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Many examples of advocacy for animals is based on the idea expressed in the saying: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian". In contrast, this paper argues that many humans actively enjoy and seek out an example of animal suffering and death. For example, many "local" "free-range" and "D.I.Y. slaughter" farmers write in great detail about how much they enjoy actively killing animals. Likewise, many hunters (including “safari” hunters) self-recorded the pleasure they had in personally killing animals. People who engage in animal fights, such as dog fighting, suggest that watching animal suffering can serve as a source of pleasure for humans who watch these contests for amusement. I, therefore, argue that there is a connection between the “repressive hypothesis” as described by Michel Foucault in his text the History of Sexuality and our current discussion about violence towards animals. Much as Foucault argues in his discussion of sexuality, asserting people derive pleasure in discussing sexual acts they claimed to disdain, I believe that many texts and memories that purportedly condemn acts of violence against animals, in fact, provoke pleasure both in the people writing and in those reading the representations of violence. I argue that academics and activists might be more effective in employing Carol Adams’s idea of the “absent referent”— connecting a dead corpse to a living animal—to help reveal the ethical stakes in humans’ ongoing violence against animals. Vasile Stănescu(Department of Communication Studies & Theatre, Mercer University) Comments are closed.
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