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The content of these links may not be appropriate for all readers and all environments. – Trevor Blake

Furry Girl, Introduction, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Non:

After working on the outskirts of the porno industry since 2002, I have steadily been moving from wanting to modernize and re-define the concept of feminism to wanting to stop beating that dead horse entirely. Many of my friends and favorite people consider themselves feminists. A lot of my enemies consider themselves feminists, too, and they exist in larger numbers, with better funding, and with better brand recognition as the face of feminism. [...] I spent way too much of my own time trying to shoehorn myself into feminism, and I look back on that as an embarrassing waste of my energy.

Feminism as a word/identity is used to describe so much of everything that it has ceased to mean anything at all. Is fucking people for money feminist? Is climbing the corporate ladder feminist? Is wearing an abaya feminist? Is shaving your pussy feminist? Is being a stay-at-home mom feminist? Is BSDM feminist? Are sewing and crafting feminist? Is makeup feminist? Is being a woman in the military feminist? Is broccoli soup feminist?!?! You have people lined up, ready to fight to the death over their absolute certainty over whether or not such things are truly feminist. (What the word “feminism” stands in for, of course, is deemed permissible by the “right” kind of people.)

In general, I’m tired of “feminist” being used as a blanket qualifier to mean “awesome”, especially when it comes to the concept of feminist porn. I think “awesome” works just fine as a qualifier for awesome. I seek to advance the idea the first person in any debate to propose that their position is correct because it’s the most “feminist” has hereby lost the argument. I have been guilty of this one plenty of times in the past, but I can learn from my mistakes.

Furry Girl, Biography of a Pornographic Polemic:

Why would you NOT want call yourself a feminist? That means you’re sexist, then, right? Pick a side! We’re at war!
I don’t call myself a suffragette, either, but that doesn’t mean I am against women being allowed to vote. I still consider myself super-duper anti-sexism, because sexism is still a problem in my society. Unfortunately, it’s frequently perpetuated by people who call themselves feminists.

What could you possibly have against feminism?
For starters: “feminism” doesn’t have anything close to a singular meaning, so it’s too hard to have rational debate about it when it means opposite things to different people; the feminist pendulum has run its course and too often turns into pointless misandry; feminism used to be about women’s right to be more than just barefoot and pregnant, and now it fights for the “right” of women to be barefoot and pregnant and be given a ton of government and corporate handouts for churning out babies; feminism is commonly embraced by people who’s underlying beliefs are that women are stupid, feeble creatures who need to be controlled and saved; feminism these days focuses way too much on imaginary first-worlder problems like women choosing to feel badly about themselves because they think they’re not pretty enough, rather than real-world problems in the Global South where women aren’t allowed to own property, vote, or have a safe abortion; some feminists are obsessed with fanning and exploiting insecurities in women in order to indoctrinate them to their style of victim feminism, rather than being positive and helping women see that they’re strong and powerful. Last but not least: it’s REALLY FUCKING DIFFICULT to spend your entire life being viciously picked on by girls and women for various reasons, then swallow the idea that women are your true solidarity sisters and that men are the cruel enemy that oppresses you.

BBC News, Danish Police Shoot Intruder at Cartoonist’s Home:

The man had entered Mr [Kurt] Westergaard’s house armed with a knife and axe and had shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill him. Mr Westergaard ran to a specially designed panic room where he raised the alarm.

KR News, Charity cartoon rejected over terror fears:

TV2’s morning lifestyle programme Go’morgen Danmark was the latest in a long line of those trying to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake. The show organised an auction through auctioneers, Lauritz.com, and asked well known politicians and personalities to donate personal items for the charity fundraiser. A signed copy of Bill Clinton’s book dedicated to the head of the Social Democrats, concert and sports events tickets and a porcelain doll owned by Pia Kjærsgaard, head of the Danish People’s Party, are already listed in the auction. However, when cartoonist Kurt Westergaard – forever to be associated with the Mohammed cartoons and terror threats – was asked to submit a new drawing for the auction, the auctioneers refused to accept it. According to Mette Jessen of Lauritz, the decision was taken because of the latest attempt on Westergaard’s life when an alleged assassin broke into his house on New Year’s Day. ‘We must recognise that the terror threat is still of such a character that we can’t predict the consequences of a sale. We value the safety of our employees quite highly, which is why an eventual risk assessment was used in our consideration,’ she said. Westergaard was disappointed in Lauritz’s decision, saying it was just another example of how his name creates fear. ‘The drawing was in no way controversial, but it seems my name is. I’m sorry for the fear it causes people. When even my hairdresser, who is Muslim, told me with sadness that she didn’t dare keep me on as a customer for fear of reprisals, then there’s reason to be sad about this development,’ he said.

VOA News, Death of Gay Activist Brings Turkey’s Attitude Toward Gays Into Focus:

For 26-year-old Ahmet Yildiz, the choice to live openly as a gay man in Turkey proved deadly. Prosecutors say his father, charged with allegedly killing his son in what is being dubbed as the first gay honor killing, traveled more than 900 kilometers from his hometown to shoot his son in an old neighborhood of Istanbul.

FOXNews.com, Saudi Teen Sentenced to 90 Lashes for Cell Phone in School:

Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading country in the use of torture-by-flogging, and religious police keep a close watch over public behavior.

RFI, Playwright Petrol Attack Handed to Terrorist Police:

The 45-year-old was attacked on Tuesday night outside the theatre in Paris where her play is showing. Two men insulted her in Arabic and poured petrol over her. They then threw a cigarette at her, which failed to ignite.

MetaFilter, Malaysian Churches Attacked Over “Allah”:

Malaysian Catholic newspaper Herald was recently involved in a major lawsuit against the Malaysian government, stating that their constitutional rights were violated when they were stripped of their license to publish in East Malaysian indigenous language Kadazandusun. The ruling was overturned, amidst support by state ministers and protests by the Government, the Islamic Opposition party, and Muslim activists – some of whom have spent the past week attacking churches and convents through firebombs, Molotov cocktails, paint, and bricks thrown at glass.

MetaFilter, The Women of Afghanistan:

87 percent are illiterate. 44 years is their average life expectancy. 70 to 80 percent face forced marriages.

Sam Harris, Liberals Have More to Fear than Cheney (circa 30 January 2008):

Liberals need to realize that there are people in the Muslim world far scarier than Dick Cheney.

NYPOST.com, Art Therapy for Terrorists:

“There is no criteria for evaluation,” John Horgan, a Department of Homeland Security consultant, told the New York Post.

Times Online, Iranian Dancer Afshin Ghaffarian Describes Ordeal at the Hands of Basij:

Ghaffarian is a dancer – an activity banned by Iran’s Islamic rulers and punishable by long prison terms. “If he had known that he would have beaten me even harder,” Ghaffarian said.

Robert Scheer, Bush’s Faustian Deal with the Taliban (22 May 2001 via archive.org):

Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously. That’s the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today.

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] and etc.  “They’re making the last film… “

Once again I have enjoyed the benefit of reading the words of those who are my enemies and of reading source documents as well as commentary on source documents.

Like many others, I have been reading about a proposed anti-homosexual law in the country of Uganda.  I have read consistently that the law would sentence homosexuals to death.  Then I read a press release from a group in England that supports the proposed law.  The press release made different claims:

In fact, the death penalty in David Bahati MP’s ‘Anti-homosexuality Bill’ is only for ‘aggravated homosexuality’; which is knowingly infecting others with AIDS, sodomy with minors and homosexual rape. Promoting homosexuality would however be punishable by a jail term.

It cannot be true that the proposed law both does and does not sentence homosexuals to death.  This was the benefit of reading the words of my enemies (Christian Voice, authors of the press release): I learned what I thought was true was instead in question.  One way to resolve this contradiction was to consult the source document, granting an equal mistrust to all commentators.  Here is what the source document says:

A person commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality where the (a) person against whom the offence is committed is below the age of 18 years; (b) offender is a person living with HIV; (c) offender is a parent or guardian of the person against whom the offence is committed; (d) offender is a person in authority over the person against whom the offence is committed; (e) victim of the offence is a person with disability; (f) offender is a serial offender; or (g) offender applies, administers or causes to be used by any man or woman any drug, matter or thing with intent to stupefy or overpower him or her so as to there by enable any person to ahve unlawful carnal connections with any person of the same sex.  A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death. [PDF]

The press release of my enemies is more accurate than the commentary of my friends and the mainstream media.  The section of the proposed law quoted above speaks of homosexuality in the way some laws in the United States spoke of sodomy, as a catch-all for anything other than genital-to-genital sex between a man and a woman.  Homosexuality in itself is criminalized with a jail term (life), not with the death penalty.

I am against all laws pertaining to victimless crimes.  Sex between consenting and informed adults is nobody’s business, and that includes homosexuality.  The proposed anti-homosexual law is bad enough as it stands.  Homosexuality does not merit life in prison or extradition, as the law calls for.  I am against this law, and against those who support this law.  But there is no need to exaggerate how bad this law is by falsely claiming it threatens homosexuals with the death penalty exclusively due to their homosexuality.

When openly gay college student Matthew Shepard was targeted, tortured and murdered in 1998 the story made national headlines. Soon after, MTV sent a camera crew down to Charleston, South Carolina searching for a redneck or two who might offer some insensitive remarks about homosexuals for their “True Life” series. They found one. Me. I was a student at the College of Charleston and as the lone conservative writer at the school paper, was asked to participate in the television tapings. I remember telling MTV I believed Shepard’s murderers should receive the death penalty. I also told them, when prodded, that I believed homosexuality was “against God.” It’s a comment I’ve regretted ever since. My first regret stems from the blasphemous assumption that I could know the mind of God and secondly, that I had portrayed gay men and women as somehow lesser children of that God. Despite my youthful ignorance, there is nothing more obvious to me today than the fact that the overwhelming majority of homosexuals are born gay. It is nature, not nurture and certainly no choice. [...]

Most violent crime is born of some sort of hatred and examining motive is certainly crucial in any criminal investigation. But “hate” – for gays, minorities, women, chivalrous men – is still just a thought, and should not be itself, a criminal action. Criminalizing the thought behind a violent act sets dangerous precedent and gives special justice to special groups and lesser justice to victims of similar crimes who do not belong to those groups.

Article continues at link.  How is freedom of speech defended on the left, on the right, and at the extremes of each?  How does that change over time?  Are you ready to go this far to defend freedom of speech?  How about this far?  How far, my friend?

The Telegraph:

Miss [Dalia] Mogahed, appointed to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was “oversimplified” and the majority of women around the world associate it with “gender justice”. The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party. The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world. Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir’s national women’s officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular “man-made law” and the West’s “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism”. They called for Sharia Law to be “the source of legislation” and said that women should not be “permitted to hold a position of leadership in government”. Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that “promiscuity” and the “breakdown of traditional values” were what Muslims admired least about the West. She said: “I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media. The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance. The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases.” [...]

Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with “maximum criminal punishments” and “laws that… to many people seem unequal to women,” but added: “Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood.” The video of the broadcast has now been prominently posted on the front page of Hizb ut Tahrir’s website.

Miss Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and moved to America at the age of five, is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House. Her appointment was seen as a sign of the Obama administration’s determination to reach out to the Muslim world. She is also the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a project which aims to scientifically sample public opinion in the Muslim world. During this week’s broadcast, she described her White House role as “to convey… to the President and other public officials what it is Muslims want.”

Article continues at link.  Wikipedia confirms Miss Mogahed’s role in President Obama’s Council.  Miss Mogahed was on this television program due to her leadership role in the United States government.  There are a limited number of ways to interpret the simultaneous nature of Miss Mogahed’s leadership in government and her faith which prohibits women having leadership in government.  She could consider Islam to be a two-tiered superstition, with one rule for other women and another rule for herself.  Or she could consider it acceptable to tell a lie to non-Muslims as long as Islam is advanced through that lie.  In the West these acts are called hypocrisy, lying, propaganda, manipulation, treason, betrayal, machiavellian, etc.  In the Muslim world, these are called Taqiyya [neutral] [pro] [con].

“You just don’t understand” is sometimes presented as a way of saying “you just don’t agree” by people who consider themselves to have a direct line to immutable and obvious truth.  Because they hold the immutable truth, and because truth is obvious, anyone who disagrees must not understand.  If they understood, they would agree.  But no one has a line to immutable truth, and truth is not obvious.  “You just don’t understand” is the mistaken notion that exposure to a claim will magically cause the observer to adopt it.  We all can err.  There is no ultimate foundation of truth claims to build on, but we can build on the practice of identifying our errors and not repeating them.  No particular group has a monopoly on the “you just don’t understand” ruse.  Feminists use it and so do fundamentalists.  It’s used on the left and the right.  Believers use it and atheists use it.  No matter how many people use it (and I admit I have in the past), this ruse is not a proof of the claim in question.  It is an attempt to evade criticism and introspection.  When lives are at stake, it is contemptible.

Regarding Sharia law as gender justice or justice for women, I will defer to the experts.  Experts like Tulay Goren and Yasmine Larbi-Cherif and Ayman Udas and Sabina Akhtar and Aasiya Hassan and Sahar Daftary and Lidia Motylska and Sandeela Kanwal and Morsal Obeidi and Hatin Surucu and Banaz Mahmood and Aqsa Parvez and Caneze Riaz and Uzma Rahan and Samaira Nazir and Hina Salem and Methal Dayem and Sazan Bajez-Abdullah and Rudayena Jemael and Hesha Yones and Ibtihaz Hasoun and Fadime Sahindal and Zahida Peeveen and Ghazala Khan and Dua Khalil and Rim Abu Ghanem and Sabia Rani and other experts and these experts as well and another group of experts and more experts.  If you’re not at work and have a strong stomach, you can even see images and videos of experts as they earn their expertise.

The Wikipedia entry on Hiz ut-Tahrir appears even handed.  Unlike the Telegraph, it does not identify Hiz ut-Tahrir as extremist.  It confirms the group “wants combine all Muslim countries in a unitary Islamic state or caliphate, ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph head of state elected by Muslims.”  Wikipedia claims Hiz ut-Tahrir is opposed to violence and has a focus “on ‘ideological struggle’ to establish its vision of the caliphate in the minds of Muslims.”  This is the democracy that Hiz ut-Tahrir claims to be dead-set against, and so what they are opposing when they oppose democracy is unclear.  Perhaps they intend to use democracy to get in power, then destroy democracy?  It’s happened before.  Perhaps they oppose violence until they get into power, then… ?  That’s happened before too.

Miss Mogahed is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House.  In the United States is is neither forbidden nor compulsory for a woman to veil herself in most (not all) situations.  Miss Mogahed may be projecting her own liberties (oh, those lethal liberties) on women in the Muslim world.  Hiz ut-Tahrir is less confused on the issue: Article 116 of their draft constitution makes the veil obligatory for women.  Debating the veil is a low-hanging fruit in the West.  It’s easy to fight for the right to wear a veil when it’s an option and you can pretend your options are shared elsewhere.  It’s also a good distraction from more pressing concerns for women in Islam.  Issues like Muslim girls being able to go to school without being blown up, poisoned or burned with acid.

I prefer the lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism to anything the Muslim world is offering up in the 21st Century.

Jack Donovan, Androphilia [2006]:

Sodomy has been decriminalized in the United States, and America lagged behind most of Europe in this significant achievement.  It seems that if gay advocates today were truly concerned about real oppression, they’d be concentrating their efforts on political asylum programs for homos in Muslim countries, where accused homosexuals are still routinely executed or forced, foolishly, to submit to testosterone injections.

Matt McAllester, The Hunted [2009]:

Nuri was riding in a taxi on a February afternoon when the cab was stopped by the commando unit of the Iraqi police at a checkpoint. To be stopped at a checkpoint was no big deal to Nuri, or any Iraqi. The police put up surprise roadblocks all over the city to catch insurgents and criminals. An officer asked for Nuri’s identification, then told him to step out of the car. The officer asked for Nuri’s cell phone, and Nuri handed it over. Then the officer threw Nuri against the car and handcuffed him.“What have I done?” Nuri asked. The officer didn’t answer. He sniggered, put a hood over Nuri’s head, and shoved him into a police vehicle. In the car, Nuri heard the officer talking on his radio, telling someone that he had found Nuri and would put him in with “the others.” [...] Nuri was told that $10,000 would buy his freedom. When he said he barely had any money, he was placed in a cell overnight. The following morning, his interrogators came back and asked if he was sure he didn’t have the money. Nuri said yes, he was sure. The men then handcuffed him, tied a rope around his ankles, threaded the rope through a hook in the ceiling, hoisted him upside down, and stripped him to his underwear. He passed out. When he woke up, he was still suspended in the air. In the evening, the men let Nuri down, and asked him again for the money. The questioning continued the following day. Nuri’s captors asked for the names and contacts of other gay men, but Nuri refused to divulge any. They called him a tanta—a queen. They told him things would get much worse for him if he didn’t tell them all they wanted to hear. “Killing gays is halal,” one of the men said, meaning it was permissible under Islamic law. “We’ll get points in heaven for it.”

Over the next three weeks, nine men, working in teams of three, took turns torturing Nuri. For three days, toward the end of his captivity, the men put a bag over his head and raped him. On the first day, he estimated that fifteen men assaulted him. The second day, six men. The third day, three. At one point, Nuri’s captors took him to the top floor of the ministry building, where, through a small window, he could see the bodies of the five men with whom he had shared a cell. They appeared to have been executed. “It’ll be your turn next,” the men told him. One of the torturers later got Nuri alone, and told him he would let him out for $5,000. Nuri, with the man’s help, arranged for a friend in London to wire the money to a friend in Iraq, who passed it to the officer. Late one night, 25 days after Nuri had been detained, the man came to Nuri’s cell, led him out of the building, and told him to get into the trunk of his car. He was dropped by the side of a road on the outskirts of the city. [...]

In New York, Scott Long began to receive disturbing reports. Long is the director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, an international nonprofit group with headquarters in the Empire State Building. Since February, Long had been hearing from foreign rights groups about a wave of anti-gay violence in Iraq, but so far the accounts were unsubstantiated. On April 1, one of Long’s colleagues, Rasha Moumneh, was the first person from the organization to be put in touch with a gay Iraqi. It was Nuri. He related what had happened to him and said that he had heard rumors of similar attacks on other gay men. He said the situation was dire. HRW typically investigates human-rights abuses and publishes reports intended to spotlight problems, but the group rarely intervenes directly in a situation. In this case, however, Long decided that if Nuri were left in Iraq, he, and probably many more men like him, could be killed. Long and Moumneh formulated a plan. They would build an underground railroad of sorts, reaching out to gay men in Iraq through the Internet and their existing contacts in Iraq, then advising and supporting gay Iraqis until they could ferry them to a safe city somewhere in Iraq, then to a haven elsewhere in the region, and eventually perhaps to the West.

My friend Jack has said that my quoting the above from his book Androphilia makes it ’sound political, which it isn’t.’  Fair enough.  I will merely raise it up as an example of a man saying in a book what should be done in 2006 and three years later just that being done in the real world.  Did the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch read Androphilia?  I doubt it.  No matter the reason, I am glad this is being done.  And as for those who will get points in heaven for killing gays?  I have no kind words for them or their apologists.

Terrorist hid explosives in his bottom: Suicide bomber Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Asiri attempted to kill a Saudi prince by detonating explosives hidden in his bottom.

Scandinavia Fights Female Genital Mutilation: When she was 11, a Swedish-born girl was taken on vacation to her mother’s native Somalia. The mother wanted to “make her daughter clean” and paid a man to cut off her daughter’s clitoris and labia while two women held her down. Afterward, the girl was stitched to her urethra. No anesthesia was used.

Threats for breaking Morocco fast: A Moroccan man campaigning to change the law banning eating in public during the Muslim Ramadan fast says he has received 100 death threats this week. Radi Omar denied that his group was anti-Islam. “We are in favour of individual freedom,” he told the BBC. Six of his colleagues are in custody after planning to eat in public last Sunday and he demanded their release.

Florida Investigation Finds No Credible Threat to Teen Christian Convert: She has said she is afraid of becoming the victim of an “honor killing” if she stays with her father and mother. Her parents have said they have no intention of harming their daughter.

‘The result of an absurd religious war’: A Moroccan man allegedly killed his 18-year-old Muslim daughter in northeastern Italy after she moved in with an older Catholic Italian man.

How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraq’s gays: Sitting on the floor, wearing traditional Islamic clothes and holding an old notebook, Abu Hamizi, 22, spends at least six hours a day searching internet chatrooms linked to gay websites. He is not looking for new friends, but for victims.

Child-bride, 12, dies in Yemen after struggling to give birth for three days: A 12-year-old Yemeni child bride died after struggling to give birth for three days, a local human rights organisation said.

All articles continue at links.  These are the stories that one person found, in a short period of time, in English-language news sources. Is it possible there are many more such stories to be found?  Many more, many more every day?  How about a corresponding number – or 1/10,000th of a corresponding number – of similar stories about atheists beating and mutilating and killing people as part of their atheism?

Jack Donovan reads from Blood Brotherhood.

CounterMedia
October 1, 2009 -  7:00 PM
927 Oak Street, Portland OR USA

Blood-brotherhoods and similar rites have been employed by men to mark friendships and alliances for thousands of years. Evidence of the practice can be found in the lore, literature and recorded history of most cultures – from Norse and Celtic mythologies to the tribes of Africa, Australian and the South Pacific, to the fiction of Jack London and Mark Twain.

Today, many homosexual men are adopting and adapting marriage rites and relationship ideals that were designed to unite males and females, and which remain steeped in millennia of culture, tradition and imagery inspired by heterosexual unions. Blood-Brotherhood offers an alternative mode of perception. Blood-Brotherhood removes the feminine element and the trappings of heterosexual romance from the equation altogether, and models bonds between androphiles after the bonds that men have made between each other for thousands of years. Blood-Brotherhood bases these unique unions between men on a tradition that honors male friendship.

Blood-brotherhood is not an attempt to “homosexualize” history or to “homoeroticize” the practice of blood-brotherhood, which has traditionally been practiced between heterosexual male friends. Rather, it is an attempt to inspire homosexual men to think about and solemnize their relationships differently – no matter what legal arrangements they decide to make.

Blood-Brotherhood contains a wealth of research about blood-brotherhood myths and practices from a wide variety of cultures and time periods, including excerpted texts and original translations by Nathan F. Miller. This follow-up to Androphilia: A Manifesto, also documents Jack Donovan’s own bond with his compadre in a unique blood-brotherhood rite, presented as modern adaptation of this ancient ritual.

Lubna Hussein, When I think of my trial, I pray my fight won’t be in vain: Next week I will stand trial in a Sudanese court, charged along with 12 other women with committing an “indecent act” – wearing trousers in a public place. I will face up to 40 lashes and an unlimited fine if I am convicted of breaching Article 152 of Sudanese law, which prohibits dressing indecently in public. As an employee of the UN I was offered immunity, and the chance to escape trial, but I chose to resign from the UN so that I could face the Sudanese authorities and make them show to the world what they consider justice to be. [The] director of police has admitted that 43,000 women were arrested in Khartoum state in 2008 for clothing offences. When asked, he couldn’t say how many of these women had been flogged. And it’s not just about clothing. After my arrest, two girls were arrested in a public place and the police discovered that their mobile phones had video clips of scenes from the hugely popular Arab soap Noor and Mohannad in which the main characters kiss each other. The girls were charged with pornography and given 40 lashes. [...] When I think of my trial, I pray that my daughters will never live in fear of these “police of security of society”. We will only be secure once the police protect us and these laws are repealed. I also pray that the next generation will see we had the courage to fight for their future before it was too late. We need Arab, African, American and European leaders to stand with us and help us make sure that the next chapter of our history is less bloody and brutal than the last. This will require conviction and boldness from their side. I hope they will display the qualities of those Sudanese men and women I most admire.

Nesrine Malik [bio: Sudanese-born writer and commentator who lives in London and works in the financial sector] wrote “any whiff of visible western practical support for Lubna Hussein for example, would have robbed her campaign of most of its credibility. What will help Muslim women is spending less time and effort being outraged on our behalf and more on differentiating the different faces and needs behind the burqa.”  Malik also wrote “The new date for the trial, 7 September, falls in the middle of Ramadan. This will work in Hussein’s favour. Ramadan is a month when Muslims are supposed to renounce violence and refrain from all intolerant behaviour, dedicating the fast to peaceful contemplation. Perhaps the government will invoke its faux piety and use this as an excuse to delay the trial yet again if no other solution can be negotiated in the meantime. Hopefully, the momentum the case has captured will not ease. Flogged or found innocent, the world will be watching.”  Apparently the West is heeding Malik’s suggestion to observe but not speak of Lubna Hussein’s trail.  Google is unable to find any mention of Lubna Hussein at the National Organization of Women, feminist.com, The Feminist Majority, Feminist Studies, The European Womens Lobby or Amnesty International. [thanks to Klint Finley for pointing out my error: AI does mention Lubna Hussein, here and here].  Against Malik’s wishes, there is a whiff of visible support for Lubna Hussein at Feminist Blogs and Ms. Magazine. Maybe most Western feminists consider dress reform to be old fashioned, having resolved the issue in the 1850s.  If their sisters in the Muslim world are being arrested and flogged for it, well, they just need to get with the times. There’s more support for Lubna Hussein at atheist sites such as Freethinker and OVO than at these feminist sites.  Who’s got your back, and who’s putting a whip across your back?

All praise to Lubna Hussein for her pointed and practical public protest against the contemptible sharia government of the Sudan.  Efforts such as hers, Muslims Against Sharia, the Institution for the Secularization of Islamic Society, Irshad Manji and others are the only way that Islam is worthy of existence in the 21st Century.  Like all religions, it should wither under the twin suns of reason and scorn.  But should Islam accept the secular neutering that Christianity has in the West, it can start to redeem itself.  For its evils past and present, the Muslim world is in need of redemption.

when researchers described the man as single, 59 percent of single women were interested in pursuing him. However, when they described the exact same man as being in a committed relationship, 90 percent of the women were interested. Men did not show this preference, and neither did women who were already in a relationship.

Study Shows Single Women Prefer to Date Attached Men