[lit-ideas] Re: Ask the Ayatollah
- From: Chris Bruce <bruce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 11:23:16 +0200
On 5. Okt 2006, at 20:26, Eric Yost wrote:
… Deliberate masturbation during the month of Ramadan renders a fast
invalid, Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khameini has ruled.
Is the phrase 'deliberate masturbation' not pleonastic? My dictionary
defines 'masturbate' as follows: 'to stimulate the genital organs (of
oneself or another) to achieve sexual pleasure'. (It seems to follow
that if one has a particular intent- i.e., 'to achieve sexual pleasure'
- then one's actions are deliberate.)
Other questions arise:
If one 'stimulates the genital organs of another to achieve sexual
pleasure (for the other)' is one's own fast rendered invalid, or that
of the other? If one 'stimulates the genital organs of another to
achieve sexual pleasure for oneself (but not for the other)' whose fast
is then rendered invalid? If one has one's sexual organs stimulated by
another in order to achieve sexual pleasure (whether for one or
another) without deliberately requesting or condoning such stimulation,
what then? And what of sexual pleasure achieved without stimulation of
the sexual organs (of either oneself or another)? Or are all erogenous
zones or fetishes by definition 'extensions' of the sexual organs?
(E.g., must one with a rubber fetish wash dishes during Ramadan
bare-handed? And what if one has a rubber *and* a
soap-suds-on-naked-flesh fetish?)
Wait a minute - I get it! Although all this questioning may be perhaps
intitally stimulating (in which case, there goes one's 'fast validity'
- fast!), the mire of semantic and clinical details ultimately turns
one off. Clever fellows, those ayatollahs ….
Chris Bruce
Kiel, Germany
DISCLAIMER: One feels obliged to assure the Lit-Ideas readership that
the pronouns 'one' and 'another' are here used 'impersonally' and any
correspondence between the contents of the above posting and the
activities or proclivities of actual persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental (i.e., *not* deliberate).
(One hopes that this disclaimer should leave the validitiy of a few
fasts intact. On the other, er, hand, should one - or another - find
that not to be the case, one - or another - can be reached in the usual
fashion ….)
CB
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