At its core, religious fundamentalism is born of the need to repress the sexual expression of women by men who use religion as a tool for this cause.Whether it is a Christian rightwinger telling women what to do with their bodies or an Imam telling women to wear a burkha to maintain her chastity, the motives are the same. A woman who is independent and does what she pleases with her body is a direct threat to the authority of men.That threat is compunded for men who are at an age where their virility is on the wane.That sets off alarm bells in men who have always assumed they would be kings of the sexual hill.
Once they face this reality, the men in question either go postal or take their violence out on their nearest victims, usually their wives or girlfriend.Religion becomes a handy tool, especially a harsh and uncompromising religion that blames women for emasculating men.
In fact, I believe that such dogmas concerning women and their conduct are the very basis of religions such as fundamental Christianity or Islam.Men who subscribe
to these are the ones who constantly obsess about abortion,contraception,infidelity and such.
Men who use religion as a crutch to beat down on women usually are afraid of independent and strong women and seek the company of timid women who can be easily controlled and manipulated.Because they are unable to connect with women, they tend to seek perverse sexual relations.
To make a long treatise short, I can say I am describing the perfect Republican righwing religious zealot.No wonder their harems are all populated by Stepford women while our Democratic women such as Angelina Jolie, Katrina Van Den Heuvel,Natalie Portman,Susan Sarandon will clean the clocks of all the rightwing airheads.
I think this describes very well the “repress sexual expression of women” side of patriarchal control, but that’s not the whole story.
If restricting woman’s sexuality is the religious version of sexism, the secular equivalent demands sexual expression from us. While right thinking men condemn the “filthy bitches” in prostitution and pornography, left thinking men damn the “frigid bitches” who protest that exploitation of women’s bodies.
One group rapes to punish women, but the other rapes because they feel entitled to sex with any women they want. The Religious Right tells us we have to say NO to sex. The Liberal Left says we have to say YES. Sex is sin and procreation is punishment, or sex is fun and procreation is inconvenient. Either way, it’s her problem.
I suggest that very few men really know much about women and their sexuality because most women have had to lie all the time just to survive. We refrain from sex we want to avoid punishment from the RR’s, but we also have sex we don’t want to placate the LL’s. Every magazine by the checkout counter tells women that we’d better know what men like, or we’ll die poor and lonely. When a woman is under constant societal pressure to “perform”, it can take years before she has any idea of what she really desires. It’s as oppressive as requiring women to spend years fending of male advances, then transforming herself into a red hot mama on the wedding night.
I think the vast gulf between many men and women is expressed in the old line, “Good sex is great and bad sex ain’t too bad either.” No woman would ever say that. Bad sex, that is, coerced, unsatisfying, impersonal, conflict avoiding, placating, perfunctory or entitlement sex is awful, just plain awful, and women shouldn’t have to do it. “Giving in” used to be bad enough, but now we have to fake enthusiasm; nothing kills real feeling like pretence. Both male recipes for womanhood, the reluctant virgin who only has sex (finally) with one man, whom she will never leave, and the carefree, undemanding slut who bangs anything with a pulse then conveniently goes away, have nothing to do with the real feelings of women. Either fantasy model degrades and devalues us.
So we weave a crooked path between two sets of male projections: sex is dirty vs. sex is sport. Until we have equal status, equal power, equal earnings and equal rights, authentic, self defined, free sexuality will continue to be the exception.
I was trying to connect the largely dysfunctional sex lives of rightwing zealots like Jimmy Swaggart,Jim Bakker and others to their fundamentalism.I am sure that similar sentiments exist on the left but one does not see the perverted needs of people like William Bennett or Roger Stone on the left.
I may be wrong but I think sexual dysfunction seems to follow the extremist of the Right.
I agree. They may be addicted to the idea of doing something wicked. If a thrill of risk and guilt is associated with sexuality early on, it may require more risky behavior and greater “sin” to achieve the same level of excitement as years go by. The fact that they keep getting caught seems to bear this out.
I have no quarrel with your premise. Sexual dysfunction is the natural result of a male supremacy that uses “sex=evil” to control women.
I only wanted to point out that sexual freedom from religious fundamentalism (sex is evil and you shouldn’t do it) to an alternate form of oppression (sex is harmless fun and you ought to do it) doesn’t make life any better for women. The coercion and control just take on another guise, and men are still defining women’s sexuality.