Some time back in the 1970s I was told a no-doubt apocryphal story about how one of Stalin’s (or it might have been Lenin’s) spies returned from an expedition to the U.S. and warned the Soviet leader not to mess with Americans because we were so tough we ate desserts made from frozen cream and that we ate it in January!!!!
If only Stalin (or maybe Lenin) had listened to that spy we wouldn’t have had that messy cold war or anything.
Assuming the story is even true, of course.
Around the same time I heard a very similar story about one of Hitler’s spies, or maybe just one of his generals, making a similar determination about American toughness after watching a football game.
Again, assuming its even true.
Fast forward fifty to seventy years to something a bit better documented that reveals something else about national character.
Involving women’s underwear used as implements of torture used by American interrogators against prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. (A sentence in the English language that I wouldn’t have imagined could have been used outside a Monty Python skit prior to the election of our current Administration.)
Twisty Faster of I blame the patriarchy raises the question and puts it in, well, the best possible light possible when she says
While is true that most of the prison photos show women’s underwear used in conjunction with one or more of the other more sadistic tactics, few media reports fail to accord the undies at least equal billing. A military CID caption of [an] Abu Ghraib photo reads “Detainees [sic] is handcuffed in the nude to a bed and has a pair of panties covering his face.” Here the syntax reveals that “handcuffed in the nude” is deemed the equivalent of “panties covering his face.” Now consider, if you will, the caption I found accompanying [a] picture at notinourname.net: “A naked prisoner, chained to his matress-less [sic] bunk, is forced to wear women’s underwear on his head.” Not “a naked prisoner, women’s underwear on his head, is shackled spread-eagle to a bare bunk.” By virtue of its position as the sentence’s predicate, the brutality of the panties is clearly the statement the caption’s author wishes to make about subject, revealing, I contend, the aspect of the photograph to which the writer has experienced the greater emotional response.
By the way, Twisty’s post isn’t about prisoner’s reactions to women’s underwear, and neither is mine. Instead it’s about our reactions.
I am not arguing that forcing prisoners of war to wear women’s underwear on their heads is not an act of torture. Clearly it is torture. What interests me is the reason it is torture. How is it that nobody has anything but the utmost sympathy for a fellow shown with a pair of girly skivvies on his head? By what demented code does a swatch of soft pink cotton become an instrument of torment? What makes this particular cruelty stand out from a field of persecutions so squalid they can only have proceeded from massively deranged minds crammed with snuff films and bongwater?
It’s a pretty good point. One needn’t be a panty fetishist to wonder exactly what the big deal might be. A couple of possibilities come to mind:
- Everybody but Twisty and I know something that makes it make total sense to emphasize underwear over, say, accidentally murdering a prisoner and then keeping their body packed in ice till you figure out how to dispose of them in a non-incriminating fashion? (Another photo on the NotInOurName page referenced above.)
- We’ve make up so many stories about the “otherness” of Afghan or Iraqi men that we imagine they have superstitious aversions about contact with women that go beyond the simple annoyance of having anything stuffed over your head while you’re being tortured?
- Even six years into the new century journalists, even progressive ones at Salon.com, are still all tee-hee about women’s undies?
- Even six years into the new century journalists imagine their readers are still all tee-hee about women’s undies?
- Everybody but Twisty and I know that panty fetishism is so prevalent around the world that they just get off on talking about it?
- Or are even progressives just so baked about gender stereotypes that putting women’s panties on men… even on their heads… is such an affront that, given a choice, real men would rather have their lower bodies ripped into by police dogs? (Yet another photo from the same NotInOurName page)
Character, meet character.
Submitted by 1036 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-11-27 16:55.
I think the powers that be so misunderstand Islam, they think Muslim men are not a part of the sexual world. Seem like I hear more from Muslims about how women should act outside the house, than what can take place inside. When it comes to sex is more about who, when and where, than about what.
[And of course it's not just the powers that be, it's pretty much everybody over here. I don't know enough about the predominant religion (or it's many sects) to comment. I can say I have an extremely difficult time with certain *cultural* assumptions that physical advantage equals superiority. But that's a separate issue from that of underpants as an affront. Thanks, Five. --fl]
Submitted by 1036 (not verified) on Mon, 2006-11-27 18:17.
Figleaf:
When I attended a performance of the play Death and the Maiden, I felt a similar revulsion at a particular scene when Paulina Escobar, believing that she has recognized the voice of the rapist who tortured her while she was a political prisoner, incapacitates her sleeping assailant, whom she has never seen since she was blindfolded while he raped and tortured her. To make sure that her rapist utters no sound that would alert her sleeping husband, Paulina takes off her panties, wads them into a ball, and stuffs them into her rapist's mouth.
Despite the fact that I was a woman who had lived independently for many years, and was married to a man whose genitals I had caressed with my mouth, that act of placing her underwear in her rapist's mouth was more indicative of the rage Escobar felt than any of the ensuing dialogue.
I think the issue here is not what makes us different from those tortured Muslim prisoners, but what we share with them: an abhorence of the human body, and an even deeper abhorence of the female body.
If any readers have not seen the play, I would recommend reading it rather than seeing Roman Polanski's film version. Polanski alters the plot to remove the element of uncertainty which, in the aftermath of reprisal and retribution, is a hinge in the door that Ariel Dorfman opens with this drama.
[Don't get me wrong. I'd be upset if someone stuffed underwear in my face too. It just wouldn't matter that it was men's or women's. Twisty also suggests the method is based on an abhorrence of the female body but that just seems incredibly dysfunctional. Thanks Kochanie. --fl]
Submitted by 1036 (not verified) on Tue, 2006-11-28 06:32.
Guess you've never heard of Cooties?
[Oh riiiiight! That really would explain the underwear-on-the-head thing. Question then, though, is who's giving guns, bombs, prison camps, and waterboards to kindergarteners? (It would explain the level of accountability though.) Thanks, Madame. --fl]
Submitted by 1036 (not verified) on Tue, 2006-11-28 14:08.
I've been in two minds whether to respond to this, but here goes. I'm with Five of Nine and figleaf's response on this, that people misunderstand Islam.
Both my sons, by total coincidence, have partners/girlfriends, call them what you will, who were brought up in the Islamic faith. Both were raised to be independent and strong and given every opportunity to do exactly as they wished by parents who were very devout. They are the most delightful and quite incredibly successful young women. Not only that, but I am delighted that my sons want to be with such women.
I would be horrified to have anyone's underwear put over my head, whether of female, male or indeterminate origin (and the ones in the picture looked pretty indeterminate to me).
[Thanks, A. By complete coincidence I rediscovered a page called Sex and the Umma by Mohja Kahf. No religion with over a billion followers will ever be monolithic, which is why it's as dumb to blame generic "Muslims" than it would to blame generic "Christians." (I put the site in my blogroll by the way.) --fl]
Submitted by 1036 (not verified) on Tue, 2006-11-28 18:58.
I'm going to comment only on the "Americans eat icecream in January"
I had read something a long time ago (like in the tween years) about how Russians sell more icecream in winter than any other time of year because of the fat and sugar and heavy cream metabolize in such a way as to raise your body temperature and help you stay warm. That's of course, after the brainfreeze. So interesting anecdote. We may have sent back a trend ;O)
[Great point, Rae. The calories in ice cream way, way more than offset the heat we need to generate to unfreeze it in our bellies. Oh yeah, plus it's always yummy! Thanks. --fl]