Besides the news that naughty Alberto has liberated the nude statues at the Justice Dept. from their curtains, I just spotted this in the NYTimes weekly book reviews:
“An erotic novel written under a pseudonym might normally struggle to find a mainstream publisher and a wide readership. Not so, it seems, when it is penned by a Muslim woman living in a traditional Arab society. ‘The Almond,’ a semi-autobiographical exploration of sexual freedom, has sold 50,000 copies in France since Éditions Plon brought it out here last year. And it has now appeared in eight other languages, including English.”
In fact, she said, what first set her writing was her anger at the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and Washington’s reaction to them. “Two fundamentalisms collided,” she said. “The fundamentalists committed an irreversible, shocking, outrageous act. But the reply was also monstrous, shocking, outrageous. I saw the two sides speaking only of murder and blood. No one cared about the human body.”
… [B]uilt around her reminiscences of a steamy love affair, she decided to address what, in the Muslim world, is often considered a forbidden topic: sex.
“I had to talk about the body,” she said. “It is the last taboo, one where all the political and religious prohibitions are concentrated. It is the last battle for democracy. I didn’t want to write politically, but I did look for something radical. It is a cry of protest.”
A lot of the Orwellian anti-sex people are all about control and not about sex. Would I do it before marriage myself? I simply don’t see a strong likelyhood of me doing it. But would I force my beliefs on someone else? No. And I would not try to get in bed with someone who is already taken.
We need to learn to think above the belt, if you catch my drift. We need to learn to see women or men as people and not sex objects for our personal gratification or an entitlement which comes with being successful.
Which brings me back to the topic. Books like this are really helpful, because they help people discuss their sexual attitudes in a non-invasive and non-threatening way.
I’d love to see her book. I guess Amazon doesn’t have the first chapter, darn. And I’m proud of Alberto for freeing the statues — the one thing he’s done to please me.
With all due respect, that is like saying you are proud of Dr. Mengele because he washed his hands before surgery.
Uncovering the Spirit of Justice is neither groundbreaking nor requires any talent to be proud of.
Gonzalez is responsible for reprehensible crimes against humanity.
As much as I love the human body, the thought of this criminal next to beauty is nauseating.
Shelter those fine statues from the eyes of this abominable pervert.
There is nothing about Alberto Gonzalez to be proud about, except a cell in solitary without windows.
Hal C
I meant it in a light way, Hal. I’ve diaried enough about Gonzales’s involvement in war crimes so that I’m only too aware of what he’s done.
Curiously, today, I heard that the GOP regulars don’t want him for the Supreme Court. They don’t trust him.
…sex, Reading Lolita in Tehran peers behind the curtain drawn around Muslim women as well. I sure wouldn’t want to be this woman if certain extremist prudes discover her real identity.
Don’t know the first thing about this book but I do know that in many Muslim cultures, women are treated far better sexually than in Christian or other cultures.
The image most people have of “Islam” is a woman hidden beneath clothing of some sort, whether head scarf or full body burka. But that really obscures (pardon the pun) what goes on between women and men behind closed doors.
Talk about sexual relations, and the need to “please” wives sexually, is very frank and open in Islam. I don’t have the time to do the research now but it’s much more frank and open than it is in say the Taliban States of America.
Just for instance, all that “ululating”, that Arab women cry that the show Xena (Zena?) stole, has a sexual purpose.
Pax
Funny how Bushco and Muslim extremists are both so afraid of the human body and sex. Is this why they break bodies, and tear bodies, and dismember bodies? Does their own distrust, shame, and hatred of their own bodies turn outwards where they find the crushing of bodies going on around them all a desirable and justifiable happening? Does their outward reality now match their internal reality and now they are happy?
That’s deep, and I mean that. Great insight… go with it.