Saturday 3 July 2010

Er, Onan and a rather dubious casserole

Now, let's be quite blunt here. Human beings are a very weird sort of species, no? You foul up the planet, drop bombs everywhere, crash planes into the sides of buildings, gas six million people whose only crime appears to be believing the Torah is a good idea and you shouldn't work on a Saturday and all you can say, individually, is, "It's not my fault, guv! It's those other guys!

Now given that you're probably the worst thing that's happened to the planet since it first coelesced out of the primeval dust cloud, a remnant of the last supernova God forgot about, the enormous piles of brontosaur poodoo notwithstanding, you have some strange habits, I think. Now, quite reasonably, it seems to you, you have this awfully widespread view that cannabalism is not a very good idea. Now quite why this should be, defeats me. It seems such a good idea on the face of it. You are tasty, well sharks, lions, tigers etc seem to think so, and once you're dead, you're dead, so why not pack some of that spare protein instead of just incinerating it? Could cure an awful lot of the famine issues you have. (I bet you're all going 'eugh' right now) But seriously, why not? There are real evolutionary arguments for the incest taboo (just look at the UK's Royal Family) but why cannabalism? Oh well, I guess you're just squeemish!

I came across something the other day (prepare for another 'eugh' moment here) which made me think about 'eating people'. A recipe for 'placenta casserole'. No, really, no joke, sans blague! How to derive the maximum amount of bonding with your new born child, eat the placenta! True, this is not uncommon among non-human mammals, it is after all protein, but why on earth, with all the strictures placed upon you by culture, by religion, peer pressure to avoid cannabalism would you want to eat yourself? And invite your best friends around to join you? Apparently it's the only meat a vegetarian will eat, no animal was killed to provide it. Is this all not just a little weird?

Now after the joys of placenta casserole and........ polenta? Chips? Brown rice?, I decided that I needed to take my mind off it with a little light reading. So, quite naturally, I picked up my King James'. I am always up for a bit of smiting, it truth be known, and you don't get much more of a smiteamaniac than the Old Testament God. To be fair, I'm surprised that there were any Israelites left after God had finished with his smiting! Well, purely by chance (honest) I came across what must be worst job (best job) of character assassination* in all of Christendom. Onan!

Now we've all heard of the 'sin of Onan'. The 'sin', beloved of all adolescent males everywhere. The 'sin' of racked-up testosterone levels and no outlet. The 'sin' of sleeping with your hands under the bedclothes, not on top of them. Since the days of the early Church Fathers, Onan has always been held up as an example of what happens when you 'spill your seed on the ground' (God did smite him, mightily!) and therefore, unless you wanted to be smitten mightily, you better lay off 'spanking the monkey'!

Now this is all well and good if you believe that it makes you go blind; makes you sterile; causes feeblemindedness, insanity (well that explains a lot about MG that is otherwise unexplainable); brings you out in a rash or worse still, causes your willy to drop off, but ONAN DID NOT DO THIS! Onan was NOT playing the rattleshake snake in the wee small hours in his tent. Onan was practising BIRTH CONTROL! That's why he was smitten!

For those of you ignorant of the story, Onan's brother Er (his parents could not think what to name him, so just called him 'Er', they always wanted a girl) died childless and as was custom at the time, Onan got saddled with Er's wife, Tamar. Now because Er had not fulfilled his manly obligation to impregnate Tamar, it fell to Onan to finish things off. (We all have a brother like that, ay?) Now, Er's death was a bit of surprise to Onan and he certainly didn't expect to be prodding his sister-in-law with the beef bayonet anytime soon. More importantly, he was fagged if he was going to have any more mewling brats hanging around, spongeing off him, pooping in the dishes and throwing up all over the curtains.

So, Onan went to see his local 'Family Planning Clinic and, in the absence of condoms, IUDs, Dutch Caps, vasectomies and the Pill, got pretty short shrift; all they offered him was the rythmn method, which is all well and good except Onan had about as much rythmn as a one legged, white boy trying to do M C Hammer to Basement Jaxx, NONE.

So what was left? Coitus interruptus. Quod erat demonstrandum!

So, next time you castigate your adolescent son and threaten to tie his hands behind his back if he doesn't stop commiting the 'sin of Onan', just remember, he would dearly love the chance of even a merest glimpse of an opportunity to do as Onan did!

Just in case you think I'm making all this up, the relevant passage is below. How would you read it? :) Bit tough on Judah, if you ask me. Far too much smiting going on in that family. Must have sorely tried the faith, I reckon. Like piles.

"Judah got a wife for Er, his first-born; her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's first born, was displeasing to the Lord and the Lord took his life. Then Judah said to Onan, "Join with your brother's wife and do your duty by her as a brother-in-law, and provide offspring for your brother." But Onan, knowing that the seed would not count as his, let it go to waste whenever he joined with his brother's wife, so as not to provide offspring for his brother. What he did was displeasing to the Lord, and He took his life also. "

* assassination - Interestingly enough - always happy to educate, instruct, enlighten - this comes from the Arabic, 'hashishim'. And yes, you got the 'root' of the word spot on. So, if you want to be Carlos the Jackal, Lee Harvey Oswald or Claus von Stauffenberg, you gotta get yourself some SERIOUS WEED, man!

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