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Comment by koobarbara | Hacker News Reader

"sexually abused", can anyone explain this bit?

"The man seen fondling a cow’s vagina in the newly released video eventually spent 102 days in jail."

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cow-abuse-v...

Annoyingly, that description is too vague to tell if it's actual abuse or just 'look at me touch a taboo spot'. And I'd rather not watch the video to find out. The fact that he went to jail doesn't clarify, because he did many other things such as jumping on a cow for an extended period.

If you don't watch the video yourself, how can you trust a description to be accurate, and then form your own opinion on whether such acts (and undercover filming of such acts) should be illegal? I watched it, my own take is that it's nothing special in terms of disturbing material. The other video from PETA linked on this page shows more perverse acts but is also not very disturbing overall. The video on meat.org is probably the worst in this particular genre I've seen.

> If you don't watch the video yourself, how can you trust a description to be accurate, and then form your own opinion on whether such acts (and undercover filming of such acts) should be illegal?

What are you talking about? I explicitly said the description is too vague to make meaningful conclusions about.

I guess I should have s/ a / any /. The description may have said "The video depicts a man repeatedly inserting a hot iron into the cow's vagina", which to me doesn't seem very vague, but isn't what happened in that video. "Fondling" is appropriate but as you say somewhat vague. So how are you supposed to know without watching the video?

I was fishing for a slightly better description, maybe half a sentence or so, and then I was going to trust it. The specific case isn't critical enough for me to feel the need to verify by watching an unpleasant video.

They are probably penetrated with equipment or tools (e.g., a broom handle) without reason other than to be cruel.

Let's not make up charges without evidence.

Did the poster above you make any assertions?

It's not that hard to look it up anyway: http://www.peta.org/videos/sexual-deviance-and-sexual-abuse-...

(don't watch it)

Well, it's pretty straightforward. You do know where the milk you drink comes from, right?

You do know that cows are forcefully inseminated and impregnated (i.e. raped) in order to keep up the production, right?

[I'm not sure why the downvotes are in place just because I'm mentioning a well known fact about how the dairy industry works]

Please don't be obtuse or sensationalize this. You know very well that's not what's being referred to here.

Well, I find it hard to see the difference between "abnormal" sexual abuse and "regular" sexual abuse that is an inherent part of the dairy industry, whether you like it or not.

Are you able to tell the difference between medicine and abuse when it comes to something like endoscopy? Hint: one of them is based around inflicting pain, and the other tries to inflict none.

Edit: Also when you call it 'rape' and 'sexual' I wonder how you would feel about impregnation that completely bypassed genitalia and went though an incision in the abdomen. Assume getting a c-section too if you like.

Endoscopy, fertility treatments, and pregnancy assistance are consensual. Forced insemination is not.

Maybe you haven't been around cattle very much, but it's actually quite rare for them to receive any veterinary care in a "consensual" fashion. They are different from you and I in a number of salient ways.

Do you have a problem with human infants receiving painful vaccinations for which they likewise cannot possibly consent?

Are you saying a cow in heat does not imply consent? If so, what standard should we hold bulls to when they "immorally" act on that signal? Or are you suggesting that rape is okay, so long as it does not involve humans?

I've read that surprisingly many rape victims experience orgasm during rape (which makes it even worse for them afterwards). Would you claim that this also implies consent? Also, looks like you have quite a naive picture of how insemination actually works. Usually there is no bull involved only a vet with a shoulder-lenght rubber glove. Now, does the process of getting bull's semen also count as sexual abuse… I actually think that the notion of "consent" is stupid when tried to apply to animals. We will just twist it however we think acceptable. Cows don't consent being milked or killed for meat any more than they consent for sex with them. I'd happily accept a simple stance "yep, we do use and kill you, we just try our best not to make you suffer more than needed" over militant stupidity of "animal rights" activists.

> Would you claim that this also implies consent?

I'm not seeing the mental leap here. A cow making it obvious that she is ready to mate is equivalent to a woman making it obvious she does not want to mate? Consent implies agreement before the act; an orgasm during the act would not apply.

I'm not even sure if a cow indicating desire to mate implies consent, but that is why I asked the parent's opinion. I'd tend to agree with you that consent and animals do not even mix, but the parent clearly disagrees: Rape isn't even a concept without being able to apply the idea of consent.

> Also, looks like you have quite a naive picture of how insemination actually works.

What gives you that impression? I've spent the majority of my life around dairy cattle and am very familiar with the processes (which may or may not include the use of a bull). I was trying to simplify the argument so that we could have a meaningful conversation without having to nitpick over irrelevant details.

Some people have ethics nuanced enough to differentiate between e.g. a violent sexual assault against a human being and the artificial insemination, with standard veterinary tools, of a "food" animal. Other people do not have such ethics. It's not hard to understand why the two groups might have a disagreement, but it is kind of obnoxious to see that disagreement on HN.

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