myrrh bait

[Strangelet]

well done deckard. just like to add an observation to myrrh: the fact that your argument basically boils down to "yeah we'll we're not as dysfunction as thou art" means deep down you know this is bullshit, along with every other clitoral circumcision, honor killing, and 1000 witnesses to prosecute a rape, and all the other nonsense that happens all over the islamic world.

[Strangelet]

Anyway, myrrh, the point of this thread wasn't to give you shit. And you're a good sport about the copious amounts that are thrown at you.

I just wanted to make the claim that religions that have draconian sexual prohibitions end up acting out sexually charged rituals that can be considered more lusty than the actual behaviors they are trying to control.

In mormonism and catholicism it comes across as seedy one on one "confessionals" where exact visceral details of people's sexual history is expected to be spilled out to a sweaty guy behind a desk or wire mesh. Mormon temple rituals involve getting your bits and pieces "blessed" or simply invaded depending on how you look at it. And what's more pornographic? A couple teens making out or having to spill the dirt like a phone sex operator.

The example that this thread started with, the flogging, is prime example. Extra care is placed in making it a voyeuristic/exhibitionist act, putting her in the right position, etc.

I mean you have to be *really* into girls to put that much attention on what they wear, what they show, and who are their company.

Its like the scene in persepolis, where the girl gets stopped by the iranian culture police because her gait makes her ass move suggestively. Her reply is stop looking at my ass. indeed.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

Its like the scene in persepolis, where the girl gets stopped by the iranian culture police because her gait makes her ass move suggestively. Her reply is stop looking at my ass. indeed.

Classic.

Anyway, yeah, that's probably what troubles me the most about laws created to keep women's bodies hidden and such - why in the world do men in these societies lack the basic self-control required to be able to see a woman without objectifying her to the point that restrictive laws are even necessary? It's not the woman who's shown the skin of her calf that should be punished, it's the misogynistic jerk who can't handle seeing that skin who should be.

[Deckard]

Quite.

Tbh I think much of it is coming from this "sex is sin" meme that dominates primitive cultures. The old sexual desire=>guilt=>self-disgust thing. Not that that's a green card for promiscuity, 24/7 nudity and sex with animals (where IS jOHN today?) but it's an unhealthy extreme all the same.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Quite.

Tbh I think much of it is coming from this "sex is sin" meme that dominates primitive cultures. The old sexual desire=>guilt=>self-disgust thing. Not that that's a green card for promiscuity, 24/7 nudity and sex with animals (where IS jOHN today?) but it's an unhealthy extreme all the same.

its funny that your thought process went from sex with animals to jOHN.

how are you using the word primitive? i just started thinking of the trobriand islanders who are apparently quite frisky. Then there's the victorian era....

i'm thinking that the sex is sin thing pops in and out of western culture. One minute we're at woodstock, the next we're taking a turn about the garden pinky locked with Mr. Darcy. One minute we're wearing white doilies, black robes and sober hats, the next we're watching Mrs. Loveit perform in the country wife.

Anyway, my shocking assertion is that this flogging, like several other judeo-christian rituals, are an actual sex act. One that is intended without admission, to titilate (god I love that word).

[taoyoyo]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

Anyway, myrrh, the point of this thread wasn't to give you shit.

... Sorry, I very rarely post these days but I still read the forums.

I just wondered... if that was not the point of your thread, why did you use the title 'myrrh bait'?

Seems like almost every time something controversial goes down in the middle east we expect myrrh to just pop in and justify it because of his path?

Anyway, just an observation. Maybe even food for thought. Carry on.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by taoyoyo

Seems like almost every time something controversial goes down in the middle east we expect myrrh to just pop in and justify it because of his path?

glad you brought that up.

I came up with the phrase "myrrh bait" on another thread, feeling guilty that I was talking a lot of trash about something that he's devoted his whole life towards. The phrase is a form of self mockery *because* i know that we expect him to be our islamist whipping boy. The fact that his responses are always mature and gracious has been the greatest argument he's ever made for Islam. It doesn't mean I want to walk on egg shells around him either.

Ever notice that the two forbidden subjects in polite society: religion and politics, are same two dominant tools humans use to control other humans?

edit: weird. i did a search and couldn't find any post where I used the term before this thread. maybe I dreamed it. maybe I need to up the meds.

[IsiliRunite]

ad campaigns successful on how much skin is shown and the many other ways in which the reproductive perspective and conduct have been weeded out of western society less than in the middle east, which is arguably primitive, as well.

perhaps there is slightly more meritocracy in the scale in which women are treated in the middle east, although the most deserving of women are still treated relatively poorly. pretty women get things in the west. good caretakers are valued more elsewhere?

there are some appaling things all over, i've just noticed how readily people see the horror in OTHER regions first, if they happen to stumble on the horror they live in at all...

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

... maybe I need to up the meds.

Ya knooowwww, I'm reading this book right now titled "Beat the Reaper". It's quite funny, I'm laughing during most every page, & no, it's not crack addiction or pot or anything. But you may get some perspective on the medical community from it.

It's a bit like the DaVince Code, with truths about history intermingled with a fictional story as the plot.


And I know your meds bit is a joke. :rollseyes: smiley thingy, you guys suck cock bad.


***

Oh, and taoyoyo, if this was YOUR idea of a science project gone horribly wrong, you suck too.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

how are you using the word primitive?

Quite broadly. Overall, societies or cultures dominated by a certain sexual immaturity, whether that's a repressive and misogynistic Middle Eastern country like Afghanistan, or pass-the-smelling-salts Victorian-era Britain (or, for that matter, the crass "Ooo saucy!" Britain of the 1970s).

Originally Posted by IsiliRunite

i've just noticed how readily people see the horror in OTHER regions first, if they happen to stumble on the horror they live in at all...

For my part, the point I'm making is a relative one. To recognize that the majority of women in my country and yours have far greater freedom than women in Afghanistan is not to deny our own countries' sexual inequality or ingrained misogyny. I have no problem acknowledging the faults in our own backyard, whether that's violence against women, salary inequality, or that every other Michelle Obama "article" focuses on what she's wearing and whether her arms are covered up. But we're a damn sight further ahead in terms of womens rights, no? If we're talking sexual immaturity and barbarism more generally, again I have no problem admitting that my country and yours are pretty pathetic when compared to, say, Scandinavia. But we're nowhere near as pathetic as a country where flogging and rape are accepted (explicitly or implicitly).