This is so vaguely sourced that you shouldn’t trust it all, so regard it as nothing but a humor item. The Islamic heat is rising in the grocery store.
An Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”
The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve.
He said that these fruits and vegetables “resemble the male penis” and hence could arouse women or “make them think of sex.” Bikyamasr.com cannot independently verify the accuracy of the news item at time of writing.
He also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.
It’s ridiculous, it’s funny, it’s stupid, and it’s so blatantly absurd that I’m not going to believe it until I see some confirmation, but still…we live in a world where Islamic clerics declare that allowing women to drive will end virginity, so mere absurdity is no longer sufficient to rule out a story.
we live in a world where Islamic clerics declare that allowing women to drive will end virginity,
I presume driving a stick is Right Out?
Men are henceforth also banned from the vicinity of those sinful, lustful donuts.
I’ve yet to see any evidence that this is anything but a hoax. The news source, when Googled, seems only to exist in this article. Of course Arabic can be transliterated in a dozen different ways so it’s possible it’s out there under another name, but to me it looks like a joke article.
My gut says hoax (especially in light of ewan’s comment above), but knowing what I know about fundies, it’s a plausible hoax.
THIS is “extracurricular writing that must get done right now”????
He clearly has it wrong. The meat section is the sexiest section of the store.
Hoax or not, it’s very silly.
Is it appropriate to ask my GF if a banana turns her on?
Jumpin’ Jeezus on a stick, the humble bicycle did that in Victorian England.
I like it when my GF thinks of sex. It often works out pretty well for me. Are those muslim men afraid that if their women are thinking of sex it’ll work out pretty well for me, too, or something? If so, they need to get busy.
You can’t thwart God’s will, though. He made many penis-shaped foods for very good reasons.
And when ID wins, we should be able to get back to the enormous promise of sympathetic magic, too. Surely heart-shaped leaves are good for your heart.
Glen Davidson
But wouldn’t those same foods then possibly turn men gay? Perhaps it’s best to ban phallic foods altogether… http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=28755
An Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”
Yes, only men should be allowed to have ‘sexual thoughts’ about them!
Also, don’t forget the carrots! And zucchinis!
Brenda’s strange obsession was for certain vegetables and fruit.
Please forgive me.
Nah, that’s OK. The donuts are asking for it.
@my 7:
Shit, that sounded way more dismissive than I wanted it to. I apologize. It’s silly, yes, but if it’s not a hoax, it’s yet another level of the lengths the patriarchal imams would go to ensure women are treated like they can’t control their own lives.
As a longtime denizen of the intertubes, I can attest that bananas/cucumbers do indeed have many non-culinary uses, most of which seem to be quite fun! Then again, I would love to see what Mr. Repressed here would want to outlaw after a brief visit to /b/ or /r/spacedicks (if you don’t know what either of those is, try to remain oblivious. Remember, it cannot be unseen)…
Also “male penis?” As opposed to…what exactly?
Such egos! I’m thinking if women stay away from the baby carrots and button mushrooms it will be sufficient.
@17 radpumpkin
Also “male penis?” As opposed to…what exactly?
The guy is probably secretly deep into TS porn. Maybe even without the porn part, so the slip is forgivable.
What about bagels?
Marcus Ranum, maybe you could conduct an experiment. Bring lots of bananas, zucchinis and sausages home from the grocery store and see if there’s an increase in sexual frequency. To set a control you could prepare soup for a week.
Otranreg, “TS porn” does not mean that the woman has a penis. Try again.
@22 janine
Otranreg, “TS porn” does not mean that the woman has a penis. Try again.
Oh, blimey, are you sure about it?
@janine:
Otraneg is actually right…
Shades of Melanie Safka.
JC
This seems absurd, but it’s said that Darwin’s daughter Henrietta would hunt out stinkhorn mushrooms and burn them because of the “morals of the maids.”
Or was it for some other reason? Wouldn’t a guy wonder about marrying her?
Glen Davidson
No more eating, it excites the oral cavity.
I think it’s brilliant, it means that finally the Muslim men will have to work in the kitchen and serve the women. I would insist on only eating cucumber sandwiches, carrots salads, zucchini, and bananas for dessert.
In Saudi Arabia, where they have discovered scientific facts which prove that when women drive cars there will be no virgins left and all the men will be gay within 10 years.
They don’t explain how they imagine all women will be losing their virginity when all the men are gay, you’d think that after those ten years the younger generation of Saudi women will remain virgins for the rest of their lives…
But Bananas fit so nicely their hands… like they were meant to be there.
What of transgendered women who do not have penises? That is all I meant.
An intelligently designed sex act?
So what about men and spiral sliced ham?
(A decade ago, a ham store had a billboard up on one of the local highways. The image of the spiral-sliced ham did look remarkeably like a vulva. My friend asked his pal to grab a photo of it as it was on his way home. The guy pulled over, set up the camera (tripod as the lighting was mediocre) and, as he was setting up the shot, no less than three times people passing by shouted, “Pervert!”)
“He said that these fruits and vegetables ‘resemble the male penis’ and hence could arouse women or ‘make them think of sex.'”
By that logic, men should be barred from the entire store. Period.
Men should also be banned from Apple Pie (also known as American Pie).
Why would a husband be that hung up on not having his wife think about sex?
Parsnips, did anyone think to ban parsnips? Please can I have that added to the list before Sunday dinner at my inlaws?
Yes, as some commenters have already pointed out, this is not the first time the banana has been at the center of some controversy. I don’t think anyone has forgotten, but it is still worth mentioning.
The video does, however, provide a striking analogy between two different fundies’ ways of thinking about inanimate objects in their environment: listen to the video at 0:39-0:42, where Ray praises the banana for the following property: “when you pull the tab [of the banana] the contents don’t squirt in your face.” Now, why would Ray fear or think that the banana would squirt in his face when he pulled its skin aside to put its contents into his mouth? How did that thought even enter his mind?
I heard a cover of this song as background music at Canadian Tire. They didn’t censor the Tanya Turkish couplet!
(Such things please me immensely.)
The real tragedy here is that the bananas themselves haven’t had sex for thousands of years.
I’m afraid have no information as to if the bananas ever think about sex.
Since we’re plumbing the 80s for song references, can we talk about castration?
some bastard
Didn’t someone in the old Buffy series say something like “I’m a seventeen-year-old guy—linoleum makes me think of sex!”
Xander.
@janine:
It’s more the fact that if you do a search for “transsexual porn” the heavy majority will likely be women with penises. The actual terminology doesn’t matter to porn purveyors. (Although they tend to use “shemale” more often than anything else.)
I do not view enough pornography to know how many porn stars are actually post-op transsexuals.
Vegetables don’t do it for me, but my husband certainly benefits from my viewing of True Blood.
Katherine, it is not like the porn industry will go out of it’s way to be sensitive to the meaning of words. Especially when “chicks with dicks” and “shemale” sells to an audience.
He’s afraid for his wife to slice up a cucumber with a nice sharp knife because he’s afraid it will give her ideas about what else she can use the knife on.
*cough*
Stop Vegetable Abuse
yar.
And then of course, there’s this song here, called “Die Banane”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8eKodmqNJA (with English subtitles)
@janine:
Nope. That’s what I mean. I’m sure that a good portion of the trans* actresses are doing pornography as a meal ticket…
Whay are moslem men so terrified of women’s sexuality? What is the matter with them?
Additionally, when writing, the number eight, equals sign, and the capital letter D should be avoided, least they accidentally be combined into an ASCII penis.
Isn’t the actually correct definition of ‘Poe’s Law’ that it is impossible to create a parody that someone somewhere will not mistake for the real thing? In the normal world this means someone somewhere who is such an idiot that (s)he can’t recognise a really obvious spoof. When it comes to spoofs on religion, the real stories are so whacky that the law includes just about all of us. After the ‘sexy eyes’ story and the ‘female drivers will lead to every immorality imaginable’ story, which are genuine, ‘phallic vegetable’ story doesn’t seem far fetched in the slightest.
ewanmacdonald wrote, “Of course Arabic can be transliterated in a dozen different ways”.
Oh? Really? If it’s so ambiguous, then how can it mean anything at all?
You say that as if there is a group of people on earth that can be said to not be terrified of female sexuality.
Sidebar: Is there such thing as castration anxiety? Like, for realz?
As usual, xkcd nails it (so to speak)
Produce Aisle
Illuminata, look up vagina dentata sometime.
Illuminata, look up vagina dentata.
Don’t need to. Can’t believe I didn’t make that connection before asking. Doh.
I hate buggy website!
Illuminata
The notion was popularized by Freud. So, no.
Then how can anyone claim to know anything about what the koran says?
Vagina Dentata! What a wonderful phrase
Vagina Dentata! Ain’t no passing craze
It means no willies for the rest of your days
It’s our rapist-free philosophy
Vagina Dentata!
(posted with profound shame that my mind went there)
Does the fact that kitchen utensils, as well as pots and pans, have handles – which look remarkably like phalluses – mean that only men should be allowed into any Islamic kitchen?????? I bet after a week of his wife (wives?) refusing to cook for him for this reason this moron will change his tune.
Brother Ogvorbis – I LOL’d.
But guys!
This is absolutely true! Every time I bite into a banana, I get all…
*pants loudly*
Wait.
Hold on.
I’m a lesbian. Shouldn’t I get turned on by bagels? Donuts?
There is an anti-rape condom based on the vagina dentata nightmare:
http://www.antirape.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=18
I want a Dethklok song about vagina dentata!
Esteleth, how about a strap-on banana?
timberwoof,
short vowels are usually not shown in the Arabic script. Also, when transliterating Arabic names in the Latin alphabet, the same sound can be represented in a number of ways.
The most extreme example was Ghadafi, there were like 50 ways or sth to write his name in Latin script….
Janine,
Sounds squishy. And like an incipient yeast infection.
I don’t get it. Am I a-typical in that even the sight of an actual penis (never mind phallic food) doesn’t arouse me?
What can I say, I’m high maintenance.
That said, I agree with the commenter who applauded this for getting those doods into the kitchen.
“Oh darling, I simply can’t eat anything other than cucumber and bananas right now. Uhm, some religious reason, but it’s legit, trust me. To the kitchen you go then!”
Even worse than donuts.
They’re Jewish, after all.
And shouldn’t Muslim women be kept away from mosques? Think of all the unpure thoughts inspired by those minarets.
Saturday Night Live’s NNTN did a piece on that. They showed the ‘officially approved’ spellings of Ghadafi — one of which was Ghadaffi-duck. It is most likely on YouTube but, on this computer, I kinna look meself. So you’ll have to trust me.
Didn’t Paul Simon have a song about that?
I guess clams are out ?
fish tacos ?
Carrot juice is murder
(my favorite music video ever)
OMG YES!!!! Even though I’m a humorless, man-hating, no-funnington fem-nazi, I love the fucking show so goddamn hard. Those boys are the reason I beat my best time for the mile last night at the gym!
Something about 50 ways to love your lever…or possibly tire jack, I misremember which.
I offered a girl a bite of my sausage last night, and she started laughing uncontrollably. It took me a moment to figure out what was so funny.
So THAT’S why the bananas I bought last night were so wet and warm. Now if I can only figure out why my ham looks like somebody sneezed in it.
As an atheist, bananas give me nightmares!
I remember reading about Islamic history where harem slave girls (some of which were abducted by Barbary Coast pirates) were not allowed access to any devices that could be used as a substitute for the penis of the ruler of the harem so that all the women would be kept in frequent sexual frustration and would be more welcoming of the penis of the ruler of the harem… with that in mind, harem slaves were quite specifically not allowed access to vegetables and such shaped like an erect penis. I remember this quite specifically because after reading about this topic as an adolescent I stopped eating cucumbers and zucchinis because I didn’t know where they had been… so basically there is historical precedent for this sort of sexist nonsense.
Someone better tell Ray Comfort.
hyperion
Penises and similarly-shaped objects are not necessary to cause a orgasm in a female human.
White radish, horse radish, bitter melon (allah designed it with ribbing for extra pleasure), and oh, that hairy melon! Let’s not forget that Turnip that looks like a Thingy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6sfEAJ_yCI)
Regarding the Arabic questions: I vaguely recall that much of Islamic orthodoxy says that the Koran is only perfect in Arabic. (The all-powerful Allah being a monoglot, of course. Or his messenger, one of the two.) I also recall reading that this has caused a bit of resentment in, say, the Balkans, where people speaking Albanian feel like they’re being made to be second-class Muslims because they don’t speak Arabic.
Here is, at least, one report (close to first hand) of extremists ordering shopkeepers not to display cucumbers and tomatoes together, due to the sexual appearances of the vegetables:
http://muslimlawprof.org/2008/07/21/stupidity-and-the-sharia-in-our-times.aspx
ewan,
you have to be precise: only in Classical Arabic, neither in Modern Standard Arabic nor in the many so-called “dialects”.
For anyone wanting a Dethklok song about vagina dentata, there’s almost certainly already at least one death metal song about it. Melodic death metal like Dethklok is less likely, but it’s still possible. Pornogrind or goregrind (mini-genres of a subgenre called grindcore – basically, mix death metal, hardcore punk, and distaste for music theory) is most likely to have at least one song (or an album’s worth of them) on the subject.
Anyone else want some metal help? :P
That was me. I broke into your house the other night and sneezed in your ham.
Sorry, it’s a compulsion. An oddly specific one, but it’s kind of become my signature.
Sad, but true. And it’s pretty much applicable to all religions.
so basically there is historical precedent for this sort of sexist nonsense.
you mean there are nonsensical rumors of nonsense that supports further nonsense.
xians claim similar privilege.
I understand hyperion was just trying to get at the root of where this shit comes from, but really, it’s no more than the endless propagation of pre-pubescent humor:
“I heard a guy say once that women get turned on by vegies that look like dicks!”
“What guy was that?”
“Oh, I dunno, some important guy in history somewhere. I’m absolutely sure that’s what he said, and that it was based on direct experience though!”
“Well, it must be true then!”
But you’d have to actually listen to a woman at some point in your life to know that. So of course the slave-owners wouldn’t.
There was a vagina dentata,
Who said, “Oh my god, what’s the matter?”
I’m wide and and I’m wet,
But I’ve not been laid yet–
Are they worried that something will spatter?
Seth: You know how many foods are shaped like dicks? …The best kinds.
(from Superbad)
hey, if I peel my cucumber will the MRAs come after me ?
Nah.
But if you talk about peeling and coring apples, they’ll demand to know why you aren’t taking cucumber peeling seriously.
What about turnips?
Clearly Cukes and Bananas were designed by Satan*.
Corn Dogs were designed by Jupiter and carrots by Apep.
(*On my first try I typo’d “Santa”; on my second, Stan. Oh well, were ALL a bit suspicious of that Stan fellow)
BREAKING NEWS: Any food item longer than it is wide, say professional busybodies, looks like a weiner if you squint hard enough. Good Religious Women everywhere should therefore be fed a mash of milled food, in order to prevent unwanted thoughts of manparts.
“Gerber”-brand is rumored to be particularly good; be sure to get the squat jars.
Seems a lot of blogs and media went with the story of the “unnamed sheikh” despite the dodgy source. Bit sad, really.
Brother Ogvorbis, you owe me a keyboard.
chigau (違う) says:
“hyperion
Penises and similarly-shaped objects are not necessary to cause a orgasm in a female human.”
and
Ichthyic says:
“”so basically there is historical precedent for this sort of sexist nonsense.”
you mean there are nonsensical rumors of nonsense that supports further nonsense.
xians claim similar privilege.”
and
Ichthyic says:
“I understand hyperion was just trying to get at the root of where this shit comes from, but really, it’s no more than the endless propagation of pre-pubescent humor:
“I heard a guy say once that women get turned on by vegies that look like dicks!”
“What guy was that?”
“Oh, I dunno, some important guy in history somewhere. I’m absolutely sure that’s what he said, and that it was based on direct experience though!”
“Well, it must be true then!””
Sorry, I’m new to this forum and trying to figure out the functions… So I guess I need to provide some sort of source material?
This is from a book review I found online:
The Private World of Ottoman Women
Godfrey Goodwin
London: Saqi Books, 2006. 261 pages.
“The book’s major strength lies in the author’s discussion of the harem and the network of women inside Topkap¦sary. In particular, one discovers that not only was the harem not a center of lasciviousness, but was, in reality, an intimate area in which women were educated and groomed for a life outside the harem if they could not bear the sultan any children (p. 127). In effect, then, the imperial family viewed this institution as a kind of finishing school that one entered through abduction and slavery, as opposed to social class. The women’s sexuality was closely guarded: lesbianism was forbidden and, rather amusingly, so were such “phallic” vegetables as carrots – apparently, there was a fear that these bored young women might use them as masturbatory devices and thereby ruin themselves (p. 131).”
would that be enough for providing source material?
I have been to gyms with locker rooms and I have not noticed too many men with genitalia approaching the size of even a medium sized banana or salad cucumber.
I know that *this* announcement may be a joke, but still…
From the female virginity thing to adultery stoning, to the unmarriable divorced woman, to the veggies thing, I wonder how much of it is ‘Dick Fear’
The fear that ‘she can make a *comparison* about her experiences!’.
@89 pelamun:
Yes, you’re right. Thanks for clarifying.
What’s that? Appetizing penises!!!!
I wonder if the harem women mentioned above were also forced to wear sandpaper gloves or such.
Relieving sexual frustration… it’s not that hard.
You will need to obtain form YA-5(dcm)Q11 from some website I don’t remember (just Google the form name). When you fill it out (no pdf form, yet, sorry), just cross out “machine gun” and replace it with “computer keyboard.” Processing will take between 7 days and infinity.
It’s the honeydew melons that get me.
From what I’ve been able to tell, yes, that’s pretty much exactly what they’re afraid of.
hyperion @105
A book review is not really source material.
It can be. I remember a student at college who did a paper studying the relationship between the politics of a book reviewer, the book itself (in this case, children’s books), and the publication in which the book review appeared.
For this instancy, I agree. But there are some odd instances out there in which they are perfectly acceptable primary sources.
I’m going to hazard a guess that Muslim men don’t want their women seeing long cylidrical objects such as cucumbers and bananas for much the same reason they insist that their brides be virgins – they can’t stand comparison ;-)
Brother Og
That’s really meta.
Megameta. Sorry.
Bro Ogvorbis @63: LOL! Now I know what I’ll be “hearing” in my mind’s ear whenever I see that bit of The Lion King.
*humming*
–
Oh, let’s quit beating around the bush, shall we?
Here’s a tape measure. Go to town.
and
are you two having a comprehension fail? transliteration doesn’t have anything to do with meaning
Topkapısaray, saray meaning “palace”.
I think the idea they’re failing to express is the fact that short vowels aren’t written in Arabic. Most of the time, however, they’re obvious from context, because they belong to the grammar, not to the root of the word. Compare sing – sang – sung – song in English…
Although in that case, its not necessarily that he’s wrong, just that he says it as though it’s a bad thing.
But if we allow women to drive, the next thing is they’ll be demanding shorter burqas so their feet don’t get wrapped up when they’re stepping on various pedals. Then men might see a flash of ankle and, as we all know, that sort of thing turns men into slavering, sex-crazed maniacs. Won’t anyone think of the menz?
Brother Ogvorbis: I can’t begin to tell you how pleased I am to discover that I’m not the only one who instinctively hears ‘vagina dentata’ as sung by Pumbaa and Timon:-)