Kenneth Pinyan

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Kenneth Pinyan (June 22, 1960 - July 2, 2005) was a Gig Harbor,[1] Washington, resident who engaged in receptive anal sex with full-size stallions at a farm near the city of Enumclaw. He videotaped those sex acts and distributed them informally under the name Mr. Hands.

During a July 2005 sex act, videotaped by a friend, he suffered a perforated colon and later died of his injuries. The story was reported in the The Seattle Times and was one of that paper's most read stories of 2005.[2]

Pinyan's death prompted the passing of a bill in Washington State prohibiting both sex with animals and the videotaping of the same.[3] Under current Washington law, bestiality is now a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.[4]

A documentary of the life and death of Pinyan, and the life led by those who came to the farm near Enumclaw, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival 2007 under the title Zoo. It was one of 16 winners out of 856 candidates for the festival,[5] and played at numerous regional festivals in the United States thereafter.[6] Following Sundance, it was also selected as one of the top five American films to be presented at the prestigious Directors Fortnight sidebar at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.[7][8]

The media outlets that reported the story withheld Pinyan's name. His name was revealed on national radio by talk show host Tom Leykis in the summer of 2005.

Pinyan's video was referenced in the comedy film, Miss March, where an alias of a rapper is called Horsedick Dot MPEG.

Contents

Death

Prosecutors later determined that the horse, an Arabian stallion, had not been injured by being allowed to engage in sex in this manner. The photographer, 54-year old James Michael Tait of Enumclaw,[9] was later charged with trespassing, since this act took place on a third party's property. A third man alleged to have been present was not charged. According to the Medical Examiner's Office, Pinyan "died of acute peritonitis due to perforation of the colon",[10] and the death was ruled accidental.[11]

Other factors surrounding the death were apparently that the deceased, concerned about appearing in a hospital with an unusual internal injury and the effect on his security clearance as an engineer for aerospace company Boeing, had apparently refused his friends' urging to go to the hospital for several hours after being aware he was internally injured, and was either beyond treatment or dead when he finally reached the ER.[citation needed]


Media reports at the time of the trial suggested that despite seizing and examining carefully a large number of such videos from the property, no evidence of injury to the horses was found, precluding animal cruelty charges, and that the trespass charge against Tait were brought due to lack of grounds for any other matter:

It was only after Pinyan died, when law enforcement looked for one way to punish his associates, that the legality of bestiality in Washington State became an issue [...] The prosecutor's office wanted to charge Tait with animal abuse, but the police found no evidence of abused animals on the many videotapes they collected from his home. As there was no law against humanely fucking one horse, the prosecutors could only charge Tait with trespassing.

The Stranger[12]

The prosecutor's office says no animal cruelty charges were filed because there was no evidence of injury to the horses.

The Seattle Times[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ Skager, Shawn (July 12, 2006). "Film to focus on aftermath of Enumclaw incident". The Enumclaw Courier-Herald. http://www.courierherald.com/articles/2006/07/12/news/news2.txt. Retrieved on 2008-11-02. 
  2. ^ "Horse sex story was online hit". The Seattle Times. December 30, 2005. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002711400_danny30.html. Retrieved on 2006-05-15. 
  3. ^ Three Reasons Society Shouldn't Rush To Condemn Bestiality
  4. ^ Three Reasons Society Shouldn't Rush To Condemn Bestiality
  5. ^ The Seattle Times: Local News: New movie is the spawn of horse sex
  6. ^ Matt Dentler's Blog: Cannes Countdown: Directors' Fortnight Lineup Impresses
  7. ^ "Zoo, which opens today in NY and LA, has just been selected as one of the features of the prestigious Directors Fortnight sidebar at this year's Cannes Film Festival". Zoo: Inside the Controversial Documentary about Bestiality
  8. ^ Eugene Hernandez, "CANNES '07: Slate Set for 49th Directors' Fortnight", IndieWIRE, May 3, 2007.
  9. ^ Rick Anderson (November 9, 2005). "Closing the Barn Door". Seattle Weekly. http://www.seattleweekly.com/2005-11-09/news/closing-the-barn-door.php. 
  10. ^ "Videotapes show bestiality, Enumclaw police say". The Seattle Times. July 15, 2005. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002384648_farm16m.html. Retrieved on 2006-04-30. 
  11. ^ "Enumclaw-area animal-sex case investigated". The Seattle Times. July 15, 2005. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002382718_horse15m.html. Retrieved on 2006-04-30. 
  12. ^ "The Animal In You". The Stranger. February-March 2006. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=30811. Retrieved on 2006-04-30. 
  13. ^ Associated Press (October 18, 2005). "Charge filed in connection with man who died having horse sex". The Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002568970_webhorse.html. Retrieved on 2006-04-30. 

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