Today, my girlfriends and I were discussing the new craze in Muslim Europe which the bloggers over at the New York Times just can’t get enough of: hymenoplasty. Apparently, surgical reconstruction of this superfluous flap o’ skin has become a lucrative business for those surgeons willing to abet women desperate to recapture their virginity.
Obvious jokes aside, one has to wonder about the lengths a gal will go to cover her tracks. You really can’t replace the lid once the box has been opened, but there are plenty of women lining up to do just that. What with prospective grooms’ families demanding ’certificates of virginity’ before they agree to marriage, who wants to be outted as a slut?
But the procedure begs the real question. Why is female sexuality still considered the blight of mankind? No matter how many strides forward we take, there are just as many black-garbed priests, imams, nay-sayers, bible thumpers, fingerpointers and blamelayers pulling us backward into shame and guilt. “Know your place, worms!”, they tell us, “Keep your legs closed because your pussy belongs to your husband, father, community, family, tribe, social group, ethnic division, caste, etc…” Invariably, the authority cited is always some dread god who despises women and takes pleasure in their humiliation. The power latent in a woman’s free sexual expression must be great indeed if it merits the intervention of a god to control it!
And if it’s truly that powerful, the feeble actions by men are certainly no threat. Why then do we cower and seek to lie about our behavior? We have become brainwashed; we don’t question authority and we believe the lies told about us. If we refuse to recognize the authority, or at least refute the interpretation of same, we’re no longer conspiring against ourselves.
There is nothing morally wrong with female sexuality; there is, however, something terribly wrong with judgment and accountability. Blaming women for the world’s ills does not excuse one from personal accountability; it’s only a temporary reprieve. Eventually, even the most self-righteous will have to answer for themselves.
WANTON WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE
Obvious jokes aside, one has to wonder about the lengths a gal will go to cover her tracks. You really can’t replace the lid once the box has been opened, but there are plenty of women lining up to do just that. What with prospective grooms’ families demanding ’certificates of virginity’ before they agree to marriage, who wants to be outted as a slut?
But the procedure begs the real question. Why is female sexuality still considered the blight of mankind? No matter how many strides forward we take, there are just as many black-garbed priests, imams, nay-sayers, bible thumpers, fingerpointers and blamelayers pulling us backward into shame and guilt. “Know your place, worms!”, they tell us, “Keep your legs closed because your pussy belongs to your husband, father, community, family, tribe, social group, ethnic division, caste, etc…” Invariably, the authority cited is always some dread god who despises women and takes pleasure in their humiliation. The power latent in a woman’s free sexual expression must be great indeed if it merits the intervention of a god to control it!
And if it’s truly that powerful, the feeble actions by men are certainly no threat. Why then do we cower and seek to lie about our behavior? We have become brainwashed; we don’t question authority and we believe the lies told about us. If we refuse to recognize the authority, or at least refute the interpretation of same, we’re no longer conspiring against ourselves.
There is nothing morally wrong with female sexuality; there is, however, something terribly wrong with judgment and accountability. Blaming women for the world’s ills does not excuse one from personal accountability; it’s only a temporary reprieve. Eventually, even the most self-righteous will have to answer for themselves.
This entry was posted on June 13, 2008 at 2:53 am and is filed under Writing, musings, social commentary with tags empowerment, events, social commentary, women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.