychotherapy, behavior therapies, cognitive behavioral treatment, pharmacological treatment, and relapse prevention. Paraphilias, especially the more egregious types such as pedophilia, are notoriously difficult, but not impossible, to treat with high rates of relapse (Marvasti, 2004; McKay, Abramowitz, & Taylor, 2009; Nathan & Gorman, 2002; Rowland & Incrocci, 2008). One of the problems with successfully treating individuals with paraphilias is that they have a high rate of co-morbid mental disorders (Leue, 2004). Treatment combining different modalities is thought to be more effective than single modality treatment (Guay, 2009). Given the rather more primitive nature of the crush paraphilia and its high level of social unacceptability, it is likely that most individuals involved with crush paraphilias will not seek treatment or even be willing to acknowledge that they engage in this activity. These characteristics would indicate that there would be a strong commercial market for crush videos that can be watched in secret.
Conclusion
An important implication supported by all of these theories of the origins of paraphilias is that humans have the capacity to develop paraphilias in a wide variety of ways. A basic drive, such as sexual gratification, can be conditioned to occur while feeling humiliated or hurt. Adults, especially adult males, who have been so taught may also realize that subjecting others to pain is dangerous and socially reprehensible, so animals become the “safe” objects who, when tortured, give these men sexual gratification. Men who are unwilling to torture and kill the animals, or who want to hide their crush activities from society and others close to them, can obtain similar gratification by watching crush videos.
Certain human males have the capacity to learn to become sexually aroused by watching crush videos. In these videos the torture and killing of animals becomes associated with something males normally find sexually arousing, such as a beautiful woman. The treatment prognosis for those involved in crush videos is very poor. Treatment is not likely to prevent the acquisition of a crush paraphilia, curb the current practice of this paraphilia, or prevent a relapse. Given the above characteristics associated with crush paraphilias, I believe that a prohibition on the sale of crush videos is one of the few ways in which the practice and enjoyment of crush paraphilias can be reduced.
Footnotes:
1. It should be noted that there is a well-established relationship between animal sadism and violent crime (Stone, 2007) and some studies suggest there is a mental association between animal sadism and severe abuse in childhood. Taken together, this points to animal sadism as an important warning sign of violent crime.
2. Paraphilias can also be seen in primates, though not to the elaborate extent as in humans (Wilson, 1987). Epstein describes a chimpanzee that developed a foot fetish with a rubber boot. It is unknown how the fetish developed but the author speculates that the boot either became associated with the pleasure and food given by the caretaker or that the shiny color of the boot reminded the chimp of the genital display of a female chimp in heat (Epstein, 1987). As a recent youtube.com video graphically demonstrates, chimpanzees are quite capable of using different species of animals as a paraphilia (Chimp Rapes a Frog, 2010).
References:
Association, A. P., & DSM-IV, A. P. A. T. F. O. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of
mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR. American Psychiatric Pub.
Beetz, A. (2004). Bestiality/Zoophilia: A Scarcely Investigated Phenomenon Between Crime,
Paraphilia, and Love. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 4(2), 1-36. doi:10.1300/J158v04n02_01
Binet, A. (2001). Le Fétichisme dans l'amour. Payot.
Blumstein, Philip W, & Schwartz, Pepper. (1993). Bisexuality: Some social psychological issues.
In Psychological perspectives on lesbian and gay male experiences. Garnets, Linda D.
(Ed.); Kimmel, Douglas C. (Ed.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Butcher, N. (2004). The Strange Case of the Walking Corpse: A Chronicle of Medical Mysteries,
Curious Remedies,and Bizarre but True Healing Folklore (1st ed.). Avery Trade.
Chimp Rapes a Frog. (2010). Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVE60zwXx1k&feature=youtube_gdata
Creede, S. (1999). Testimony on 'Crush Videos'. Washington, DC.
Epstein, A. (1987). The phylogenetics of fetishism. In Variant sexuality: Research and theory.
Wilson, Glenn D. (Ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press.
Freud, S. (2001). The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: "The Future of an
Illusion", "Civilization and Its Discontents" and Other Works v.21: "The Future of an Illusion and Civilization and Its Discontents" and Other Works Vol 21 (New edition.). Vintage.
Guay, D. R. (2009). Drug treatment of paraphilic and nonparaphilic sexual disorders. Clinical Therapeutics, 31(1), 1-31. doi:10.1016/j.clinthera.2009.01.009
Krafft-Ebing, R. (1922). Psychopathia sexualis, with especial reference to the antipathic sexual instinct: a medico-forensic study. Medical art agency.
Leue, A. (2004). Mental disorders in a forensic sample of sexual offenders. European Psychiatry,
19(3), 123-130. doi:10.1016/j.eurpsy.2003.08.001
Marquis, J. N. (1970). Orgasmic reconditioning: Changing sexual object choice through
controlling masturbation fantasies. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental
Psychiatry, 1(4), 263-271. doi:10.1016/0005-7916(70)90050-9
Marvasti, J. A. (2004). Psychiatric treatment of sexual offenders: treating the past traumas in
traumatizers : a bio-psycho-social perspective. Charles C. Thomas.
McKay, D., Abramowitz, J. S., & Taylor, S. (2009). Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Refractory
Cases: Turning Failure Into Success. American Psychological Association.
Nathan, P. E., & Gorman, J. M. (2002). A guide to treatments that work. Oxford University
Press US.
O'Halloran, R., & Dietz, P. (1993). Autoerotic fatalities with power hydraulics. ournal of
Forensic Sciences, 38(2), 359-364.
Quinn, J. T., Harbison, J. J. M., & McAllister, H. (1970). An attempt to shape human penile
responses. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 8(2), 213-216. doi:10.1016/0005-
7967(70)90095-1
Rachman, S., (1966). Sexual fetishism: An experimental analogue. The Psychological Record,
16(3), 293-296.
Rachman, S., (1968). Experimentally-induced 'sexual fetishism': replication and development.
The Psychological Record, 18(1), 25-27.
Reischel, J. (2006, April 20). Crush me, Kill me. New Times. Broward/Palm Beach. Retrieved
from http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/content/printVersion/140621/
Rowland, D. L., & Incrocci, L. (2008). Handbook of sexual and gender identity disorders. John Wiley and Sons.
Saretsky, T. (1976). Masochism and Ego Identity in Borderline States. Contemp. Psychoanal.,
12, 433-445.
Semple, K. (2009, June 14). Bartender, Make It a Stiletto. The New York Times. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/fashion/14carpet.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2
Shiwach, R., & Prosser, J. (1998). Treatment of an unusual case of masochism. Journal of Sex &
Marital Therapy, 24(4), 303-307. doi:10.1080/00926239808403965
Stone, M. H. (2007). Violent crimes and their relationship to personality disorders. Personality
and Mental Health, 1(2), 138-153. doi:10.1002/pmh.18
Williams, C., & Weinberg, M. (2003). Zoophilia in men: A study of sexual interest in animals.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32(6), 523-535.
Wilson, G. D. (1987). An ethological approach to sexual deviation. Source: Variant sexuality:
Research and theory.
Wilson, Glenn D. (Ed.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Written Testimony of Kevin Volkan, Chair & Professor of Psychology, California State University Channel Islands, Camarillo, CA
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, for inviting me here today to testify. My name is Dr. Kevin Volkan. I am Chair and Professor of the Psychology Program at California State University Channel Islands, where I teach courses on atypical psychopathology and culture-bound syndromes. I was formerly a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and I have training in both clinical psychology and public health. I also author a blog titled “Bizarre Behaviors and Culture-bound Syndromes” with my colleague Dr. Neil Rocklin, who lectures in my department and who has been in private practice for the last 35 years. Dr. Rocklin co-authored this written testimony.
My testimony today will focus on explaining the sexual nature of “crush” paraphilias, and describing how crush videos are sexual in nature and that those who watch crush videos do so to obtain sexual gratification. I will also explain the nature of this paraphilia from a variety of theoretical viewpoints.
Paraphilias are sexual disorders that involve recurrent and intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges or behaviors related to non-human objects, non-consenting persons or children, and the suffering and/or humiliation of oneself or a partner. Generally, to be considered pathology, a paraphilia should result in clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning (Association & DSM-IV, 2000). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Association & DSM-IV, 2000) lists the following specific paraphilias that we believe are related to crush videos: fetishes, sexual sadism, and sexual masochism. In my professional opinion, the crush paraphilia and crush videos contain elements of these specific forms of paraphilia in varying degrees and I believe that the crush paraphilia and crush videos are clearly sexual in nature.
Fetishes
A “fetish” is a strong recurrent sexual attraction to a non-living object. The most common fetish objects are clothing such as underwear, shoes and boots. With regard to the crush paraphilia, the fetish aspect is likely most related to the object that is doing the crushing–most often a foot or shoe. Crushing objects can vary and may include objects such as the buttocks or even a car. In fact one of the most notable crush fetishists who enjoyed the crushing of live animals, Bryan Loudermilk, was himself crushed to death by a vehicle in a scenario where he voluntary had a car driven on to his abdomen. (Reischel, 2006). Simply put, the crush paraphilia can be thought of as an extreme version of a “foot fetish” where the individuals with the paraphilia derive sexual pleasure from watching the object of their desire crush a living creature to death.
Sexual Sadism
The desire to see animals crushed to death by the fetish object (foot or shoe) may be explained in terms of sexual sadism and masochism. Sexual sadism is where sexual gratification is achieved through the fantasy of harming a partner or as a consequence of directly subjecting the partner to pain and humiliation. Typically, sexual sadism involves a human partner. In the case of crush paraphilias the partner is an animal. The animals used for sadistic purposes range from insects to larger mammals such as dogs. Many crush videos use small mammals such as mice, rats, puppies and kittens but regardless of the “victim,” the cause and purpose of the action appear to be the same. (1)
Sexual Masochism
This is the feeling of sexual arousal or excitement resulting from receiving pain, suffering, or humiliation. The pain, suffering, or humiliation is real and not imagined and can be physical or psychological in nature. Many who are involved in crush paraphilias take sexual pleasure in being crushed, squashed, or being put under pressure. Masochists often suffer from personality disorders in which they are only able to experience feelings in the context of situations where they are hurt or in pain. These people need to surrender their needs and identity and experience extremely disturbing things to feel that they exist and to feel pleasure (Saretsky, 1976). Masochism in which a person receives sexual gratification from being crushed has been reported in academic literature, but such reports are uncommon (Shiwach & Prosser, 1998), perhaps due to a paucity of reporting of such cases. There are also reports of autoerotic asphyxiation due to chest compression, which may involve a masochistic component (O'Halloran, R., & Dietz, P., 1993). In terms of the crush paraphilia, it is possible that masochists identify with the animals being tortured and killed, actually seeing themselves as the animal being crushed, and these individuals obtain sexual gratification through this identification.
Discussion of Crush Paraphilias
Paraphilias and fetishes (which are often not well-differentiated in the psychological literature) have been described as far back as the turn of the last century as the association of something pleasurable (usually sexual) with some object other than a whole human. These early writers also noted the association of sexual gratification with pain (Binet, 2001; Krafft-Ebing, 1922). Freud associated fetishes with the fear produced by the castration anxiety of the Oedipal complex. In this conception using the fetish object for sexual gratification was safe (Freud, 1961/2001).
Sexual sadism is thought by Freudians to be a defense against the anxiety produced by an aggressor. The sexual sadist identifies with this aggressor which reduces the sadist’s anxiety. Masochism on the other hand represents pain that has become associated with pleasure. This also has a defensive characteristic in that by accepting the pain that is given the individual may avoid worse pain. Freud also talked about masochism being sadism turned in upon itself; from being active to passive.
Most of the psychoanalytic explanations refer back to the original idea that paraphilias serve to ward off castration anxiety and this explanation would explain why most individuals who derive sexual gratification from paraphilias are men. While psychoanalysis does not have anything specific to say about crush paraphilias it would recognize the relationship of crush paraphilias to humiliation. As Susan Creede, a police investigator with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office, testified before the House Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary in 1999, (Creede, 1999), crush videos primarily appeal to men and are of most interest when the person doing the crushing is a woman. Men with this type of masochistic fantasy have, through personal life experience, linked their sexual gratification with personal humiliation. Exhibitionism is an example of this process. Personal humiliation causes an unacceptable amount of pain and risk, so these individuals resort to watching the torture of animals, imagining what it would be like if they were the animal being tortured and/or squashed by a controlling, domineering, over-bearing female partner. The ultimate sexual release occurs with death, but the benefit of killing an animal is that the crush practitioners can return the next day for another opportunity to fulfill their sexual needs.
Other explanations of the causes of paraphilias typically involve the association of pleasure with varying stimuli during childhood. These associations are reinforced and the person learns to experience sexual pleasure from the stimuli when they are older. This conditioning model has been verified in a series of studies done in the 1960s and 1970s (Marquis, 1970; Quinn, Harbison, & McAllister, 1970; Rachman, S., 1966, 1968). These researchers were interested in whether or not normal males could be conditioned to acquire a fetish. In one experiment, males were shown pictures of nude women while simultaneously viewing pictures of fur-lined boots. Penile plethysmography was used to measure the presence of arousal. After repeatedly seeing nude women with pictures of a variety of footwear, the men began to be aroused at the sight of the footwear alone. With regard to crush videos this type of association may be seen in the foot that is doing the stomping. The act of stomping found in many crush videos typically features women’s feet or shoes doing the stomping. The association of the foot with sexual pleasure may have pre-existed the sadomasochistic response to crushing animals, or the foot may have became eroticized by association with the abnormal sexual response to scenes of animal torture and killing. Both explanations are possible.(2)
The greater capacity for paraphilias in human males may be a byproduct of the successful evolutionary strategy whereby human females remain fertile throughout the year instead of seasonally like most primates. For fertility in females to be useful, males also need a correspondingly greater interest in sex, i.e. a stronger sex drive. This obviously had survival value for our primate ancestors. However, access to primate females exists in the context of a male dominance hierarchy that may not allow all males easy sexual access to females. Therefore human males, like other primates, may have evolved the behavioral capacity to find substitute sexual outlets (Wilson, 1987).
Treatment
Typically, people who have a paraphilia do not seek treatment unless the paraphilia has resulted in legal consequences. Treatment modalities include psychodynamic psychotherapy, behavior therapies, cognitive behavioral treatment, pharmacological treatment, and relapse prevention. Paraphilias, especially the more egregious types such as pedophilia, are notoriously difficult, but not impossible, to treat with high rates of relapse (Marvasti, 2004; McKay, Abramowitz, & Taylor, 2009; Nathan & Gorman, 2002; Rowland & Incrocci, 2008). One of the problems with successfully treating individuals with paraphilias is that they have a high rate of co-morbid mental disorders (Leue, 2004). Treatment combining different modalities is thought to be more effective than single modality treatment (Guay, 2009). Given the rather more primitive nature of the crush paraphilia and its high level of social unacceptability, it is likely that most individuals involved with crush paraphilias will not seek treatment or even be willing to acknowledge that they engage in this activity. These characteristics would indicate that there would be a strong commercial market for crush videos that can be watched in secret.
Conclusion
An important implication supported by all of these theories of the origins of paraphilias is that humans have the capacity to develop paraphilias in a wide variety of ways. A basic drive, such as sexual gratification, can be conditioned to occur while feeling humiliated or hurt. Adults, especially adult males, who have been so taught may also realize that subjecting others to pain is dangerous and socially reprehensible, so animals become the “safe” objects who, when tortured, give these men sexual gratification. Men who are unwilling to torture and kill the animals, or who want to hide their crush activities from society and others close to them, can obtain similar gratification by watching crush videos.
Certain human males have the capacity to learn to become sexually aroused by watching crush videos. In these videos the torture and killing of animals becomes associated with something males normally find sexually arousing, such as a beautiful woman. The treatment prognosis for those involved in crush videos is very poor. Treatment is not likely to prevent the acquisition of a crush paraphilia, curb the current practice of this paraphilia, or prevent a relapse. Given the above characteristics associated with crush paraphilias, I believe that a prohibition on the sale of crush videos is one of the few ways in which the practice and enjoyment of crush paraphilias can be reduced.
Footnotes:
1. It should be noted that there is a well-established relationship between animal sadism and violent crime (Stone, 2007) and some studies suggest there is a mental association between animal sadism and severe abuse in childhood. Taken together, this points to animal sadism as an important warning sign of violent crime.
2. Paraphilias can also be seen in primates, though not to the elaborate extent as in humans (Wilson, 1987). Epstein describes a chimpanzee that developed a foot fetish with a rubber boot. It is unknown how the fetish developed but the author speculates that the boot either became associated with the pleasure and food given by the caretaker or that the shiny color of the boot reminded the chimp of the genital display of a female chimp in heat (Epstein, 1987). As a recent youtube.com video graphically demonstrates, chimpanzees are quite capable of using different species of animals as a paraphilia (Chimp Rapes a Frog, 2010).
References:
Association, A. P., & DSM-IV, A. P. A. T. F. O. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of
mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR. American Psychiatric Pub.
Beetz, A. (2004). Bestiality/Zoophilia: A Scarcely Investigated Phenomenon Between Crime,
Paraphilia, and Love. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 4(2), 1-36. doi:10.1300/J158v04n02_01
Binet, A. (2001). Le Fétichisme dans l'amour. Payot.
Blumstein, Philip W, & Schwartz, Pepper. (1993). Bisexuality: Some social psychological issues.
In Psychological perspectives on lesbian and gay male experiences. Garnets, Linda D.
(Ed.); Kimmel, Douglas C. (Ed.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Butcher, N. (2004). The Strange Case of the Walking Corpse: A Chronicle of Medical Mysteries,
Curious Remedies,and Bizarre but True Healing Folklore (1st ed.). Avery Trade.
Chimp Rapes a Frog. (2010). Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVE60zwXx1k&feature=youtube_gdata
Creede, S. (1999). Testimony on 'Crush Videos'. Washington, DC.
Epstein, A. (1987). The phylogenetics of fetishism. In Variant sexuality: Research and theory.
Wilson, Glenn D. (Ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press.
Freud, S. (2001). The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: "The Future of an
Illusion", "Civilization and Its Discontents" and Other Works v.21: "The Future of an Illusion and Civilization and Its Discontents" and Other Works Vol 21 (New edition.). Vintage.
Guay, D. R. (2009). Drug treatment of paraphilic and nonparaphilic sexual disorders. Clinical Therapeutics, 31(1), 1-31. doi:10.1016/j.clinthera.2009.01.009
Krafft-Ebing, R. (1922). Psychopathia sexualis, with especial reference to the antipathic sexual instinct: a medico-forensic study. Medical art agency.
Leue, A. (2004). Mental disorders in a forensic sample of sexual offenders. European Psychiatry,
19(3), 123-130. doi:10.1016/j.eurpsy.2003.08.001
Marquis, J. N. (1970). Orgasmic reconditioning: Changing sexual object choice through
controlling masturbation fantasies. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental
Psychiatry, 1(4), 263-271. doi:10.1016/0005-7916(70)90050-9
Marvasti, J. A. (2004). Psychiatric treatment of sexual offenders: treating the past traumas in
traumatizers : a bio-psycho-social perspective. Charles C. Thomas.
McKay, D., Abramowitz, J. S., & Taylor, S. (2009). Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Refractory
Cases: Turning Failure Into Success. American Psychological Association.
Nathan, P. E., & Gorman, J. M. (2002). A guide to treatments that work. Oxford University
Press US.
O'Halloran, R., & Dietz, P. (1993). Autoerotic fatalities with power hydraulics. ournal of
Forensic Sciences, 38(2), 359-364.
Quinn, J. T., Harbison, J. J. M., & McAllister, H. (1970). An attempt to shape human penile
responses. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 8(2), 213-216. doi:10.1016/0005-
7967(70)90095-1
Rachman, S., (1966). Sexual fetishism: An experimental analogue. The Psychological Record,
16(3), 293-296.
Rachman, S., (1968). Experimentally-induced 'sexual fetishism': replication and development.
The Psychological Record, 18(1), 25-27.
Reischel, J. (2006, April 20). Crush me, Kill me. New Times. Broward/Palm Beach. Retrieved
from http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/content/printVersion/140621/
Rowland, D. L., & Incrocci, L. (2008). Handbook of sexual and gender identity disorders. John Wiley and Sons.
Saretsky, T. (1976). Masochism and Ego Identity in Borderline States. Contemp. Psychoanal.,
12, 433-445.
Semple, K. (2009, June 14). Bartender, Make It a Stiletto. The New York Times. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/fashion/14carpet.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2
Shiwach, R., & Prosser, J. (1998). Treatment of an unusual case of masochism. Journal of Sex &
Marital Therapy, 24(4), 303-307. doi:10.1080/00926239808403965
Stone, M. H. (2007). Violent crimes and their relationship to personality disorders. Personality
and Mental Health, 1(2), 138-153. doi:10.1002/pmh.18
Williams, C., & Weinberg, M. (2003). Zoophilia in men: A study of sexual interest in animals.
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Research and theory.
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Friday, September 10, 2010
Aliens Visit France?
Well, not now but hopefully. At Ares, near Bourdeau, there is a rest stop for aliens. http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/french-ufo-landing-pads-first-visitor-not-et/1962698
A plaque proclaims, "Reserved for voyagers of the universe." In Newfoundland, earlier this year, there were UFO reports and in 2005, an elementary school teacher in Puerto Rico, who claimed to be in communication with extraterrestrials, announced his intention to build a UFO runway http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2005-09-28-alien-runway_x.htm.
So maybe http://www.bizarrebehaviors.com/ will have to no longer include articles about aliens (Sept. 2009 and Sept. 2010) because alien believers like physicist Stephen Hawking, past presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, Apollo 11 astronaut Edgar Mitchell and 14% of Americans http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21528787/page/22/
make belief in aliens mainstream?
A plaque proclaims, "Reserved for voyagers of the universe." In Newfoundland, earlier this year, there were UFO reports and in 2005, an elementary school teacher in Puerto Rico, who claimed to be in communication with extraterrestrials, announced his intention to build a UFO runway http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2005-09-28-alien-runway_x.htm.
So maybe http://www.bizarrebehaviors.com/ will have to no longer include articles about aliens (Sept. 2009 and Sept. 2010) because alien believers like physicist Stephen Hawking, past presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, Apollo 11 astronaut Edgar Mitchell and 14% of Americans http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21528787/page/22/
make belief in aliens mainstream?
Friday, September 3, 2010
Hawking says watch out for aliens
Stephen Hawking warns that if we go looking for aliens, we could end up like the Native Americans after they were discovered by Christopher Columbus.
Professor Hawking said: 'We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.
'I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet.
'Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.'
It would be 'too risky' to attempt to make contact with alien races, he concluded.
'If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.'
Go to our post in November of 2009 and read more and read more at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1308278/Stephen-Hawking-God-did-create-Universe.html#ixzz0yW9Sm9F2
Professor Hawking said: 'We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.
'I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet.
'Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.'
It would be 'too risky' to attempt to make contact with alien races, he concluded.
'If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.'
Go to our post in November of 2009 and read more and read more at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1308278/Stephen-Hawking-God-did-create-Universe.html#ixzz0yW9Sm9F2
Whale Wars: A Somewhat Psychoanalytic Review
In Whale Wars we learn very little about the Japanese whalers and it would be interesting to hear the reasons they hunt whales. In the show they remain a mysterious 'other', a dark and often out of focus foil for our unconscious projections. The Japanese are portrayed as an evil enemy; the murderers of intelligent, majestic, peaceful, and utterly helpless whales. Not since Allied propaganda films of WWII have we seen such a negative and a one-sided depiction of the Japanese. Unfortunately for them this makes for good television.
Still, the Japanese seem to have it in for sea mammals such as whales and dolphins. This has made for some great parody such as the episode of the animated series Southpark where whales and dolphins are shown to have been responsible for the atomic bombing of Japan**. Even though these cetaceans are traditional menu items at some Japanese restaurants, most modern Japanese do not eat them. Whaling is a small industry, hardly worth the ruin of the international reputation of a progressive modern country. As one article indicates, much of the whale meat intended to be sold as a delicacy for humans ends up as cheap school lunches and dog food.
Japanese traditions are vanishing and perhaps this compels them to passionately retain to those few traditions they have left. To be sure, there is money to be made by whaling, but not much. Due in large part, to the activities of the Sea Shepherds, the Japanese only took about half their quota of whales (around 500) this season. Supposedly they need to kill 700 whales to break even. The expense of hunting whales has also increased (again in part because of the interference of the Sea Shepherds). It supposedly costs $2.5 million just to fuel the whaling ships for the hunting season. (For a more detailed examination of why the Japanese support whaling see Hirata, 2005).
Not much has been written specifically about whales from a psychodynamic point of view. However, it is possible to extrapolate from the symbolic meaning of other sea creatures. In psychoanalytic theory the ocean can represent the unconscious mind; a vast repository of images and feelings that are unacceptable to the conscious. Within the unconscious, animals can be symbolic images of our deepest fears and anxieties (Akhtar & Volkan, 2004).
Sea creatures often appear in dreams and myths as dreaded monsters or as peaceful mermaids. In these guises these sea creatures represent mother or father, both as gentle and loving like the manatee, or as angry and devouring like the shark. Yet both types of parental images threaten to envelope and swallow us whole, submerging our identity into theirs, our conscious drowned into the ocean of the infinite unconscious. We are either devoured by the monsters from the deep or taken back into the uroboric womb. In either case we cease being individuated humans, returning instead to a helpless, undifferentiated state.
An example of the devouring mother would be the Kraken. This creature is a giant squid that rises from the depths, enveloping ships in its tentacles, and dragging them down into the sea. The Kraken is decidedly female in shape. It reminds us of female genitalia - the vagina dentata, only with a sharp castrating beak. Sailors feared the Kraken and wove stories of it, perhaps based on sightings of real giant squid that would sometimes be seen dead on the surface of the ocean (in life these creatures dwell exclusively in the depths). Psychoanalytically speaking, the Kraken is the image of the internalized bad parent (or object), the frustrating, angry, devouring, all-powerful mother of our infancy.
This gentle devouring also relates to the journey of the hero. In the biblical story of Jonah, the whale is a creature of God, who consumes Jonah to protect him. Being consumed in this way is akin to dying in order to be reborn. As the Bible says "... just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights." (Matthew 12:40, King James Version). By being devoured and then spit out again into the world we become fully individuated and changed for the better. The belly of the whale is the crucible for our enlightenment.
The popular conception, therefore, of whales is as a kind, life-giving, mother whose love transforms us and the television show does nothing to dissuade the viewer of this idea. Whale Wars typically shows whales and other cetaceans as peaceful creatures, living in pods and playing together in families. When the Sea Shepherds come across them they experience a few moments of blissful satori. (The hostile, aggressive side of whales was not shown until near the end of the 2010 season when the Sea Shepherds witness a pod of Orcas ambushing a Sea Lion. Cetaceans, like many intelligent, social, creatures have a dark side to their nature. Orcas, or Killer Whales, have been known to devour seals and porpoises for fun, while male Bottlenose Dolphins have been observed gang raping females of their species - c.f. Ford, Ellis, & Balcomb, 2000; Conner, Wells, Mann, & Read, 2000; Mann, 2006).
Nevertheless, the whale is an androgynous symbol, also having a phallic meaning. This is a state of male innocence and freedom that precedes the Oedipal conflict. While we might long to return to the womb, we also desire the state of relative freedom when our genitals were a source of pleasure without guilt. The whales represent this, and the irony of so many Sea Shepard men in the thralls of Oedipal strife on the Antarctic seas does not go unnoticed. One gets the sense that while these guys are in the midst of their Oedipal struggles they would sometimes like to give up and return to a more blissful pre-conflictual psychic existence. Of course they can't do this and so instead idolize the whale as representative of this state while continuing to act out their Oedipal dramas.
On the 2010 season of Whale Wars one of the most interesting of these dramas involved the Ady Gil, a futuristic hi-tech black trimaran (imagine Batman's penis). The crew of the Ady Gil, led by Captain Pete Bethune, shave their heads before embarking on the ship, looking like human-sized homunculi. They challenge the Japanese whaling fleet with a phallic arsenal of air-powered spud guns and bottles of butyric acid (the same chemical that gives rancid butter its intense smell) and bows and arrows. Like an enraged father, the Japanese ship the Shonan Maru 2 responds, as might be expected, by ramming the Ady Gil, cutting the ship in two and essentially castrating it. The desire for the whale-mother has led to the greatest fear of these 'little boys', the loss of the penis. The traumatized crew of the Ady Gil deal with this in their own ways. One crew member challenges the less imposing father figure of Chuck Swift, Captain of the Bob Barker (the other new Sea Shepherd ship), while Pete Bethune devises a number of methods of gaining revenge which include a flaming high powered cutting torch that almost starts the Bob Barker on fire. After considering many (somewhat hair-brained) schemes Bethune eventually takes a jetski over to the Shonan Maru in the dark, jumps aboard, penetrates the ship's defenses (literally using a knife), and confronts the crew. He is arrested and taken back to Japan to stand trial***.
Given the repetitive nature of the Oedipal drama on Whale Wars, it is not surprising that we do not see other approaches to reducing the slaughter of whales. For instance, no one on the Sea Shepherds seems to have any expertise in whale behavior. A rather obvious thought I had while watching recently was that the Sea Shepherds should teach the whales to be afraid of humans. The ship often comes across whales and dolphins that frolic nearby while the Sea Shepherds watch them in a state of near bliss. I might suggest to Captain Watson that he include some whale behavioral experts (biologist/ethologist/psychologist) on-board (they could even be women!) and the Sea Shepherds stage a campaign to teach whales to be frightened of humans and their ships.
While watching the episode where the Ady Gil is rammed I got caught up in the drama of the crew (helpless little boys) frustrated to impotent anger by the Shonan Maru 2 (all powerful father). My thought (maybe it was counter-transference?) was why did they spend three million dollars on the Ady Gil? For much less money, the Sea Shepherds could have bought a World War II era submarine. These submarines are very fast on the surface of the water and would easily be able to keep up with the Japanese whaling fleet. Add in the stealth capabilities of being able to travel under water, the prop fouling possibilities (one of the Sea Shepherds favorite methods of stopping the Japanese ships), the safety of being able to submerge when a ship tries to run you down, and of course, the pure visual (phallic) potency of being confronted by a submarine and this really starts to seem like a good idea - at least in my fantasy! It would certainly be interesting to watch on television.It is hard not to root for the Sea Shepherds. And even though I don't think the Japanese are evil, I find myself wishing they wouldn't kill whales. For all their psychological conflicts, the Sea Shepherds are actively standing up for something they deeply believe in. They are willing to walk the walk and put themselves in harm's way to save whales. For this they have my support and respect. The television show documents the efforts of the Sea Shepherds in a brilliant and compelling way. It is well worth watching, both to see the ships in action and for the human drama.
*Someone at Animal Planet must have noticed this because the Sea Shepherd women are more prominently featured in the 3rd season of the show. Still, the women generally are supporting characters while the men are prominently featured.
**This episode also mercilessly makes fun of the Sea Shepherds as well.
***After five months in Japanese prison Bethune was convicted of crime of trespassing, vandalism, carrying a knife, obstructing commercial activities, and assault. He received a two year suspended sentence, was banned from Japan for five years, and promptly deported back to New Zealand where he is a citizen.
References:
Akhtar, S., & Volkan, V. D. (2004). Mental Zoo: Animals in the Human Mind and Its Pathology. International Universities Press.
Angier, N. (2009, November 10). Pigs Prove to Be Smart, if Not Vain. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10angier.html
Connor, R.; Wells, R.; Mann, J.; Read, A. (2000). "The Bottlenose Dolphin". in Mann, J.; Connor, R.; Tyack, P.; Whitehead, H.. Cetacean Societies. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. pp. 102.
Ford, John K.B.; Ellis, Graeme M.; Balcomb, Kenneth C. (2000). Killer Whales, Second Edition. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Hirata, K. (2005). Why Japan supports whaling. Journal of international Wildlife Law & Policy, 8, p. 129-149.
Japan's Whaling Fleet Returns Home in Shame - Activists 'paralyzed' their activities for 31 days - Softpedia. (n.d.). Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://news.softpedia.com/news/Japan-s-Whaling-Fleet-Returns-Home-in-Shame-139724.shtml
Mann, J. (2006). Establishing Trust: Sociosexual behaviour and the development of male-male bonds among Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphin calves. In P. Vasey and V. Sommer (Eds.) Homosexual Behaviour in Animals: An Evolutionary Perspective. Cambridge University Press
Morisaka, T. (2007). Current cognitive studies on cetaceans. Japanese Journal of Animal Psychology, 57(1), 41-51.
Oosedo, H. (n.d.). Whale meat used for dog food | The Australian. Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/whale-meat-used-for-dog-food/story-e6frg6t6-1111115171833
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'South Park' Takes On Japanese Dolphin Slaughter (VIDEO). (n.d.). . Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/south-park-takes-on-japan_n_335175.html?view=print
Simmonds, M. P. (2006). Into the brains of whales. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 100(1-2), 103-116.
The Institute of Cetacean Research. (n.d.). . Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://www.icrwhale.org/eng-index.htm
Whale Wars : Animal Planet. (n.d.). . Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://animal.discovery.com/tv/whale-wars/
Zeroing in on Whale Culture: Language is the Key. (n.d.). Retrieved August 19, 2010, from http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/06/whale-voices-the-key-to-their-culture-scientists-are-starting-to-consider-the-notion-that-whales-might-have-a-pretty-cool-cul.html
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