perpetual memory loss

Just read this informative and slightly disturbing article about the sex trade in Afghanistan.

The girl was 11 when she was molested by a man with no legs. He paid her $5. And that was how she started selling sex.

Customs meant to keep women “pure” have not stopped prostitution. Girls are expected to remain virgins until their wedding nights, so some prostitutes have only anal sex.

Check out the rest of the article, and then thank god you weren’t born into a life where you had to start prostituting yourself out at 11 years old.

Religions have been pissing me off lately.  There are aspects of religion and faith that I find tolerable, but the entirety of organized religion is more harmful than helpful.  Case in point this article in the New York Times.  It seems that all the rage in Europe now is hymen replacement surgery for Muslim women.  These women are having a hard time living in a normal free society with the restrictions of their religion:

Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the vaginal membrane that normally breaks in the first act of intercourse.

“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

As Europe’s Muslim population grows, many young Muslim women are caught between the freedoms that European society affords and the deep-rooted traditions of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

It nice to see women voluntarily forcing themselves back into repression (notice the sarcasm).  This is really the type of stuff that I just don’t get, and really irks me about religion.  But I am not a women and I’m not a Muslim so maybe I just “don’t get it.”  This last excerpt is really disturbing:

“It doesn’t matter for my fiancé that I am not a virgin — but it would pose a huge problem for his family,” she said. “They know that you can pour blood on the sheets on the wedding night, so I have to have better proof.”

Umm yeh ok.  Article here.