What Would Jesus Give Up For Lent?

Duccio's rendition of the temptation of Jesus. Not sure why the Devil's portrayed with black skin but, whatever. You gotta pick your battles.

It’s Lent again and, if you’re Christian, you’re probably giving up something you like. Or perhaps you thought about giving something up, but decided against it: Either way, thoughts of sacrifice must have crossed your mind. And, while I can’t speak for myself—I am not a Christian—I certainly know many Christians who are giving up everything from chocolote to alcohol to sex.

Once upon a time, Christians were only asked to make sacrifices in the real world but this year, at least one Italian cleric has asked Catholics to make sacrifices in the virtual world as well. According to the BBC , the Archbishop of Modena wants young people to give up texting and social networking sites (like Facebook) in order to  ”cleanse themselves from the virtual world and get back into touch with themselves.” Other Italian Archbishops have asked people to give up mineral water or to recycle more (I’m not quite sure how recycling is a fitting “sacrifice” for Lent, except that maybe not recycling is a luxury that would be hard to surrender).

All this got me thinking: People are giving up all this stuff for Lent but what would Jesus give up?

The question (like the title of this post) is purely rhetorical because we have a good idea of what Jesus would give up (if we take the Gospels at their word, anyway). In Christian tradition, Lent commemorates the 40 days and nights Jesus spent in the desert. According to three of the Gospels (Matthew, Luke, and Mark), Jesus was driven into the desert by the Holy Spirit after John the Baptist . . . um . . . baptised him. He ate nothing while in the desert and, at the end of 40 days, was quite hungry. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, he was visited by Satan (or the slanderer, depending on the translation) who tempted him with food, wealth, and power. Here’s how Mark, the least verbose on the subject of Christ’s temptation, put it:

At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.”

The other two Evangelists go into greater detail, listing the actual temptations. First, Jesus was tempted with food:

The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Next, he was tempted with wealth:

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”

Finally, the Devil tempted Jesus with power:

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: ”‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

In the end, Jesus triumphed over the Devil and resisted his temptations, which leads to another, bigger question: If Jesus Christ, the spiritual founder of the the Christian religion, endured 40 days of hunger in the desert, at the end of which he rejected both basic needs (food) and luxuries (wealth and power), how is it that modern Christians have to give up so little for Lent? I mean, don’t get me wrong, texting is an essential part of many modern Christians’ lives, but is giving that up really in keeping with the spirit of sacrifice? Could the Vatican not demand a greater sacrifice from the congregations it instructs to emulate Christ? Frankly, it’s a little demeaning to the memory of Christ’s ordeal in the desert that today, people who claim to be memorializing his suffering, have the option of giving up something as trivial as chocolate.

Ultimately, what we choose to “sacrifice” says as much about the modern world we inhabit as it does about the gap between how we live and how the majority of the rest of the planet lives. Most people on this planet have never owned a cell phone, let alone a computer. Every day, millions of people wake up hungry and go to bed thirsty. Millions have no access to clean, pipe-borne water. And uncounted numbers of women and girls have no say in when, where, how, or with whom they have sex. For them, giving up sex is impossible. Likewise, for most of the rest of the people on this planet, giving up texting or chocolate or mineral water is not even an option. These are luxuries they have no choice but to do without—day after day after day.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope. At least one of those Italian Archbishops asked that people recycle more. Recycling is certainly a good start. Maybe next year he’ll ask his worshippers to oppose war or not beat their wives. Hopefully more and more religious leaders will ask people to not only give up things they enjoy but also to take up things they may not enjoy but which are beneficial to the rest of the human family. Maybe one day, a courageous Archbishop somewhere will order his congregants to never take a human life. After all, war and wifebeating (like most of our world’s ills) are intimately linked to wealth and power. Most importantly, lest we forget, these two temptations make up exactly two thirds of the temptations Jesus resisted in the desert.

Today, what are we to make of this story, which teaches us that 2000 years ago, a lone man starving himself in the desert knew that, in order to prepare for his mission, he needed to make some sacrifices? After all, his mission was no small feat: He had taken on no less a challenge than the salvation of the world! Of the three temptations, Jesus rejected one for only 40 days, but the other two he rejected for ever. He gave up food for just 40 days and nights, but he resumed eating once he returned from the desert. The bigger temptations, wealth and power, he gave up for ever—if the Gospels are to be taken literally, he did not pursue them for the rest of his life.

So when Lent rolls around next year, what will you give up?

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Los Angeles Nuns Pay the Price for Priest Sex-Abuse.

 

In an effort to raise compensation money for victims who were sexually abused by Catholic priests, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has evicted three nuns from their Santa Barbara convent.

Sister Angela Escalera, shares the two-bedroom home—which is owned by the archdiocese—with two other nuns. She has lived in the convent for 43 years. The eviction notice, which the nuns received in the mail, informs them that they must leave the house by December 31, or earlier. The archdiocese also placed the nuns under a gag order, which bars them from discussing the matter with journalists.

It’s really nice to see that the Catholic Church is finally going to start compensating people who were sexually abused by its pedophile priests. It’s also refreshing to see that, in evicting these nuns, the Church is making those most guilty pay first.

Read the full story on Slate.com.

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Does that Dildo Come in Black?

After spending the past week chest-deep in the James Watson racism brouhaha, it’s nice to get back to my standard fare of sleazy blog posts. And what could be sleazier than a dead Baptist minister? A dead Baptist minister in conservative Alabama clad head-to-toe in a rubber outfit and hogtied, that’s what! Oh, I forgot to mention he had a dildo in his . . . um . . . let’s just say he put it where the sun don’t shine. And by that, I mean his anus.

That’s right, folks, another conservative, anti-sex, anti-abortion, anti-gay, family-values Christian fundamentalist has been outed for being a total hypocrite. It is tragic that the Rev. Gary M. Aldridge’s outing coincided with his death, but the point remains that he was privately indulging in activities that he publicly denounced. Aldridge, an associate of the late Jerry Falwell, had ministered for 16 years at the Thorington Road Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

The autopsy report—which had been suppressed by the medical examiner’s office since June—was just this month published by The Smoking Gun. It seems the late Reverend Aldridge was found dead in his home and there were no signs of foul play. Here’s an excerpt from the autopsy report:

The decedent is clothed in a wet diving suit, a face mask which has a single vent for breathing, a rubberized head mask having an opening for the mouth and eyes, a second rubberized suit with suspenders, rubberized male underwear, hands and feet have diving gloves and slippers. There are numerous straps and cords restraining the decedent. There is a leather belt around the midriff. There is a series of ligatures extending from the hands to the feet. The hands are bound behind the back. The feet are tied to the hands. There are nylon ligatures holding these in place with leather straps about the wrists and ankles. There are plastic cords also tied about the hands and feet with a single plastic cord extending up to the head and surrounding the lower neck. There is a dildo in the anus covered with a condom.”

In case you have trouble conjuring up a mental image, just visualize “the gimp” from Pulp Fiction, only hogtied. The best part is the personal effects, listed on the bottom of page 4 of the autopsy report: “One yellow metal ring intact on left ring finger, one dildo.” Talk about having something embarrassing on your permanent record!

On a more serious note, at least one other blogger has raised the possibility that the reverend was not alone when he died; I too have to wonder if it’s possible for someone to tie himself up that completely without some help. After all, his hands were tied behind his back, with his feet tied to his hands. If someone else had been with the reverend when he asphyxiated, how sad is it that this person—probably out of shame—chose to escape and protect his or her own identity rather than get the help that may have saved Aldridge’s life?!

And what’s up with the wetsuits? I’m assuming the reverend would have had a really hard time finding a proper latex fetish suit in a state that had just banned the sale of dildos—he probably supported the ban too! Fortunately for Reverend Aldridge, diving gear was apparently still legal. Unfortunately for him, indulging in bondage in an open and safe way is not widely accepted in his circles. Otherwise, he might still be alive.

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Defying the Tyrant: Burmese Monks Attacked, Killed for Standing up to Military Government

The Burmese government made good on it’s threats to “take action” against the Buddhist monks leading peaceful protests throughout the country. The monks are protesting the government’s refusal ”to apologise for its actions during an earlier rally in the city of Pakokku, when soldiers and state-backed militia reportedly beat up several monks.” That demonstration was held to protest a sudden rise in fuel prices.  

The news coming out of Burma has been patchy since the ruling junta closed off the country to journalists but some reports are leaking out via the Internet and telephone calls to Burmese living abroad. These are in turn being picked up by major media outlets. The BBC is reporting that in Sittwe, Rangoon, and other areas, the military has been using tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, who number around 100,000. The BBC also published e-mails and other electronic messages from eyewitnesses inside Burma. Reports are also coming out about monks being killed.

First off, words can’t express my respect and admiration for these monks and the other Burmese demonstrators who are standing up to their brutal military government. The last time there was a similar peaceful, nationwide protest against the government, about 3,000 demonstrators paid with their lives. The memory of that massacre does not seem to be deterring today’s demonstrators, whose numbers have continued to swell as more people come out to support the monks.

They are really living up to the slogan of the 1988 demonstrators: Do-aye (“It is our task”). Monks are considered to be the highest moral authority in Burma so at first, the government seemed reluctant to use violence against them. After government warnings were ignored by demonstrators, however, the military moved to violently crush the demonstrations. Most of the international community, with the exception of China (which wields tremendous influence over the junta), has criticized the Burmese junta for its reaction to the demonstrations.

I’m heartened to see that monks, conscious of their respected position in Burmese society, have chosen to use their status to oppose the violence of the government. It’s truly uplifting to see so many Burmese citizens—monks, nuns, and laypeople—coming together peacefully to defy a brutal and repressive government.

I salute the Burmese people! They are setting a shining example for the world and justice-loving people everywhere should stand in solidarity with them.

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Where There is Fear, There is Also Hatred.

The Columbus Dispatch recently ran a cartoon depicting Iran as a sewer with cockroaches crawling out of it and infesting neighboring countries. Enough has been written about how racist this cartoon is—and how reminiscent it is of Nazi and Hutu genocidal propaganda—so I won’t spend any time on that. What is missing from the hoopla surrounding this cartoon is any talk of how national–security rhetoric generally and inevitably dehumanizes entire nations.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush repeatedly assured Americans and the world that his beef was not with the entire Muslim or Arab world, that his quarrel was not even with the people of Iraq. Rather, we were told Iraq would be a stage of the global War on Terror because its leader was a dictator who was collaborating with Al Qaeda and could potentially put his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons at the disposal of international terrorists. Of course, we now know that there were no WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein—brutal and murderous though he was—had no links to Al Qaeda. Today, all Iraqis have to show for our trouble is a destabilized and increasingly violent country in which people have to do without recently available basic services like round-the-clock electricity and sewage treatment. Iraqi women are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being raped or worse, men are routinely kidnapped and murdered simply for going about their lives, and sectarian violence yields ever-increasing death tolls.

Yet the majority of Americans continue to hem and haw about the best way out. Opinion is divided on whether to send more troops, withdraw some troops, pull out entirely, and when and in what manner to pursue or abandon any course of action. The arguments over what to do or not do mostly revolve around the number of American casualties, how much the war is costing, and whether Americans are now more or less likely to be the victims of a terrorist attack. In other words, very few Americans are basing their opinions about what should be done on what’s best for the Iraqi people. The rightness or wrongness of this war is almost always judged from Americans’ point of view and almost never from Iraqis’ vantage point. One exception is the argument that if US troops were to leave Iraq, their departure would be followed by a bloodbath. But although this argument is constantly put forward, we never see any Iraqis who support a continued US presence in their country.

Why is this? Because what Iraqis think doesn’t matter to us. In the process of convincing ourselves that Iraq posed an existential threat to the US, we forgot that Iraqis are people too. National–security discourse is concerned mainly with the protection of one state’s population against attack by another state, so it’s inevitable that the people of the other state will gradually become devalued and eventually dehumanized. Take two hypothetical states, A and B, locked in a war of words. As the people of State A are whipped into a frenzy of fear and paranoia by continuous official reminders that State B poses an imminent threat, they can’t help but begin to fear, and then loathe, the people of State B. Having been convinced that they have to choose between their own survival and that of their “enemy,” the people of State A will not only ignore, mitigate, or deny violence done to ”the other side,” they will eventually welcome and celebrate it.  It becomes a matter simply of kill or be killed because the people of State A now believe that in order for them to live, others must be killed. Hermann Goering, Reichsmarshall and head of the Luftwaffe summed it up:

. . . voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

Once the people of State B have been defined as a threat, it’s a short rhetorical step for them to be equated with other threats like viruses, cockroaches, snakes, poisonous mushrooms, etc. State B is a threat so it’s people are dangerous. Viruses and snakes are dangerous too. Ergo, the people of State B are viruses and snakes. What do you do to snakes and viruses when you want to protect yourself? You kill them. But such analogies are seldom made by official spokespeople. Rather, that task is left to journalists and radio personalities.

Ultimately, the essential ingredient for war is fear. Without fear, there can be no hatred. Without hatred, there can be no dehumanization. And without dehumanization, there can be no war. To be sure, organized international terrorism is a legitimate threat but international politics—constructed as a system of states versus states—makes no room for nuance so states can only make war on states. The human tendency to generalize also gets some of the blame. Thus, a nation that produces a handful of terrorists is seen as a nation of terrorists, in the same way that a nation run by a brutal dictator is seen to be brutal. In the international sphere, states derive power and legitimacy from their people. In order to break the power of a state, its power base (i.e., people) must be broken, and there are few better means than war for accomplishing this. Hateful propaganda, like the cartoon in the Dispatch, plays a pivotal role by paving the way to war. Long before the first bomb is dropped or the first shot fired, the people are primed to fear, primed to hate, and primed to tolerate unspeakable violence against their enemies. In other words, they are primed for war.

The cartoon in the Columbus Dispatch clearly shows that some in the US have decided that Iran is enough of a threat to justify a dehumanizing comparison between its people and cockroaches. We can only hope that as a nation, we Americans do not fear Iran enough to allow our government to start yet another war in the Middle East.

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Neo-Nazi Gang Raises Questions About Jewish Nationalism.

It seems that Israel’s policy of granting citizenship to anyone who can prove Jewish ancestry sometimes backfires. The BBC recently reported the arrest of a gang of Israeli Neo-Nazis who—among other violent acts of hatred—attacked homosexuals, foreigners, and religious Jews. Many of the attacks were videotaped. The investigation started a year ago after ”a synagogue in Petah Tikva, a city east of Tel Aviv, was desecrated with graffiti of Nazi swastikas and the name of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.”

The gang members—whose ages ranged from 16 to 21—are all naturalized citizens who immigrated from the former Soviet Union and now live in Petah Tikva. Although Israel’s Law of Return gives anyone with one Jewish grandparent the right to Israeli citizenship and residency, authorities are claiming that the gang members are only distantly associated with Judaism.

This case proves the flaw inherent in creating a nationality based on religion and ethnicity. In the early days—before the twisted, genocidal fantasies of Europe’s anti-Semites became a reality—Zionism’s most vocal opponents were Jews in Western Europe who argued that they were French or German first. After the Holocaust, attitudes were understandably changed. For the most part, the European survivors of the Holocaust became unified through the collective experience—direct or proximate—of Nazi atrocities. But for many Jews in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, Jewishness is only a peripheral part of their overall identity. Thanks to the Red Army’s destruction of the German wehrmacht, Jews within the USSR were spared the most brutal and genocidal aspects of German occupation (not that Stalin didn’t do his part to make up for this, but that’s a blog posting for another day). After Soyuz fell apart, many Russians rediscovered their Jewish heritage and used it to get out of Russia; being Jewish enabled millions of Russians to immigrate to the United States and Israel. Not a moment too soon, either, as today’s Russia boasts some of the world’s most committed and aggressive racists and anti-Semites. The downside is that, thanks to Communism’s anti-religiousity, many Russian “Jews” grew up without a real Jewish experience and thus lack a strong sense of Jewish identity. Even worse, some, like the members of the Petah Tikva gang, actually feel animosity and antipathy towards their fellows who more strongly identify as Jewish. But because politics and ideology often trump morality, this possibility wasn’t daunting enough to Zionists like Ariel Sharon—who are always on the lookout for more Jews to populate the land and “help Israel in its conflict with Arabs”—to keep from trying to persuade Russian Jews to migrate to Israel.

After decades of subjugating the indigenous Palestinian population, it seems Israel may be facing a new threat, one of its own making. As an “external” threat, Palestinian violence has generally served to unify the Jewish nation and garner support for the Israeli state. However, the influx of immigrants from Russia and elsewhere in the former USSR—who often do not strongly identify as Jewish—may pose a far graver threat to Israeli society by challenging the very concept of a Jewish nation and undermining the Jewish nature of the state.

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Republicans Gone Wild!! or, Why is the Republican Party Home to So Many Sexual Deviants?

I have a theory.

I believe that many (if not most) male right-wing politicians are hypocrites. They rail against homesexuality and infidelity while, at the same time, they fight the urge to give in to their “immoral” or ”indecent” desires. And, as recent sex scandals prove, they don’t always win.

Take, for example, the cases of abstinence-only campaigner Randall Tobias, gay-bashing reverend Ted Haggard, and family values champion Senator David Vitter? All these men publicly promoted such “family values” as marital fidelity, heterosexuality, and other manifestations of moral fortitude and Christian values. Yet Tobias and Vitter were both exposed as clients of the DC Madame, who ran an escort service specializing in sexual fantasy and roleplay. It turns out Ambassador Tobias likes to have sex with women who are not his wife while Senator Vitter enjoys being diapered by them. For his part, Reverend Haggard, a relentless anti-gay campaigner, was outed by a male prostitute who revealed that he had received money and oral sex from Haggard.

More recently, Florida State Representative Bob Allen (R-Merritt Island)—sponsor of legislation against “Lewd or Lascivous Exhibitionism,” “Sexual Solicitation,” and ”Lewdness and Indecent Exposure”—was arrested in a public men’s restroom after offering to pay an undercover cop $20 for the pleasure of performing oral sex on him. To clarify, Allen offered the cop $20 if he (the cop) would let Allen fellate him. Allen later told a news conference that he was so intimidated by the cop (who was Black) that he offered to suck him off just so he could walk out of the public bathroom alive. At least Representative Allen is well-rounded in his bigotry.

But if these conservatives like to blow men and/or cheat on their wives, why can’t they just be honest about who they are? I mean, although they still face a lot of bigotry—most of it coming from people like Haggard and co.—millions of gay men and women live honest lives outside the closet. And while there is nothing commendable about marital infedility, many swinging and swapping couples manage to work out arrangements that work to the detriment of none. While I know Democrats and liberals cheat on their wives and engage in other “immoral” behavior as well, it seems like the conservative ranks—home to those who most vociferously denounce anyone who doesn’t conform to their idea of decency and morality—produce the most sexually deviant and hypocritical public figures.

As I see it, people like Allen, Haggard, Tobias, and Vitter affiliate themselves with the conservative party and adopt the most anti-gay and moralistic stances in an attempt to distance themselves from who they really are. I think they do it to avoid suspicion. After all, who would suspect a leading gay-basher like Haggard of wanting to suck another man off ? Who would suspect that a family-values politician like Vitter enjoyed cavorting with hookers while wearing diapers? Who would suspect that Randall Tobias, a champion of abstinence and fidelity, enjoyed paying for extramarital sex? By denouncing the people who openly do the things they themselves secretly do or would like to do, these conservative hypocrites hope nobody will ever question their moral fortitude or discover that they are not 100% morally upstanding.

And it usually works.

Not on me, though. By now, whenever I hear a conservative ranting and raving against homosexuals, I think to myself, “Somebody stick a c*ck in this dude’s mouth already so he’ll shut the f*ck up.”

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What do you know, it turns out we’re all from Africa after all.

In what must surely come as a blow to adherents of race theory, a new study published in the journal Nature proves once and for all that the planet’s people are descended from a single human population whose origins lie in sub-Saharan Africa.

The scientists who conducted the study examined genetic data and skull measurements to arrive at their conclusions.

Read the full story below.

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Jews for Jesus Leave No Stone Unturned in Search for Converts.

These days, it seems you can’t walk two blocks in DC without a member of Jews for Jesus handing you a flyer. While I’m generally very offended by any form of religious proselytizing, I have to confess I always accept the flyer and I always read it. I don’t do this because I think Jews for Jesus are on to something: quite the opposite, I think they’re full of—how can I put this diplomatically?—excrement.

But I have to give props where props are due and Jews for Jesus get props for being timely and innovative with their material. For example, in the middle of a DC heatwave, one of their flyers was entitled “Keeping Cool,” and it was all about how Jesus (Y’shua) is “the Son who refreshes . . . like rivers of living water.” Now from my reading of the Bible, I know that Jesus has been likened to a shepherd and even a sheep, but the river analogy is new to me. Kudos to Jews for Jesus for taking such an innovative approach to the Messiah. I mean, on a hot, sticky, humid summer day in DC, nothing sounds better than diving into a cool, refreshing body of water. And if Jesus is like that cool, refreshing body of water . . . well . . . I can understand how some people may be swayed. Not me. I’d rather see Jews for Jesus distribute a tract about the urgency of global warming and how to forestall and reverse its negative consequences. But that’s obviously not where they’re coming from.

So anyway, today’s flyer was not actually handed to me; one of my colleagues brought it in and placed it on the kitchen counter. Entitled “Paris Hilton: The Prison Life,” the flyer talks about how the law made Paris do the time for her crime, despite her parents’ hypothetical wish to pay someone else to serve out their daughter’s sentence. The punchline comes when the flyer informs me that, unlike Paris, I don’t have to serve out my sentence because Jesus has already sacrificed himself so I won’t have to. In other words, the sentence—the punishment for my sins—is eternal damnation, but Jesus could spare me this fate. The catch is, of course, I have to ask him to. Or rather, ask Jews for Jesus to pass on my request.

Which is where things get a little tricky for me. You see, I’m an old-fashioned guy who believes in accepting responsibility for my actions and facing whatever consequences may befall me. For that reason, I choose to live a life that conforms to my own personal ethics, doing unto others as I would have them do unto me, and all that good stuff. At the end of the day, if hell is where my immortal soul winds up, so be it. But I’m pretty sure I know where the only eternal parts of me—i.e., the individual atoms that make up my body—will end up. What’s left of me will end up right here on earth, making up the worms that eat the dirt into which I decomposed, and the birds that eat those worms, and the cats that eat those birds, and so on and so forth.

But that’s not what Christian proselytizers (let’s not kid ourselves, Jews for Jesus is a Christian evangelical group) want us to believe. They want us to believe that, as individuals, we are incapable of doing the right thing. In fact, they want to convince us that at the end of the day, our entire earthly existence is sinful and that we are doomed to an eternity in hell. But unlike the people Jews for Jesus hopes to convert, I’m fully prepared to deal with the consequences of my life choices and I don’t need anybody (the Messiah or anyone else) to take the heat for me. That’s how I roll.

But I have to add that, although I have little sympathy for Paris Hilton’s legal predicament, I can’t help but feel a little bad for her that Jews for Jesus is now using her story in an attempt to get people to read their tracts. That makes them almost as pathetic as Paris. I’m also annoyed because until today, I had successfully banished Paris Hilton from my consciousness, having fully convinced myself that she is a figment of our society’s twisted imagination. Now, thanks to Jews for Jesus, I can no longer deny the existence of Paris Hilton. Even worse, I’ve devoted half-an-hour and part of a blog to her.

Come to think of it, if there are no annoying proselytizers giving out flyers in hell, it might actually not be such a bad place.

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Can You Spell “Uptight?”

Rotraut Susanne Berner—author of several children’s books that have sold well in both her native Germany and internationally—was thrilled to get a letter from a US publishing house expressing interest in translating and publishing her books in this country.

Then there was a minor glitch. First, the publisher asked that all smokers be excised from the drawings in Berner’s books. I guess we wouldn’t want our children to see images of adults smoking.

But there was another, larger issue. One scene in the book, set in an art gallery, depicts a nude painting with bare breasts. But that’s not all. There’s also a statue of an anatomically correct naked man atop a pedestal. Well, anatomically correct is a bit of an exaggeration. The cartoon statue stands about seven millimeters tall and you wouldn’t be able to see his bits even if you used the Hubbel Telescope.

But this was all too much for the publisher, Boyds Mills Press. They asked Ms. Berner to remove the offending painting and statue from the scene. She refused, offering a compromise instead: She agreed to have black censorship bars placed over the offensive cartoon breasts and the nude statue’s microscopic member. The author said that, while she would consider letting her drawings be censored, she believed her readers had a right to know that they were looking at censored drawings. The publishing house rejected the compromise.

So the author turned down their offer.

Good for her for not buying into the hyper-uptight, anti-sex, puritanical madness that is so much the vogue in the US today. In one of my first posts, I talked about how the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) routinely rates films with sexual content more severely (R and NC-17) than films with graphic violence. At the end of the day, the average American child will see millions of violent images over the course of their lives but our society will take care to protect them from images of nudity. And millions of American women who watch Desperate Housewives or read Cosmo will be exposed to artificial and unnatural standards of beauty that will undermine their self-esteem, distort their image of their own bodies, and lead to unhealthy eating and dieting habits and a host of other consequences of negative body image.

So why make such a big deal about cartoon nudes in a children’s book? Why is the American public so opposed to anything remotely deemed sexual (not that these cartoon nudes are particularly sexual). I’m sure part of the answer lies in Christianity’s anti-sex posture, which deems sinful and dirty anything having to do with “the flesh.” I personally think the whole discourse is idiotic. At the risk of exposing myself to accusations of insensitivity towards the visually impaired, I would like to ask, Who among us has never seen breasts? And, despite such medical advances as the Caesarian Section, I would venture to say that most of the human population still enters the world through a vagina. Why then treat the body as something dirty, an object of shame unfit for the eyes of children?

I don’t have children of my own but if I did, I’d rather they saw nude art than violence in movies or stick-thin women on TV and in magazines.

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