Julia Sweeney's Discussion Forum

I don't think we've quite escaped the Victorian mindset with regards to sexuality. It's okay to express both openly and freely and they are not immoral.

http://www.examiner.com/x-11535-Kansas- ... s-from-God

This is a good article - probably not perfect in your views because most of you don't believe in God (and that's completely okay!) But I think the main point is that it's okay be be erotic, sexual and sensual.
That's all.

Wow Doug KC.. this gives new meaning to "ring out the news..."
You've heard from god, and he has told you in no uncertain terms that sex is not merely for procreation, but that good old-fashioned nature, (which tells you what to do and how to do it) is what led his eye to the comely Mary.. and of course the rest is history.
God had one helluva time, and he doesn't want the wonderful, devoted, Christians who know they were created in his image to miss a minute of it..
So thanks Doug KC.. and I thank you on behalf of my friends Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard... two perfectly lovely guys who got god's message before you did, and have suffered and been excoriated for it.
THey were only spreading their eroticism and sensuality around..
And while I urged them on.. "you go for it, boys.." somehow my very Christian friends were a little reticient in their encouragement.
And they didn't seem to need god's approval for their tight-lipped rejections.
So good for you.
And I sincerely hope that Mrs. Doug KC got the message and you won't have to go elsewhere to do as god wishes you to do..
Does this mean that you are beginning to see that carnal love.. in god's image ... is what makes the world go 'round?
I hope so.
That your capacity for love in all its forms has made you so tolerant is admirable, makes it even sadder that god message has not yet reached all the brethren...
Because only this morning in front of the Supreme Court Building in Washington DC one of your Christian brethren put a particularly ugly broadside into my hands.. not quite so full of love as you might approve of... an illustration in full color (imitating a photograph... I think it could be labeled "lie") if a fetus with a head crushed so that its eyes had come out of their sockets.."
But lest anyone think, this was a simple message of "revolt your neighbor.." rest assured it was nothing quite so frivolous.
As it turned out the gruesome thing was a justification for the murder of Dr. Tiller, explaining that the killer was doing god's work.. "what well meaning but fearful men and women had long been afraid to do.."
Um.. gee.. you know, when you think about that .. it does sound like an invitation to lawlessness to anarchy... god's helpers as variations of Buffalo Bill.. or Tony Soprano;

So intent was the gentlemen (what a weird male preoccupation with something that is clearly none of your business) in putting this in my hands, that he seemed to completely ignore that I was accompanied by two 10 year old girls..
"What IS that, Norma?"
"Why Darlings, it's just a message from god through his chosen representatives on earth..."
Let us repair to the Library of Congress to see all the contributions to civilization and enlightenment, shall we?"

Doug, call me deluded, but somehow,I I don't think that love babble is quite gonna overcome the effects of such hate, not anytime soon... ...
Perhaps you could consult god, given his new lusty, gusty image...and report back on the latest in loving Christian behaviors IN AND OUT of the bedroom.
Meanwhile, for how ever long it lasts, welcome to the world of warm, love for love's sake..
And Doug.. I sure do hope you continue to have a great time... because it has always been my experience that people who are getting theirs are not gonna be trying to take away mine.
And I like it that way...

Norma Manna Blum (just in case you should ever want a date..)

P.S... Next time I hope we can address your call for a holy war against Islam...
While I'm getting to it, you might want to think about why Islam is taking so many converts from among Christians in Asia and its Sub-Continent, and in Africa so that you can explain it to me..
I certainly don't understand it.
Or whether you really seriously imagine you have to blast them from the face ofthe earth rather than win them back by having a competitive message..
Because god... how odd... seems definitely to be giving them the time of day, and turning an increasingly cold shoulder on Christ's followers.. one does wonder why, what with all the love you spread around, in all its infinite varieties.
And because they don't make Holy Wars they way they used to in the good old days, Doug, although even then, the winners AND the losers both suffered terrible losses of life and limb and land..
Of course, perhaps you have heard from god, that Doug KC will get a deferment... and will be in the propaganda department at Heaven's Gate, rather than having to toss nuclear missiles at Muslims with the rest of the Christians...
And ditto for Mrs. Doug KC.
And the little Doug KCS..
But I don't think it's gonna work that way...
I can just see you smiling that beautific smile, shaking your head.. and saying.. "What can the godless possibly know about Holy Wars...?"
And I gotta admit: you have me there, Doug.
I don't know much.
Because I wouldn't swat a fly much less kill a Muslim... or even try to impose my own will on people who clearly suspect that I might not be putting my money where my mouth is as far as that big LOVE CHATTER is concerned.
Maybe until we correspond again, you could give some time to re-evaluating what I'm sure is a serious and well considered world view..
But like steak tartar it is a little too dripping in blood for my personal taste...
And that of all the "godless" that I know.

NMB




"

While yer busy feeling all sexy and stuff, don't let go of the reality that God wants you to do things his way or he'll get all boogety on your ass.

So, make sure you fire off your load in your sister-in-law's hoohoo or he'll smack you dead.

Every sperm is sacred.

Golly!!
Everybody's doin' it!!
(But Doug KC's offering has better pictures.)

From the NY Times, Saturday June 6th:

THE SATURDAY PROFILE
Challenging Sex Taboos, With Help From the Koran

Bryan Denton for The New York Times
Photo: Wedad Lootah, who wears a full-length black niqab, has been a marital counselor in Dubai for eight years.


By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: June 5, 2009
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

WEDAD LOOTAH does not look like a sexual activist. A Muslim and a native Emirati, she wears a full-length black niqab — with only her brown eyes showing through narrow slits — and sprinkles her conversation with quotes from the Koran.

Yet she is also the author of what for the Middle East is an amazingly frank new book of erotic advice in which she celebrates the female orgasm, confronts taboo topics like homosexuality and urges Arabs to transcend the backward traditions that limit their sexual happiness.

The book, “Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples,” is packed with vivid anecdotes from Ms. Lootah’s eight years as a marital counselor in Dubai’s main courthouse. It became an instant scandal after it was published in Arabic in the Emirates in January, drawing praise from some liberals and death threats from conservatives, who say she is guilty of blasphemy or worse.

Ms. Lootah, a strong-willed and talkative 45-year-old, is one of a small but growing number of Arabs pushing for more openness and education about sex. Unlike earlier generations of women who often couched their criticism in a Western language of female emancipation, Ms. Lootah and her peers are hard to dismiss as outsiders because they tend to be religious Muslims who root their message in the Koran.

Ms. Lootah, for instance, studied Islamic jurisprudence in college, not Western psychology, and her book is studded with religious references. She submitted the text to the Mufti of Dubai before publishing it, and he gave his approval (though he warned her that Arab audiences might not be ready for such a book, especially by a woman).

“People have said I was crazy, that I was straying from Islam, that I should be killed,” Ms. Lootah said. “Even my family ask why I must talk about this. I say: ‘These problems happen every day and should not be ignored. This is the reality we are living.’ ”

She is not a liberal by Western standards. One of the themes of her book is the danger of anal sex and homosexuality generally, not because of AIDS but because they are banned by the Koran. But her openness about the issue was itself a shock to many here.

In Saudi Arabia and other countries where the genders are rigorously separated, many men have their first sexual experiences with other men, which affects their attitudes toward sex in marriage, Ms. Lootah said.

“Many men who had anal sex with men before marriage want the same thing with their wives, because they don’t know anything else,” Ms. Lootah said. “This is one reason we need sex education in our schools.”

She is also emphatic about the importance of female sexual pleasure, and the inequity of many Arab marriages in that respect. One of the cases that impelled her to write the book, she said, was a 52-year-old client who had grandchildren but had never known sexual pleasure with her husband.

“Finally, she discovered orgasm!” Ms. Lootah said. “Imagine, all that time she did not know.”

Another important theme of the book is infidelity. The prevalence of foreign women in Dubai and the ease of e-mail and text-message communication has made cheating easier (and easier to detect), Ms. Lootah said, helping push the divorce rate to 30 percent.

The Gulf’s oil-fueled modernization in recent decades has also shattered some old Arab social structures. At the same time, the rise of political Islam has undermined traditional authorities, leaving many Arabs confused about moral issues.

“Before, people lived in one place and the community was like one big family,” Ms. Lootah said. “Now, people have spread to different areas, everything’s mixed up and traditions have changed.”

ONE result is the Family Guidance section in the Dubai Courthouse, which opened in 2001 with Ms. Lootah as its first counselor (there are now six others, all men). Kuwait’s government has had a similar social-services wing since the 1990s, and other Persian Gulf countries are following suit. Private psychologists and marriage counselors also exist throughout the Arab world, though they are still rare.

“We’re making a lot of progress,” said Heba Kotb, who runs an Islam-oriented sex therapy clinic in Cairo, and ran a satellite television talk show on sexual and marital issues from 2006 until 2008. “Ten years ago we were unable to even mention the subject, and now people are getting used to hearing it.”

There are still formidable obstacles. In a region where “honor killings” of women who have sex outside marriage remain fairly common, sex education is widely viewed as a portal to sin. Genital cutting of women still takes place in Egypt, though it is now illegal. Arab writers and artists have begun to tackle these subjects.

Thirty years ago the Egyptian director Saleh Abu Seif wrote a screenplay called “Sex School,” but the censorship bureau had yet to approve it when he died in 1996. His son was finally allowed to direct a modified version of the film, about a sexually dissatisfied couple who go to see a therapist, and it was released in 2002 under the title “The Ostrich and the Peacock.”

Ms. Lootah never expected to become part of this debate. One of nine children born to an illiterate water-seller in Dubai, she married early and taught elementary school for years. Later, she took a job working for an Islamic endowment, where her efforts to introduce education and family-reunion days in prison earned her two government-service awards. When Dubai introduced the Family Guidance section of its courthouse, Dubai’s ruler, Sheik Muhammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, asked her to be the first counselor.

THE family guidance section was established in part to comply with Islamic precepts calling for couples who want a divorce to try to work out their problems first. In practice, it has become an all-purpose therapy destination for people with marital problems.

Ms. Lootah sees about seven cases a day, individuals and couples. Most of them are native Emiratis, but in the multicultural world of Dubai — where about 90 percent of the population is foreign — she has also counseled some Europeans and Asians. As in the criminal courts next door, a translator sits in on the session, and sometimes even offers advice to bridge cultural gaps.

“Some people are amazed I can work with people with only my eyes showing,” Ms. Lootah said, with a ripple of laughter. “Maybe it’s because of the way I move my hands! But I can tell you that people come here, and they speak very frankly with me.”

She reels off stories from her practice in rapid fire: the Emirati military officer whose wife had an affair because he was away from home too much; the woman who thought fellatio was against Islam (not true at all, Ms. Lootah notes); the wife who discovered her husband dressing up as a woman and going out to gay bars. She seems bent on showing that there is a whole world of sexual confusion that would benefit from open discussion.

Publishing the book, she notes, was a difficult choice. Her father supported her, but other family members sometimes wondered why she had to be so public about it all. After it was published a man called her office phone and threatened to kill her. Other threats appeared on the Internet.

She brushes them off, saying she has declined an offer of protection from the government. Besides, she adds, educating the public is worth the risk.

“A few days ago a woman came in and asked me if it is O.K. to kiss the man all over his body,” she said. “I told her, ‘Read my book!’ ”


(NMB)

dougkc1,

What are you doing here on this forum? I don't mind that you post, and I don't mind that you read or prowl. As a "spirituality examiner," do you believe it's necessary to plug one of your articles every time you post here? How many times do you think that's going to work? (For me, two and only two).

As for your chosen topic, that sexuality and sex are not "immoral," I was instantly reminded of a Woody Allen movie (I think it might have been Zelig, or maybe all the way back to Take the Money and Run, in which a psychotherapist or psychiatrist asks Allen's character if sex is dirty. The reply: "It is if you're doing it right."

The funniest..
I wasn't sure exactly why this latest pervasive religious "intervention" into an area they had actually put the kibosh on with the first edition of "Ye Olde Bible," was worth more than a shrug... it is what it is, and what it has always been: think of life as one long travail, and if you think for a moment that you are enjoying yourself, don't worry, you will pay for it soon enough.

So clearly its that when the imprimatur of the fundamentalist religionist is put on sex, all the fun is bound to go out of it altogether.

And frankly? Three's a crowd in the bedroom.. that one of them is god, only makes it creepier.

Here's a story. If I've told it before, try and stop me:
When I as newly married with public avowals before the state and the Lord himself, but hardly (ahem) on a honeymoon .. ours having taken place about 3 years before... a friend's brother, a young Rabbi until then unknown to me, gave us a gift of "the Code Book of Jewish Law.." so that we " would not miss out on the beauty of keeping a religious household."

Okay.. one couldn't very well start an argument over a gift, with a virtual stranger who thought he was being gracious.. and now we are the possessors one what is arguably one of the most bizarre schematics for living a life,
As a man, as a woman, as a child, as a wife, a mother, a father, a breadwinner, unemployed, rich, poor... from the cradle to the grave, and every second in between.

As I, and the man I was married to were given to reading anything with print on it, including the labels on ketsup bottles on restaurant tables, we did actually read the book, taking turns, and reporting with some glee and a great deal of amazement what we had discovered about a religion that included the belief that god was a component of every moment of human life, from getting out of bed in the morning, to getting out of bed the NEXt morning... and every gesture, every task, every item ingested... AND excreted.
A truly mind boggling set of prayers, benedictions, readings, actions....
Both of us were stunned by the degree and scope of religion... every moment of every day, every meal, every human interaction, was covered by strict ritual!
And all directed to the glory of Torah, the vehicle that was and is the proof of god's benediction upon his Chosen people, and their repayment by total obedience to his requirements for adoration.

But the most amazing of all, to us.. and one that caused us endless amusement.. were the strictures and rules for both bathroom habits and sex.
No nitty-gritty hee: I will only cover the ONE that is involved in both those areas, without going into the various details of what one does to oneself or to each other in those circumstances.
Prime is that when producing excrement, it is forbidden to think of Torah.
And while engaged in sex (married sex, of course.. if there were instructions for how to conduct oneself in a dalliance, I have mercifully forgotten it) one is also forbidden to think of Torah.
Keep that in mind.. EVEN if, or especially if, converting has ever entered your mind.

Here's the moral (not theirs, but mine) ... which I think applies to, in fact sums up the negative influence of religion in our lives..:
Before I read that book I had never in my life thought of Torah at all, much less while in the bathroom or while engaged in sex.
AFTER reading it however, it took years for me to STOP thinking about Torah while busy in both.
I won't say that it stopped me from either pursuit, of course, and I can't say that it made me do anything but laugh aloud when the thought popped up: TORAH!! (giggle)
But it was sorta creepy...
And it did remind me, that there is no area where the idea of god does not make man either severely unhappy or thoroughly ridiculous..
Or dangerous.

NMB

Ok granted, that's a healthier point of view. Clearly Victorian mores were schizoid and hypocritical. But disregarding religion, generally biology tells us that for the most part, long term monogamous pair bonding is beneficial to the human species due to resources and initial helplessness of our juvenile offspring. Cheating may help the long-term survival of the species in terms of genetic robustness and variability, but it's hell on stable family groups. Besides which, by this time, with 6.8 Billion people on the planet, do we really need to ensure so much variability? It's pretty clear that we're the dominant mammal on the planet, and rapidly creating resource problems for ourselves due to our population growth which is, if not exponential, at least logarithmic.

Your observation on the result of our uneasy dominance on the planet it certainly accurate... it is human overpopulation much more than its outgrowth (global warming) that is the greatest danger to our survival and that of our planet.

But I disagree that biology teaches us anything about family structure... if anything looking at humans as a product of our biology only corroborates that the old cartoons of the caveman dragging an available female to his lair by her hair and having his way with here, is a perfectly satisfactory way of doing nature's business which, is over and above any other consideration to perpetuate the species...
Biology determines our drives... how we are instructed to act on them in society comes from humans with organizational skills.

The idea of family structure came much later... and really started as clan rather than as couple.... tribes made their own arrangements for what did the best job of increasing their population...which translates into the ability to survive as a viable entity.

Sometimes, where there was a preponderance of females and an equitable distribution of land and available food, water and shelter, polygamy suited a tribe, and thus a clan.
Where the male was in short supply, as after wars... polyandry satisfied both sexual and economic mores...

While the woman is selective, she is after all the bearer of the eggs, and is innately aware of her responsibility to pick a mate that will enhance the prospect of healthy and above all survivable offspring, the make doesn't really care...
He has sexual needs that have to be met more often and with more immediacy than does the females and he doesn't care how they are satisfied, nor with whom...
And from the point of view of nature.... that assures that the seed be planted even if the only receptacles for them are old, unattractive, or poor...
That seed is of utmost importance to nature... which is why incidentally the wise (sly) old coots of the Old Testament came up with the idea (that has taken on the aura of a Commandment) that "thou shall not spill thy seed upon the ground.."
They were smart enough to know that you were probably gonna do it anyway, the male construct being what it was and still is, but they thought that they might was well give a shot to controlling the ravenous human desire for sexual pleasure. (It is a tenet of critical examination of successful puritanical societies (the USA) that sexual repression has been successfully (if not happily) channeled into the building of skyscrapers, or sending men to the Moon.)
That's the thing: if god... didn't want humans to think of sex as enjoyable, rather than simply a vehicle for making babies in the controlled environment of monogamous marriage... why di he make it feel so good?
Or to put it another way, why did god, (or his agents on earth) go out of his (their) way to threaten us, to make us miserable, by our taking advantage of that provably most pleasurable of human privileges?


He relishes his role as sexual predator and is aware that by menarche the female will no longer be viable for breeding, while he... cock' of the walk, not necessarily by choice but unatures decree, will be able to go on planting his seed (possibly less lively seed, and probably less frequently spread) until he is dead or 105 years old.
'Oh, Lucky Man!!"

There is no doubt that it takes more than just a mother to raise a secure, well adjusted offspring who will be able to take care of itself and start reproducing when its time comes...
And it takes more than either or a mother OR a father to keep the home fires burning, which is the mother's job while the father goes out to slay the mastodon or whatever is on the menu...
Just as in the good old days... no matter if the home is a cave or a Beverly Hills mansion...

The bearing, birthing, feeding and teaching of the young is undoubtedly what nature has in mind, nature lacking in either sensual admiration or the so-called moral sense that our religious forebears invented and insisted upon even while they themselves were either polygamous or monogamous with time off for hanky panky.
Think of Abraham, who didn't hesitate to "know" his wife's handmaiden... that very Hagar whose issue is making such waves to this very day.

And who can forget the hero of heroes, King David... whose Psalms are sung with such enthusiasm by moralists all over the Western world: he not only took a beautiful woman he was peering at lasciviously while she bathed... he got rid of her husband, when he decided he wanted to keep her around indefinitely... there is nothing like sexual obsession to turn a King into a killer, as well as a sexual predator.

I happen to think that the stable, monogamous couple in an extended family (or village) that supplies uncritical but enthusiastic support is the ideal environment for the raising of kids...
Alas, I don't really see too many admirable examples of either the couple, OR the extended family, which nine times out of ten turns out to be mean-spirited, small minded and a good reason for running away from home...
And I don't believe in divorce, either.... except that the way we live, to deny it to people who are determined to have it, would probably increase the homicide rate to an untenable level.....
and that's saying a lot given what we witness in our own society...
In other words, societies, like species make adaptations that hopefully will keep them from imploding... not necessarily what is ethical or moral.. but what works to keep the mayhem at an acceptable level.

Have you thought that our own success is what mitigates against stable parenting, and family?
We have the ability to go far afield from our roots... which makes extended family an impossibility for day to day structural support.
We cannot honor the wisdom of age... because our technical prowess exceeds the ability of the elders to learn it or even understand it.
We do afford to set up our own households separate, distinct and geographically distanced from our clans, or tribes.
And above all we live too long,.... too long at any rate to sustain interest in one mate...
My ninety two year old mother-in-law outlived 4 mates.... and remembers three of them most fondly... "the last three weren't around long enough to get on my nerves like the first one did," is her cheerful reminiscence.


Think of it this way... in the 18th Century.. a mere two hundred plus years ago... the average length of a marriage was 15 years... both men and women died of endemic/pandemic diseases that no longer exist, men died in work-related accidents, women died in childbirth or the devastation wrought by frequent pregnancies....
Now it is not unusual to see couples in their 80's either engaged in testy bickering or staring at each other with unmitigated hostility.... the sexual vitality as well as family responsibilities that might one have softened their animosity and disappointments no longer exist to enliven a too long existence...

And please no cards and letters... I'm not speaking of or to anyone in particular.... these are just general observations from Planet Earth...

NMB

I was basing that on a claim from David Attenborough's "The Living Planet" where he made that claim. Perhaps the validity of that is suspect coming from a naturalist, rather than a formally trained biologist, but it made sense to me. I wasn't referencing our origins all the way back to neolithic time anyway. But it does beg the question, does biology determine (or at least seriously influence) culture? I think there's still probably a lot of gray area there that we haven't quite figured out. I'm suspect of anyone who thinks they have all the answers.

Thanks for your (rather long) response. I found it interesting.