Althouse: "Aren't all the men who enter the temple product of the blood formed in their mothers' uteruses?"

December 14, 2015

"Aren't all the men who enter the temple product of the blood formed in their mothers' uteruses?"

"You have decided that I should not bring my polluted blood inside the temple. But, which God gave somebody the right to choose what I do with my blood?"

37 comments:

pdug said...: That's why Jesus brought the New Covenant.; 12/14/15, 9:18 AM
pdug said...: actually, the men are the product of the gametes of the father and mother.; 12/14/15, 9:18 AM
damikesc said...: Women, honestly, men are not that interested in your menstruation. Not remotely interesting to us. I'm glad it's a damned near obsession with some of you, but don't expect men to play along.; 12/14/15, 9:19 AM
Fernandinande said...: "Aren't all the men who enter the temple product of the blood formed in their mothers' uteruses?"

Entering the temple product of the blood sounds tricky.

"You have decided that I should not bring my polluted blood inside the temple. But, which God gave somebody the right to choose what I do with my blood?"

Judging by the post label, some Hindu god. If you don't like it, pick another one or invent a new god that likes polluted blood.

What's the most dangerous god in the world?
Ganesha with a shark riding on his back.; 12/14/15, 9:21 AM
Anonymous said...: "Not everyone is on board with #HappyToBleed: Online commenters are calling Azad and her supporters names and telling them that if they want to defy traditions that are thousands of years old, they should "go abroad."

Well maybe, but not always. We have our very own 'traditionalists' who stubbornly cling to social norms of the past. Same sex marriage and abortion rights being two of the major ones.; 12/14/15, 9:21 AM
Rae said...: I would normally say that if you want to bleed in the temple, go found your own. I don't know enough about Hinduism to make that judgement though, and given the religious conflicts in that part of the world, it may invite violence.

I am glad the feminists are going after a religion other than Christianity, for once.; 12/14/15, 9:22 AM
Sebastian said...: "We have our very own 'traditionalists' who stubbornly cling to social norms of the past. Same sex marriage and abortion rights being two of the major ones." I'm surprised that comment, in effect accusing our hostess of being a "traditionalist," the type who "stubbornly clings" to "social norms of the past," like SSM and abortion rights as "major ones," made it past moderation. Though I disagree with her on SSM, I want to state for the record that I myself do not think she is a bitter clinger like regular Progs wedded to "social norms of the past."; 12/14/15, 9:37 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: The article is based on the unproven proposition that women are not really unclean while experiencing their monthly.; 12/14/15, 9:40 AM
damikesc said...: The article is based on the unproven proposition that women are not really unclean while experiencing their monthly.

Feminist: "It's totally natural!"

Me: "So is me taking a dump. I manage to not try to make a cause celebre out of defecation, though"; 12/14/15, 10:02 AM
Anonymous said...: Sebastian, seems as if you didn't grasp my meaning or I put it poorly. Perhaps I should've said OPPOSITION to same sex marriage or abortion rights. Obviously same sex marriage and abortion rights are not remnants of our past, but you seem to need to make your point, whatever that is. I guess you thought it important enough to comment about, lol.; 12/14/15, 10:10 AM
n.n said...: It's not just blood, but also semen. Why aren't men and women allowed to exhibit their bodily fluids in public places? Doesn't India have a legacy of unsanitary public spaces and the diseases caused by hazardous waste? I can just imagine what they do with their aborted clumps of cells. Perhaps flush them down the toilet or recycle them at Planned Parenthood. This will not be received well by the reformers.; 12/14/15, 10:14 AM
traditionalguy said...: "Life is in the Blood" is a famous Judeo-Christian revelation. Spilled blood represents the sign of death. So live babies from a woman's womb means life won and blood from her womb means life lost.

This is related to the greatest cause of death on Death Certificates being listed as heart failure.

Hearts circulate our life, or as a Britisher says, our bloody life.; 12/14/15, 10:35 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Women, honestly, men are not that interested in your menstruation. Not remotely interesting to us. I'm glad it's a damned near obsession with some of you, but don't expect men to play along."

Well, that's a completely inappropriate response to the linked article. You're telling women what the women themselves are saying.; 12/14/15, 10:38 AM
mikee said...: What is the ISIS stand on menstruating women? How about the way menstruating women are treated by Wahhabist, Shiite, Sunni? Enquiring minds want to know!

I mean, sex slaves have periods, too, right?

The advent of affordable feminine hygiene pads in India, an effort led by an Indian entrepreneur, is a story worth linking to this one about religious taboos, perhaps partly because menstruating women in India have changed the ways they manage their menses in the past decade or so, across most social classes. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26260978; 12/14/15, 10:58 AM
YoungHegelian said...: This is a great example of how the modern western mind is post-Christian. Christian moral assumptions are just so foundational that the modern West has trouble thinking outside of them, & often doesn't even realize it.

Most cultures in human history have not just notions of "right & wrong" or "virtue & sin", but they also have another category called "uncleanliness". It is not a sin to be unclean, because it's mostly natural processes that produce uncleanliness. There are, however, many activities that cannot be done while one is unclean. If one does them in spite of being unclean, then transgressing that boundary is a sin.

Christianity did away with the idea of uncleanliness. There is only virtue & sin, & sin is a matter of will. All natural processes (e.g. menstruation) are not questions of will. They just are, & so they do not present moral questions. How revolutionary this moral idea was in human history has been lost to us by the fog of time & by its ubiquity in Western culture since Christianity's ascendance. But, it caused a stir when the Church Fathers first started working it through. Some Fathers, like Tertullian, get pretty squicky when they start getting into the details.; 12/14/15, 11:01 AM
YoungHegelian said...: On a side note, the idea that a baby is the product of the man's semen & a clot of blood in the mother's uterus, is as far as I know, Aristotelian. The other, more, common at the time idea of conception was based on analogy to farming (e.g. the line by the chorus in "Oedipus the King" where they say that Oedipus "plowed the same furrow as his father"). This notion saw the man as providing the seed, & the woman, the ground (dirt) for the seed to grow in. If the "clot" idea was original in Vedic thought or was a later Aristotelian import, I do not know.; 12/14/15, 11:01 AM
Anonymous said...: "Women, honestly, men are not that interested in your menstruation. Not remotely interesting to us. I'm glad it's a damned near obsession with some of you, but don't expect men to play along."

Althouse replied,
"Well, that's a completely inappropriate response to the linked article. You're telling women what the women themselves are saying."

Althouse broke the taboo of speaking about products of women's menses and defiled the majority male commentariat's inner sanction, the comments section.; 12/14/15, 11:15 AM
Anonymous said...: "Women, honestly, men are not that interested in your menstruation. Not remotely interesting to us. I'm glad it's a damned near obsession with some of you, but don't expect men to play along."

Althouse replied,
"Well, that's a completely inappropriate response to the linked article. You're telling women what the women themselves are saying."

Althouse broke the taboo of speaking about products of women's menses and defiled the majority male commentariat's inner sanction, the comments section.; 12/14/15, 11:20 AM
Anonymous said...: Sorry about the double post, also my comment should read inner sanctum, not inner "sanction". Damn you autocorrect.; 12/14/15, 11:23 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: But, which God gave somebody the right to choose what I do with my blood?"

Ah, just spitballing here, but probably the same God the temple's built to worship, right? I mean, I get that this particular decree or tradition is a problem for you, but once you've agreed that some religious tenets are good and/or that some dogma of your particular religion is valid and should be followed it doesn't make much sense to object to others on the basis that the ones you don't like are dogmatic, does it? It might still be a bad idea, and you can certainly oppose it, but doing so on the basis of "which God" doesn't make much sense unless you're not a believer.

I mean, you want to go in the temple to pray to that God, and the people who run the temple (and presumably have some authority within your religion) say that women aren't allowed in (and haven't been for many centuries). Which God? Sounds like yours.; 12/14/15, 11:39 AM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: It makes about as much sense as a Hindu saying "which God gave somebody the right to choose whether it's okay to eat beef or not?" Hamburgers are tasty, ribeyes are delicious. I'm not Hindu, though, so that's okay for me--if I were a Hindu the question would answer itself.; 12/14/15, 11:41 AM
walter said...: "Well, that's a completely inappropriate response to the linked article. You're telling women what the women themselves are saying."

That alone doesn't make it "inappropriate". Though the vast majority of men likely have absolutely zero claim to superior public cleanliness. Just consider the ratio of guys that wash after at the urinal.

Because it solves societal discord so well here, perhaps US women will organize a million menstruators march.; 12/14/15, 12:12 PM
damikesc said...: Well, that's a completely inappropriate response to the linked article. You're telling women what the women themselves are saying.

The article was about women making a cause celebre of bleeding in attacking rules they do not like.

Why not, I dunno, just not answer the question "Are you having your period?" Do they think the dude is just gonna shove his hand down there and check?

They're not saying their periods are irrelevant. They are championing them. Which is as idiotic as me championing an epic dump I took last night.

Though the vast majority of men likely have absolutely zero claim to superior public cleanliness. Just consider the ratio of guys that wash after at the urinal.

I used to have to clean restrooms.

The women's public restroom is the single most vile place in existence. Horrors abound. The men's room, while dirty, is not nearly as bad.; 12/14/15, 12:35 PM
walter said...: damikesc,
I as well witnessed the same. But I suspect/hope that's different from hand cleanliness.; 12/14/15, 12:54 PM
n.n said...: Bloodborne pathogens are a real concern for public health. The Indians are desperately fighting a traditional state of uncleanliness. This is only a religious/moral issue with respect to increasing risk for nonconsenting individuals. Otherwise, this is an issue that affects environmental stability and falls under the social issues umbrella.

As for the origin of human life, it is not from blood, but from the fusion of egg and sperm at conception. Blood is the waterway that distributes goods and disease.; 12/14/15, 1:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Damiwhatever,
I guess it doesn't occur to you that perhaps Indian women are championing their menses because it is part and parcel of their reproduction capabilities, there is nothing dirty about it. Feces and menstrual blood are not to be compared, that's crass and ignorant. Your mother's rectum the feces within it didn't provide a nourishing environment for you as an unborn did it? Your mother's endometrial tissue within her uterus however did. See the difference?; 12/14/15, 1:28 PM
Peter said...: Instead of complaining about no-menstruation-allowed, why not just build your own menstruation-welcomed-here temple?; 12/14/15, 1:50 PM
dbp said...: Menstruation is blood that does not get used to form future humans.

In my experience (I have Hindu in-laws), it is the older women who police the younger ones on entering the temple during their period. The men are not aware and do not want to be made aware of the menstrual status of any women--including for the most part their wives.

My view as a secular person is that it is an inconvenient rule: Often, pujas (a kind of prayer service) are done around big events, like marriages. Guests come from far away and there are bound to be some women who are on their period.; 12/14/15, 1:59 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Amanda said...Althouse broke the taboo of speaking about products of women's menses and defiled the majority male commentariat's inner sanction, the comments section.

What a particularly inapt comparison, Amanda! The analogy would be
the leaders of the temple: worshipers or potential worshipers in the temple
:: Prof Althouse (as the "leader"/owner of the blog & its comment section) : commenters.

The analogous situation would be one where some commenters complained about Prof. Althouse not letting them use the comment section, or not use it in the way they want to, in defiance of some longstanding tradition of the comment section. But of course that actually happens! Prof. Althouse has rules and standards, and she enforces them. She doesn't let some people comment at all, and if a comment's format or content is incorrect or particularly offensive/threatening/etc she will delete it. Very few of us complain about that, we understand it's her blog and she can set and enforce the rules as she sees fit! The "which God" question from the article would be equivalent to me asking "who put you in charge of the Althouse blog comments, Professor Althouse?" which is obviously silly.

Really that's just a terrible analogy, Amanda, as it demonstrates the opposite of what I think you want it to.; 12/14/15, 3:54 PM
damikesc said...: I guess it doesn't occur to you that perhaps Indian women are championing their menses because it is part and parcel of their reproduction capabilities, there is nothing dirty about it. Feces and menstrual blood are not to be compared, that's crass and ignorant.

They're BOTH perfectly natural bodily processes. How are they not comparable? It's an evacuation out of a bodily orifice.

Your mother's rectum the feces within it didn't provide a nourishing environment for you as an unborn did it?

As pointed out, menstrual blood is specifically NOT used to gestate life.; 12/14/15, 4:08 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Amanda said...Feces and menstrual blood are not to be compared, that's crass and ignorant. Your mother's rectum the feces within it didn't provide a nourishing environment for you as an unborn did it? Your mother's endometrial tissue within her uterus however did. See the difference?

Not to be compared? Says who? Both are bodily wastes. If you choose to hold one in some special reverence you're welcome to do so, but it's silly to insist that everyone must. More to the point the endometrial lining shed during menstruation didn't provide a nourishing environment for anyone, hence its reason for being shed. If your argument is that the menstrual byproduct is more sacred than the byproduct of digestion you have to deal with the fact that both are "from women's bodies" and the products of natural processes. You'll have to give an actual reason for forbidding the comparison between the two beyond just calling it crass and ignorant (crass why, and ignorant how?).

Here's an interesting Scientific American article on menstruation and what doctors called menotoxin discussing the pernicious effect the historical concept of menstruating women being "unclean" has had. It's good to fight that concept, but it doesn't therefore follow that one should go too far in the other direction and find menstruation sacred or holy (which applies of course to the waste products thereof).

Lest you argue that no one could revere the waste products of digestion please remember the example of the followers of Jesus Ranch (around the 3 minute mark) in this important documentary.; 12/14/15, 4:37 PM
Peter said...: "it is the older women who police the younger ones on entering the temple during their period".

But who polices the American tourists? After all, even tourists can see people leaving their footwear outside, but, there's nothing similarly obvious regarding menstruation.; 12/14/15, 5:05 PM
Anonymous said...: Hoodlum,
I don't hold endometrial tissue to be something holy. I connected menses and the endometrial tissue to something many people respect and hold dear, motherhood (or so conservatives claim) and so are the Indian women. To compare feces, the waste product of digestion, to the shedding of endometrial cells is simply stupid. It's unscientific as one in the GI tract and the other is part of the reproductive system. To make such a comparison does nothing more than demean women and their reproductive system by actually doing what the article's author describes, which is insulting to women whose bodies are doing something completely natural and out of their conscious control. Would you go into a place of worship and deposit fecal matter unconsciously? Well maybe if you were ill, which in that case you should've stayed home. If women are bleeding very heavily they usually stay home or make sure they are protected from leakage.

Menstruation is not under the concious control of a woman, she can't start and stop bleeding at will. Indian women are arguing that they are not unclean because they are menstruating, that menstruation is nothing to be ashamed of and that the ancient practice of shunning menstuating women is ridiculous and the society should progress. They want men to not act as if women are second class citizens while menstruating. Why should they be barred from worship? Good for Indian women for standing up for themselves against their Patriarchy. A good beginning.

Lastly, if you want to be observant of cleanliness and good health in a temple, church, or generally in any public place, cough into your sleeve, don't shake hands and don't share a communion cup. Stop fretting over menstrual blood.; 12/14/15, 5:59 PM
Anonymous said...: I said..."Althouse broke the taboo of speaking about products of women's menses and defiled the majority male commentariat's inner sanctum the comments section."

Regarding your other comment Hooldlum, yes indeed this is Althouse's blog and the kind of over the top pushback from male commenter's she gets fairly often when dealing with women's rights issues makes my comment very apropos. It wasn't an analogy to anything, it was a snarky response to a dumb comment.

Damikesc said...
"Women, honestly, men are not that interested in your menstruation. Not remotely interesting to us. I'm glad it's a damned near obsession with some of you, but don't expect men to play along."; 12/14/15, 6:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Hooldlum, from your Scientific American article. Thanks for posting, very interesting.

"Thankfully, the most accepted idea is that menstruation did not evolve at all, but is a byproduct of the evolution of terminal differentiation of endometrial cells (Finn 1996; Finn 1998). That is, endometrial cells must proliferate and then differentiate, and once they differentiate, they have an expiration date. Ovulation and endometrial receptivity are fairly tightly timed, to the point that the vast majority of implantations occur within a three-day window (Wilcox et al. 1999). So its not that menstruation expels dangerous menotoxins, but rather that menstruation happens because the endometrium needs to start over, and humans in particular have thick enough endometria that we cant just resorb all that blood and tissue.

It's time to dump the idea that menstruation is dirty. Its blood and tissue that you ended up not using to feed a baby, and thats all."; 12/14/15, 6:32 PM
jr565 said...: Well we all need someone
we can bleed on.
If you want it,
well you can bleed on me.; 12/14/15, 9:52 PM
jr565 said...: "Only men are allowed to visit, after undergoing 41 days of ritual fasting and abstinence not just from sex, but also alcohol and tobacco."
Ah, so men are not allowed to squirt out their dirty semen. (would masturbating be a form of sex). The god then is dictating what men are supposed to do with their semen too. and yet men aren't complaining about it.
WHO GAVE SOMEONE THE RIGHT TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH MY SEMEN?
#Happytocum (in support of women who will let me cum in them)

And for the record, who else is tired of the instant hashtag in solidarity for some inane stance. Hash tags need to be abolished, I'm starting to think.
#Endinanehashtags; 12/14/15, 10:01 PM