Leading men into temptation and vice
Apart from anything else, it’s so futile.
New Taliban laws that prohibit women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes have been condemned by the UN and met with horror by human rights groups.
The Taliban published a host of new “vice and virtue” laws last week, approved by their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which state that women must completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.
In other words to avoid leading men into thinking about sex. But guess what: they’ll think about it anyway. You might as well lock up all the food so that people won’t think about eating. Sex isn’t just in the head, it isn’t just what you see in the street. It’s the testosterone, stupid.
But of course that won’t do, because then there’s no one to hate.
“The Taliban government does not have any sort of legitimacy and these new edicts designed to further erase and suppress woman are an indication of their hatred towards women,” says Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan human rights activist who was the first woman vice-president of the Afghan parliament.
Yeah. That’s the grim reality. They like the hatred, they nurture it, they want it to grow and grow. They’re like Hitler and Jews, they’re like Justice Taney and black people, they’re like Trump and almost everyone. The hatred is the point. It’s a motivator.
If the men are so weak, and so dangerous, tell the men to stay at home and not show themselves. Let their faces be covered and voices not be heard, and be locked away, hidden in cloth bags. Put blindfolds on all of them and ear plugs, lest they see or hear anything.
If men are so depraved that they sexualize women so much, maybe they belong at home doing useful work. But honestly, aren’t men strong enough to have their sexual thoughts and still be functional and productive? And if men are like that, can any man not just become aroused by a woman no matter how covered? I mean if they are so nonfunctionally sexual, aren’t they just gonna like the hang of the eye mesh? I’m not sure how much Victorians said “limbs” rather than “legs” to avert potential male lust, but they clearly thought such a thing could happen.
As a former anorexic, I can say that when something is taboo, you think about it more. I imagine not being able to see any part of a woman leads men to fantasize, and want to see more, and demand to see more. I haven’t seen anything to convince me that countries that put women in bags have lower levels of rape.
We all know men, and have interacted with them in many ways. While there are some men who are guided by their libido more than is healthy, most men are able to be around women without problems. Women are all over the place, working with me, doing recreation with men, and just being in the same room with men. Why is it that so many men are able to interact without any loss of control, but we are constantly being told that men can’t help it? They sure as hell can. Some men might have trouble with that, men who are unable to restrain themselves due to illness or youth, but even in those cases, you can often teach them.
I have an admittedly ill-formulated theory that men tend to blame others for their woes, whereas women blame themselves. In the same vein as the difference in how men and women interpret the “be kind to others” diktat* noted by others here. Need a better writer than myself to create an appropriate missive on the subject… or maybe one exists that I’m unaware of?
*ok yeah fine that’s way hyperbolic. I’m blanking on an appropriate word for “authoritative command issued and repeated by popular consent that sounds good on its face but can be interpreted multiple ways, some of which are outright harmful”. Maybe there’s a good German or Japanese word available? ;-)
Some years back, an Iranian ‘community leader’ of some sort was publicly declaring that men who shaved their faces were inviting rape. Without facial hair, they looked more like boys, who look more like women….QED.