I have been asked from several sources to comment on French Pres. Sarkozy's suggested hijab ban. I refused because I really felt I have nothing to add to what is being said and what was said over five years ago when French Pres. Chirac floated a similar idea. You cannot "free" women from male control by having different men control them. However, the recent fervor around this round of stupidity had me thinking more deeply about the issue. I realized I do have something to say. I agree with Freud. Never did I think I would say such a thing, but I do. Everything is about the male penis.

What do Sarkozy and Mullah Muhammad Omar have in common? A penis! (They do not share one penis. They each have their own penis. They share the context of the penis-owning.) What does all their thinking? A penis! Why? Because they worship it. Omar worships from fear and Sarkozy worships for a promised reward.

Let me first be clear, as always, that I do not oppose a woman's commitment to wear any type of garb she believes to religiously mandated. My argument is with those who impose religion on others. Religion without faith is simply a sex game. Omar and Sarkozy are prime examples of men playing their sex games.

Omar fears his penis. Woman must be covered lest he be led into temptation. Rather than learning to control his urges, he gives them free reign, and makes it someone else's responsibility to make him behave himself. His solution of subjugated woman to elevate his faith is selfish, denying women the pleasure of faith and choice. It is, as a result, also irreligious from a Muslim's standpoint. He has made an altar and installed his penis as the object of worship.

Sarkozy comes from the opposite perspective. He loves his penis, and believes it must be offered temptation whenever possible. The idea that a woman might wish to dress modestly is inconceivable to him, because that would not be pleasing to him. He must constantly be flooded with the appearance of female flesh, otherwise how would he think?

Rather than focus on the strong feminist critique of the woman as object, I want to expose why men believe they can act this way with women. It is because of their god. Not God, but their own private little god, who controls their actions.

There is a story of Rabia al-Basri (717 - 801 CE) that has her running through the streets of Baghdad. In one hand she has a torch on fire and in the other she has a pail of water. People ask her why she has these things and she says she wishes to burn down Heaven and put out the fires of Hell. When asked why, she said she did not want to worship God for the promise of Heaven or the fear of Hell. I wonder what she would do now, if she saw people were not worshiping God, but were worshiping their own private gods, obeying them, and saying that they were acting in the name of God. I imagine we would have a new type of castrati, who worshipped God, because the god they worshipped from fear or promise was gone.

Ultimately, what Omar and Sarkozy types fail to see is the beauty of faith and the conscious act of submission. By removing choice, there is no faith, and there can be no beauty. I have to disagree with Mona Eltahawy who strongly supports Sarkozy, and Rushda Majeed who intimates support. Anything that denies half the world choice should be considered problematic. Anything that seeks to force women to do anything for their own good should be viewed with double the amount of suspicion.