Erotic Snowmen
What, don’t you mean snowwomen? Well, whatever turns you on.
In Saudi Arabia, there is a group whose official title is The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice known colloquially as the religious police. In Arabic, they are called Mutawa’een. They inserted themselves into all aspects of life in the Kingdom sometimes in fairly ludicrous ways. One example of that is how society must be protected from malign influences such as… snowmen! From The Guardian:
Saudi cleric issues fatwa on snowmen
Religious leaders forbid the building of anti-Islamic idols that might resemble human beings, after a winter storm in the north of the country.
A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious edict forbidding the building of snowmen, describing them as anti-Islamic.
Asked on a religious website if it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country’s north, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied: “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”
Quoting Muslim scholars, Munajjid argued that to build a snowman was to create an image of a human being, an action considered sinful under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Sunni Islam.
“God has given people space to make whatever they want which does not have a soul, including trees, ships, fruits, buildings, and so on,” he wrote in his ruling.
That provoked swift responses from Twitter users writing in Arabic and identifying themselves with Arab names.
“They are afraid for their faith of everything … sick minds,” one Twitter user wrote.
Another posted a photo of a man in formal Arab garb holding the arm of a “snow bride” wearing a bra and lipstick. “The reason for the ban is fear of sedition,” he wrote.
A third said the country was plagued by two types of people: “A people looking for a fatwa [religious ruling] for everything in their lives, and a cleric who wants to interfere in everything in the lives of others through a fatwa.”
Munajjid had some supporters, however, “It (building snowmen) is imitating the infidels, it promotes lustiness and eroticism,” one wrote. “May God preserve the scholars, for they enjoy sharp vision and recognise matters that even Satan does not think about.”
Snow has covered upland areas of Tabuk province near Saudi Arabia’s border with Jordan for the third consecutive year as cold weather swept across the Middle East.
I would have to agree that Satan, burning as he is in Hell, has not been thinking about the eroticism of snowmen, unless of course hell has frozen over. Having frozen over has no doubt provoked a lust that could only exist in such a hell, and which certainly doesn’t exist in the current fiery pit to the best of my knowledge.
And stopping fathers from building snowmen or snowwomen for their kids’ delight. Damn, that’s cold!
