Beastly Bodies in Human Hands, Heads, and Hearts: Reflections on Animal Abuse as Dirty Play

Abstract

Growing up in rural Missouri in the 1950s, animals, of wide variety, were our constant companions and sources of amusement. It wasn’ t always pretty. I recall at least one occasion when four or e ve of us kids decided to drop kittens from the top of staked bales in a barn hayloft to see if they would land on their feet. We watched with excited glee as one kitten after another twisted and turned while falling to the e oor below. We assumed that the loose hay on the e oor would uneventfully break their fall, which, luckily for the hapless kittens, it did. Nonetheless, I doubt that the kittens found it as pleasant an experience as we did. That was the least of our childish cruelties toward animals. We captured and cone ned e ree ies in mason jars with perforated lids, constructing our own bioluminescent lanterns that transformed into jars of dead bugs overnight. We squeezed grasshoppers until they spit their “ bacca juice” and pulled off their back legs for reasons I don’ t recall. We shot BBs at just about every living form, including an occasional human, just to see how they would react if hit. We killed frogs with BBs and arrows for the ostensive purpose of obtaining their delectable legs, although the legs of our dead quarry seldom made it to the table. We held down squealing pigs while our fathers methodically castrated them. Such was life on the farm for us kids and our animal companions. By some psychological accounts, as Arluke points out, my childhood friends and I should all now be violent sociopaths. Yet, as far as I know, none of us are. I, for one, am a vegetarian of twenty-e ve years’ standing (although I still exempt seafood from my taboo on e esh eating for reasons I cannot explain to myself or anyone else). I am the companion of cats whose greatest abuse has been a stern verbal command that went largely ignored. I hastily retreat from even a hint of possible interpersonal violence and divert my eyes from violent mayhem on television and movie screens. My most serious crime to date has been driving a car with expired license plates. Perhaps I am an anomaly, but Arluke’ s e ndings suggest otherwise. It seems that the slippery slope of the psychologists’ “ graduation” model of escalating violence up the phylogenetic scale isn’ t all that slippery. Some youthful animal abusers may graduate to brutalizing humans, but many more apparently graduate to remorseful