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Subject: Islam on S-E-X: FEMI-PHOBIA
swhitebull    5/25/2004 9:37:35 AM
An analysis by Daniel Pipes, on How Arabic Culture, and Islam (with notable execptions, like in Turkey) treat Women and Sexual Desire. Clitorechtomy, anyone? By Daniel Pipes FrontPageMagazine.com | May 25, 2004 The pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq touched such a nerve in the Muslim world that one analyst said that the rape pictures “would equal a nuclear explosion” if seen in Muslim countries. Such extreme reactions raise the delicate topic of sex in Muslim-Western relations. The West and the Muslim world entertain vastly different assumptions about female sexuality. (I draw here on the ideas of Fatima Mernissi in her 1975 book, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in a Modern Muslim Society.) In the West, it was until recently assumed that males and females experience eros differently, with men actively undertaking the hunt, seduction, and penetration, and women passively enduring the experience. Only lately did the idea gain currency that women too have sexual desires. Considering the Muslim reputation for archaic customs, it is ironic to note that Islamic civilization not only portrays women as sexually desirous, but it sees them as more passionate than men. Indeed, this understanding has determined the place of women in traditional Muslim life. In the Islamic view, men and women both seek intercourse, during which their bodies undergo similar processes, bringing similar pleasures. If Westerners traditionally saw the sexual act as a battleground where the male exerts his supremacy over the female, Muslims saw it as a tender and shared pleasure. Indeed, Muslims generally believe female desire to be so much greater than the male equivalent that the woman is viewed as the hunter and the man as her passive victim. If believers feel little distress about sex acts as such, they are obsessed with the dangers posed by women. So strong are her needs thought to be, she ends up representing the forces of unreason and disorder. Women’s rampant desires and irresistible attractiveness gives them a power over men that even rivals God’s. She must be contained, for her unbridled sexuality poses a direct danger to the social order. (Symbolic of this, the Arabic word fitna means both civil disorder and beautiful woman.) The entire Muslim social structure can be understood as containing female sexuality. It goes to great lengths to separate the sexes and reduce contact between them. This explains such customs as the covering of women’s faces and the separation of women’s residential quarters (the harem). Many other institutions serve to reduce female power over men, such as her need for a male’s permission to travel, work, marry, or divorce. (Revealingly, a traditional Muslim wedding took place between two men – the groom and the bride’s guardian.) Even married couples should not get too attached; to insure that a man does not become so consumed with passion for his wife that he neglects his duties to God, Muslim family life restricts contact between the spouses by dividing their interests and duties, imbalancing their power relationship (she is more his servant than his companion), and encouraging the mother-son bond over the marital connection. On the whole, Muslims lived up to these Islamic ideals for male-female relations in premodern times. Yet the anxiety persisted that women would break loose of their restrictions and bring perdition to the community. Those anxieties multiplied in recent centuries as Western influence spread through the Muslim world, for Western ways nearly always collide with Islamic ones. The two are divided by the enhanced power and freedoms women have gained through legal equality, monogamy, romantic love, open sexuality, and a myriad other customs. As a result, each civilization looks upon the other as deeply flawed, if not barbaric. For many Muslims, the West poses not just an external threat as the infidel invader; it also erodes traditional mechanisms to cope with the internal threat, woman. This leads to widespread worries about adopting Western ways and a preference instead to cling to older customs. Differences in sexuality, in other words, contribute to an overall Muslim reluctance to accept modernity. Fear of Western erotic ways ends up constraining Muslim peoples in the political, economic, and cultural arenas. Sexual apprehensions constitute a key reason for Islam’s trauma in the modern era. And this in turn explains the extreme sensitivity to such varied matters as girls wearing the headscarf in French classrooms, “honor” killings in Jordan, women drivers in Saudi Arabia, and those pictures from Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. swhitebull
 
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ilpars    RE:Islam on S-E-X: FEMI-PHOBIA   5/25/2004 9:46:19 AM
I never thought the subject from this angle. Many things I know about Muslim countries supports this view. I like to read this book. I hope I can find it at amazon.com
 
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American Kafir    RE:Islam on S-E-X: FEMI-PHOBIA   5/25/2004 10:57:40 AM
Interestingly, the Arabic word "fitna" is also used exclusively to describe wars within Islam, such as between two Muslim states or factions. I wonder if this explains the difficulties in Arab relations with the rest of the world. If fighting each other is "a beautiful woman," no wonder they try to veil the atrocities they've commited.
 
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SGTObvious    RE:Islam on S-E-X: FEMI-PHOBIA   5/25/2004 11:23:32 AM
I think Steven Pinker laid out a more logical theory in "The Blank Slate". The principal difference between male and female experiences of sex is the potential cost and outcome- a man puts nothing at risk, a woman risks the physical and economic costs of raising a baby, as well as potentially using up a significant fraction of her baby-making ability, while a man uses up nothing. Therefore, for a "pre-technological" tribe, a female reproductive capacity is a highly limited, risky resource, there is never a shortage of men's reproductive capacity. So you have a social structure designed around the careful control of a very limited resource. This is why, in all societies, female promiscuity is frowned upon- it represents, to human instinct, a waste of resources. But the Arabs went over-nuts with it, possibly due to the long history of tribes stealing each other's women. Bear in mind that the west started out the same way- the function of the best man, in early wedding tradition, was to guard the bride.
 
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swhitebull    The Wonderful World of Arab Honor Killings   6/9/2004 9:03:29 AM
 
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ilpars    RE:Arab-Kurdish Honor Killings   6/9/2004 10:54:14 AM
Honor killings is a direct result of tribal societies of Arab and Kurdish cultures. In South-East Anatolia, you can still see this horrible tradition in some places. It is not about female-hate. In Turkey killing one's newborn child or hating girl children is something unheard. It is about traditions. The most horrible part is even the relatives who really love the victim girl kill her to erase the dishonor. Turkish government is trying to stop these horror in the last 80 years in South_East Anatolia. But Arab-Kurdish traditions are too strong in the area. As I follow from the newspapers, here is how the honor-killing goes. In those societies, When a woman enters sexual relationship with someone who is not her husband, she and her entire family including Uncles, Cousins all lost their honor. ýt does not matter for the society if it is a rape or not. To erase the dishonor family must kill the both participants of the incident. Participants can escape the tradition by only marrying. But if they ever divorce later, the tradition again demands their death. The events ongoing is smoething like this. When the dishonor has been heard by neighbours, village folk; everybody start ignoring the family as they have lost their honor. Noone talks to them, noone looks at them. If family do not act, this public pressure becomes unbearable. According to tradition first, family council must discuss the incidents. Council members are Father, Mother(only female in the council), Uncles, Grandfather sometimes brothers. Family council discuss the incident and reached a verdict. Usually mother is the most unforgiving one as she is openly condemned not to raise her daughter properly. If family council agreed on redeeming the dishonor, they select the ones who will redeem. In Turkey they always select a boy or 2 boys who is not 18 yet, not no lost a son to a life time inprisonment. But sometimes a father could not let his sons to be a murderer and chose to do it himself. In an incident several months ago, I read the confession of a father who killed her son for honor. It was something like this. "No, I really loved my daughter. I have done everything to avoid it, but family council has decided. I did not want to see blood in my son's hands and I chosed to do it myself. When she understood that I would kill her she said 'Father, please do not'. I started crying but family had decided and I had to obey." He did not try to escape. Police found him beside her daughter, still crying. And swhitebull, thank you for not saying Muslim honor killings. Turks never had this tradition in the entire history. In our honor definition a man must never kill an unarmed person. And only must kill in self-defense or for the defense of the nation.
 
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ilpars    RE:Arab-Kurdish Honor Killings   6/9/2004 10:58:15 AM
A mistake "In an incident several months ago, I read the confession of a father who killed her son for honor." Correction: who killed her daughter for honor.
 
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swhitebull    RE:Arab-Kurdish Honor Killings   6/9/2004 11:20:21 AM
..And swhitebull, thank you for not saying Muslim honor killings... You are welcome - I was DELIBERATELY specific in my choice of words here. Arab culture mixed with ethnicity and religion run amok. It happens in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan as well. A lot of the 'stans, so to speak. swhitebull
 
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SGTObvious    RE:Arab-Kurdish Honor Killings   6/9/2004 3:35:11 PM
"In those societies, When a woman enters sexual relationship with someone who is not her husband, she and her entire family including Uncles, Cousins all lost their honor." Their honor must be very weak and very cheap, if it is lost over so small a thing. In this society, losing honor requires lying, betrayal, cowardice, etc. And it is impossible for anyone to lose another's honor, even if he is your twin brother. Your honor is your own and not your family's. And if honor must be preserved by the murder of an innocent woman, it's not honor.
 
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ilpars    RE:Arab-Kurdish Honor Killings -SGTObvious   6/10/2004 3:45:27 AM
"Their honor must be very weak and very cheap, if it is lost over so small a thing. In this society, losing honor requires lying, betrayal, cowardice, etc. And it is impossible for anyone to lose another's honor, even if he is your twin brother. Your honor is your own and not your family's. And if honor must be preserved by the murder of an innocent woman, it's not honor." Same in Turkish society. But of course nor you, neither we live in a tribal society.
 
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sentinel28a    RE:Arab-Kurdish Honor Killings -SGTObvious   6/15/2004 3:14:46 AM
Or in a feudal society. Japanese samurai killed each other and themselves for less tarnishes on their honor.
 
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