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January 27, 2010
Is that a bomb in your underwear or are you just happy to see me?
When I visited Amsterdam a few years ago, I took an obligatory self-tour through the notorious "red light district" that has had so many people have been up in arms for so many years. It didn't alarm me at all to see women wearing lingerie dancing in windows, although I soon learned that these were not Dutch girls; they were almost all immigrants from Eastern European countries. Whether they were being exploited I don't know, but I guess they must have found selling themselves in Amsterdam preferable to struggling in the Slovakian job market or they wouldn't have been there. There was one thing I found disturbing, though. An angry Mideastern man was standing in front of one of the businesses, and to say he was in a state of serious emotional distress would be understatement; he looked like he was freaking out on LSD. He would look at a window where a girl dressed in a provocative outfit was dancing (I think she was wearing naughty S&M garb and waving a riding crop), and then he would look away and bend his head down while straining as if in excruciating pain. Really, really weird. So it was no surprise to read that the group which assassinated Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh had also been implicated in a plot to attack Amsterdam's red light district. Which brings me to more recent news. Via Michael van der Galien, I learned about two essays discussing how terrorists harness the dynamics of Islamic sexual repression. While this didn't really surprise me, the fact that it was a primary motivator in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is not only cause for concern for those charged with watching these people, but I found myself wondering about the possible implications vis-a-vis the war against sex. From a piece by Mirande Divine which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, titled "Sexual Starvation and Jihad Fantasies": The 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day was lonely and sexually repressed, according to messages left on an Islamic website.This might make no sense to most of us, who would rightly find ourselves puzzled over why a rich kid who's sexually frustrated would rather kill himself than go out and get laid. Normally, we would think of someone like that as a psychiatric case, deserving of pity. Except there's an organized effort to find people like that, and convince them that the best way to "cure" these feelings is to take out as many Westerners as possible. After all, his feelings are our fault! We allow the decadent sexual temptations that so torment him! From "Why the Rich Muslim Boy Became a Terrorist," by Jamie Glazov: ...the most obvious torment that arises in the life of a young devout Muslim like Abdulmutallab is what he himself honestly describes: the tension between sexual desires and the Islamic mandate of, as he writes, "lowering the gaze" in the presence of women. "The Prophet (S) advised young men to fast if they can't get married," he agonizes, "but it has not been helping me much and I seriously don't want to wait for years before I get married."That "lowering of the gaze" business describes to a T the mortified look I saw on the face of that disturbed Mideastern guy in Amsterdam. He was incapable of simply going into the place and paying for what he so obviously wanted (or simply leaving the area if it distressed him), and most likely, he externalized his desires as "evil" being directed at him by others. I think he might have been a fertile recruit, and were I running a terror cell, I would have my people stake out red light districts and look for Mideastern types showing signs of such sexual repression distress. (Perhaps the Western intelligence services would be wise to do the same, if they don't already.) As Glazov explains, because of religious strictures, this shameful sense of sexual longing can trigger a seemingly insatiable need to "purify" themselves, which can become redirected as terrorism directed at the West: It is precisely in this context that we see the origins of the Muslim suicide bomber's journey into the heart of jihadi darkness.Of course, it would be a serious mistake to blame the temptations offered in the West instead of the savages who cannot handle them in a civilized adult manner. As well as a classic case of blaming the victim. At the risk of sounding paranoid, let me repeat my concern that the terrorists "are smart enough to exploit the tendency of people to commit logical errors like this": I'm with M. Simon on this one. Flood them with p0rn and other temptations. Hopefully, the shock will eventually wear off, and they'll stop being so tormented by what ought to provide pleasure. If that doesn't work, then I suppose we'll just have to kill them if and when they try to act out on their sexual purification pogroms. But meanwhile, we need a backup plan. So I have an idea. An immodest proposal, if you will. Why not hire experienced prostitutes, pole dancers, and lap dancers to work as TSA screeners? I mean, if these psychosexually tormented misfits are going to be electronically strip-searched, why not have it done by people whose appearance is likely to elicit uncontrollable telltale reactions from those who would purify themselves by extinguishing their earthly sinful existences? The idea is not to prevent them from extinguishing their own earthly sinful existences, but to protect our earthly sinful existences. MORE: Considering that the airlines are now suffering from crippling, record losses, something clearly needs to be done to attract more passengers and promote air travel. So how about the scantily-clad screeners? I think they might they have a positive economic impact on an industry which in the doldrums. Because of the cumbersome restrictions, traveling has long ceased to be fun, and hiring sexy girls could provide the perfect remedy -- at a very low cost. Considering that that's in addition to providing a built-in honeypot to ensnare sexually-frustrated suicide bombers, I think my proposal is a win-win by any standard. MORE: It's probably worth pointing out that right now is probably not a good time to travel with lizards in your underwear: WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A German man who stuffed 44 small lizards into his underwear before trying to board a flight has been sentenced to prison in New Zealand for plundering the country's protected species.No word on whether the lizards were spotted by the new electronic technology, but it is to be hoped the security people will do at least as good a job of finding bombs as they do lizards. Not to make light of a serious issue, but really... When was the last time anyone was killed by guys with lizards in their underwear? posted by Eric on 01.27.10 at 11:04 AM
Comments
Thanks! M. Simon · January 27, 2010 03:54 PM Hey lizards on planes are very dangerous. They could cause all sorts of problems, like pissing off Samuel L. Jackson. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLaX8UvVUQw
plutosdad · January 27, 2010 06:00 PM Post a comment
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I spent some time in Amsterdam in 08 when I went to the Olympics in Turin.
I had been there in the early 90s so I was wondering how it had changed.
The biggest difference was food. In the 90s, all the corner places were just pastry, the only food places were restaurants and McDonald's (the only golden arches I've ever visited outside the US) and they all stunk, they even screwed up hamburgers. I spent 3 or 4 days eating pastry except there was one place that had a decent breakfast.
In 08, the pastry places were all "shawarma/falafel/pastry" places and darn good, they were run by Muslims obviously.
They all thought I was just some burned out fool so they all overcharged me. Eh, I would have tipped them more but they probably got their jollies over-charging Americans so I let them. Besides, they had great falafels. I haven't been able to find a falafel as good as the first one I ate in some Turkish place in Greenwich Village in the early 80s so finding decent falafel makes me happy.
That was about it. I did see a group of young muslim men (by their dress) walking through the red-light district. They were all pointing and giggling, they surely didn't seem angry.
As for the workers, in the early 90s my buddy talked to one who was from Ireland. Apparently, cute farm girls spend some time in Amsterdam making money and they go back home afterwards with nobody the wiser about what they did on the vacation on the mainland and a nice bankroll.
Eastern European girls probably do the same thing.