Larxene wrote: In other words, you believe that a Venusian approach is better than a Martial or Mercurial approach to this problem?

Ha.. yeah, you could say that... Or maybe it is a inclusive Moon thing versus an excluding Saturn thing. Who knows.

I actually outlined my views on this as a sort of meta topic in my speech at the final graduation of Kepler College a couple of years ago, in order to provide a little bit of additional context of where I was actually coming from with the debate, despite the somewhat unfortunate title:

http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/2012 ... raduation/

Deb wrote:I don't think it was. It seemed to me that his onus is on moving beyond the issue of apportioning blame and guilt for what has already happened, which is not to suggest that he is handing responsibility over to the victim for being the architect of the accidental experiences they suffer.

I have to say I did not see it this way. In particular his analogy that his own abuse, in this case being beaten up, was, he says, because of his own lack of self esteem which stopped when he loved himself more. This was when asked about rape. That suggests to me some analogy that if a rape victim loved themselves more she wouldn't have been raped? Or something similar? I think the idea moves one step beyond just "lets move on from what's happened".

It's really this analogy that makes me think that the idea is quite a potentially damaging one and it reminded me of Dane Rudhya's view, which I've always found unsettling at best and potentially damaging at worst, of a brick falling on your head - there are no chance events here, bricks fall on your head because your consciousness affect the brick and caused it to fall. Our consciousness happens to the event.

Rudhyar, The Practice of Astrology, p. 26.

If a brick falls upon the man's head as he walks along the street, it is the man's responsibility. He walked into the field of the brick's fall. He happened to the brick, because he is a conscious individual and the brick only a piece of universal nature.

It seemed to me that Eric's view is much more akin to rape being another of Rudhyar's bricks taken perhaps to an extreme view. If Eric's view is more that we shouldn't dwell on blame but should focus on what we can do to move on from there, then great. But it's not the impression I got from listening to the podcast.

so many astrological differences seem based on philosophical differences, or a lack of clarity on how others philosophically perceive..

james_m wrote:so many astrological differences seem based on philosophical differences, or a lack of clarity on how others philosophically perceive..

I so agree! Differences in general.

I listened to the entire debate, but due to the length of the podcast, I didn't listen to most of the Q and A portion.

I thought it was clear from the broadcast that Meyers is an "evolutionary astrologer." This is a subset of modern astrology, and not to be confused with the whole of modern astrology or any of its other subsets.

Since so much of the debate focused on Eric Meyers's ideas, I think it is fair to comment on them. If Chris has not done so already, perhaps he could tell Eric that this discussion is here, and invite his rejoinders.

I am a modern amateur astrologer. (I sometimes participate on this site due to my interest in the early history of astrology and the overall higher level of discussion. I am somewhat informed about traditional astrology methods.)

I personally take exception to the evolutionary astrology Meyers promoted. We have to unpack so many things about evolutionary astrology, just for starters. What do we mean by "evolution" in this context? According to whom? Whose brand of spirituality are we talking about? Meyers proposes a radical level of cultural and personal relativism in which nothing is intrinsically either good or bad, yet then he assumes that higher levels of evolution (as evolutionary astrologers define them) are better than lower levels of evolution.

Is "enlightenment" or some higher level of spiritual evolution really even most people's life-purpose? The assumption seems to be that "one size fits all." I am not convinced, nor do I think horoscopic astrology indicates this necessarily to be the case.

Judgments about good and evil occur, according to Meyers, in a kind of mentality and astrology restricted by the "Saturn wall." The modern outer planets, accordingly, are the trans-personal ones necessary for spiritual evolution beyond judgments of good and evil to take place.

This doesn't compute, to me, as the spiritual wisdom of traditional faiths developed long before the discovery of the modern outer planets; and most of them involve training disciplines that seem very Saturnine in the conduct. We could equally point to major global problems emerging post-Uranus discovery; and particularly, after the 1930 discovery of Pluto. Modern outers can have decidedly negative consequences in modern astrology, just as, for good or ill, they become highly personal in aspect to an inner planet or angle.

While the "rape" comment did not occupy a lot of air time, I took notes on the podcast and thought its meaning was clear. A rape is but an opportunity for the victim (or perhaps I should say, the recipient) to grow spiritually. The more difficult one's life experience, the more "grist for the mill" she has to grow spiritually from it.

While I would applaud any rape victim who was able to make a spiritual victory out of being subjected to the crime of rape, I found it arrogant of evolutionary astrology to cast rape in this light. Some rape victims can't evolve spiritually from their experience as they struggle with PTSD, clinical depression, phobias, or bodily injury. This is especially the case for rape involving children.

Worse yet was the integration of the concepts of spiritual evolution and past-lives karma. People who have crimes committed against them in this life apparently had it coming, because of their cruddy past lives. If they were more evolved in a past life, they wouldn't get raped in this life, apparently. There is no evidence that this is the case, including from recent scientific research tending to validate reincarnation. (Jim Tucker, Returning to Life.)

Unfortunately Chris Brennan was required to spend a fair bit of his air time correcting misconceptions about traditional astrology. His role was primarily one of interviewer.

It would be nice to see more debates of this type, hopefully with a separate moderator (or traditional astrologer) and with the understanding that modern astrology has different schools of thought that adhere to different paradigms. Some of these paradigms are actually similar to those expressed by traditional astrologers, such as a practical approach to life and chart-reading.

My thanks to Chris for undertaking his series of podcasts.

All right, folks ? I did it. I listened to the whole podcast.

A few thoughts, pro and con.

I resonate with the view that, as Eric says, astrological constellations represent ?probability fields? that can get activated in accordance with a person's consciousness. Even just hearing or reading about your own constellations will make their effects be felt more pronouncedly! I like to think of my planets as inherent forces that I can call on in order to deal with situations.

What I don't agree with, however, is the idea that the symbolism in the chart is all neutral anyway ? so astrology's traditional intricacies such as the concept of mutual reception would be of no relevance, and it all depends only on one's consciousness whether they would express that Mercury in Pisces as mental deficiency or as artistic genius! There are constellations intrinsically more challenging than others, and with greater destructive potential. However, I strongly believe that people do have a say in how they choose to deal with these challenges.

To criticise traditional astrology without properly understanding its teachings first is poor argumentation!

That being said, I feel that the concept of a planet's cosmic state should be re-examined in a modern context. Traditional delineations don't always seem to hold true in practice without further modification. Specifically, the trans-Saturnians sometimes alter the picture, but that's another story.

The question remains, can we do with our constellations as we wish? What seems to be at work in any case is a complex interplay between the constellations we experience as outer and inner realities and our innermost self representing free (essentially undetermined) will which can be seen as analogous to the centre of the chart.

So, in a sense, the chart is not the boat we use but the sea it's sailing, with its currents, winds and creatures.

I think that astrological influences are often felt on the psychological level, prior to (or simultaneously with) their outer manifestation, Things and events that come in existence on the outer stage reflect the inner stage.

Now, according to Eric, ?good? and ?bad? have no meaning, metaphysically speaking. That's probably true from a certain perspective ? we look at things in these categories because we don't see the role they are playing in the bigger picture. In fact, New Age and Stoic philosophy seem to shake hands with each other on this! But if you are unhappy, then the word ?negative? has a meaning, to be sure. To say that this is just some kind of illusion is derogatory.

Rape was brought up as an example, and it has been said that it's cynical or insensitive to conclude that the victim has actually attracted the incident themselves. This is certainly a sensitive issue. I have met women who went through this most traumatic experience once. I noticed that they came from family backgrounds where anything sexual was a taboo theme. It is often the case that repressed energies are met as uncontrollable outer experiences. Did those poor women have some kind of choice? One of them was a child when the incident happened, so she would hardly have known how to deal with something that was essentially a family issue in a conscious manner... This raises the question as to how our personal experiences relate to the themes of our social and natural environment.

And then there is this elusive thing called karma ? a quite poorly understood concept, in my opinion, which has nothing to do with punishment for our sins in our earlier incarnations. ?Ours?, moreover, not really in a personal sense ? because we could not have had the same chart and therefore the same personality ever once before. I think it's the spiritual essence within us or our ?Monad? which clothes itself with a new personality each time around on planet Earth. Our internal and external experiences then unfold according to the generic code computed as appropriate by our Soul which at some level blends with the Soul of the World.

Michael

Michael, just for clarification-- are you using the word "constellation" in the German sense, meaning a configuration of planets in a horoscope? In anglophone astrology, a constellation means an imaginative picture in the sky comprised of star-groupings, like Orion or Cygnus. (German Sternbild.)

I am also concerned that crime victims (be it rape or something else) generally go through a series of stages of processing their experiences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_trauma_syndrome

http://www.secasa.com.au/sections/for-s ... pe-victim/

I would think that telling a rape victim in the acute post-rape stage to buck up and turn the assault a learning experience would seem tremendously invalidating to her. The astrologer would need to have enormous sensitivity to her condition, and ideally, clinical psychology credentials. It is precisely the expectation of an invalidating response that discourages many crime victims from reporting the rape or prosecuting it in court.

I don't see the "learning experience" objective, to the extent that it could be helpful to the victim, to be the territory of either modern evolutionary or traditional astrology. There is no reason why a traditional astrologer, for example, could not get a Master's degree in mainstream psychology, social work, or counseling, and then apply those insights to a traditional chart analysis and consultation.

I have met women who went through this most traumatic experience once. I noticed that they came from family backgrounds where anything sexual was a taboo theme. It is often the case that repressed energies are met as uncontrollable outer experiences. Did those poor women have some kind of choice? One of them was a child when the incident happened, so she would hardly have known how to deal with something that was essentially a family issue in a conscious manner... This raises the question as to how our personal experiences relate to the themes of our social and natural environment.

Who is to say what behaviour is "repressed" and what isn't? People are creatures of the cultural conditioning. Mores vary from place to place and between religious and ethnic groups.

I do think that astrologically, adults who repress certain unwanted traits or behaviours tend to transfer those traits to other people who seemingly exhibit the disowned behaviours, as the chart has to manifest itself in some fashion. (This is basic Jungian psychology.) For example, if I can't own and accept my Saturn nature, I will tend to attract to me people who seemingly exemplify my unwanted character flaws.

But we can't accept this as an explanation for crimes. For one thing, rape is not primarily about lust or libido, despite its sexual nature. Rape is primarily about one person registering control and power over another.

http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamli ... myths.html

http://sapac.umich.edu/article/52

Implying that an 11 year old girl got raped because she was sexually repressed is neither supported by evidence nor is it good astrology.

Maybe we should move on from this topic, but it was raised in the podcast, and this discussion has raised questions in my mind as to how well prepared either traditional or evolutionary astrologers would be to advise someone trying to make sense of a life-shattering experience.

Waybread wrote:

Michael, just for clarification-- are you using the word "constellation" in the German sense, meaning a configuration of planets in a horoscope? In anglophone astrology, a constellation means an imaginative picture in the sky comprised of star-groupings, like Orion or Cygnus. (German Sternbild.)

Well noted, I was using ?constellation? in the way of German astrology. Thanks for the clarification.

I would think that telling a rape victim in the acute post-rape stage to buck up and turn the assault a learning experience would seem tremendously invalidating to her. The astrologer would need to have enormous sensitivity to her condition, and ideally, clinical psychology credentials. It is precisely the expectation of an invalidating response that discourages many crime victims from reporting the rape or prosecuting it in court.

I totally agree with you. Integrating such traumatizing experiences in an empowering outlook of co-creating one's experiences would ideally be the result of a sensitive and lengthy therapy.

I was personally working with victims of all different kinds of traumatizing experiences as a certified Bach Flower therapist in the environment of a psychiatrist practice. I was using an eclectic astro-psychological/astro-medical approach as an additional tool for throwing light on my clients' problems and potentials.

Another therapist who was using astrology to these ends was the Swiss psychiatrist Alfred Fankhauser.

I don't see the "learning experience" objective, to the extent that it could be helpful to the victim, to be the territory of either modern evolutionary or traditional astrology. There is no reason why a traditional astrologer, for example, could not get a Master's degree in mainstream psychology, social work, or counseling, and then apply those insights to a traditional chart analysis and consultation.

Right, treating cases of severe emotional trauma or mental illness is outside the scope of general astrological counselling practice.

Who is to say what behaviour is "repressed" and what isn't? People are creatures of the cultural conditioning. Mores vary from place to place and between religious and ethnic groups.

It should be clear that what is to be seen as repressed depends on the individual, and not on the standards of a particular cultural context. Cultural conditioning plays a major role in the development of personal repressions, without a doubt, and it is in this regard frequently exercised on purpose by religious and ethnic groups. This aspect of cultural influence would astrologically be indicated mostly by Saturn, which functions as the superego (Freud), as the trans-personalized Father (Sternbach), or as an aspect of the collective unconscious (Jung).

Using such terms, I do engage you on purpose, Waybread!

I do think that astrologically, adults who repress certain unwanted traits or behaviours tend to transfer those traits to other people who seemingly exhibit the disowned behaviours, as the chart has to manifest itself in some fashion. (This is basic Jungian psychology.) For example, if I can't own and accept my Saturn nature, I will tend to attract to me people who seemingly exemplify my unwanted character flaws.

Yes, and you will also tend to attract people to you that supplement you and exemplify what you are longing to develop (or so I hope for you!). An example being a chap with little emphasis on Earth in the natal chart being surrounded by Earth types all their life. The 7th house will reflect both types of relationships, symbolized by different planets.

But we can't accept this as an explanation for crimes.

I beg your pardon? When severe legal issues are concerned, astrology is no longer valid?

For one thing, rape is not primarily about lust or libido, despite its sexual nature. Rape is primarily about one person registering control and power over another.

I agree that power issues frequently play a major role, however, typically in conjunction with uncontrolled outbursts of (sometimes formerly repressed) sexual energy. It is not by chance that both topics relate to Mars (as well as to Pluto, but you may not agree with me on this).

Michael wrote:

I have met women who went through this most traumatic experience once. I noticed that they came from family backgrounds where anything sexual was a taboo theme. It is often the case that repressed energies are met as uncontrollable outer experiences. Did those poor women have some kind of choice? One of them was a child when the incident happened, so she would hardly have known how to deal with something that was essentially a family issue in a conscious manner... This raises the question as to how our personal experiences relate to the themes of our social and natural environment.

Waybread commented:

Implying that an 11 year old girl got raped because she was sexually repressed is neither supported by evidence nor is it good astrology.

I did not mean to imply this. This is a complex issue, and I was for the most part simply sharing my personal observations here and asking questions. But let' me try to elaborate on it:
- Basically, repressed energies (whether modelled astrologically or psychologically) do have a way of approaching the individual from the outside (as you admitted yourself in the quote above).
- The foundation for sexually self-inhibiting patterns are largely laid in childhood as Freud and Reich observed (to name but two).
- Children often unwittingly express the themes neglected by their parents. A more common and harmless example being the highly reputed parents having to deal with a rebellious trouble-maker offspring. This mechanism can lead to more extreme experiences. And a child can be at the receiving end of the theme. In the kind of case we are talking about, besides issues of repressed sexuality there would also be questions of power and victimization relevant.
- Karmic themes can enter the picture, such as ?past lifes? in a strongly repressive, i.e. Catholic cultural context.

These are just possibilities, every case has to be studied individually.
Moreover, I certainly don't have all the answers, or a coherent theory, I'm only trying to get a perspective on some personal observations here.

Maybe we should move on from this topic, but it was raised in the podcast, and this discussion has raised questions in my mind as to how well prepared either traditional or evolutionary astrologers would be to advise someone trying to make sense of a life-shattering experience.

This depends more on the astrologer then on a particular system of astrology being employed. However, in a psycho-therapeutical context you would most likely start out with a method of psychological astrology (i.e. Jungian in nature). Whence you could proceed to include suitable elements from traditional and/or evolutionary asttrology.

I am happy to engage with you as well, Michael.

Freudian interpretations of infant and childhood sexuality have been thoroughly discredited. You are probably familiar with Jeffrey Masson's or Florence Rush's critiques of Freud's work on childhood sexuality. Freud fabricated his seduction theory because he couldn't believe that respectable middle class men of Vienna would molest their own children, so he inverted his patients' recollections to claim that children fantasized about relations with the parent of the opposite sex.

I don't think we can overlook the role of culture. When I was a baby-boomer child growing up in the United States, there was a huge premium on young women's virginity at marriage. (Their marriages occurred, on average, at age 19.) It was all-too-convenient for self-serving young men with a modicum of education to claim that teen-aged girls were "sexually repressed" or "frigid" if they wouldn't reciprocate his overtures for the price of a date. The men's advances had something to do with libido, but a lot more to do with bragging-rights about their conquests. Girls who got pregnant out of wedlock routinely had their babies taken away without their consent and given up for adoption. Strong, autonomous women who wouldn't play the domesticated, docile role were called "castrating females." The whole history of Freudian psychoanalysis in American gender relationships deserved to be soundly discarded.

We can find comparable restrictions on female behaviour around the globe today, notably in Islamic cultures. It won't do to claim that half a billion young women are sexually repressed, given the very real issues of cultural sanctions and young people's emotional development.

Where I think Jungian psychology can be very helpful to astrologers, whether traditional or modern, is the theory that people can become uncomfortable with certain character traits or behaviours that they see within themselves, that they dislike, and that they try to ignore or disown.

These traits and behaviours can be linked to particular planets. A young man, for example, who believes strongly in being macho and manly (as his culture defines it) might disown his moon and Venus natures. They become "shadow" material, and projected on actual women, whom he sees as weak, overly emotional (moon), and obsessed with clothes and hairstyles (Venus.)

I think this type of projection is common with planets that oppose the sun. A traditional astrologer might find comparable behaviour with a deeply debilitated planet, for example.

I think astrology can be helpful in recognizing that each human being comprises all of the planets in his chart, and seeking constructive ways to integrate them-- whether through modern or traditional techniques.

But we don't need evolutionary astrology of the "Suck it up, Princess" school to get there.

Waybread wrote:

I am happy to engage with you as well, Michael.

Geronimo!

Freudian interpretations of infant and childhood sexuality have been thoroughly discredited. You are probably familiar with Jeffrey Masson's or Florence Rush's critiques of Freud's work on childhood sexuality. Freud fabricated his seduction theory because he couldn't believe that respectable middle class men of Vienna would molest their own children, so he inverted his patients' recollections to claim that children fantasized about relations with the parent of the opposite sex.

While I'm by no means a supporter of Freudian psychology in toto, I do feel that you are throwing the baby out with the bath water here. Childhood sexuality as such is not anybody's imagination. Any man can tell you that as a boy they occasionally had a hard-on long before puberty ? and not alone from drinking Coke!

Whether you call it Libido or Kundalini ? sexual energy is at the base of the psyche. Even though sexuality unfolds in several gradual stages.

Restrictions start being set (inevitably, for social reasons) when the child is i.e. told not to touch certain parts of their body in the presence of others. A child may also emphatically perceive their parents' uneasy attitudes about sexual things, and draw their own conclusions.

I don't think we can overlook the role of culture. When I was a baby-boomer child growing up in the United States, there was a huge premium on young women's virginity at marriage. (Their marriages occurred, on average, at age 19.) It was all-too-convenient for self-serving young men with a modicum of education to claim that teen-aged girls were "sexually repressed" or "frigid" if they wouldn't reciprocate his overtures for the price of a date. The men's advances had something to do with libido, but a lot more to do with bragging-rights about their conquests.

Well, knowing about young men in general, it's probably safe to say that both factors must have played an at least equally weighted role.

Girls who got pregnant out of wedlock routinely had their babies taken away without their consent and given up for adoption. Strong, autonomous women who wouldn't play the domesticated, docile role were called "castrating females." The whole history of Freudian psychoanalysis in American gender relationships deserved to be soundly discarded.

I feel that you are letting personal bad experiences stand in the way of your scientific objectivity here. If you were to invalidate any religious/philosophical/psychological system on grounds of their inappropriate application at some stage, there wouldn't be much left. Why don't you start by throwing astrology out on the garbage!

We can find comparable restrictions on female behaviour around the globe today, notably in Islamic cultures. It won't do to claim that half a billion young women are sexually repressed, given the very real issues of cultural sanctions and young people's emotional development.

You seem to assume that a culture shapes an individual in a most basic manner. Yes, it does have a deep influence, to be sure ? but we didn't come here as blank pages, astrologically, karmically, and genetically. To what degree an individual is or is not in accordance with the behavioural band-width provided by their culture depends on that individual's nature. (All the more so in a time period when cultural/social systems are breaking apart - and new ones being created!) How they would relate to their cultural conditioning can be delineated from the positions and aspects of Jupiter and Saturn, specifically.

Your mentioning of Islamic culture is noteworthy, insofar issues of repressed and violently erupting sexuality are especially prevalent there! You also can't reduce this to, or separate it from, power issues, in my opinion. However, repression of the female is analogous to repression of ?libidinous nature? in general.

Where I think Jungian psychology can be very helpful to astrologers, whether traditional or modern, is the theory that people can become uncomfortable with certain character traits or behaviours that they see within themselves, that they dislike, and that they try to ignore or disown.

These traits and behaviours can be linked to particular planets. A young man, for example, who believes strongly in being macho and manly (as his culture defines it) might disown his moon and Venus natures. They become "shadow" material, and projected on actual women, whom he sees as weak, overly emotional (moon), and obsessed with clothes and hairstyles (Venus.)

At the risk of being somewhat politically incorrect, I would maintain that females psychologically express the archetypal Moon and Venus more pronouncedly than males, generally speaking, and I don't think it's all just due to conditioned social roles. It goes without saying that these expressions vary with the individual representative, and the birth chart will demonstrate this to a degree.

The projected shadow self in Jungian psychology is identified with one's sexual counterpart. In psychological astrology, it is associated with the Moon in her two major phases (Rudhyar); also with Venus in a male's chart, and Mars in a female's chart. But certainly much more is involved in actuality.

I think this type of projection is common with planets that oppose the sun.

The Sun representing the individual here, the opposition making for something like a 7th house relationship... That's worthy of consideration!

A traditional astrologer might find comparable behaviour with a deeply debilitated planet, for example.

An interesting idea as well. A debilitated planet as a part of oneself that tends to be unconscious, much like a little used and unconscious function of the psyche in Jungian psychology.

I think astrology can be helpful in recognizing that each human being comprises all of the planets in his chart, and seeking constructive ways to integrate them-- whether through modern or traditional techniques.

But we don't need evolutionary astrology of the "Suck it up, Princess" school to get there.

Hey, what's the matter? I continue to find myself agreeing with you! I do think that psychologically sensitive and philosophically sophisticated approaches to evolutionary astrology are possible, but I am in no position to say if they already exist in practice.

Michael

Michael, I am not denying that children (of either sex) experience sexual feelings. They do and it is a normal part of their development. But this has little to do with Freud's theories of children developing sexual attachments to parents of the opposite sex, simply because he didn't want to believe that incest was occuring in nice middle class families.

And let's not stray from the topic of the OP. Incest causes all kinds of psychological scarring for the children who experience it; often for the rest of their lives. Children report feeling traumatized by the experience, not aroused by it.

But in Meyers's evolutionary astrology universe, incest is neither good nor bad because it would exist inside the "Saturn wall." It "just is," and probably is even good for the victims because the more difficult one's experience, the bigger the opportunity for spiritual growth. (I'm not making this up, he says as much on the podcast.)

According to this calculus, let's have a few hideous wars while we're at it: imagine the brilliant opportunities for evolutionary astrology when thousands of people get killed or maimed. Refugee camps would be wonderful opportunities for a little evolutionary astrology counseling. In fact, the UN might as well take rape off the list of war crimes now, because All is Fair in Love and War.

The more I think about Meyers's position, the less tenable it seems. As an American (even in the gun-happy South,) he benefits from living in a reasonably well-regulated society with a system of laws and ethical codes that limit the probability of a lot of really nasty things happening to him. Maybe life in northern Nigeria would be preferable, given the great opportunities for spiritual growth offered to those kidnapped (and still missing) school girls.

Since I don't believe in kundalini or karma in the sense of Hindusim or its New Age rip-offs, I'll let this sort of comment alone.

Libido is only one motivating factor in human behaviour, not the only one or necessarily even the primary one. Old guys do slow down considerably in their sexual urges, incidentally.

Michael, I don't know what universe you live in. Do you have children? As the mother of two (adult) children, I never taught them not to touch parts of their bodies in public or private. I guess they sort of figured it out. Girls and boys both need to be taught some type of restraint. Even in this sexually liberated era, young girls can still get pregnant, acquire STDs that can lead to serious reproductive health issues later, and commit suicide when their classmates start calling them the nasty names for sexually active girls, on Facebook.

I don't know what "bad personal experiences" you have in mind for me, as I never had a baby taken away for adoption, and thankfully my real career began after the early-sixties era of sexist psycho-babble. However, it didn't take much to be observant.

Yes, culture does shape people in the most basic ways. We have several different disciplines called social sciences (such as sociology) with a huge archive of solid research on the role of one's culture in personal development. This isn't to deny individuality by any means, but it is to say that you, Michael, are in large part a product of your ethnicity or nationality, socio-economic class, gender, age, and so on.

Joining a counter-culture or taking a contrarian view doesn't change this. Have you ever noticed how members of "rebel" groups tend to dress alike? Prefer the same sort of music, and so on? People are social animals.

You want to be very, very careful in generalizing about Muslims, who comprise about 1/4 of the world's entire population.

But by Meyers's calculus, condemning them for sexual repression lives within the "Saturn wall" in which there is no good or bad: things just happen.

I'm glad we found some points of agreement, Michael.

Hey, trust me.

I just caught up on all the latest replies, I must say I find I agree with most of Waybread's points here. It seems so insane to me to consider thinking along the lines that victims of rape or childhood sexual abuse are as a result of their own sexual inhibitions and repressions. I find it very difficult to fathom how people defend this point of view.

Are we really speculating that people who are raped are merely sexually repressed? And children are also? I suppose toddlers or babies who cannot even speak yet are as well?