Animal abuse and sex offending

Many of the chapters in this book focus on adult offenders and child victims, whereas this chapter focuses on animals as victims and on perpetrators who may be adults or children. Animals may be the victims of sexual abuse through:

the sexual assault of an animal by a human who is consenting or forced (sometimes referred to as bestiality or zoophilia);

human sexual activities involving animal abuse (e.g. ‘squish videos’ – pornographic videos involving killing small animals).

There are also a number of other links between animal abuse and sex offending, namely between:

humans sexually abusing animals in childhood and sexually abusing humans in later life;

humans physically abusing animals in childhood and sexually abusing humans in later life;

humans sexually and/or physically abusing animals and humans interchangeably.

As this is a subject that is rarely discussed, ¹ the chapter is mainly concerned with giving an overview of: (1) what we know about the nature and prevalence of the sexual abuse of animals; (2) the evidence of the relationships between animal abuse and sex offending; and (3) the theoretical explanations that have been given for this behaviour. It will also briefly discuss the implications of this knowledge for policy and practice. The chapter will start with defining the key terms used in this field.