Zoosadism

Ernest Bornemann coined the term zoosadism for those who like to inflict pain on an animal. Some extreme examples of zoosadism include necrozoophilia, the sexual enjoyment of killing animals, similar to "lust murder" in humans, sexual penetration of fowl such as hens (fatal in itself) and strangling at orgasm, mutilation, sexual assault with objects (including screwdrivers and knives), interspecies rape, and sexual assault on young animals such as puppies, equivalent to human paedophilia.

Certainly some horse-ripping incidences have a sexual connotation (Schedel-Stupperich, 2001). The link between sadistic sexual acts with animals and sadistic practices with humans or lust murders has been heavily researched. Some murderers tortured animals in their childhood and also sexual relations with animals occurred. Ressler et al. (1986) found that 8 of their sample of 36 sexual murderers showed an interest in bestiality.

According to Kidd and Kidd (1987), most of these older research and models rarely took the variety of possible interactions and relations into account, studying the physical acts in isolation. Beetz in her thesis on sex and violence with animals comments that perhaps because of this, "in most [popular] references to bestiality, violence towards the animal is automatically implied. That sexual approaches to animals may not need force or violence but rather, sensitivity, or knowledge of animal behavior, is rarely taken into consideration."