Sexualized medieval fantasies were enacted on real Muslim bodies at Abu Ghraib

Evidence

The sexual nature of many of the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib, images of which are now familiar— human pyramids of naked bodies, prisoners on dog leashes, the gratified smiles of the captors—aid in the process of dehumanization. Sexual imagery has been an integral part of Western discourse about Muslims from the beginning, from tales of Prophet Muhammad’s unending supplies of sexual energy to the necrophilia associated with the character of Dracula. In Abu Ghraib, these fantasies were played out on real bodies, helping to excommunicate Muslims from the human community. As one scholar put it, “sexualized torture evicts Arabs from the community of men and from a common humanity.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 25

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s guiding question three - what the monster lets its makers avoid seeing - here the projection of unbridled sexuality onto captives while the captors’ enjoyment goes unexamined. — connects to: Abu Ghraib photographs revealed American culture’s dependence on the sexual-humiliation equation. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 194
• SEED: An essay tracking ‘sexualized dehumanization’ from medieval Muhammad legends to Dracula’s necrophilia to Abu Ghraib could show a single imaginary thread running untouched through centuries.
• ADDENDUM: Extends the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ piece - sexualized Western images of Muslims (veiling, harems, lust) as a projector carrying anxieties about the West’s own moral-bodily discipline.