Suicide Bombers – The Psycho-Sexual Explanation
In our morally relaxed society of live and let live, it is difficult to understand why a man would be bent on destroying a plane full of “innocent” people with explosive laden underwear. The phenomenon of fundamentalist Muslim terrorist suicide bombers is best explained psycho-sexually.
Sexual fulfillment is a powerful desire in human men. You only have to look at the sexual scandals of our greatest sports figures, politicians, and reality stars to see examples of this. Sexual fulfillment is something that is first achieved as an infant in our mothers loving care. We spend the rest of our lives trying to regain the sexual fulfillment realized at that early stage. In relationships, men look for their mother, but are conflicted with the strong societal taboo of incest, and have to separate their sexual object from their mother in order to achieve sexual fulfillment. The sexual conflict of mother but not mother is most easily resolved in a highly moral society.
The unsavory truth is that men, who cannot reconcile the mother conundrum thoughtfully, find that they can achieve a modicum of sexual satisfaction by lowering their women below societal standards. In more simple terms, the challenge is to convince ourselves that the mother substitute that we have chosen is not our mother. In order to separate from our mother we lower our sexual object to a place where our mother wouldn’t be.
Societal standards determine the level of debasement necessary to satisfy our perception of separation from our mother. The strict Muslim enforced society makes it relatively easy to accomplish this function. A woman has merely to show her entire face to contravene Shire law. The amount of exposed flesh required to violate Western standards is considerably higher.
A strict religious society has mechanisms for enforcing sexual morality. The higher the morality, the easier it is for women to make the necessary transgressions. Repentance, atonement, and the forgiveness of immorality restore morality to its pedicle. Without a mechanism of restoration, morality spirals downward as debasement and separation from his mother requires ever increasing sordid behavior for women. As the behavior becomes more disagreeable to women, they increasingly decline to deliver sexual fulfillment to their committed men. Western societies currently find themselves in this cycle of moral decay and the consequent deficient sexual fulfillment of many men.
Muslim men realize overtly or at least unconsciously that their mechanism of sexual fulfillment is at risk. This is why they vigorously defend the invasion of sexual immorality into their society. The motivation of suicide bombers with their aspirations’ of virgins in heaven, save for the severe repercussions of their terror, seems laughable to Western society. We have almost given up the representation of our mothers as virgins (though I’ll venture that is still somewhat uncomfortable picturing your mother as engaging in sexual activity). Deflowering a virgin in Muslim society is still functional imagery for separating from mother and an apt metaphor for the suicide bombers mission.
Historically, morally strict societies have a tendency of defeating immoral ones. This is because men in immoral societies have difficulty achieving sexual satisfaction and unconsciously long for the morality that will supply it. They are less motivated to defend their society than the men of the moral society.
Although the survival of our society is in real danger, I do not believe the situation is hopeless. We have a habit of bucking historical trends, and have been able in the past to make the necessary changes needed to endure. The change we need at this time is to increase the level of morality in our society. The question is will we realize this before it is too late.
Dr. Michael A. Shaw is an expert in the psychology of human sexuality and relationships. If your relationship is suffering from lack of female sexual desire or male sexual fulfillment, try his program at http://psychicalsolutions.com. For stimulating discussions on the psycho-sexual health, join him at http://psychicalsolutions.com/blog