The Sexual Origins of Terrorism
Does sexual repression increases the likelihood that a culture will spawn terrorists?
In his book “The Roots of Jihad”, Dr. Tawfik Hamid writes about the years he spent as an active terrorist in his home country of Egypt, focusing to a large extent on how sexual frustration, promoted by the nature of traditional Islamic culture, provides a fertile breeding ground for terrorism. Dr. Hamid, who now works as a policy consultant in Washington D.C., recounts how, as a young college student, he and his colleagues were recruited by various radical organizations. According to Dr. Hamid, the main attraction to these groups and their Jihadist ways was not religious in nature, nor was it based on some sort of hatred of the West. Instead, their motivation to join the cause was driven primarily by their “extreme sexual frustration.”
Dr. Hamid goes on to explain further, describing how young Islamic men are “expected to have zero sexual release until marriage” and how “marriage in these economic times can be delayed until as late as a man’s 40's.” This makes them easy prey for recruiters who may seek to lure potential suicide bombers with assurances that blowing themselves up will give them access in the afterlife to 72 beautiful virgins. As put by Dr. Hamid, the sexual desires of Islamic men are created by the culture to which they belong and are stimulated from reading Islamic books, which contain Quranic versus such as: Young women with pubertal breasts are waiting for you in paradise (78:33) and Ladies with beautiful, big, and lustrous eyes are waiting for you inside the tents in paradise (55:72). Dr. Hamid believes that it is these sort of cultural and religious teachings that tend to “over-stimulated sexual desires of young Muslims … as the hopelessness of soon having a marital relationship, and dreams of beautiful women waiting in paradise, create frustration, anxiety and anger. These factors encourage young Muslims to join radical Islamic groups where they then become steeped in terrorist Islamic beliefs such as committing suicidal attacks on infidels to go immediately to paradise as martyrs so they can enjoy the beautiful ladies there.” (pages 54-56, The Roots of Jihad)
Dr. Hamid’s position is shared by a variety of other psychologists and social scientists that have studied the Islamic culture and it’s relationship to terrorism and suicide bombings in particular. This includes Dr. Alan Miller and Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, who published the article “Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature.” In this article, the authors also make a compelling case linking sexual frustration to most suicide bombers and note that, in almost every case, suicide bombers have historically been young, unmarried, Muslim men.
Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, also explains in his article how Muslim suicide bombing have little to do with religion, but everything to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence thereof. According to Gambetta, Islam is unique compared to most other cultures in two important ways. First, sex, for a variety of religious, cultural, and economic reasons, is, to a large extent, unattainable for most young Muslim males, which tends to increase the level of sexual frustration in these groups. Second, Islam teaches that there is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr of Islam. It is the combination of these key ingredients that make the prospect of becoming a suicide bomber so appealing within the Islamic culture. In sum, young, sexually frustrated, Muslim males, with little chance of marrying anytime soon, see themselves as having very little to lose and much to gain when recruited to commit a suicide attack, as compared to married men and/or men from most other cultures where sexuality is less taboo.
It is, however, important to note that sexual frustration, and the violence often associated with it, is not exclusive to the Muslim culture. In fact, there are many examples to the contrary. One example includes the May, 2014, mass shooting incident that occurred recently in Isla Vista, California, involving a mentally disturbed 22-year-old American college student. The young shooter had apparently telegraphed his intentions the day before the shootings, when he released a YouTube video entitled “Retribution,” in which he complained that women had ignored and rejected him for many years. The rampage left six dead and over a dozen people hurt. The shooter later took his own life as the police closed in.
Incidents such as the above, however, represent a quite different phenomenon than what is being described as part of the Islamic culture. These lone-wolf incidents appear to be isolated to mentally unstable individuals who are motivated to address a real or imagined personal grievance of some type. Suicide bombings committed as acts of terrorism by Islamic radicals represent organized plots committed to help further a higher political or group purpose. Additionally, lone-wolf shooters are not the byproduct of a larger collective cultural belief system, as is the case with Islamic suicide bombers. So, while monsters can be found in every society, the case being made here is that the belief system promoted by the culture of Islam appears to generate the unique combination of ingredients that so effectively creates evil intentions in the hearts and mines of its masses.
