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FAREWELL POSTINGS

Leaving Montréal

November 12, 2024

Rather than wait for a balloon to burst or on a fanatic like those in the above photograph to do their worst, maybe it’s time to do a Leaving Las Vegas type of exit. For those unfamiliar with the movie, it stars Nicholas Cage who plays a despondent character who “decides to move to Las Vegas and drink himself to death. Once there, he develops a romantic relationship with a prostitute played by Elisabeth Shue.”

Having been unable to connect with a partner who would join me for some excessive drinking and a bout of intimacy, and be well rewarded if I don't survive, maybe it’s time to return to Montréal and hook up with a working girl like Mary, or travel back in time with a girl like Jasmine.

Lucette, when I got depressed in the more than two years I was stuck at home preparing one appeal of my firing after another, would tell me to go to Montréal, have a good time and see you tomorrow. But, of course, this is not quite the same thing, which, at this stage in my life, she would probably say: “Are you out of your mind?”

I don’t think so, but I am so much older.

Important:

The graphic sex in the following two stories, and others, is not gratuitous. They are part of an argument meant to convince would-be martyrs that sex in the here-and-now is better than sex in the Hereafter and take away a key incentive for killing and dying in Allah Cause.

From the back cover of Love, Sex and Islam:

If I am able to convince believers contemplating martyrdom not to be in such a hurry to get at those houris only to be disappointed, then the almost twenty years I have dedicated to the study of the world's fastest growing religion will not have been in vain. The dozen or so adult situation stories in PART I – Sex in the Here-And-Now, some of which may bring more than a smile to your face, are not gratuitous. Actual names (first names only) are used.

PART II – Sex in the Hereafter compares the experiences revealed in PART I with what a martyr can expect in Paradise. A must-read for anyone contemplating martyrdom because of what they have been told about sex in the Hereafter, that the dead have better sex than the living.

Sex in the Here-And-Now

Mary

On Crescent Street in Montréal, there is a two-story building with two spacious outdoor balconies. One is an extension of a well-appointed restaurant that takes up the entire top floor; the other, an extension of the first-floor Cheers-like bar, only bigger. Beneath it all is a nightclub where disco went to die and found a new lease on life when I was there. The building, which encompasses the restaurant, the bar and the disco, is called Thursdays—in French, "Les Beaux Jeudis,” though even its French clientele call it Thursdays. Thursdays is where I met her.

It was late Tuesday night and the place was not very busy. Not because it was Tuesday at Thursdays, which was a party every night of the week, but because there was a raging snowstorm outside. I was nursing my second gin and tonic when she walked in, the most stunning black woman I had ever seen.

There was the white of her eyes as they searched the semi-darkness that separated her from me. There was her long, braided black hair that swung back and forth as she made her way to the bar where I was sitting. My grateful eyes took in that body with nothing but curves wrapped in a short, tight, white satin dress covered with a mesh-like material, ending in fringes that stroked her skin as she walked.

She sat two stools to my left and crossed her legs, exposing a muscular black-as-coal thigh straining against the white mesh. Her dress was square-cut along the top with only the crests of her ample, perfectly round breasts showing, so close together that you couldn’t have slipped a sheet of paper between them.

It was only a matter of time before our eyes met, and when they did, I said hi; she said hello. I said bonjour; she said bonsoir. She asked if she could move closer. I said bien sur.

Mary spoke near-perfect French. Not that high-pitched, hysterical, pretentious French spoken by Parisian snobs and garçons de café, but a happy, melodious French, not unlike in tone to the English you might hear on a beach in Jamaica.

With so few of us in the bar, the DJ didn’t mind, after I slipped him a few dollars, playing a few tunes from my younger days. I asked if she would join me on one of Thursdays’ two dance floors. She chose the one with the disco ball and a circular rotating platform. I couldn’t dance then and still can’t, but that was okay; she did enough dancing for the both of us.

I was quite happy to stand there shuffling my feet and watching her. She danced wildly, she danced gracefully, she danced seductively, moving around the entire space, never taking her eyes off me. Eventually, still swaying her hips in that sensual sideways motion with just a hint of back and forth action, she moved closer and closer until she was near enough to wrap her hands around the back of my neck, then thrust those hips forward so hard that I thought she might have broken something.

When it was time to leave, I offered to walk her to her car. The snow had really piled up. The Chateau Royale, my hotel, was just across the street. She asked if she could spend the night. I agreed. I think it was when we were alone in the elevator that she mentioned that if we got to know each other better, there would be a price to pay.

I thought I was doing her a favour only to be told that it could cost me! I had never paid for sex, though, like many men, I have paid for expensive dinners hoping that intimacy would follow.

As we were getting undressed, Mary told me her rate: $240 an hour. She was grateful enough to only charge me that amount for the entire night. It was almost midnight and I had to be at work first thing in the morning. Even if I had been interested, it was not a great deal.

We spent the night facing away from each other; she lay on one side of my king-sized bed and me, on the other. The next morning, she was not smiling, but I was. Is there anything more pleasing to the eye than a woman you first saw naked the night before getting out of bed in the bright morning light to take a shower? But she didn’t shower. I had to be content watching her get dressed and walk out the door.

I thought that was that. I don’t remember how many days had passed when there was a knock at the door in the middle of the night. There she was, asking if she could sleep over again. Sure, why not?

She again got undressed and into bed, still on her side but a little closer to mine. When I crawled over and put my arms around her, she didn’t seem to mind—she even lightly pressed her hips against my lap while reminding me that anything more came with a price. No money would again change hands, but it was quite pleasant not having to sleep alone.

The same scenario was repeated a few days later, except this time I didn’t have to crawl halfway across the bed. I just rolled over and there she was. Again, I wrapped my arms around her, my forearms beneath her breasts acting like a push-up bra, as if they needed one. Even when moving around the room with nothing on, Mary’s impressive breasts seemed to defy gravity.

This time it was not a light tap; her hips pushed back hard, and she started moving them like a stripper trying to perform a lap dance while lying on her side next to her client. In no time at all, her posterior’s impressive twins had trapped what they had aroused in the narrow canyon between them. An obstinate erection that didn’t care what time it was, or what my brain wanted, would have to be content spending the night pressed against her backside, hoping the sensation of being stretched out and more than half buried between the soft and smothering buttocks of a young African woman might bring release in a dream.

But it wasn’t over; far from it. There was no talk of money when she raised the leg that was on top, bending it at the knee and forming an archway that easily allowed a hand to come through. Her behind moved out of the way just long enough to grab what it came for, taking me to a place already moist in anticipation.

There was no frenzied thrusting—just a slow, silent back and forth with only the occasional peek outside the entrance of a tunnel with no exit. She didn’t moan much during the entire time and I didn’t make any of the sounds that men make when they feel like the dam is about to burst, plunging in with renewed vigour as if wanting their entire body to disappear into that too-narrow opening.

I thought I heard a whimper when her cushioning bum jerked forward, each cheek pressing hard against the other as they left the comfort of my lap. It was not the spasmodic clench-and-release that is your assurance that you have made your partner very happy and a testament to your competence as a lover.

Her hips returned to my lap shortly after, pressing hard against the base of what was slowly deflating inside her before slipping out to momentarily rest on that black, muscular, smooth-as-silk thigh.

Wow, unprotected sex with a hooker?! That was bit reckless, I hear you telling me. When that working girl puts a condom on you before penetration, or even before oral sex, it is not for your protection but hers. When Mary parked me outside the entrance to her vagina as an invitation to press on and make myself at home, she knew an exchange of bodily fluids was inevitable. But she also knew, from our time together not having sex, that I would not put her out of business for any length of time. Still, if it had not happened the way it did, I would have insisted on her sheathing it before I went in, or done it myself.

There was another thing about Mary that I would later discover was unusual for a woman in her profession. She always smelled nice, even when all you could detect was her body odour and not some light fragrance that could not have camouflaged anything. Hookers and cheating wives look to the same solution if they don’t have time to shower or bathe after sex: they pour on the perfume to mask the scent of the man and the deed.

That meant that whatever Mary was doing with other men did not involve full body-on-body contact, or that she met her clients at their hotels, after which she would shower. This also explained why it had not been a priority for her to do so before leaving my apartment to make her way home on previous mornings. The reason for her sporadic visits would also become evident: those were the evenings she was too late to catch the last metro.

She got up first the next morning and took a quick shower while I was still wiping the sleep from my eyes. She asked for money, but only for a cab to get her home. She lived off the Island of Montréal so it was an expensive ride. The underground metro, with a station less than a block from my hotel, would certainly get her there faster than a cab fighting morning traffic all the way to Longueil.

I was happy to give her the fare, even knowing she would probably take the faster, cheaper way home. I even threw in money for breakfast—a good breakfast. It was still a better deal than the price she quoted me that first night, but this was never about the cost. Maybe sex with me was not that bad, compensated by cab fare and breakfast, and it was not simply the convenience of my apartment that made up the difference.

Who am I kidding? I was in my forties and her, maybe twenty years younger. I was not the young man a prostitute might prefer to the older man who could offer more for her favours, like in the following hadith in which temporary marriages are sanctioned by God’s spokesman.

Sabra Juhanni reported:

Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) permitted temporary marriage for us. So I and another person went out and saw a woman of Bana 'Amir, who was like a young long-necked she-camel.

We presented ourselves to her (for contracting temporary marriage), whereupon she said: What dower would you give me?

I said: My cloak. And my companion also said: My cloak. And the cloak of my companion was superior to my cloak, but I was younger than he. So when she looked at the cloak of my companion she liked it, and when she cast a glance at me I looked more attractive to her. She then said: Well, you and your cloak are sufficient for me.

I remained with her for three nights, and then Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: He who has any such woman with whom he had contracted temporary marriage, he should let her off.

Sahih Muslim 8:3252

The holy warriors in the preceding hadith had obviously not received any females—wives or daughters—as their share of the booty. That would have eliminated the need to seek sex with a prostitute. A revealed truth within a hadith (both reinforcing one another) meant to reduce the reluctance of some believers to raping wives in front of husbands who survived their encounter with the Muslims.

The Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives.

Some of the Companions of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) were reluctant to have intercourse with the female captives in the presence of their husbands who were unbelievers. So Allah, the Exalted, sent down the Qur’anic verse: (4:24) "And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess."

Abu Dawud 2.2150

In areas controlled by the Muslims, a prostitute was usually the slave-girl of a believer who willingly accepted to have sex with men other than her owner for compensation.

24:33 Let those who do not find the means to marry be abstinent, till Allah enriches them from his Bounty. Those whom your right hands own and who wish to pay for their emancipation, conclude a contract with them, if you know that there is some good in them, and give them of Allah’s wealth which He gave you. Do not force your slave-girls into prostitution, if they wish to be chaste, in order to seek the fleeting goods of this life. Whoever forces them, surely Allah, after their being forced, is Forgiving, Merciful.

Sunni doctrine doesn’t allow for temporary marriages as a means of getting around Allah’s prohibition against pre-marital sex, in spite of God implicitly allowing slave owners to pimp out slave-girls who did not care to remain “chaste.”

As for those sayings of Muhammad allowing it, respected Sunni scholar and author of The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam quotes a companion of Muhammad, a fellow by the name of Al-Juhani, who claimed that after the conquest of Mecca, God’s spokesperson abrogated his earlier ruling and said, henceforth, all temporary marriages were forbidden. Nonetheless, you will find the largest brothel in the world in a Sunni country. It’s an entire village, that of Daulatdia in Bangladesh, one of twenty government sanctioned brothels (as of 2019).

The greatest number of temporary marriages are performed in Shia Iran, held in unofficial brothels where you will find an imam who is prepared, for a price, to proffer a temporary marriage certificate. The payment for sex is deemed to be her dowry so believers can avoid going to hell for having sex with a woman outside of actual marriage. The hypocrisy never fails to astound.

I suppose that I, too, was being a hypocrite, pretending that paying for an expensive cab ride—which she probably did not even take—was not paying for sex. The pretending stopped when her nocturnal visits began interfering with the work for which I was getting well paid. I ended my nights with Mary somewhat abruptly. I told the night clerk not to let her come up to my apartment anymore. To tell her, if necessary, that I was no longer a guest of the Chateau Royale. I did not expect him to go that far, but he did.

It was inevitable that I would run into her again and have to admit that, no, I had not moved out. She was somewhat humiliated and disappointed that I had not had the courage to tell her in person that I wanted to end “our arrangement.”

Sex was now out of the question. Instead, we started meeting for dinner. I wanted to know about the world she left behind. I remember the first time I asked her about her home in Africa. We were having dinner at Thursdays' second floor restaurant, enjoying the patio on a warm summer evening. I wanted to hear about the lions, the tigers, the tropical rainforest, the endless summers...

She laughed. Her country was not like that at all. It was dirt roads, arid dusty fields, and no wildlife to speak of. As far as the tropical forest was concerned, there was almost none left. On other nights, she talked about her family. Her father and mother remained in Africa. She hinted at a relationship that seemed to be her prime motivator for immigrating to Canada: to escape a marriage in the Islamic tradition, which she once described as "god-sanctioned rape."

Remembering Uzza is dedicated to that young woman from Africa whom I met one snowy night almost twenty years ago, who inspired me to go on a voyage of discovery of a religion like no other. Uzza should have been the culmination of that journey wherein I imagined her spending an evening in a bar in conversation with patrons talking about what I have learned.

I had a client who dated mainly prostitutes and avoided serious relationships. His motto was “it’s cheaper to rent than to own.” Bob in Remembering Uzza is based on his personality; I gave him a copy of the book. At fifty-something, he expressed disappointment with how things had turned out. He envied what I had had with my beloved Lucette, and told me how lucky I had been.

I was no longer having sex with Mary, but another line had been crossed and I no longer cared about the money, which I could afford. After Mary, I became an easy mark for all the young to slightly older women who dropped by Thursdays looking to entice a patron into paying for sex. I would end it all after, of all things, having sex for free with a young stripper who forced me to confront the morality of what I was doing.

Jasmine

I don’t consider prostitution an ignoble profession if nobody gets hurt and it’s what you want to do, but it’s not for everyone and it should not have been for me. Paying for what Lucette gave freely out of love for me, and the pleasure she got when I returned that love, should have been sufficient.

If I could say no to Anne, why could I not say no to these young women? Booze and loneliness obviously played a role, but it’s no excuse.

I don’t remember her name, but since Jasmine comes to mind, that is what I will call her. With Jasmine, I was to spend the most enigmatic night of my life. Jasmine was a young stripper working the day shift at a strip club around the corner from Thursdays.

I barely recognized her when she walked into the bar. It was the first time I’d seen her there. She sat on the stool next to me and bought herself a drink. Being from Toronto, she didn’t speak much French, but she knew I spoke English when she spotted me at the bar.

Jasmine’s skin was a dark brown, not black. She had the curves but not the robust physique of Mary. Mary braided her hair, while Jasmine’s hair was all curls, a lot like Little Orphan Annie; black curls, like a halo surrounded an angelic face, making her look almost too young to be buying a drink, let alone stripping for a living.

She was returning to Toronto the next day. Her mood was somewhat sullen; not what you would expect from someone trying to seduce you into paying for sex, which I assumed was her intention when she first sat down next to me.

It was early in the evening and she was still nursing whatever she had ordered when she turned to me and said, “I’m tired of this. Can we just go over to your place and watch television?” That is what we did.

She did not sit at one end of the couch but toward the middle, so I did the same after turning on the television and getting us each a beer. We put our feet up on the coffee table and looked at each other, then she smiled.

I put an arm around her shoulders and gently drew her in. That sullen mood slowly disappeared as we talked about I don’t remember what, ignoring what was on TV. It was inevitable that I would hazard a kiss, something you don’t do to a working girl. She kissed me back, if only a little.

I’m not a fan of tonsil hockey so it was just fine. Maybe I was wrong about her. She had not demanded any money up front or mentioned any hourly rate and what was included. She had done none of the things that working girls do when they get you where they want you. Instead, it was like taking a girlfriend back to your place for the first time.

She giggled when I started unbuttoning her blouse with my free hand. There was no frenzied undressing, just a slow, methodical removal of garments with generous kisses to show my appreciation of what was being revealed. She didn’t grab at it or stroke it using the classic three-finger grip, or any other grip. She just lightly touched it now and then, as if by accident, but the sensation was enough to add a few centimetres.

I had her lay back in a semi-sitting position, her shoulders resting against an arm of the sofa, legs raised facing me with her heels only a few inches from her bum. I usually didn’t care to—what is the phrase?—go down on a partner who may have, even days earlier, had sex with someone other than me. With Jasmine it felt different.

I slowly parted her legs and moved down, giving her belly button more than a passing kiss before reaching what, in my dimly lit living room, stretched out before me like a short, sparkling rivulet of pink barely visible between two brownish, hair-free contoured ridges. I lingered there as if she were a high school sweetheart I hoped to persuade to go all the way.

There was another reason my head was between her legs. I had already touched her there, gone inside hoping to draw out more of the natural lubricant that would avoid me rubbing her excitable ‘little man in the boat’ the wrong way but finding what I was looking for in short supply. At this point, if she had not done so at the beginning of proceedings, a working girl would have reached for her tube of K-Y Jelly and generously coated the entire area, inside and out. Not my Jasmine. I was now convinced she was not that kind of girl.

There would be no hands wrapped around my head making sure I stayed glued to it, or hands pushing me away because the sensation was becoming too intense. She did, however, play with my hair, a sure sign that she was not totally enthralled by whatever I was doing down there. Nonetheless, my efforts were partially rewarded with a sufficient increase in the lubrication that would ensure a smooth glide back and forth.

I might have taken the time to put on a condom, but I had used up my supply making sure I was protected when Mary crawled into bed after our first time bareback. Jasmine didn’t have any protection either, another sign that she was genuine.

I crept back up that incredible body of hers until I was again staring into her eyes. There was no sign of disappointment, just anticipation. It was not just her eyes, but her smile and parted lips waiting to breathe.

Her expression never changed, except for her smile, which fleetingly became a grimace when I crossed the threshold and morphed into a sly grin when she detected that it was over. There was no warning. I had not felt any urge to increase the pace when suddenly, I was flooding her insides. It felt like the spasms that announced there was more to come, no pun intended, would go on forever. It was like how it happens in dreams, the best of dreams.

The fact that I came and she didn’t even come close was to be expected. Even if I had managed to last all night, it was not going to happen, that was obvious from the very beginning. Assuming she was at least eighteen, she could have been making love to a friend of her father, something that I suspect, for most girls, is not a turn on.

What about a grandfather? That is what the fifty-three-year-old Muhammad could have been to the child he contracted to marry when she was six, and first had sex with when she was nine. Jasmine knew what to expect and still, I had some difficulty getting her to a state of arousal that made for at least a pleasant sexual experience, if only mind-blowing for yours truly. How would a man ten years older than me prepare a girl at least half Jasmine’s age to be bludgeoned by his manhood, if he could even be bothered?

It is obvious that Aisha didn’t have a clue what this old friend of her father’s intended to do to her, based on her account of the blessed day. It was all hush-hush. She was taken off her swing set, her face was wiped clean, and taken by her mother to sit on Muhammad’s lap.

My mother came to me while I was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse took over and wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was brought in while Muhammad was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. The other men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old. Neither a camel nor a sheep was slaughtered on behalf of me.

Tabari IX:131

Unlike Muhammad’s many other marriages, the most famous and impactful was not publicly celebrated, the meaning of “Neither a camel nor a sheep was slaughtered on behalf of me.” The fact that the day God’s spokesman took Aisha’s innocence was not “celebrated” is a clear indication that Muhammad knew the whole thing was unseemly and that his kinsmen would not have been keen on toasting his having sex with a child.

Muhammad could have easily picked up the child sitting on his lap and, remaining sitting, impaled her then and there, but I doubt that is how it happened, and not only because of the bloody lap that would ensue from the tearing of the child’s hymen and perhaps other tissues. He probably instructed her to get on her hands and knees, after which, if he had not already done so, removed her dress, or simply lifted it up and over, exposing her pristine “private parts,” for all intents and purposes his property to do with whatever he fancied.

In the mandatory marriage contract under Islamic law, the bride guarantees the groom unfettered access to her vagina and whatever other parts of her body Allah considers private but her husband’s to do with whatever is permitted under Islamic law. As Muhammad makes clear in the following hadith, there is no derogation from this written undertaking.

Narrated Uqba:

The Prophet said: "The stipulations most entitled to be abided by are those with which you are given the right to enjoy the (women's) private parts (i.e. the stipulations of the marriage contract)."

Bukhari 62.81

Without further ado, God’s spokesperson would have then grabbed his child bride’s hips with both hands, not only to steady her but to keep her from trying to move away as he relentlessly pummeled her from behind. A squirming child beneath him would have made first positioning himself, then forcing his way inside her more difficult than it need be.

But this is not the only reason the Prophet probably did it the way he did. From what I remember reading in an issue of Le Point, a “French weekly political and news magazine,” from behind is how Muhammad and Arab men of his time preferred to engage in inter-course. There are at least three demonstrable reasons for this preference—four, if you count Muhammad’s plausible example on how to first have sex with a child to whose vagina you have been granted, via a legal document and God’s blessing, exclusive and unrestricted access.

Arab men wore the equivalent of long flowing robes which may not have been unlike today's thawb or thobe, an ankle-length garment, usually with long sleeves. The female equivalent could be said to be the Abaya. If you wanted a quickie during the day, the wife simply lifted up her robe, exposing herself and leaning against something, or simply got down on all fours. You then lifted the front of your garment with one hand and used the other to guide your manhood—without rubbing it, for that could be considered a sin, that of masturbation—into her exposed finery, another euphemism used by Allah and His spokesman to describe the parts of a female’s anatomy that are for her husband’s eyes and use only. What could be simpler?

A variation of the above, if you were out in the open or in a communal tent and wanted a modicum of privacy, was demonstrated in a scene from The Good Kill about the use of drones in Afghanistan. You should not need to hit your intended with a haymaker to get her to lie down, as in the following example.

In this scene, which may or may not have been staged, a drone is filming a woman in a courtyard sweeping patio stones. A man dressed in what appears to be a traditional flowing robe enters the courtyard and without so much as a “by your leave,” punches her, sending her crashing to the ground in a heap with her back to him. He then mounts her unresponsive body and reaches beneath his clothing, then hers.

If it was not for the assailant’s discernible rocking movements beneath the tangle of fabric, none would be the wiser. He is obviously a busy man, so after only a few energetic thrusts, he gets up, makes a few adjustments to his clothing, and continues on his merry way. The motionless figure then stirs to life, grabs her broom, and resumes sweeping as if what had just happened was nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe it wasn’t; maybe it was her husband’s way?

The first levels of Paradise will mostly comprise believers out in the open, reclining on couches next to and facing each other (houses and palaces being reserved for the more worthy such as martyrs in Allah’s Cause).

37:43 In the Gardens of Bliss;

37:44 Upon couches, facing each other.

Narrated Samura:

The Prophet said, "Last night two men came to me (in a dream) and made me ascend a tree and then admitted me into a better and superior house, better of which I have never seen. One of them said, ‘This house is the house of martyrs.’"

Bukhari 52.49

In Paradise, of course, you will not need to immobilize your houris before getting down to business; how you have sex with a lack of privacy, however, may be similar to the man and woman in the courtyard.

Finally, as you get older, especially if, like Muhammad, you have more than one wife—and young ones, at that—whom you must service on a regular basis, the position that will literally get you the most bang for the buck without tiring you out is the one demonstrated with Anne and Mary. You both lie down and the man enters the woman’s front passage from behind. The rest of the body can relax while the hips do most of the work. As an added bonus, non-Muslim women can surreptitiously help get themselves there, if that is problem, by discretely massaging the sensitive nerve bundle that does not get much attention due to the angle of penetration, the G-spot notwithstanding.

For the young women and teenagers who were part of Muhammad’s coitus rotation, his having intercourse with them from the back undoubtedly made it easier for them to imagine, if they were so inclined, that it was someone much closer in age making love to them—something they would never get to experience.

No man has had more of an impact on an imperfect world than the so-called perfect human being. Muhammad’s every action, for those who believe in his perfection, are to be emulated as closely as possible so that they, too, can come as close to perfection as its personification.

In the year 624 or thereabout, a fifty-three-year-old Dark Age illiterate, revered as the perfect human, forced his manhood into a nine-year-old’s vagina, and by his example, made it the inalienable right of every Muslim man to do the same.

In May 2006, the Iranian Parliament voted to make it compulsory for girls under the age of 15 and boys under 18 to require court approval to get married. This vote was quashed by the Guardian Council whose responsibility it is to ensure that all laws passed by Parliament are compatible with Islam. It overruled the Parliamentarians because of Muhammad's example, thus reaffirming the right of men to take children as wives.

A nine-year-old child would have had no idea what to expect on her wedding night, and Muhammad admitted as much when he said that a child’s consent was her silence.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

The Prophet said, "A matron should not be given in marriage except after consulting her; and a virgin should not be given in marriage except after her permission."

The people asked, "O Allah's Apostle! How can we know her permission?"

He said, "Her silence (indicates her permission)."

Bukhari 62.67

Aisha knew from experience that this was a specious justification for having your way with a child, and told her husband, in so many words, only to have him repeat his revolting claim.

Narrated Aisha:

I said, "O Allah's Apostle! A virgin feels shy."

He said, "Her consent is (expressed by) her silence."

Bukhari 62.68

Without informed consent, as silence supposedly implies, a woman’s—let alone a child’s—vagina will be mostly dry, free of the extra lubrication that comes from sexual arousal and facilitates penetration to avoid abrasions, tears, and other such injuries common in rape victims.

The depiction of then twenty-nine-year-old Emilia Clarke’s wedding night rape scene from Game of Thrones caused quite an uproar. Imagine instead the face of an innocent nine-year-old girl who is being mercilessly pounded from behind, looking at you in fear and pain (image may be subject to copyright).

It should leave you nauseated and outraged that this is still happening to children because God’s alleged spokesman and acclaimed perfect human being did it first. If that doesn’t make you sick to your stomach, there is something seriously wrong with you.

In one way, Aisha was luckier than many child brides. Muhammad, by favouring quantity over quality, probably never built up an adequate sperm count, which would explain his difficulties in conceiving. Perhaps Allah should have been more specific when He said that He creates humans from water: that He meant what is swimming in the fluid itself.

25:54 And it is He who created from water a human being; then he made him a kin by blood or marriage. Your Lord is All-Powerful.

In the sub-Sahara, where Islam is making the greatest advances at this writing, Modern Ghana news magazine reported on an extraordinary increase in a condition called vesicovaginal fistula or VVF, where the afflicted experience "the continuous involuntary discharge of urine into the vaginal vault."

The magazine goes on to explain that the increase is mainly a result of children giving birth: "Thousands of underage child-wives are abandoned by their pedophile husbands when these little girls develop VVF and dribble urine - a complication of obstructed labour during underage child birth."

Whatever the reason for the perfect human being having sex with a child, it should not be an excuse for causing so much misery and suffering to this day. Of all the religions that have come and gone, and those that still plague our existence, none has proven more detrimental to the welfare of children than the one whose founder’s example is very much the essence of the religion.

It is not only a matter of creating orphans where once there were only sons; it is not only about sanctioning grown men taking children as wives, and impregnating them before it is safe for them to give birth. It is so much more. It is about creating a world of violence and death that is unsafe for children because the religion’s founder valued terror as a means of getting people to submit to his will and to the will of the god for whom he claimed to speak.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah's Apostle said, "I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made victorious with terror."

Bukhari 52.220

***

After resting in Jasmine’s arms for I don’t remember how long, I got up and asked if she was ready for bed. She took my hand and I led her to the bedroom. That night, for the first time since arriving in Montréal, I was cuddled. I imagined myself with my Lucette. That, and what Jasmine said the next morning when I offered her some money, set me on a path to a renewed self-respect—redemption if you like—and isn’t that what angels are supposed to do?

She refused to accept anything from me. She was not a prostitute; she was a dancer, and she hadn’t had sex with me for money. She was lonely, and it just felt right. To accept my money would make it all wrong. She wrote the name of the strip club she normally worked at in Toronto on a piece of paper and handed it to me, then walked out the door. I never saw her again.