As LiteralMayhem is very interested in language, and its potential to wreak havoc on human civilization, we offer some thoughts on the quintessential “hot” topic: sex. And more precisely “safe sex.”

Nowadays, at least in much of the Western world, the term “safe sex” is tossed off as easily as one might say… “a side of fries with that?” It’s a given for most sexually active people. And for those who don’t subscribe, it’s a conscious choice, an opt-out. That’s how taken-for-grated the notion has become.

But for millions… maybe even billions… there is a deeper sense in which sex itself will never ever ever until Hell freezes over… be “safe.” As a topic. As a biological function. As a form of intimate personal expression. As a questions of legality and regulation. As a Platonic essence. As absolutely anything.

PUT A LOCK ON THOSE NAUGHTY BITS

Take the following, which at first reads like a skit off Saturday Night Live: earlier this month, Egyptian legislators went ballistic over the sale of an artificial hymen… a device that allows women to fake their virginity. From the company’s website:

No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can have your first night back anytime. Insert this artificial hymen into your vagina carefully. It will expand a little and make you feel tight. When your lover penetrate [sic], it will ooze out a liquid that look [sic] like blood not too much but just the right amount. Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable.

According to the UK Telegraph, Egyptian politicians said it would be a “mark of shame” to allow the sale of the product in Egypt. A “prominent Islamic scholar” called for importers to be “punished.” (article) All because religious men — through the police apparatus of the government — would no longer have a lock on women’s nether parts. (Quite literally.)

An Egyptian’s women’s rights activist, however, said: “the Artificial Virginity Hymen ’sticks it in the face of every male hypocrite’ in an Arab culture that condemns women’s sexuality but turns a blind eye to male promiscuity.”

IS IT REALLY “SEX” IF IT’S WITH MYSELF?

At first blush (literally) the artificial hymen story kinda makes you titter. But consider this story from the underbrush of our own backyard. Alabama continues to enforce a ban on sex toys, as do Mississippi and Virginia. (Divine Caroline has a good write up.) And ReasonTV has a hysterical video here:

In January Coweta Count, GA got into the act with its own sex toy ban, one that includes “perhaps even the sale of some condoms and lubricants.” (Times-Herald)

Sex toys are illegal in India, though a government-owned company is involved in the manufacture of a vibrating condom, which some say should be classified as a vibrator and be banned. (BBC)

In China, the government took a wrecking ball to the “Love Land” sex theme park before it even opened (AP via IndianExpress). The government “banned television and radio ads for push-up bras, figure-enhancing underwear and sex toys in the communist government’s latest move to purge the nation’s airwaves of what it calls social pollution.” (AP via Huffpo)

Sex toys are illegal from Malaysia to the Dominican Republic. Hell, sex toys are even illegal in Thailand of all places… where the sex trade is perennially booming.

GETTING A LOAD OFF MY MIND

Why for Heaven’s sake does something so simple… a person alone in a room taking three and half minutes to get their rocks off… provoke an enormous global law enforcement effort?

Clearly when we’re talking about “sex,” were not talking about “sex.” We’re talking about religion, morality, ethics, spirituality, psychology, tradition, mores, personal baggage, guilt, prejudice, anger, chauvinism, cultural taboos, simple habit, education (and a lack thereof), control issues (big time), personal insecurity, commerce, power, autonomy, repression, oppression, nature, nurture, transcendentalism, materialism, and about ten gazillion things OTHER than “sex.”

Unless “sex” actually IS all those things… and always has been, and always will be, making the word itself an armed linguistic nuke. That’s the power of language. It is not an empty vessel. When it’s loaded up and shot into those soft, moist, glistening folds… of the BRAIN you low-life!… get your minds out of the gutter… it vibrates reality… like plucking a guitar string or tapping a kettle drum.

Those of us in the wordsmithing profession tend to forget the power of words. But they are intensely personal. And the reality they vibrate in the listener is nothing but intensely personal. People’s response (i.e., their behavior) on the other hand, affects everyone and everything.

And it’s the echo of our wordsmithing (the action of the listener) that ought to haunt us. When we purposely use words to unleash that kind of power, we are responsible for what we wreak… just as if we had learned how to control the weather.

It is into this, the tenderest part of the public mind, that we insert ourselves every day of our careers. So let’s do it gently, wisely and above all… safely.

As for “sex,” it’s soooo heavily charged it’s no wonder people all over the world want to ban the damn thing. Something that fraught with stress and complexity is surely a load on the mind that needs to be relieved somehow.

Now… if we could only think of a safe, practical way to alleviate all that pent up frustration…    

The mailing is a hot topic… Editor & Publisher recently wrote an article called “Delivering Propaganda, As If It is Toothpaste.”

So I did some digging to see who might be ballsy enough to mail 28 million copies of this “film” only six weeks before a presidential election.

The folks at Popular Progressive and The Ballot had already unmasked the main player in this drama: Raphael Shore,  “a Canadian living in Israel,” who apparently wrote and co-produced the “film.”

Unfortunately, the online availability of IRS Form 990 for The Clarion Fund (the 501(c)3 responsible for the movie and distribution)  was limited. The only listing was for a legal contact. So… I looked him up.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Please Meet…

Eli D. Greengerg.

Mr. Greenberg is a partner at a large NY-based law firm called Wolf, Haldenstein, Adler, Freeman & Hertz. He is the partner in charge of the firm’s healthcare practice. Sounds pretty boring actually, and far from anything to do with radical Islam.

And the firm itself is pretty run-of-the-mill, with a predictable repertoire of corporate, securities, healthcare, and non-profit stuff. Not much interesting there.

But here is something interesting.

One would think that the guys behind this gnashing of teeth would be closely tied to the (GOP) candidate that the distribution initiative is designed to help. Especially since, as reported by Popular Progressive, the group is sending them out only in swing states, and the group’s website for a while was running this quote:

“McCain’s policies seek to confront radical Islamic extremism and terrorism and roll it back while [Barack] Obama’s, although intending to do the same, could in fact make the situation facing the West even worse.”

SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!

Imagine the surprise when I went to OpenSecrets.org and looked up Greenberg and his law firm “Wolf Haldenstein“… you can see the results for yourself here (just check the box “search all cycles” and then “submit”).

Turns out that the main legal contact for this broadside against Barack Obama is a partner in a law firm where the partners give almost exclusively to DEMOCRATIC candidates!

Yup. Mr Greenberg himself was a John Edwards man in 2004. A few of the other partners were squarely behind John Kerry.

Propaganda from the home team? This election gets curiouser and curiouser…

And just for giggles, here is the tax ID# for the non-profit Clarion Fund, which produced and distributed the movie…

EIN: 20-5845679

The Clarion Fund

c/o Eli Greenberg, Partner

Wol, Haldenstein, Adler, Freeman & Hertz

270 Madison Avenue, 9th Floor

New York, NY 10016

Someone more industrious than me can go to the corporate registrar’s office in NYC and look up the Board of Directors for this 501(c)3… Might be very interesting to see that list.    

Los Angeles, CA – July 9, 2008: The Church of Scientology announced today that it has agreed to acquire The Kabbalah Centre in a “merger of equals” to create the world’s largest, most powerful, most famous double-super-secret religion.

The name of the combined religion will be The Scientific Unified Church of Kabbalalology – abbreviated as SUCK.

Celebrities from across the planet gathered at an undisclosed time last week in a secret location for a secret ceremony to celebrate the unpublicized event. The guest list was not disclosed due to security concerns.

“Though we cannot say what happened, when, or who was there, if you decode your Torahs ye shall know the entire beautiful truth of it,” said Shalom Sweeny, spokeswoman for The Kabbalah Centre. She added, “Kabbalah decoder rings are available from the website for $599.95 or by calling 1-800-KAB-FARE. Scientology members now get a 20% discount.”

According to oracular prophecy – as well as the 895-page legal memorandum forming a new California non-profit religious corporation – the pending mega-merger is a “multi-dimensional union” covering all activities of both religions on the material as well as the ethereal plane. The two religions agreed to a consolidation of all Karmic debts, with the pro-forma balance sheet showing a Karmic capitalization ratio of 22.9 — (i.e., accrued debts as a share of non-realizable disincarnate assets).

The new religion will claim the souls of millions of adherents around the world – living and dead. (Merger documents are required to note an expected continuation of membership attrition to weight loss programs, such as Jenny Craig. Though such attrition is not material as the net gain from Amtrak stations nationally has offset this loss in each of the last nine reporting periods.)

“We are enthusiastically engaged in today’s process of religious right-sizing, which will provide us with a significant competitive advantage,” said Lusitania von Hindenburg, spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology. “We will have maximum influence and appeal while reducing the administrative overhead traditionally associated with saving humanity.”

Both parties have further agreed to a belief integration process that will result in a new reference text for the combined religion: Kabbaianetics: The Modern Science of Mystical Ancient Hebrew Mentalists.

Kabbaianetics will be published by Judith Regan in the fall of 2009 is expected to be a blockbuster best-seller worldwide. Product placements for the book are currently being handled by The Wylie Agency. The final mystical text is subject to the approval of the executive committees of each religion, as well as spiritual advisory entities on at least seven other on non-physical planes yet to be negotiated.

Executives of both religions were jubilant about the proposed merger, saying that it will provide unparalleled benefits for members, including:

a diversified belief set – providing greater believer choice

a broadened merchandising platform

wider social networking and behavior reinforcement opportunities

stronger celebrity and promotional tie-ins

enhanced funding

greater reach for global outreach ministries particularly in the hard-hit, spiritually barren media markets of New York and Los Angeles

“This transaction is the culmination of a new wave of value-added spirituality that delivers more benefit for more people in more places than ever before anywhere at anytime in the entire history of mankind,” said Ms. Hindenburg.

According to Ms. Sweeny of The Kabbalah Centre: “We cannot say where we are going or what we are doing as the world is a mysterious entity reflecting incarnate energy of our beings that is not contained in mere words but instead the ongoing conscious exercise of free will through the life-giving spirit of God within each of us. But this is a great day. We must believe it for it has been written – in code.”

SUCK anticipates higher soul acquisition rates (gross and net) enabled by streamlined message delivery mechanisms through online social media in a new “Religion 2.0” initiative. Spokespeople could not comment on Kabbalalology’s rumored acquisition of Twitter.

The new religion will have 297 brick-and-mortar locations in 83 countries worldwide and will boast a roster of hundreds high-profile endorsers through a new program — “Celebrities SUCK” — which will be a regular feature on E! Entertainment Television.

It is also targeting rapid expansion in developing regions of the world, where the acquisition rate of believers-per-celebrity is much higher. To support this expansion, it will embark on a capital improvement program, including the purchase of 35,000 folding tables – to expand its “outdoor office footprint” in train stations, bus depots, and tourist piazzas around the globe.

“This is the first step in long march toward legitimacy in the eyes of the world,” said Ramtha, The Enlightened One and 35,000 year old spirit who is a majority shareholder in both religions through his 501(c)(3) organization JZ & Me.

The CEO of SUCK will be determined at a later date by a jousting match between David Miscavige and Michael Berg in the online game Second Life.

The transaction agreement is non-binding and subject to the approval the Board of Directors of each entity. Once approved, the transaction will close on a future undisclosed date, but all parties assure that it will be a mystically and astrologically significant day, as well as conjunct with the most important dates in the Myan, Aztec, Upanishad, Zoroastrian, and Atlantean calendars.

# # #

PR Contacts:

Gershon Kekst @ Kekst & Company

George Sard @ Sard Verbinnen

All the while IRA bombs were wreaking havoc in London. But that was never spoken of. As a youngster, I hardly even knew to connect the two.

Which brings me to the current t-shirt tumult, in which the principal of an Arabic-based New York City public school led a group that offered young girls t-shirts emblazoned with the word “Intifada NYC.” The principal resigned in the uproar, basically saying that she had only wanted to empower the young women to “shake off oppression,” but underestimated the “historical association” between the word “intifada”and violent uprising.

Now back to the Irish metaphor: a green white and gold “Free Ireland” t-shirt in Boston in 1973 would have earned smiles of approval. Wearing same t-shirt in downtown London in 1973 would have earned one an interrogation at the very least, and depending on the wearer’s personal circumstances, maybe even a quick and unceremonious deportation.

The point: context matters. The site of the current Intifada t-shirt furor can’t be but a few miles from the site of the World Trade Center attack. Of course people are sensitive.

Second point: naiveté has no place in the discussion. Hyperventilating bloggers like Alif Sikkin need to step back and approach the issue with a bit more humility. He lambastes Americans for misunderstanding Arabic words, as if Westerners deliberately twisted their meaning.

That argument is pedantic nonsense, and totally disingenuous.

The word “intifada” has been co-opted by Muslim militants: from the Palestinians in their two Intifadas (1987 and 2000) against Israel, to the Syrian group Fatah al-Intifada that is responsible for bombings in Lebanon, to the “Intifada En France.”

The global Intifada narrative is being written primarily by Muslims, not Westerners.

Their grievances may be legitimate. Some even see their methods as justified. But legitimacy and justification are totally beside the point in a responsible debate about language. That debate must investigate the source of the momentum behind the transformation of Arabic words in the world consciousness.

Same applies to the word “jihad.”

The group Hamas claims in the eighth article of its Charter: “Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Koran its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief.” And the twelve point program of the militant Muslim Brotherhood includes No. 9 “To support jihad wherever possible,” and No. 11 “To exploit the Palestinian ’cause’ as part of a global strategy, and to foment enmity towards the Jews and Israel as a rallying point for Muslims.”

A West Bank militarist group called “Islamic Jihad” sponsors armed resistance against Israel. The Pakistani-based MMA vows to wage jihad in Kashmir. The PBJ in Indonesia is a group of 200 self-scribed “jihad bombers.” The Bangladeshi “Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami” has expanded beyond its home turf and is now recruiting in Southern Thailand, fomenting an Islamic separatist movement there.

The site historyofjihad.org provides a complete overview of the militancy associated with “jihad” dating back to the year 620 C.E.

So Mr. Sikkin and those who want to lay the blame for linguistic misunderstanding and general thick-headedness at the feet of Westerners alone are just plain wrong. To be sure, Westerners are thick-headed about a lot of things Eastern, but this is not one of them. Militant Muslims bear more responsibility than Westerners for co-opting the meaning of “jihad” and “intifada.”

Look, a “faggot” will never again be just a bundle of sticks. The word “gay” will never simply mean happy. And “queer” will never just mean “different.” Never ever. To say nothing of “fairy.” (We are lucky, in fact, to still retain quotidian uses of “pansy” and “fruit.”)

I doubt that the term “niggardly” (def: cheap, stingy) will ever regain common usage as it is too close to an epithet. The Confederate flag symbolizes war in defense of slavery, and as such it will never be simply a banner of Southern “states rights,” nor should it be.

And finally, what of the poor swastika? This 3,000 year-old sun symbol carries a powerful and positive meaning in Hindu and Buddhist faiths. Even in a grand Catholic cathedral in Ireland – St. Coleman’s in Cork – there are swastikas in the mosaic floor tiles. But the swastika will be never be simply a symbol of power and good luck, and will probably never regain any positive colloquial associations or common usage in the West.

Barking about dictionary definitions and claiming that the linguistic mis-attribution is the fault of ignorant Westerners who can’t tell the difference between a clockwise swastika (Nazi) versus a counter-clockwise swastika (mostly everybody else) is… it’s worth repeating: pedantic and disingenuous. (Especially since the two were interchangeable in early uses.)

Like it or not, reality intrudes on and changes language all the time, and we are left to deal with the aftermath as best we can. Sometimes the cost is that words and symbols fall out of common usage because they can no support productive dialogue.

Seen in this light, selling “Intifada” t-shirts to teenagers in an Arabic school in NYC is, at best, clumsy and insensitive. It calls to mind another recent symbolic dust-up: the “Brown is the New White” t-shirts that Macy’s recently withdrew from stores. Like the Brooklyn principal who sincerely wanted to empower her students, the maker of the “Brown is the New White” t-shirts had a celebratory vision:

“We are taking over the world so everybody better watch out!!!!!!! (Ha ha ha! just kidding!) NO! It’s hard to ignore the fact that Latinos are everywhere now… its [sic] hard to pick up the newspaper and not read about Latinos in politics, music, art, design, etc. It’s just shining a little light on that in a funny way. That’s it.”

Since the t-shirt deliberately plays on racial power dynamics, the result (one might say predictably) was a storm of outrage on all sides of the power equation: anger from the left, the right, immigrant’s rights groups, and some Latinos that it was racist and poorly thought out; anger by yet other Latinos at anyone who co-opted their right to be ironic. It turned into a sociological-racial Rorschach test.

In reality, however, the literal reason for the global dominance of white Western culture is that white Europeans, for several hundred years running, mercilessly slaughtered, conquered and pacified their social and spiritual “inferiors.” So in a purely literal sense, the t-shirt is saying that that’s the legacy “Browns” are taking over. The writer’s cheeky empowerment and attempt at being edgy is actually pretty uninformed, ham-fisted and dumb.

For language buffs, these two controversies provide yet more evidence that our modern mindset is in the full-on throes of Baudrillard-ian delusion. (Like we needed any more evidence?) Symbols have replaced reality. They now are reality.

The factual basis of the controversy (the word “Intifada” on a shirt offered to teenagers by a moderate, peace-loving public school principal with a record of fostering productive religious dialogue) is meaningless. A t-shirt is not a bomb, but people treat it like one because a symbolic detonation is as good as the real thing. It is the real thing.

Circumstances and facts are lost in the volley of symbolic rhetoric about deliberate provocation, endorsements of violence, Islamist propaganda, Western hostility to the East, political theater, clashes of civilizations, the struggle for Western values, a competition between secular and religious institutions, etc., etc.

The symbolism is what we see. The symbolism is what we react to. The symbolic content is what dominates our thinking and our reasoning.

In all honesty, my gut reaction is that it makes me nostalgic for the non-threatening conformity of school uniforms. (That sentiment, in turn, will be denounced as a symbol of my authoritarian urge to squash dissent and free expression. And so the ante is upped once more.)

Consider the following sentence: Don’t be niggardly with that gay swastika!

That earthquake you feel in your brain is symbolism grinding against literalism. Beyond the benign literal meaning of words ["Don't be stingy with that happy good luck symbol!"] lies a powerful psychological and symbolic realm ["nigger, faggot, Nazi!"]. Here, language is freighted with so much symbolic weight that it squashes all other possible meanings and interpretations. Symbols of power provoke the same response as power itself. Symbols of intolerance function in the same way and provoke the same reaction as intolerance itself.

Unfortunately, this is the psychological and linguistic default by which we now live. Symbolic power governs how we relate both to each other and the world around us, and it’s quite unhelpful and immature to deny it. The best thing we can do, under the circumstances, is to understand the dynamic, show some self-restraint and stop poking sticks at the beehive.

The Irish national airline (Aer Lingus) has removed the Wolftones’ music from all in-flight audio programs, ditto state-run RTE radio stations. The Aer Lingus move came after a Northern Irish Protestant hardliner compared it to playing an Osama Bin Ladin recording on an Arab airliner. Nationalists say it’s folk music, a part of Irish culture and heritage, and only advocates legitimate revolution against a criminal occupation. In the end, no matter how great or Irish the songs may be, or how much we may enjoy raising a pint and singing them, their time as a public rallying cry has passed. It only serves to exacerbate wounds that have barely started to heal. So in the interest of maintaining a fragile psychological peace, the Wolftones were taken out of circulation in these particular venues.

So here too, we can put away the t-shirt for now, as well as the blame please, and all get back to the issue of teaching our kids algebra so that Am-ur-ica doesn’t lose its competitive edge to the Chinese and Indians!

No, but seriously, given our woeful state of public discourse, we need to learn how to better use, interpret and respond to the power of symbols. Rhetorical brinksmanship and symbolic scorched-Earth policies are no-win situations for all involved. We need to fess up to that, and then find a way out of this linguistic corner into which we are painted, before we slaughter each other – or are all brain dead from inhaling the fumes.