What Would Ahmadinejad do in a German Brothel?

In anticipation of the World Cup this summer in Cologne, the Pascha Bordell (Pasha Bordello) mounted a huge advertisement banner displaying a toothsome, scantily clad young woman. The flags of the participating countries, including Muslim ones, are superimposed on the image which reads “Die Welt zu Gast bei Freundinnin,” the world makes girlfriends, a play on the World Cup slogan “The world makes friends.” Yet some squeamish Muslims are getting their panties all in a bunch about this rather harmless bit of whoring. Daniel Pipes reports:

The brothel's owner, Armin Lobscheid, said a group of Muslims had threatened violence over the advertisement, declaring that the brothel had insulted Islam by representing the flags of Muslim countries. The protestors began with menacing telephone calls and on April 21 about 11 hooded men, armed with knives and sticks, turned up outside the Pascha, demanding that the Saudi flag be taken down

I don’t want to get into an argument about legalized prostitution here (as far as I’m concerned, as long there are proper controls for safety and stringent government oversight, let it rip), but why do sinister religious types get so bent out of shape over sex. This isn’t just Islamic extremists either, the Christian nut jobs love to finger-wag about our increasingly lascivious culture. How does a half naked woman pictured on a banner in Cologne affect a bunch of mullahs in Qom?

There is a fine line here between the free and open expression of sexuality and the intense cultural fetishes that devolve into misogynistic fantasy. I certainly appreciate and sometimes sympathize with critics who denounce an increasingly sexualized culture where sex has been denatured and twisted into the visual rhetoric of advertising. But that’s the society we’ve chosen and I don’t want a bunch of Imams or preachers or even congressman telling me I can’t get an eyeful of skank whenever I want.