Pious Persian pimps.

Or should that be "Pimps in Iran who are members of the clergy"?

The clerical regime vacillates between repressing prostitution and sanctioning it through "temporary marriages", an arrangement permitted under Shi'ite jurisprudence. In the latter case the Muslim clergy in effect become pimps, taking a fee for sanctioning several "temporary marriages" per women per day.

It's so confusing.

Theocracy in action.

Here you have a regime that's firmly committed to a "hang 'em high" approach to public morality. ("'Em" in this case being homosexuals, Bahais, and assorted malcontents.) Not to mention its firm commitment to stamping out all manner of marital off-campus diddling, which we find admirable in the extreme. (The stamping out part, not the diddling part, fool.)

Not that we presume to judge this culture. You know us better than that by now!

But . . . if you're a guy with the right proclivities and the right sum of ready cash in your pocket, hey, you can score some pooty through your local imam. Maybe "Holy City of Qom" should be "Righteous City of Qom."

Is this a great country, or what? Just think of the bucks that could flow in from a creative promotion of sex tourism. WITH benefit of clergy!!

This "temporary marriage" deal would be the rough equivalent to trucking on down to your local Christian (eek!) church and paying the pastor for some fast consecrated, holy nuptial action.

This approach to recreational sex would strike most Americans as odd, however, given that it's lodged somewhere in our consciousnesses that the clergy in the Christian flavor of things are expected to have some sort of a thought-out position on moral matters that's just and reasonably consistent internally.

That was "Kiss the BRIDE," aardvark!

For example, the institution of marriage -- considered by most to be something of a huge lurch in the direction of serious, lifelong commitment to another human -- is not generally thought of as something morally on a plane with a 60-minute "hook up." To our knowledge, this is not an innovation ever preached even from the pulpit in the drive-in Tower of Power on national television.

How do those "vows" go for a shia temporary marriage, we wonder? "Do you, Ahmed, promise to love, isolate, and dominate Fatima until death do you part, or for the next 60 minutes, whichever comes first? Kiss the bride. Death to infidels. Nuke Pittsburgh soon. Yada yada. Mastercard, Visa, or cash, pal?"

Undermined institution of marriage.

This, friends, is one religion that rocks.



"Jihadis and whores." By Spengler, Asia Times, 11/21/06 <-- "Caught My Eye - Noteworthy Quotes." Daniel Pipes' Weblog, 4/18/04.