The Danes really have it going for them

[RedFred]

Victorian values!? Topless would be overdressed for Wreck Beach.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Blake
The Buddha initially founded only the Monk's monastic order. Some time later he was convinced by a female disciple to found the Nun's monastic order. He gave the Nun's additional rules to follow, more rules than the monks had to follow.
These rules were for the Nun's own protection.

In short, Nun's who followed the rules they would be less likely to get raped. Because the Buddha understood lust in men, how it works. And he gave his Nun's rules to help "desexualize" them and thus keep them safe from lust.

Ah right, the ole "we're protecting you by putting more onerous burdens on you" argument.

Heaven forbid we just hold men to the standard that they shouldn't be guided by their ****** rather than put more and more burdens on women.

This sort of crappy arguments end justifying the burka for some Mid Eastern women (after all, it's to protect the women from men's lusts!!!1!)

[Blake]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Ah right, the ole "we're protecting you by putting more onerous burdens on you" argument.

Heaven forbid we just hold men to the standard that they shouldn't be guided by their ****** rather than put more and more burdens on women.

This sort of crappy arguments end justifying the burka for some Mid Eastern women (after all, it's to protect the women from men's lusts!!!1!)

The basic problem is, that Men ARE BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN WOMEN. A man can grab a woman, overpower her, and rape her.

A typical woman can NOT do that to a typical man! Even if she had the will. She will have trouble attaining sexual gratification that way even if she is able to overpower the man, because intercourse is asymmetrical.

It's foolish to pretend there is fundamental gender equality WHERE THERE ISN'T.

One of the rules the Buddha set for the Nuns, is that Nuns must always travel in pairs. In fact many of the rules were to encourage "safety in numbers".

Try to understand the distinction between a senseless rule and a rule which actually makes a lot of sense.

In a time where there was no such thing as woman's right, when women were practically treated like property, if a Nun decided to act just like a Monk and wander alone, she could easily have run into great troubles. I mean any man could decide "Right! I want her!" and just grab her and take her away.

It just plain makes sense for the Nuns to travel in pairs, it makes it far more difficult for the lonely attacker - he has a MUCH larger dilemma, it's much more difficult to justify on several grounds, it's just plain less likely that he'll get away with whatever he's planning.

The rules in this case, were mainly to discourage the Nuns from acting like Monks, when it was genuinely dangerous for them to do so. Buddhism is not a religion which is into letting people make their own mistakes, when the mistakes are things like getting beaten and raped.

Sadly, in the Buddha's time, there were a lot of things a man could safely do, but if a woman did it, she could easily get beaten (etc). Bear in mind Buddhism has never set laws or engaged in retribution, how could Buddhism "force" non-Buddhist men to not beat and rape the Nuns?

Finally, it's helpful to understand a buddhist rule.
Normally a rule works like this:
If you break a rule and get caught, you are punished for breaking the rule.

But in buddhism, there is no punishment so rules work like this:
Failure to conduct yourself as prescribed by the training rule, will tend to result in you coming to grief as a natural consequence.

There's no punishment for breaking the rule, just natural consequences of your conduct. It's like if you lie, people don't trust you - There's a rule against lying (4th precept), but no-one punishes you for breaking it, instead people just wont trust you because you've lied.

Rules in Buddhism are common sense. You might think it's stupid to make a rule which just states what is sensible to do - but if you've not noticed, people have a tremendous capacity to act senselessly, when they are considering going against a rule created by someone as wise as Buddha, they are forced to stop and question their conduct.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Women in Copenhagen can now swim and walk around in public pools without their bikini tops

Good start... but why only Copenhagen?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by BlackCat
Btw, it's not that funny to be a dane especially if you are a politician - last week the news went bezerk just because a member of the social democrats had sex with a 15 year old girl

and that's not illegal???

[MarkG]

One of their leaders, 22-year-old Ragnhild Karlsson, said: "We want our breasts to be as normal and desexualised as men's, so that we too can pull off our shirts at football matches."

oh yeah, that will be so unsexual

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by MarkG
and that's not illegal???

Nope.

[Winston]

Well it ought to be. Obviously there aren't enough 15 year olds for everyone.

[Monk]

double post, move along

[Monk]

Originally posted by MarkG
and that's not illegal???

No - since 15 is the age of consent, this would be illegal only in very special circumstances, like in the case of a relationship between a high school student and his/her teacher. That wouldn't apply here though - while the MP might have a teacheresque (if that's a word) relationship to the party youth divisions, they do not have any official engagement (no pun intended).

Oh, and that Buddhist thing caught me off guard, have to admit that.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Blake
The basic problem is, that Men ARE BIGGER AND STRONGER THAN WOMEN. A man can grab a woman, overpower her, and rape her.

Not only is this argument used in favour of burkas and other covering-up, but ultimately can be deployed in favour of keeping women out of sight altogether. It panders to the notion that men are uncontrollable fiends who have no ability to physically control themselves.

A strong gay man can also grab and overcome a less powerful man if the weak man-slut-whore dares to bare any flesh in public, or even have an attractive face to the assailant.

Maybe expensive watches should be banned as well for encouraging lustful envy. On reflection though, perhaps buddhist fundamentalism demands all wealth be banned. :shrug:

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Monk
No - since 15 is the age of consent

i thought it would be 16...

[Monk]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
A strong gay man can also grab and overcome a less powerful man if the weak man-slut-whore dares to bare any flesh in public, or even have an attractive face to the assailant.

Maybe expensive watches should be banned as well for encouraging lustful envy. On reflection though, perhaps buddhist fundamentalism demands all wealth be banned. :shrug:

Sure. You could also argue that nobody should drive a good car since people might be tempted to do something idiotic out out of greed or jealousy.

Assuming the Buddhist preaching is actually sincere, I also agree with the point that gender is absolutely irrelevant - because I don't suppose there's an exception for a lady in interesting garments who happens to have bodyguards around to secure her against being 'overpowered'.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


Not only is this argument used in favour of burkas and other covering-up, but ultimately can be deployed in favour of keeping women out of sight altogether. It panders to the notion that men are uncontrollable fiends who have no ability to physically control themselves.

A strong gay man can also grab and overcome a less powerful man if the weak man-slut-whore dares to bare any flesh in public, or even have an attractive face to the assailant.

Maybe expensive watches should be banned as well for encouraging lustful envy. On reflection though, perhaps buddhist fundamentalism demands all wealth be banned. :shrug:

The Buddhist path is also called "The Middle Way" because it encourages moderation and avoidance of extremes.

The reality is that men have SOME ability to control themselves, but it's not a total ability. Young Monks break minor rules all the time, and they really want to be following the rules! They are even quite easy rules to follow. So why do they break them?
Humans have genuine difficulty with self control. It takes much training to gain total self control.

It would be nice to give all men 10 years of Buddhist Monastic training so they have that kind of self control. But the reality is, that's not going to happen.

So there has to be some give and some take. I don't think anyone should punish women for being foolishly promiscuous. But only a fool would say that pretty young women should be encouraged to walk alone at night in shadowy places where it is relatively safe for men to do so, just in the name of equality. Sure a woman should be ALLOWED to do that if for some perverse reason she feels the need to, she shouldn't be punished for forsaking good sense, but when she gets assaulted she can't put all the blame on her attacker - with a little bit of good sense on her part the whole thing would have been avoided, that's undeniable.


As I said in this case I don't care. Because bikinis are basically designed to make women look MORE attractive, they are designed to make the woman look naked without actually being naked. So what's the difference between bikini and no bikini? Not a whole lot.

If they WANT to be desexualized, they should cover their curves. It's not possible to desexualize the female body in the eyes of men except through extremely significant training and deep meditative absorption (where the "lust" signal can be disconnected entirely)

And I love what my monk Ajahn Brahm said - sometimes when pretty young women talk to him, they get angry that he ISN'T under their spell. They don't want to be pissed off by that, but at a subconscious level the ability to put men under their spell is a part of their self-worth and when a man is "oblivious" to their charm, it challenges that.

I figure feminists are probably worse offenders than most in that regard, not because they want to be but just because of their pride. Feminists don't just want freedom from men having power over them, they also want power over men. They hate the idea of a man whom they have no power over whatsoever - they think that is wrong, they deserve to have power over men, the feminist ideology is fundamentally about power play.

[Cort Haus]

I wonder if religious or political motives for women's modesty are often a cover-up for something else. Either sexual frustration caused by abstinence, or jealousy that others are enjoying themselves in a way the objector can't.