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We are now in the timeline where the journalistic integrity of the New York Times rests upon whether or not it is physically possible to train a dog to anally rape a human.
The New York Times ran an opinion article by Nicholas Kristof wherein a number of Palestinians report being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons. There’s not much in the way of physical evidence, but that is hardly unusual in rape crimes. Israel has strenuously denied the allegations, characterizing them as blood libel. It seems to be a he-said/she-said that comes down to whether you believe the Palestinian prisoners (who often have ties to Hamas or other extremist groups, hence why they ended up in Israeli prisons) or the IDF.
Certain enterprising young pro-Israel influencers think they can to better than appeal to untrustworthiness. They puport to have found a smoking gun that proves the NYT published a complete fabrication in order to libel the State of Israel, and by extension all Jews. One of the more salacious anecdotes regards a man from Gaza who alleges that he was raped by a dog.
If, in fact, such a thing were impossible, then it would prove without doubt that the paper of record recklessly printed unverified falsehoods. We are now in the “doctors arguing with the author about the medical literature” stage of the discourse. See, even though we have documented evidence that dogs can cause rectal injury to humans, in none of those reports was the initial contact involuntary on the part of the human.
I am not well acquainted with dogs, but my understanding is that it is not particularly hard to get them to hump things. I guess the people making this argument are hoping that others won’t want to think too hard about the mechanics of dog rape.
Despite calls and rumors to the contrary, The Times so far has declined to retract the article.
I love the argument that dogs have sex with humans, yes, but they can't rape humans because they have an instinctual understanding of the Oberlin model of consent.
You know I always just assumed the vast majority of dog beastiality was like receptive oral where the human smears peanut butter on their genetalia or the dog is the receptive one either vaginally or anally.
I suppose training an adolescent dog to be the one penetrating is possible but it seems extremely difficult; aren’t dog members not nearly as stiff as humans? I don’t know how much anal sex you’ve had but it’s an “out” hole and it fights back more than a bit when compared to a vagina, unless it’s been really “trained up” so to speak.
Someone up thread described this as essentially a blood libel and it seems more likely; dogs are a very specific Arab / Muslim taboo so it smells like a maximally offensive myth made specifically to inflame an already maximally uncharitable audience primed to believe basically anything.
To my mind it reminds me of the 19th century Indian revolt against the British Empire. One of the precursors was a rumor spread amongst Indians serving as auxiliaries that the rifle cartridges were stored in beef fat. And crucially for my point, they told the Muslims that they were stored in pork fat. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, eh?
Plus, if you wanted to sexually brutalize prisoners there’s a lot easier ways to do it. We got a ton of examples of this.
Ironically this reminds me a bit of that old /pol/ bit about holocaust survivors talking about nazis freezing Jews with dry ice and putting them on mine carts so that they smash into a million pieces looney toons style. Way too baroque to be true but the ones spinning the yarn are given maximum charity due to their “victim” status.
The “Dogs raping prisoners” schtick is a double blood libel as well as it’s a pretty standard lefty canard against any unfavorable regime; I believe the same accusations were leveled against Pinochet, Franco, the Greek Military Junta, etc, etc. usually the CIA is invoked, as is tradition.
A final point; this to me is also illustrative of how certain sexual topics that are politically explosive are difficult to discuss because people are understandably reluctant to engage with the mechanics of the subject. I think for example the backlash against LGBQT ideology only could grow because increasing numbers of people were willing to frankly describe, outside of the gatekeepers eye, the physical acts being performed routinely in great detail. The rest followed.
I don't like that we're describing every accusation as a blood libel now. I'm not a fan of creeping woke rhetorical norms.
The doctor above objected that while they had seen cases of dogs anally penetrating humans, it was always consensual. This is an absurd assertion: the dog has no concept of consent.
I remain blissfully ignorant on the practicality of this entire episode.
Not every accusation against the IDF is a blood libel, but this one seems bang on.
It has all the right texture; It combines religious / social taboo with maximally inflammatory claims with little to no regard for practicality or realism. It relies on Jews having almost a cosmic quality of evil to them, it’s borderline magical thinking.
For a counter example; the accusation of the IDF blowing up that school in Iran. Not a blood libel, just a plain old accusation of atrocities. Textbook stuff, the same type of propaganda and counter propaganda you might see for example in the Irish war for Independence or the American Civil War. Much more mundane.
And here's the Free Press:
The term Blood Libel is used constantly in the Pro-Israel press to refer to anything that anyone accuses the Jews of having done wrong. Accusations of Antisemitism have become the new thought terminating cliche.
Yep! You’ll get no argument from me that it’s overused almost as much the antisemitic tropes it’s being leveled against. People do indeed use the word for cases that don’t fit.
However, the “IDF Training dogs to anally rape Muslims” is almost a platonic example of a modern blood libel. It’s basically a perfect case.
That’s my point.
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