What the hell would I do with seven virgins?

He says...

I fly a lot. Too much in fact. I'm drafting this post on my 137^th flight of this calendar-year. I don't really like flying (which is unfortunate since I do so much of it) but at least if I'm not working on the plane, it gives me time to stare at the clouds and contemplate crackpot theories and oblique viewpoints, some of which find their way to places like this. I worry about stuff when I fly, not the least about terrorism. I worry even more though about the kind of world we live in, when I contemplate some of the motivations and rewards on offer for religious fundamentalist aspirant martyrs.

I know it's a complicated subject, and not to make light of a grave, cowardly and deadly practice which brings so much misery to the world, but it genuinely puzzles the crap out of me that the prospect of 7 (or whatever the number is) virgins in the paradise afterlife can be considered a potential reward for becoming a martyr. I've got no problem with generic sex being part of the incentive. We all know sex sells. But seven VIRGINS? What the hell would I do with seven of those? Frankly, you ain't gonna sell me the deal with even one virgin. I'm not even going to say “rather give me seven hot experienced women who know what they want”, because frankly, a FFFFFFFM group sex ratio, even with experienced women, is just all wrong. It's completely the wrong ratio. Seven dissatisfied women and one smug man? No thanks. (But I'll save the discussion on the relative merits of alternative ratios for another post maybe).

In the mean time, I've got nothing against virgins. Virgins please don't get offended, we all started somewhere. But virgins were meant for virgins. I have major issues with the fact that we live in a world where virgins are considered prize booty for worldly men who should really be fronting-up to the challenge of worldly women. And not just booty for becoming a martyr, there seem to be very dark, questionable and disturbing undertones of the prized status of virgins in many aspects of everyday life. I just don't get it. It's just so fundamentally, absolutely, unequivocally, 100% proof that we live in a fucked up world where men would prefer to own, bully, posses and hide their sexual ineptitude behind uncompromising domination of sexual politics and power. You've been robbed. The woman's voice is drowned out. What do their fairer-sexed martyr colleagues receive in the afterlife? 4 Adonis-like hunks to put them at the centre of adoring, pampering, gentlemanly, sensual attention to all of the many erogenous zones on a woman? Nah. Somehow I don't think that tender tastefully-executed MMFMM groupsex is on the cards for women who die for their beliefs, or even a different hunk every night, one-on-one- if that's your preference.

I wish I had more time to do research into the history of sexual politics in different cultures, because I have a sneaky suspicion that things didn't used to be so lop-sided. At some stage it all went wrong. A monumental, carefully-orchestrated, political smash and grab. The natural order of world was very deliberately subverted by a few very influential men. Women as equal sexual beings were robbed of their rightful place in the carnal sun. It completely bewilders me as to why men, somewhere along the line felt so threatened by sexual equality that they felt the need to screw with the natural order of things. I'll bet they were men with small penises.

Didn't the Pagans enjoy a considerably more even sexual political landscape? I think I'm gonna look into it.