Egypt anger over virginity faking

[cali]

By Magdi Abdelhadi
BBC Arab Affairs analyst


Pre-marital sex carries a strong social stigma in many Arab societies
A leading Egyptian scholar has demanded that people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country should face the death penalty.

Abdul Mouti Bayoumi said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law.

The device is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a female to feign virginity on her wedding night.

There is a stigma about pre-marital sex in conservative Arab societies.

The contraption is seen as a cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery, which is carried out in secret by some clinics in the Middle East.

It is produced in China and has already become available in other parts of the Arab world.

The device is reported to be on sale in Syria for $15.

Professor Bayoumi, a scholar at the prestigious al-Azhar University, said it undermined the moral deterrent of fornication, which he described as a crime and one of the cardinal sins in Islam.

Members of parliament in Egypt have also called for banning import of the item.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8279276.stm

[Demeter]

1. Whatever

[CreekDog]

Egypt has so few problems that they have time to focus on this one

:eyes:

[gratuitous]

2. Ick! People have sex!

Better gin up the outrage backed by the God Hates This machine to legitimize my own psychosexual hang-ups!

On second thought, I see a lucrative career for "Professor" Bayoumi in being a visiting lecturer and guest instructor at any number of American colleges and universities. Has Liberty University or Oral Roberts University looked into hiring this guy for a year or two? Death penalty for sex; brilliant!

[ShortnFiery]

3. OMG! Right on time to highlight cultural "scary" things about A-rabs.

How so very PREDICTABLE. :crazy:

[cali]

4. right on time? you're the one that's pathetically predictable.

your silly outrage over anything that is critical of anything but western culture is deeply stupid. And actually, I didn't see this as scary at all, but amusing. Nor did it matter a whit to me that it's happening in an Islamic country. Women will find a way to subvert those trying to control their sexuality. I like that.

As for your insinuating that I'm insinuating something nasty about Arabs, Egyptian culture or Islam, that's wholly without any foundation. I posted a BBC story. That's it. Now shove your disgusting smear tactics.

[ShortnFiery]

9. Oh cali, don't be defensive.

You should know by now that I respect you. ;)

[cali]

11. ack. your version of respect is not one I have any use for

[ShortnFiery]

14. That's too bad because I believe in basic civility and respect.

:hug: ;)

[cali]

15. no. you give lip service to it and then you post something like your smear in

this thread.

[proteus_lives]

7. Time for more pictures about "crusaders"

And the evil of the US and Israel. :eyes:

But she won't stand for the criticizing of non-western countries or other things she approves of or supports.

[ShortnFiery]

10. Oh yes, forgive me - we all know that western countries are so oppressed and downtrodden.

:sarcasm:

[proteus_lives]

18. I wonder if you'll ever figure out that you're not actually saying anything.

:eyes:

[Xithras]

5. Reminds me of a discussion I had with some students once.

Though I'm a CS instructor most of the time, I also teach a logic class that involves no programming and tends to pull in students from other disciplines. I forget how the discussion came up, but we got onto a tangent of logic and religion, and one of the students started defending the "logic" of abstinence until marriage. One of the young women in my class challenged him on his logic, and bluntly asked him, "Is my pussy broken, just because it's been used a few times?" The jackass student fired back at her that it wasn't broken, but certainly was no longer in its ideal form. The female student then asked him: "So is it the position of your religion that sex with a woman is only ideal if she is bleeding and in pain?"

Jackass had no response to that and refused to discuss it any further. He barely squeaked through the class with a D, and left me a nasty review on RateMyProfessors. Apparently I'm an anti-religion pinko because I permit these discussions in my classroom :D

[Warpy]

6. The usual thing was to off a chicken

for the wedding feast to cover the "shame" if a woman didn't bleed like a stuck pig on her wedding night. Lack of an intact hymen is not a reliable indication that a woman is a virgin, they're often torn during childhood.

The male fixation with ripping a hymen open is sick beyond belief.

[MattBaggins]

19. Wait a minute there

I'm a guy and I don't get. The last thing I want in sex is torn stuff and blood.

[proteus_lives]

8. Made in China.

Of course it is.

[Beer on a stick]

12. Fuck Egypt.

[seabeyond]

13. uh oh. lol. du is busting me up this morning. what else.... gotta get to work. nt

[asdjrocky]

16. Women are smart.

Thank god they usually find away around this cultural bullshit. It's too bad women are forced to do this, but I don't have a magic bullet to change a culture.

Perhaps time.

[Boojatta]

17. Such a device would be of no use to a woman who is divorced

unless she could have gotten an annulment based on the marriage not having been consummated, but for some reason she instead got a divorce.

I wonder how many men who support the death penalty for importing the virginity-faking device would be willing to consider marrying a woman who is either divorced or a widow. For example, when the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) died, did any of his wives remain alive and was it or would it have been "Bayoumically correct" for a Muslim man to marry one of them?

[cynatnite]

20. When he says "people" he really means women...

because women live in a society that okays stoning them to death for not possessing their precious virginity...even if it was taken from them by force.

[Boojatta]

21. Do you mean here...?

"people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country"

I think that he means "people." After all, there have been many death threats against the adult male human being who wrote a work of fiction called The Satanic Verses. Also, at least two translators of that book have been "executed" so far, and there is good reason to believe that the murderers were motivated by either money or the fact that those two people translated The Satanic Verses.

Now, if you're aware of an email address for any unpublished manuscript to be sent for official confirmation that all Islamic jurisdictions in the world agree that the author wouldn't be guilty of a crime carrying the death penalty if the author were to have the manuscript published...

At least the proposed death penalty for importing a virginity-faking device deters a specific and identifiable action. It isn't simply a threat to kill anyone who has elicited or who might in future elicit rage from a theocrat.