| Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature | |
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by Jennifer Dziura, July 19, 2007
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Apropos to Josh Strawn's post on Tuesday about Haifa Wehbe, in which he posts a video that has been reminding me for the last two days of why I turned gay in college, this article in Psychology Today, Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature, offers the following:
Here's what the article has to say about the latter:
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.
(A point also made by Josh, who writes, "Given the choice between martyrdom and smooching Haifa ... how many of Hezbollah's men would still raise the yellow flag?")
Funny, the article fails to create the obvious syllogism:
If only you could portray that beautiful act of nature with no men involved -- I think you'd have a hit film on your hands.
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Jennifer Dziura is a New York-based comedian and writer best known for orchestrating the Williamsburg Spelling Bee, a real spelling More... |
Anonymous
Dumb
Polygyny is only practiced in only about 1% of Muslim marriages worldwide. Your theory about "sexual frustration" could just as easily include gender ratio imbalances in society due to selective abortions. For instance, Muslims (and Christians) are the only major groups that have an even gender ratio in India. The Hindus of India on the other hand have a fairly skewed imbalance favoring boys (according to a recent report 10 million female infants have been aborted or killed due to their gender in the past 20 years alone). Thus, your theory would then suggest that Hindus would have even more impetus for violence than Muslims, b/c of this "competitive pressure." Clearly, the U.S. is not having the same problems in India as it is having in the Middle East. Anyhow, your polygyny argument is a pretty poor distraction from the actual causes of violence in Middle Eastern society, which include our continuing neo-imperalist policies and actions.
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