Prof. Whackadoodle went on to say, "Besides, 'hymen' sounds like a Jewish name! It's all a Zionist conspiracy."

Posted by: BlogDog at January 21, 2010 7:57 PM

Ok BlogDog, that was just funny.

How the hell do you find someone who traffics in these?

Walk up to the guy on the corner and whisper through the eye mesh in your tent:

"pssst, you got any fake virginity for sale?"

Posted by: E. Steven Berkimer at January 21, 2010 8:54 PM

c'mon, it's Japan. You just know that you can get them out of a vending machine... just like used pantsu.

"jihadis. this is what happens when you don't get any."

Posted by: SwissArmyD at January 21, 2010 9:11 PM

"jihadis. this is what happens when you don't get any."

Satoshi Kanazawa wrote about this:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200706/ten-politically-incorrect-truths-about-human-nature

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region.

However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings.

The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser.

It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single.

Posted by: Amy Alkon at January 22, 2010 2:34 AM

What's "funny" is that many supposedly devout Muslims get around this virginity problem by engaging in anal sex. So the woman is still technically a "virgin" when she gets married.

Posted by: Steve B at January 22, 2010 3:43 AM

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates.

Not to mention resorting to goats.

Hey, wait. I thought all that "resorting to violent means" was caused by resentment of Gitmo. Which is closed now, right?

Posted by: Robin at January 22, 2010 8:22 AM

A while back I read about Somali women being beaten for wearing bras, because it was deceptive. "Women should be naturally firm-breasted or just flat." Feel free to tell me that article was bogus, because I'm afraid it might very well be true.

If it is,I'm sure this restored hymen maneuver will go over big.

Posted by: Pricklypear at January 22, 2010 8:53 AM

Sadly ...

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress(dot)com/2009/10/16/somalia-jihadist-bra-ban-update/

The insurgent group Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust, residents claimed yesterday.

The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra.

If they are found wearing a bra, they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said.

Posted by: MeganNJ at January 22, 2010 10:04 AM

Thanks for the link, Amy. I'd read the exerpt you had, but not the whole thing. There is a lot of interesting stuff in there... but implicitly and off topic are two things that modern people really try to ignore...

1. men desire women with a healthy body...
2. women desire men with a healthy wallet...

each gender wishes like crazy that it wasn't so, wile still expecting the other gender to fit their desire.

How rare is it that we sit and think about what those desires actually mean? Much less accept that trying to change it is going against millions of years of evolution...

sure, I still want to find some cute chica that is more interested in my mind than what I can give her... I can dream ;)

Posted by: SwissArmyD at January 22, 2010 10:19 AM

I have never known of such a fearful, pissy bunch of men. Outside of a Sherry Tepper novel, anyway.

Posted by: Pricklypear at January 22, 2010 11:07 AM

The insurgent group Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust, residents claimed yesterday. The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra. If they are found wearing a bra, they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said.

Do the women who pass get a receipt or some kind of pass? Or is this just an excuse to go around molesting women?

Posted by: Conan the Grammarian at January 22, 2010 12:32 PM

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200706/ten-politically-incorrect-truths-about-human-nature

Kick ass article! I would love to read more, and intend on checking out the book "Why Beautiful Women have more Daughters". Thanks for the link.

I am interested in learning more about the scientific literature concerning human, and especially same sex, sexuality (which is obviously intimately related to evolution). Particularly wondering how male homosexuality has survived evolution, insofar as male homosexuality is generally considered relatively inflexible (compared to female), with some even advocating a "gay gene". This is very pertinent to the gay marriage debate; if sexuality is flexible, then gay marriage cannot be considered a human right; if not, how did the "gay gene" survive? With such a politically divisive subject, my natural inclination is to go to the literature!

I have ready access to most scientific journals, and would be delighted if you could recommend a respected journal that publishes papers on human sexuality from an evolutionary perspective, even if it is not the focus of the journal, or if you could point me in the direction of seminal articles (no pun intended).

Thanks, and I loved your book!

Posted by: liz at January 22, 2010 12:56 PM

By the way, Amy, I loved the heading Maiden Japan. They are always clever but this one is perfect.

Posted by: Pricklypear at January 22, 2010 1:17 PM

Liz I just read The Agile Gene and in the book (which was very well written and fascinating) it talks about how the higher a male's birth order is the more likely it is for them to be homosexual. In a nut shell it said that it may be due to an allergic reaction to male hormones by the mother and the more males she carries the higher her resistance to the hormones. Sorry off topic, but I just read the book and highly recommend it in general. The book also goes into human sexuality from an evolutionary perspective.

Posted by: Nina at January 22, 2010 5:24 PM

MeganNJ: It is excellent form not to make email addresses scrapable by spambots by avoiding including the full personsname@domain.com. However, there is no need to do so when writing hyperlinks to websites; they want traffic. What your practice in web links does is make it less likely someone will fail to reach the site you want because he has to type it in.

Posted by: Whatever at January 22, 2010 6:01 PM

liz:

I am interested in learning more about the scientific literature concerning human, and especially same sex, sexuality (which is obviously intimately related to evolution). Particularly wondering how male homosexuality has survived evolution ...

All mammals start off female. Those who become male do so through a fairly elaborate process involving hormonal expression and reception.

This means the male brain starts female, and since there is no such thing as a perfect natural process, the rewiring to create a male brain does is not always complete.

In fact, on occasion XY fetuses, due to androgen insensitivity can give every appearance of being female, including, almost certainly, at least one famous actress.

Posted by: Hey Skipper at January 22, 2010 6:19 PM

Fantastic title for this one!

Posted by: Ben-David at January 23, 2010 11:44 AM

What's "funny" is that many supposedly devout Muslims get around this virginity problem by engaging in anal sex. So the woman is still technically a "virgin" when she gets married.

And I thought that was only a Catholic trick!

-Julie

Posted by: JulieW at January 26, 2010 10:55 AM