Scene opens: Single guinea pig restrained, each leg spread outward and taped to the floor Enter woman, filmed from the knees down, wearing jeans and high-heeled red shoes. "Well little man, I've been waiting for this for quite some time... You are my little victim... That's it, squirm for mistress. Oh, I can take you now I feel your heart beating against my toes." She laughs. "Are you frightened little man, hmm? You know that your destiny is under my heel. Squirm for me ... No, you're mine little man, to torment and torture. " Slowly, she walks around the terrified creature, meticulously stepping on each leg. Unmistakable sounds of bones shattering. Shrieking squeals of agony and terror She painstakingly demolishes each leg, viciously flattens the back, and pierces her victim's head with her sharp stiletto heel. "Oh, how sweet it is to crush his little skull.... Beg. Beg for mercy."

This is the multimillion-dollar business of torturous, pornographic animal cruelty films called "crush" videos, It is estimated that there are as many as 2,000 titles in print to supply the global demand, which reportedly extends to Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Dubai, and throughout Europe. They feature the crushing of insects, mice, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, birds, cats, dogs, and monkeys.

Getsmart productions features the $40 Frog Stomp, a 90-minute video of Vanessa crushing over 100 tree frogs beneath her high-heel sandals." Steponit, another distributor, includes the $100 "Mistress Di, Princess of Death" series, where in one video she crushes mice by sitting on them on a box top with a Plexiglas lid: "There is a mirror under the Plexiglas so you can see both sides of the action." One undercover investigator with the Ventura County, California, district attorney's office, posing as a film participant, was asked to crush a dog. She "was instructed on how to torture a dog on video, step by step" and "to make the crushing incident last ninety minutes before the animal actually died ."

While doing undercover research on the Internet in foot-fetish chat rooms, the investigator discovered that viewers fantasize being crushed to death under a dominating woman's foot. Since in reality this could only happen once, these men are sexually stimulated by imagining that they are being trampled instead of the animals.

District attorneys attempting to prosecute those involved with these films often run into substantial roadblocks. Although the act of stomping an animal to death violates state anti-cruelty statutes, the identifies of the "performers" are often concealed and the date and location of the film's production is often unknown, all of which make prosecution difficult- Tom Connors, deputy district attorney for Ventura County, told a congressional subcommittee that "the ability to prosecute the production of these 'Crush Videos' requires either a policeman or interested citizen stumbling onto the production of one of these videos while it was occurring and making an arrest, an actual participant coming forward with the necessary information [who is] willing to testify about what has happened ... or by the police conducting an undercover operation."

On May 20, to remedy this legislative loophole, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA) introduced H.R. 1887, which would prohibit the creation, sale, or possession of a depiction of animal cruelty with the intention of placing that depiction in interstate or foreign commerce for commercial gain. Convicted violators could be fined and/or imprisoned for not more than five years. The bill defines such cruelty as a visual or auditory depiction "in which a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded, or killed, if such conduct is illegal under Federal law or the law of the State in which the creation, sale, or possession takes place."

Said Gallegly, "In all my years of pushing legislation to protect animals, this is clearly one of the sickest forms of animal cruelty I have ever heard of." The bill passed the House of Representatives on October 19 by an overwhelming vote of 372-42. Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Bob Smith (R-NH) shepherded the bill through the Senate, where it was passed unanimously on November 19.

Bill opponents mistakenly claimed that it would ban hunting videos or Spanish history films showing bullfights, but if hunting or bullfighting is legal, the sale of videos depicting those acts would remain legal. Others asserted that however abhorrent crush videos may be, banning them violates the First Amendment. Actress Loretta Swit, representing Actors and Others for Animals, responded, "Well, if that's true, we would have to extend the same kind of protection to rapists, child molesters, and murderers because they're just expressing themselves." President Clinton signed the bill into law on December 9, calling it a ban on "wanton cruelty to animals designed to appeal to a prurient interest in sex."

An advertisement for Mistress Di includes the teaser, "You will see her face; You will see her body; You will see her kill:'" Now, hopefully, we won't see her or her fiendish friends ever again.

This image of a rat being crushed to death under a woman's shoe was obtained from a web site advertising crush videos

Adam M. Roberts is Research Associate for the Society for Animal Protective Legislation in Washington, D.C.

Copyright Animal Rights Network, Inc. Jan/Feb 2000

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