Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Wine and Sex

Catchy title eh ? I'm sure since it got you here :P

Two articles caught my eye this past week the first was on the BBC regarding a study in the American Journal of Pathology:

“Evidence shows even the best antiretrovirals find it difficult to penetrate the testes. This may explain why HIV can still be found in the semen of men on drugs that successfully clear their blood of it. “ [more]

Basically this means that even following treatment for AIDS, it will still be found in the semen and is capable of replication and infection of body cells again.

Isn’t that a scary thought ? so before having a relationship women may need to ask the guy for a semen HIV check now.. eh unless of course you are practicing safe sex and using condoms.
Which led me to wonder whether the scriptures have been right ? Is that why all 3 monotheistic religion have always advocated chastity and the prohibition of fornication and adultery? Could it be their method of warning us about this killer disease in a way that is graspable by our limited psyche /knowledge 2000 years ago, and so have to disguise it as based on morality? How to inculcate morality in us? One husband per wife ? family virtues etc… No offence against homosexuals here , I’m just speculating loud !

The second article was concerned with another study relevant to the claim that red ( to be specific ) wine was good for the health . I always was under the impression that although drinking alcoholic beverages was common everywhere whether forbidden or not, alcohol ingestion was still bad for you and it was your choice in indulging it just as smoking and other types of 'pleasures' as long as you were responsible towards others. But many people were taking the findings about the wine being healthy for you if you drink a little per day and were being apparently vindicated by the scientific studies.

However, should the liquid that is healthy for your arteries really be ripened grape ? i.e should it be alcoholic ?

Moreover, I was wondering does the Eucharistic sacrament or ordinance symbolised by grape wine and bread (host) really give license to drink as in it being 'non-haram' or was the red wine just a symbol for blood because it is red . I'm not familiar with the whole idea but who introduced the wine in this holly tradition? Was it someone's personal preference ? because it seems that some Protestants differ from the Catholics on that, and use plain grape juice instead.

Anyway for those who held the excuse that the wine was healthy in moderation, this new study seems to reveal that " grape juice can have a similar effect (against heart disease) as red wine but without the alcohol. That is a very important message," said Dr Valerie Schini-Kerth, lead author of the study published in the journal Cardiovascular Research. [more]

Polyphenols which are the active ingredients in protecting the blood vessels are present both in red wine AND in the simple grape juice .

OK now I am so going to drink grape juice at lunch time instead of orange juice.

Disclaimer please be aware that no offense was meant to any religion in this post.

22 comments:

> said...

Great Post as Usual Highlander!

Very intresting, Chasity is really the only way to keep safe from STDS, and thats no joke because even if you do wear a condom most STD cells are smaller then Sperm Cells and they will get through.

In anycase the west we are having to learn this the hardway, just turn on, Maury or any of the daytime shows, its so incrediably sad what is goibng on. 10,11 yearold girls with 100's of sexual partners, their parents onstage in tears, most of the girls have 7-8 kids out of wedlock, society as a whole is in shambles, a girl is burdened with all the responsiblity in these societies as well, the man, or better yet the boy or then again the man in many suituations(these girls are impregnated by their step fathers,)or older guys(dudes in their late teens to mid twenties) no one is usually their to help the teen mom, if the parents are Conservative the tend to disown her, and she ends up usually homeless on the street from shelter to shelter, until she can no longer handle it and then its usually hard drug and sucide, the kids are found in dumpsters alot of times, like in Texas this became such a huge problem that they have a baby moses law, where a girl can turn in her baby at the local firestation, its better then the dumpster, a Horrible outbreak of STDS as we speak in Texas is going on.. Its so bad that Govoner Rick Perry Just made a executive order that all girls 6th Grade and over MUST be vacinated for HPV, pretty controversial, put he claims its the only way to stop Cirvical Cancer.

in anycase, the way of the God of Abraham is the WAY to go.

The Bible and The Quran where right, anyone who needs proof should just look out their window.

As far as the Cathloic thing is concerned, I for one really do not know, I think it has to do with the last supper, when Jesus(PBUH) according to the bible made a speach in which he compared his blood with wine, and his bread with flesh, so I think Cathloics view it as sort of taking in Jesus's blessings. this is my thought on the whole thing, it could have a diffrent meaning, but I am pretty sure the red wine came from the Last Supper.

As far as the Juice thanks for the heads up. :)

Libyan_NBA said...

On the same line of thought, with regards to AIDS prevention and religion, this article describes how male circumcision can reduce the transmission of HIV by more than half .

Libyan_NBA said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
NOMAD said...

as well in the early times "chastety" ment safety when it comes to sexual illnesses, it ment also to keep DNA purity in a tribe and wealth in in a family ; didn't the marriage was created for ?

as far the wine contest, it's your point of view ; do you think that your orange juice or grape juice are safe ? to preserve their freshness they add some chimical stuff ; how do those stuffs have effects in long times on your health ?

wine, I mean the good one, is pure, no additive, alcool should not been searched when drinking it, but the "angels'part".

didn't it was called "gods'nectar" ?

as far as the wine reference with Jesus'blood in catholic religion, I see in it a pragmatic way where the earlier clerics handled to replace old traditional cults as roman saturnales,and persian cult of Zarasousthra, where human sacrifices would sometimes occured, then replaced with a bull

Anonymous said...

H,
Over here, some states have implemented the rule that all would be couples are to be tested for AIDS/HIV. As there were many cases where their spouses were tested HIV + after they have consummated their marriage. Some transmit this through drug addiction or rampant sex.

programmer craig said...

I'm not familiar with the whole idea but who introduced the wine in this holly tradition?

That would be Jesus :)

He served wine and bread to his Disciples at the Last Supper:

Then Jesus took the bread and the wine and asked his Father to bless it. He broke the bread into pieces, giving it to his disciples and said, "This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
And then he took the cup of wine, sharing it with his disciples and said, "This wine is the token of God's new covenant to save you--an agreement sealed with the blood I will pour out for you. He told all of them, "I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom." Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.


The Last Supper

That's a Christian website of some sort so don't bother clicking it if that offends you! And I can't vouch for it's content, I just found it in a Google search and that seemed like a good and concise description !

The studies about alcohol have been around for years. I think back in the 90s the conventional wisdom was that one beer a day was healthy, more was not. So, moderation is the key, I guess. The problem is that most people are not very good about moderation :)

NOMAD said...

Craig,
your are right about the last supper seen as the first sign of "substantation".

Well, in ancient religions "Mithra", indo-persian, ; Osiris, egyptian, grec mythe of Apollon... were turned toward father "sun" the light without nothing could survive on earth ; and christian religion, jewish religion, islam religion made their bed in these beliefs, they took a lot from the practices too, the evenments date, ex, Jesus was born the same very date as Mithra, ancien egyptians would always make sure that beer and bread accompagnied their deads in heavens,(no wine in Egypt, too hot I suppose) wine and bread were the basic symbols in mythra too, grec and roman religions handled wine as a holly beverage.

if you want to know more of the very origin of our cults, go and search on Mithra, it could had been that we were all mithraics, a fate dust empeched it :lol:

Highlander said...

Lost Libyano welcome to this blog, and if you are LW :) then welcome back and I'm proud of your moderation.
Unfortunately, bad sexual experience are also taking place in our countries but in considerably less numbers for sure because of th social stigma attached to it. I think it is more among the 20 something age and some of them have not been thought about safe-sex ( scary uh) , and they think that oral sex etc.. is 'safe'...But yes chastity is the ONLY way to be sure not to have STD.


Libyan NBA, yes I did read some studies about the benefits of circumcision.

Nomad as for grape juice or orange juice :P I was thinking of freshly squeezed one, we have kitchen equipment for that which makes it easier ...
Yes religions have incorporated a lot of the old cults. I think if I remember from my religion classes it was so that people are able to accept God's religion easier if they could keep some of their habits.

Redenclave , you know HIV testing is compulsory here as well and it is not anonymous. I do it every 2 years.

Programmer_Craig :) we have been waiting for your input my friend. Yes I did think it was Jesus but I am not sure if the drink was wine at the last super it could have been grape juice and translated in wine you know. Just like in French there is apple juice called 'cidre' I think some of it is fermented too..
By the way I think we are all mature enough here not to be offended by Christian websites ( whatever the inclination of readers is) , just as I am sure you would not be offended by Muslim websites. None of us can regulate the content of these sites anyway. But thank you for the kind thought :).

programmer craig said...

Hi Nomad,

if you want to know more of the very origin of our cults, go and search on Mithra, it could had been that we were all mithraics, a fate dust empeched it :lol:

Yes, I have been doing a little research on this ever since I heard how much overlap there is between Christianity and Zoroastrianism. Interesting stuff. Especially since Zoroastrianism is considered the first Monotheistic religion and predates the Abrahamic faiths, and not only that but some of the earliest passages in the Bible mention Zoroastrian beliefs - not least of which is the 3 wise men (Magi) from the east who attended the birth of Christ. Magi is a Persian word. Here is some of my findings/opinions:

Magi

Later they accepted the Zoroastrian religion, not without changing the original message of its founder, Zarathustra (Zoroaster), to what is today known as Zurvanism, which would become the predominant form of Zoroastrianism during the Sassanid era (AD 226–650). No traces of Zurvanism exist beyond the 10th century.

The Magi were Zoroastrians.

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra, Zartosht). Mazdaism is the religion that acknowledges the divine authority of Ahura Mazda, proclaimed by Zoroaster to be the one uncreated Creator of all (God)

Uncreated creator of all. The very same description we (of the Abrahamic faiths) use for God.

Mithra

The reforms of Zoroaster retained the multitudes of pre-Zoroastrian divinities, reducing them in a complex hierarchy to "immortals" who, under the supremacy of the Creator Ahura Mazda, were now either ahuras or daevas. In this scheme, Mithra is a member of the ahuric triad...

Ahura Mazda is God in Zoroastrianism. Mithra (and the other immortal "assistants" to Ahura Mazda were called daevas.

Immortal assistants to God - sounds a lot like angels, does it not!?

And Abraham himself came from the Region of modern day Iraq/Iran - he was born there.

And then there is this, from the Book of Exodus (Moses speaking to the Angel of God):

Exodus 3:2

And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.

Exodus 3:6

Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

It could very well be that the God of Abraham was the God of the Zoroastrians. I find nothing incompatible with the idea. There was no Judaism until Moses, so who WAS the God of Abraham?

NOMAD said...

some of the mithraic dogmas are still in use in secret assemblies, alike "franc-maçonnerie" nowadays. the roman legions and upper casts were for most of them mithraic ;
and this particularity last up to the IVth century.

the reason why this cult lost its predominence among roman soldiers and occupied counties, it was an elitist religion, you had to get initiated ; and women or humble people were not allowed to attend their cult sites ; the reason why Jesus cult ended to spread out, was cause of the poor people, women, oppressed ones could think about a revenge on their fate, they could hope individualy for a place in heaven, though I think that Mithraism handled more on a few initiateds who had the responsability to influe or to order the respect of nature, humanhood or animalshood

here is my thought on our monotheist religions, they were all sectarian groups who managed to get more and more influence upon the temporal power which they look for anyway, to keep people under control

and if I had to believe in a one's religion, I certainly would return to the origin of them and bless the sun, not sure for the practices though, we are in XXIth century though

Anonymous said...

Highlander, I think that I can provide some clarification here. I was raised Lutheran, which I have heard described as Catholic Lite, although I now consider myself Agnostic. In the Catholic Mass, the priest is the only one who deals with the wine. They believe, in theory anyway, that the priest literally turns the wine into the blood of Christ. The congregation is still permitted to partake of wafers that represent the body of Christ, but it is presented in the rite as only a representation. In non-Catholic services, both wine and wafer are considered representations and are consumed by the congregation. In both cases, it is supposed to represent the Last Supper given by Christ to his decuples before he was crucified.

This rite is known as Communion and involves the congregation filing past the clergyman at the alter single file and kneeling before him to receive in the case of the Catholics the wafer representing the body of Christ or in the case of the Protestant, both the thimble of wine and the wafer, representing both the blood and the body.

Thus acknowledging that Christ died for our sins on the cross and re-enacting the last supper.

From Wikipedia:

According to the Gospels, the Last Supper was the last meal Jesus shared with his apostles before his death. The Last Supper has been the subject of many paintings, perhaps the most famous by Leonardo da Vinci. In the course of the Last Supper, and with specific reference to taking the bread and the wine, Jesus told his disciples, "Do this in remembrance of Me", (1 Cor 11:23-25). (The vessel which was used to serve the wine, the Holy Chalice, is considered by some to be the "Holy Grail"). Many Christians describe this as the institution of the Eucharist.

According to tradition, the Last Supper took place in what is called today The Room of the Last Supper on Mount Zion, just outside of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Maya M said...

About HIV and chastity - I side with Nomad that chastity norms meant to secure a stable family as a base of the society, rather than to protect people from STDs. If God didn't want us to die of AIDS (and of other STDs - syphilis has for centuries been as lethal as AIDS is today), why didn't He give humans natural immunity against pathogens causing STDs?
About wine, I think there are stronger arguments for it than protection against cardiovascular disease. Some time ago I wrote on Big Pharaoh's blog, "Human brain is so logical and dutiful that absolutely needs some chemical relaxation from time to time. And of all the stuff tried by various cultures alcohol seems to be the best. Ban it effectively, and within a generation you’ll have a crazy society."
Highlander, knowing your puritanism, I guess you disagree with me on this matter.

Highlander said...

Maya so good to see you back :)

chastity norms meant to secure a stable family as a base of the society, rather than to protect people from STDs.

Yes I'm with you on the above statement, but you see you hit birds with one stone, if one is chaste then one can secure a stable family and hence society AND be free of STDs . You cannot explain to people of a certain mindset about STD so you tell them to be chaste because that is a virtue etc..But then you create STDs so that the ahem no offense meant 'unchaste' gets it . whether is is Syphillis , AIDS or simple chlamydia infection which can cause such havoc though right ?
That's how God tests our strenght because it is difficult to overcome desire and humankind will be human after all :P

I laughed at you ban of alcohol related to craziness ... I beg to disagree not because Im a puritan :P but only because I'm the prime example that I can totally wacko and have a good time without needing to loose my brains in the process ... my mates can vouch for that LOL.

> said...

meant to secure a stable family as a base of the society, rather than to protect people from STDs

Yep, thats a good part of it, its all connected, family, STDS, society. That being said the issue does not have to do primarly with social cohesion and order, surley you can not neglect the climbing AIDS rate in North Africa? its a real problem, and prostitution has alot to do with it, and in my opinion it the only reasonable way to protect girls from STDS is the AIDS test. We cant turn a blind eye to the harsh realities of the unfair, ignorant, and biased double standards of our country. We can only do as much damage control as we can, and try to educate people. But all in all I can see why you would make that assesment, no amount of AIDS testing will stop the Nurses Union from Bulgeria from injecting libyan toddlers with the AID virus. :(


If God didn't want us to die of AIDS (and of other STDs - syphilis has for centuries been as lethal as AIDS is today), why didn't He give humans natural immunity against pathogens causing STDs?

Who said god didnt want people to die from AIDS. Quite the contrary he sent it to kill people, millions of people, just like he sent syphilis, and just like he sent the black plague, which wiped out 2/3 of Europes population, and he will send much more.

You see god has rules, and structure( sucks I know, but its a harsh reality) and if you dont do what he asks of you, their are severe consequences. He sent AIDS to teach homosexuals, and permiscuse people a leason

(I wont try to be politically correctness,when it comes to the unatural kills a socity.)


The Human brain is so logical and dutiful that absolutely needs some chemical relaxation from time to time. And of all the stuff tried by various cultures alcohol seems to be the best

People time, and time again have shown that they cant deal with the affects of Alcohol, just go to any Bar and grill on a Satarday night sit in the corner, and watch, its absolutly funny as hell, alchoal brings the worst out of people, take Mel Gibson for example, it makes you say and do things, that your mind wont normally let you do, it shuts down your brain. Dude its not even worth it.


Ban it effectively, and within a generation you’ll have a crazy society.

that is absolutly one of the stupidist things I have ever heard.

Highlander, knowing your puritanism, I guess you disagree with me on this matter.

H a Puritian?

LMAO. Dude, I always thought of H as a ultra-liberal secular progressive international, femist, multicultural, tolerance and diversity, human rights, activist for, western democracies and a supporter of the Global Nudist colonley association:)))))).

You really have no idea on the meaning of the word do you maya?

I'm the prime example that I can totally wacko and have a good time without needing to loose my brains in the process

Ofcourse you can H, we all can, thats what makes us Libyans special. :)

Maya M said...

Highlander, I didn't say that INDIVIDUALS cannot be normal without alcohol (quite many can of course, and women as a rule do it for a year or more when pregnant and breast-feeding). I was talking about whole SOCIETIES. It would be too rude of me to call specifically the Libyan society crazy on a Libyan blog, but I don't find it quite healthy, either. Why, in the 21st century, cannot a woman pregnant out of wedlock show her belly in public? Why do people count a girl's rejected suitors in an attempt to determine her virginity? Why don't they just mind their own business? I think there is something hysterical in this obsession with other people's unauthorized sexual life, and I suppose it is due to the ban on alcohol and other relatively harmless means to "let the steam out".
I recommend to everybody Erich Fromm's "The Art of Loving". He states there that humans, as thinking creatures, realize the boundary separating them from the world and this leads to frustration accumulating over time. Different cultures have different ways to deal with this frustration; for many hunter-gatherers, the medicine man periodically announces an orgy using whatever psychotropic plant is available. And although this stuff is generally much more addictive and harmful than alcohol, members of these tribes don't get addicted and don't suffer damage to their health, personality or motivation.
I'll ignore Lost Libyano's comment. I would like to comment about God, in line with what Um Haleema said, but my comment will become too long, so I'll put a post about it on my blog.

Anonymous said...

"It would be too rude of me to call specifically the Libyan society crazy on a Libyan blog, but I don't find it quite healthy, either. Why, in the 21st century, cannot a woman pregnant out of wedlock show her belly in public?"

Well it is rude so I will reply rudely.
Societies have different attitudes towards different acts of immorality depending on the societies moral values. For example they judge women who get pregnant out of wedlock because they consider it immoral to commit adultery and illegal so they are judging a criminal, and it is not as common as in other societies because of this attitude. Western societies judge it differently because it is more common than getting pregnant during marriage; as many surveys have shown. Which is why nobody can judge a woman pregnant(in the west) out of wedlock since it is the norm.

"Why do people count a girl's rejected suitors in an attempt to determine her virginity? "

As for this it is none of their business, but gossip is available in every society and I haven't seen any difference yet in the US/Canada or the UK when it comes to gossip the only difference in this case is that if they were to gossip about a virgin woman in the west it would be to say that there is something wrong with her for still being a virgin and not the other way around, as again losing virginity at a young age is the norm whether you agree with it or not.

Then comes the part about drinking and how healthy it is to relieve oneself? ever count the number of deaths that result from drunk driving? or the child abuse and molestation that are more rampant and I won't point fingers here but the cases in the west are so bad, given the political and financial stability there, one wonders how you would react if you lived in the middle east with all the wars and sanctions and sieges and threats, and didn't drink?

To give you a simple example of a healthy society why don't you check the German brother and sister who have been living together and have children together and are defying a court order to separate them with a lawyer defending them, how healthy is that? I wonder after the debate on gay marriage is over will this be the new frontier for modern societies ?

Maya M said...

Anonimous, I find your comment quite OK, why do you call it rude?
You may be right that some Westerners would gossip about a woman still virgin at a certain age, but because they have no way to have this information, this remains a hypothesis difficult to verify.
I disagree that the West is tolerant to single mothers because it has too many of them. It is exactly the other way round - they are so many because having a child out of wedlock is allowed. Until fairly recently, chastity was demanded and the woman had to be a virgin until marriage and so on, but these rules remained mostly unwritten and rarely part of the OFFICIAL LEGISLATION, unlike the situation in not-drinking societies. I find this difference important.
In the 20th century, economic prosperity and freedom naturally lifted the ban, and brought about many children born out of wedlock, more often result of a decision than of an accident. Because, unfortunately, too many men now prefer either just to visit the woman they say they love, or to live with her without "signing", free to take their hats and leave when they wish without bothering with the formalities of a divorce. So the problem is not about chastity, it is about the man deserting his role of husband and father. It is a real and very serious problem without evident solution. But I still prefer this situation to a return to "Gretchen's tragedy" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust_Part_1)
As a Bulgarian poet once wrote, "Freedom cannot be replaced with anything else and we must accept all of its unexpected and heavy consequences".
I of course cannot deny the enormous damage done by drunken driving and alcohol abuse, but again, we cannot take just the good sides of a thing without the bad sides. If somebody finds a substance better than alcohol, I'd encourage current non-drinking societies to allow its use, rather than the use of alcohol. But nobody has yet found such a stuff, and I find it unlikely that it will be found in the future.
I disagree that alcohol has anything to do with child abuse and molestation. It is the other way round - the molester drinks so that he can say if caught, "Oh I'm so sorry, I did it only because I was drunk".
Thank you for referring me to the article about the siblings-partners, it was very interesting for me. Here I disagree with you totally, I could be a lawyer for this couple. I am amazed that Germany still punishes consenting adults for incest. Like almost everybody, I find sex between siblings disgusting, but why should other humans be prosecuted for hurting my aesthetic feelings? Indeed, the genetic risk for their children is very high, but it is up to their responsibility and conscience to use effective contraception. The society has no right to interfere with anybody's right to procreate on the basis that the progeny could be abnormal. Otherwise, we are on the path to an eugenical nightmare, a witchhunt which can target anybody. Imagine that you marry and your first child has some abnormality suspected to be of genetic origin, and government forces sterilization upon you and you wife; what would you think? Let government refuses to legalize incest by marriage (I am also against homosexual marriages), but otherwise let it be so kind not to poke its long nose under people's blankets. Period.
(Sorry for the long comment, Highlander!)

Highlander said...

I did not notice that this post was still active :)

Hi Um Haleema if you care to elaborate as I'd not quite get what you were referring to.

Maya, thanks for your input, in my opinion banning alcohol by law never works because people just do it in private and bootleg style. As from the Islamic moral perspective I assume that people would understand why it is prohibited and make their own choice based on which they face the consequence(s) of their action before God.

However if we are talking philosophically I still maintain that humans can have uninhibited fun without the need for halucinogenics, relaxants, mushrooms, drugs , smoking or alcohol. But that is my own personal opinion.

I beg to differ that it is indeed more healthy to live without these chemicals.

As for the secong part of your comment about virginity . Ideally one should come into a marriage a virgin whether one is a man or a woman. Although you may find this laughable , believe it or not many people do hold out for the proper time and place.

However, I do agree that we should not discriminate against a female simply because with her it is easier to find out. It's not the Libyan society Maya, it's the whole culture in the region. We are no longer hunter gatherers , we can let the steam out without loosing our judgment in the process :P


Anonymous , I was going to bring the article about the incestuous couple but you brought it up first, so maybe I'll mention it in another post . I don't think either you or Maya was rude. Thank you for your comment and welcome to this blog.

Maya M said...

Thank you for the reply, Highlander.
Among the psychotropic tools you mentioned, smoking is really useless (if tobacco is smoked), because it is addictive without relaxing the mind. You are right that we can do without chemical relaxants. But what are the alternatives? Sex also relaxes and some cultures use it, but this is at odds even with the very liberal present-day Western moral. Musical parties with dancing are also very good, but they are more difficult to organize than drinking and, significantly, tend to be restricted or banned in the same societies that ban alcohol. If we talk specifically about Muslim societies, their rituals (as far as I know) seem to increase rather than relax the internal strain and I think this is deliberate, with the purpose to bring up good warriors.
About virginity - in many societies people used to marry at a young age and usually both partners were virgin. I don't find it laughable or bad in any way. These marriages were typically arranged, and this wasn't bad either, because a person with no sexual experience and little life experience is too likely to make a poor choice. But times changed. Today's 18-20 year olds usually aren't self-sufficient, they often are still at school. More important, they usually are too immature as personalities to make good parents. So marital age increases. Could we realistically demand 30 year old newlywed to be virgins? At least men are unlikely to abstain from sex exactly in the years when their reproductive system is most potent, so they will either demand sex from their potential partners (result: mainstream unmarried women also losing virginity) or have it with prostitutes, which isn't good for anybody.
Of course you are right that it isn't Libya alone that bans alcohol and non-marital sex, but I took it as an illustration because it is your country and I know more about it than about other NA and ME countries.

Unknown said...

thanks with all my love

Maya M said...

I've mentioned the music and dances before, but now I've juse read something which expresses well what I think. The following citation is from Globe and Mail, March 21. The author Stacy Ewing Cyr writes about Chloe, a little girl with autism:
"Chloe does not comment on things in her environment, no one really knows what initiates the song and dance. I think the song and dance are wonderful, while others think the performance is "a behaviour which needs to be replaced by something more appropriate."
I admire Chloe's life. She's one of the happiest children I have ever known. Unfortunately, she shows her happiness in ways that are deemed inappropriate in our society. I am, by nature, a very calm person. It takes something extremely fantastic to get me excited. However, when I do get excited, I get this intense urge to behave wildly. I want to sing
and dance like Chloe. My tune would be different and my moves would be my own but, if I could, I would bust out in a performance worth remembering.
But, I can't. Even in the confines of my home, I can't. I have
conditioned myself to maintain physical and emotional restraint. I have perfect control over my body. Plus, someone may be watching."

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