Yes I am ranting and yes I used hyperbolic rhetoric which exxagarates, but it is geared to balance the blathering cultural imperialistic conceit from the West towards the Muslim world.
And that's what it is: continued imperialism. Its not enough that you control Muslim rulers, subjugate Muslim economies (the GDPs of all the North African nations combined is less than the GDP of the Netherlands alone), immobilize Muslim militaries, drain Muslim intellectual potential, you have to superimpose Western values regarding culture and social relations on the Muslim world as well, even down to the role of the woman's genitalia. You'd argue against male circumcision too if it served your moral superiority. But the West has used the Muslim woman as a cultural wedge issue for centuries.
On the contrary, I know full well about both American and Muslim cultures. But i'm not given a column to spout out my views. I grew up a Christian boy in Middle America. I was a jock and type A kid the object of lust for cheerleaders, older girls, and even moms. I have full knowledge about American cultural relations. No, all American women are NOT sluts or easy or stupid.
But the cultural devaluation of chastity and virginity is NOT human evolution, as Saletan and his minions propose.
What's occurring in the Muslim community in France and elsewhere is an ongoing cultural clash of civilizations of which licentious, immoral Western values continue to gain ground in Muslim communities.
Libertine values about premarital and extramarital sexual relations is propagated by French culture within France and the nations which are subjugated to French economic and cultural hegemonic superiority, namely Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, but also Senegal Sierra Leone, etc.
And the story of teenage age boys hounding after nubile teenage girls is not new, nor is it exaggarated. Incidently, from my reading, many women did NOT enjoy or find the loss of their virginity to that hounding boy particularly important, rather they found it a waste. I cite a pinnacle cultural icon for Gen X : Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (That's right, I know American culture).
While most males recall the volumptuous girls ( The Cars: Life In Stereo) , the actual plot revolves around a girl who looses her virginity in a rather unfulfilling, unromantic, wasteful encounter which results in her pregnancy, abortion, and maturation. On the flip, the antagonist impregnating male abandons any type of responsibility to the young woman, continues with his exploits, immaturity, and remains a revered figure.
Another similar Gen X iconic milestone: The Breakfast Club.
Virginity again is explored and is devalued to be a mere inconvenience. Of course the central matter of virginity has to do with the Prom Queen's deflowering rather than the oddball girl's or the nerdy geek's deflowering. In the Breakfast Club, the prom queen was depicted as condescending and morally superior to the misfit castoffs AND she was a virgin. But the way for her to become equal with the burn-out Bender crowd, the castoff malcontent, was for her to surrender her virginity to him, symbolized by her giving him his diamond earring which he promptly wears and pumps his fist in the air in the concluding scene.
As a teen, I loved that movie just because it seemed cool. My high school senior class had several kids play the imfamous theme song at our Talent show. My older cousin dressed like the Bender character eventhough he was an upperclass kid from the Chicago suburbs of Glenn Ellyn who actually attended the school were another 1980s movie was filmed.
And this goes to the underlying concept: the libertine licentious position from the Western perspective is the notion of deconstructionist, "rebellion in defense of justice", support all Muslim girls loosing their virginity and breaking their hymens outside of marriage because virginity and chastity is for losers and condescending prudes.
But Islam is NOT Western Judeo Christian culture.
Islam is NOT prudish or backwards regarding sex. Islam teaches Muslims to enjoy sex, but in marriage. And marriage is supposed to be an easy wonderful experience where good people can find fulfillment.
But Saletan removes this aspect of the story completely from HIS RANT- and that's all Saletan did: RANT.
So yes, I used my liberal arts education to expound on the fictious depiction of Saletan as a gross slob, obese with a 60 lb gut that eclipses his male genitalia except in his own imagination alone with his computer fantasizing about barely legal girls who are so cheap, perhaps in totally youthful ignorance and as patsies and marks to the diabolical machinations of middle aged men behind the cameras, as to surrender themselves permanently on video for all the world and even their own future children and grandchildren to view and lust over.
Or perhaps Saletan is like Andre Gide's Immoralist character who hides his blackened immoral heart in persistent illness which emerges on Slate as moralizing righteousness, only to find his impure desires fulfilled in dark, abased corners and backstreets of the world.
