With “honor” killings on the rise worldwide and in the West especially, Frontpage Symposium has decided to explore the impulse that clearly lies behind this crime against women: the fear and hatred of women’s sexuality. In this special Symposium edition, we have assembled a distinguished panel to approach this phenomenon from a specific angle that is almost always ignored in our media and culture at large. We ask: what are the toxic consequences to a culture in which males allow sexual satisfaction only to themselves? To discuss this issue with us today, our guests are:

Dr. Nicolai Sennels, a Danish psychologist who worked for several years with young criminal Muslims in a Copenhagen prison. He is the author of Among Criminal Muslims. A Psychologist’s Experience from the Copenhagen Municipality. The book will be out in English later this year. He can be contact at: nicolaisennels@gmail.com.

Dr. Joanie Lachkar, a licensed Marriage and Family therapist in private practice in Brentwood and Tarzana, California, who teaches psychoanalysis and is the author of The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Marital Treatment (1992, The Many Faces of Abuse: Treating the Emotional Abuse of High -Functioning Women (1998),  The V-Spot, How to Talk to a Narcissist, How to Talk to a Borderline and a recent  paper, “The Psychopathology of Terrorism”  presented at the Rand Corporation and  the International Psychohistorical Association. She is also an affiliate member for the New Center for Psychoanalysis.

Dr. David Gutmann, emeritus professor of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago.

and

Dr. Nancy Kobrin, a psychoanalyst with a Ph.D. in romance and semitic languages, specializing in Aljamía and Old Spanish in Arabic script. She is an expert on the Minnesota Somali diaspora and a graduate of the Human Terrain System program at Leavenworth Kansas. Her new book is The Banality of Suicide Terrorism: The Naked Truth About the Psychology of Islamic Suicide Bombing.

FP: Dr. Nancy Kobrin, Dr. Joanie Lachkar, Dr. David Gutmann and Dr. Nicolai Sennels, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.

Dr. Sennels, let me begin with you.

As you referred to in our recent symposium, you are well aware – especially as a psychiatrist — of the vital role that bringing a woman sexual pleasure plays in a man’s life. If a man’s sexuality involves only bringing himself pleasure and satisfaction, and never involves bringing a woman pleasure, the consequences are not just devastating for the woman, but for the male himself. If this phenomenon occurs because the culture at large has shaped this disposition of males, and if this practice by males is therefore widespread and constitutes the norm, the effect on the male psyche in this culture, and on the culture at large, is perniciously harmful — to say the least.  There are pathological and toxic results, which include not only the lust for terror against “the outsider,” but also against oneself — suicide.

The Muslim culture and religion, and the roots of jihad, clearly come to mind here.

What your thoughts to my introductory statement for our discussion here today?

Sennels: My findings are that growing up in the Muslim cultures is psychologically unhealthy on numerous realms. The positive attitude towards anger and the narcissistic concept of honor prevents many Muslims from maturing as human beings. Together with the racist and aggressive attitude towards non-Muslims, a strong identification with the Muslim Umma and favoring of Middle Age religious dogmas at the expense of common sense, human rights and science the Muslim mentality makes it impossible for most Muslims to integrate into our democratic, secular and civilized Western culture. Not only that: it makes Muslims into less happy and mentally healthy people. No wonder that the core of such a culture is based on the repression of sexuality and female qualities.

There is no doubt that Muslim men’s negative view on women has a high price not only for the women but also for the men and Muslim culture in general. We men receive a long row of qualities when we open up to women: empathy, the ability to function in groups without creating hierarchies and more mature ways of experiencing and expressing our emotions – these are among the most important.

Besides several ancient nature religions and Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism, Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was the first in the West to discover the importance of opening up to the opposite sex: men who suppresses women never really grow up. Shy and nerd-like computer geeks and aggressive male chauvinists are the two most typical results. Both types are often lonesome, feel “empty,” are sexually frustrated and in many cases perverse, easily depressed and socially incompetent. Since aggression is seen as positive in the warrior-like Muslim tribal culture the latter is most often the result in Islamic societies. A recent study in Germany lead by the former German minister of Justice Christian Pfeiffer concluded that “Religious Muslim boys are more violent“. According to this gigantic research project involving intense interviewing of 45.000 teenagers, Muslim culture cultivates an unhealthy and aggressive Macho attitude among Muslim males.

Now Jamie, in terms of the specific issue of our discussion, when it comes to the male not bringing sexual pleasure to a woman, this has severe consequences not only on the woman, but also on the male and on the culture in general (if this is a standard cultural ethos, which is the case with Islam). The wish to bring happiness to one’s partner — especially sexual happiness — is fundamental for being able to experience and express love. Men who does not have this wish will be cut off from the maturing experience of learning from the kind of wisdom and emotional life that only women express fully. This leaves men less mature and less happy. The point is that the more you give, the more you get – on all levels. Men who joyfully see themselves as a source of bliss, satisfaction and happiness to their female partner have found the key to their own human growth and a successful relationship. Since Islam and the Muslim culture prevents men and women from freely meeting as equal partners, Muslims are cut off from this important cause of happiness and maturity. The result is the childish fanaticism and immature ways of handling emotions that clearly characterize Muslim societies. The propagation of the Islamic scriptures and Muslim males’ suppression of women and their ignoring of female qualities and need for happiness is the main course for the suffering and hate in Islamic societies. That terrorism arises is no surprise.

The suppression of women in Islam and Muslim culture is an effective tool in keeping its propagators aggressive and emotionally cold towards their infidel victims. If we manage to liberate the Muslim women, we have Islam cornered and removed its corner teeth. In Western societies, this can only be done by creating sufficient amounts of shelters for women fleeing from violent and suppressing husbands and installing strict laws on honor-related crimes. We already have around 40 shelters in Denmark. 70 percent of the women contacting one of the biggest women shelters, Dannerhuset in Copenhagen, have “Middle Eastern back ground”. We also need to send female social workers into the immigrant homes to conduct regular interviews with the females to make sure that they feel safe and are free to use the many possibilities and rights that our countries allow them. If their male family members don’t like it they are free to leave the country.

We do not want to see the suppressive and uncivilized Islamic view on women get a hold in our countries. Finally, our Western welfare societies should only give economic support to the first two or three children. This might prevent Muslim families from moving to our countries and have a lot of children that often become a burden to society.

It also leaves the immigrant women more free to integrate and use their Western standard freedoms.

The liberation of women in Muslim countries is mainly done by diminishing the amount of child births. Being pregnant five times or more and raising the same amount of children leaves poor and uneducated mothers no chance to empower themselves. They are bound to their homes and completely dependent on their often not so gallant husbands. The most effective way is to pay people in poor countries to have less children. Instead of giving economical aid to corrupt dictators it should be given directly to the women of the families – just like the Nobel Prize winning micro loans. The amount of money should be inversely to the amount of children. Also no economical aid should be given to non-Western countries except if it is aimed at putting a lid on the over population. This would leave the women stronger and more free to live the life they want. A pleasant bonus is that it will better the economy and general human conditions, thereby lessening the possibly for religious fanaticism and conflicts – which again will diminish the flow of refugees to our part of the World.

FP: Dr. Sennels thank you.

Nancy Kobrin, give us your thoughts on the topic and on Dr. Sennels’ analysis.

Please touch on this in your answer: When Muslim males in their sexually repressive cultures get a glimpse, for one reason or another, of our female pop stars, let’s say beautiful female stars such as Byonce, Rihanna or Mariah Carey, etc., it is unsurprising what ferocious dread and rage enters their psyches. It is crucial to explore how and why this happens. First, these females clearly represent female beauty and female sexual self-determination. So the Muslim male faces a great threat immediately. We know the many reasons why. But let me narrow in on one dynamic:

Let us suppose that a Muslim male is faced with one of these women — who are in charge of their own sexuality — in a possible sexual entanglement. In other words, let’s picture the Muslim male here seeing these women and visualizing, even for a split second, the possibility of a sexual relationship with one of them. What is the thought process? We know that the Muslim male immediately faces, with terror, the reality of what would emerge in terms of a sexual encounter on an equal level of reciprocity. So, instead of just engaging in some kind of prison-like violent sexual aggression against a helpless, mutilated woman who has no rights of any kind, the Muslim male would have to try to function as a male to not only satisfy himself, but to also satisfy the woman. This means that, among other things, he would have to open himself up, not just for praise, but for possible judgment in terms of what kind of lover he is.

In other words, the woman afterwards will make a judgment and maybe, possibly, say something negative not only to him, but to someone else about him. She might even giggle about something she found insufficient and inadequate. She might even immediately dump him because of this — and might even laugh about it to her friends. This is what we call freedom – and one of the ingredients of the human condition that might surface within freedom.

One can just imagine the psychotic rage that results in the minds of many Muslim males in repressive Islamic cultures at the very notion and possibility of this reality. They would not only want to obliterate the woman for the reality of what she may think of their performance (and for what she may also say and do about it), but they would want to destroy the society that would allow this possibility. One of the products of this ferocious hatred of this ingredient of the human condition and its possibilities is, undoubtedly, jihad.

I would like you Dr, Kobrin, and the rest of the panel, to touch on this observation and how it applies to our discussion, thanks.

Kobrin: Pleasuring a woman — which means helping her achieve orgasm — is the key issue here. This sexual problem in the Middle East has not been fully appreciated by the West. It is not discussed in the Middle East because it is a subject of extreme shame that the men are impotent. Ironically we are dealing with shame-honor cultures who do not understand that the function of shame is not to willfully spill blood to cleanse honor. This is a cover-up for not having women who are truly free because of their own terrors and sense of vulnerability. This applies to Afghanistan and Somalia as they are Muslim shame-honor cultures as well.

Jamie, you have hit the nail on the head and I am not sure most of us are aware that we are dealing with psychotic thinking. This occurs when one is vilified and the other is devalued as the bad/hated or devalued object. This is a mechanism of defense known as splitting.

The Jihadi men can appear and present themselves as normal but they are not normal.

Obviously I do not want to sweepingly say that all Muslim males are stereotypically denying their females, However, given the fact that one does not hear moderate Muslim men discuss this issue of pleasuring women, we can tell that it is too sensitive of an issue. Even in the eye of the storm for moderate Muslim men, we could assume that this is not only a highly charged issue, but one that is extremely uncomfortable. Let alone think of how this could put them into a role of competing with other men especially in democratic societies where domination and control of women are not a valued tradition. It has been said too that this is one of the reason white western men convert to Islam in significant numbers because they are at a loss as to how to socially deal with western women.

Given that we are dealing with a shame-honor society, we might consider the following psychological defenses as playing a major role:

1.  Splitting, that is, thinking in terms of black and white.

2.  A highly enmeshed markedly paranoid family unit.

3.  Boundary confusion.

4.  Unspoken sexual abuse.

5.  Terror reigns, hence we encounter governmental abuse and dictatorships.

6.   Shame blame when the male is emasculated, the female is severely punished, nay obliterated – female genital mutilation, honor killing etc.

I agree with Dr. Sennels concerning the high rate of frequency of domestic violence which he describes in Denmark. The Centre for Social Cohesion in the UK did geo-mapping of where they found domestic violence and the jihadis. What a coincidence! There was tremendous overlap. Such violence is a shamefully revealing phenomenon that the ummah does not want to address in appropriate ways.

By contrast look at the naked midriffs of young free Israeli women, their tummies showing and expressing themselves dancing freely in this video. As you know I have been working on this problem for years but it was when I was watching an Israel music video by one of the best funky jazz/r&b guitarists, Dudu Tassa in a song called “Zouzi” that I realized why the Saudis must really be peaved with the Israelis living so close by. It’s not just because of the verses of hatred of the Jew in the Qur’an but also the freedom of its open society.

Clearly, Hamas and Hezbollah can’t even remotely compete, that is why they resort to bonding through rage, hatred, roadside bombs, missiles and suicide bombers, etc.

Finally, I think that Dr. Sennels has a splendid idea about encouraging less children. However, it flies in the face of doing Jihad through demographics. But from a child-rearing and maternal attachment point of view, Dr. Sennels has it right. Less is more and also better and healthier. Oddly by denying women pleasure they deny themselves pleasure. Pain gets confused with pleasure and viola, you have sado-masochism.

FP: Very profound Dr. Kobrin. John Racy, a psychiatrist with much experience in Arab societies, has touched on many of these themes. He has noted how the Islamic culture promotes a threatening sense of inadequacy in men (and therefore women) and that impotence (and related) problems among them are common phenomena.

In his classic work, The Closed Circle, David Pryce-Jones discusses these sexual pathologies in the Arab world and notes that it is therefore no surprise that the Arab male is obsessed with proving his sexual superiority. This obsession finds its expression by targeting the Western infidel with violence. Thus, it’s not really that much of a mystery: by not veiling its own women and by giving them personal and sexual freedom and pleasure, the West enrages Islamists, leading them to unleash terror in a furious attempt to keep their own women enslaved, sexually unfulfilled, and their own personal sexual impotence hidden. (See Chapter 11, “The Seeds of Hate,” in United in Hate for a further discussion.)

Lachkar: This topic borders on the broader picture: the violation of human rights that exists throughout the Middle East. The degradation of women in the Muslim world is one theme inextricably linked to not only the role of women and their functions, but to the power of their maternal capacities and sexualities.

As an example of such violations, it has been noted that in some Arab countries, as well as in other parts of the world, clitoridectomy, or female circumcision, is still practiced.  It is most often performed on females between the ages of seven or eight (before menstruation).  This is a practice whereby midwives and female family members grasp the girls legs apart to expose her genitals.  Then a sharp razor is used to cut off the clitoris. According to Lloyd deMause, it is a harsh and perverse act, an enactment of one’s frustration and aggression directed toward the innocent young victimized girls.

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