Crush & Fur
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

Patty Shenker, Southern California activist
February 2011

The ugly truth is that crush enthusiasts delight in the actual violence to the poor animals while fur enthusiasts delight in the products of such violence. Not much of a difference in my opinion; both are condoning horrific cruelty.

The making of fur, just like the crushing of animals, should be legally banned and seen for the horrific violence & murder it truly is!

I’ve been thinking lately about furs and the activity called "crush." You see, I don’t think there’s much difference between them but they are seen very differently; one generally accepted in society and the other seen as a gross perversion needing laws to prohibit the viewing of it.

Crush is an activity for people with sexual fetishes in which, usually, a woman in very high heels actually crushes to death a kitten, puppy or bunny by crushing her high heels or bare feet into their little bodies. It is videotaped and sold to the public. It is a very sick, disturbing activity and difficult for most of us to understand. Congress just passed another law prohibiting the creation, sale, distribution, advertising, marketing and exchange of animal crush videos. They had to because, last year, the Supreme Court struck down a law which prohibited crush videos, citing that the law was too broad and could be interpreted to include hunting videos. Some of the judges, being hunters themselves, couldn’t allow that! So a new law, excluding hunting, has been written and passed into law and that is a good thing.

So you get the picture of the illegal crush industry- horrific cruelty for sexual perversion.

Now let’s look at fur- a multi-billion dollar industry, supported by many of the top fashion designers and celebrities but luckily, shunned by many others of the same. Over 50 million animals are killed annually for fur and the fur comes from many animals- chinchillas, foxes, minks, ferrets, wolves, bobcats, muskrats, coyotes, lynx, beavers, raccoons, lambs and their newborns or fetuses, rabbits and even dogs and cats.

Many of these animals live on factory fur farms, cramped in metal cages where they literally go crazy until they are killed by either anal or vaginal electrocution or skinned alive while others are trapped in the wild and die a slow, painful death before being taken & skinned. Again, horrific cruelty for greed and, I will dare to say, for a sort of sexual perversion as well.

In my opinion, designers like Donna Karan, Georgio Armani, Brooke Shields, Marc Jacobs, Elizabeth & James, Alice & Olivia and Dolce & Gabanna are no different that the high-heeled women who crush these animals to please their “clients” or lovers. They just make some poor laborers do their dirty blood work and pay advertisers to “spin” the horror into a “must-have.” The buyers for stores that sell these designers’ products and the people who buy them are the perverts who get off on the skins of animals, just like the sexual perverts who “get off” on the crushing of animals. The ugly truth is that crush enthusiasts delight in the actual violence to the poor animals while fur enthusiasts delight in the products of such violence. Not much of a difference in my opinion; both are condoning horrific cruelty.

But I have to ask and I think this is the crucial question- why is the filming of sadistic activities more crucial and worthy of laws than the actual acts of violence? Why isn’t Congress passing laws to outlaw the activities of violence to animals and not just the filming of them?

I am grateful for this law concerning crush videos but it’s time for us to get further than outlawing the films of such violent acts. We must also ban the products of it and the acts themselves. It looks like West Hollywood is leading the way in becoming the first fur-free city in America. Israel is about to completely ban furs in their country and I hope other countries follow suit, including ours. The making of fur, just like the crushing of animals, should be legally banned and seen for the horrific violence & murder it truly is!

Go on to Dogs and Cats Abused for Fur: Larry King Live - Transcript
Return to Stop Wearing Fur
Return to Campaigns
Return toAnimal Rights Activism
Return to Animal Rights Articles