Vinyl-Clad ‘Dominatrix’ Exposes Circuses Use Of Violence Against Animals In Galway

galway | animal rights | event notice Monday June 12, 2006 23:28 by Stephan Wymore - Animal Rights Action Network (ARAN) arancampaigns at eircom dot net ARAN, Po Box 722, Kildare, Ireland 087-6275579

Whips and Chains Belong in the Bedroom, Says ARAN’S ‘Devilish Dom’

For Immediate Release:
June 13, 2006

Contact: John Carmody: 087-6275579; [email protected]

Galway - Provocatively whipping and chaining her willing partner below a banner that reads, "Whips and Chains Belong in the Bedroom, Not in the Circus," ARAN’s sultry vinyl-clad "dominatrix," Venus o Reilly, and her partner, Adrian Mathews, will protest the suffering of animals at the hands of traveling circuses on Wednesday while other people hand out leaflets and one holding a portable DVD player showing the findings of an undercover investigation into Irish circuses. The protest will also highlight the circuses use of whips, chains, and other instruments of torture in order to force animals to perform:

Date: Wednesday, June 14
Time: 12 noon-1 p.m
Place: Eyre Square, beside the water fountain

Why does the circus have ARAN’s lovely dominatrix whipped into a frenzy? ARAN wants people to know that in order to force animals to perform stressful acts, trainers use whips, sticks, and bullhooks with metal tips that are jabbed into elephants’ sensitive skin on their thighs and behind their ears. In their native homelands, the animals would be free to walk and run, choose lifetime companions, and raise their families. Instead, the circus forces them to perform confusing acts night after night for 48 to 50 weeks every year. Between acts, elephants are kept chained up like bicycles or confined to cramped pens, and tigers are stored in cages that are barely even large enough for them to turn around. Recently ARAN helped launched the findings of an undercover investigation into several Irish circuses by Animal Defenders International which exposed the dreadful conditions animals were subjected to, the violence and torment which was regularly used to train and make the animals perform. Most of this cruelty torment and violence is desperately hidden from circus goers who simply do not know this happens.

"It’s one thing for consenting adults to use whips and chains in the privacy of their own homes," says Venus. "But beating animals into performing confusing and painful tricks is nothing short of animal abuse."

This bed down is the start a nationwide tour that will also visit Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Belfast.

Broadcast-quality video footage of animals in Irish circuses is available or visit ARAN.ie.