My morning issue of The Rocky Mountain News had a story about eight women and one man in Iran who have been sentenced to death by stoning for the serious crime of adultery. [This immediately raises a question in my mind: did those eight women all commit adultery with the same man...or is there some reason why their partners in crime are not being given the same punishment?]

A brief portion of the article says: "Under Iran's Islamic laws, adultery is the only capital offense punishable by stoning. [LeRoy: I thought I had read of some prostitutes in Iran who were stoned to death, but my memory may be defective on that...] A man is usually buried up to his waist, while a woman is buried up to her neck. Those carrying out the verdict then throw stones until the condemned dies."

LeRoy: This raises an interesting question: If you were going to be stoned to death, would you prefer to be buried up to your waist, or to your neck? Any preferences on that?

And, isn't the 21st century just wonderful?

At least I think it was George Carlin who asked this:

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

"He majored in animal husbandry until one day they caught him at it..."

If you read Spengler over at asiatimes, he's always talking about the fall of Iran and the fact that so many women are turning to prostitution. Surely they can't all be expat prostitutes. I think prostitution must be sort of de facto legal in Iran. Gotta have an outlet for all that aggression.

No, these were probably married women who cheated...

I'm sure you've heard that one before, from the sort of guys who claimed they belonged to the I Phelta Thigh fraternity...

Genedio: No, these were probably married women who cheated...

LeRoy: I'm sure they were, but who did they cheat with? If they cheated with a married man, then he, too, is guilty of adultery. If a married woman cheats with a single man, isn't he committing adultery, in the common use of the term? My sense is that Iran has a raging double standard when it comes to male and female sexuality.

I was just trying to find my copy of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, as it has a very amusing animal husbandry story near the very beginning....I think some student must have run off with it...

I think the Old Testament (which Muhammed borrowed from, either intentionally or not) sees women as being chattel so that it is only really the women who would be seen as adulterous while the men, given their superior position, have a right to philander.

As I'm sure you're aware, the eternal question is, 'who is the father'? We always know the identity of the mother. Nothing's worse for a guy than to have his woman give birth to a baby that is not his--that he will be responsible for raising. This is true in the animal kingdom, and it's also true for humans. The biological imperitive implies that males want to father as many kids with as many different women as possible, but this goes against society's rules, which protect the males with females already spoken for. So I agree, a man who has intercourse with a married woman is violating the rights of her cuckold, and should be charged, as well. The only exception would be if the cuckold is impotent or flat no longer interested in his woman--maybe having graduated to other women...

But the final onus and penalty is traditionally levied on the woman--the source of temptation. Men in these traditional societies are looked on as victims of the alluring woman's charms, and not the perpetrators. That's also why they blame prostitutes, and not johns. We have gone the opposite direction, and often blame johns more than hookers.

Just shows you how malleable and mutable human culture can be.

Old blonde joke: A blonde goes to see her doctor, and a bit later the doctor tells her that her pregnancy test is positive. She is going to have a baby.

The blonde looks very confused and puzzled, bewildered even. She says, "But....but....how can I be sure it's really mine??"

In the near future, very rapid paternity tests will be available and cheap. I wonder if that might lead to some large-scale changes in our culture.