The weaker sex and lewd women

Despite The Cliché "the weaker sex", which is commonly attributed to women, everyday occurrences do tend to demonstrate that in fact men are the weaker. Take a headline in one of last week's papers - "Girl, 15, 'invited' man for sex".

Despite all the mythology depicting man as 'the hunter', it seems that they are the hunted, and what's more, they have not got the strength to resist.

However, weak as men might be, especially when it comes to sex, the law is there to protect minors even from the 'weak' taking advantage of the 'strong'.

Although the man was found guilty of defilement, he got away with a suspended sentence, because "the girl was, and still is, obsessed with him. She was never forced into doing anything, and often tempted him into having sex with her."

I presume the girl admitted all this to the magistrate. However, that is beside the point. Are we now giving out the message that if a man is "invited to have sex" with a minor and he concedes, he will only get a slap on the wrist?

It is pretty worrying that we are regressing to the time when men were regarded as only being 'normal' when they could not resist having illicit sex. If that were true and most 'normal' men cannot resist sex when it is offered, the prostitution business must be doing very well indeed.

I imagine that many men are invited to have illicit sex, but most use self-control, act responsibly and decline, especially when it comes to the under-aged. Having sex with a minor is not only illegal - it is immoral.

Men may be weak, but most are not brain-dead. It is an insult to the male gender if behaving like an animal (unable to control one's lust) is seen as 'unavoidable' male behaviour.

Perceptions do have to change, even among the few female members of the judiciary.

Women are always the ones seen to be to blame when sexual transgressions occur.

The woman was being "provocative", she was "promiscuous", "asking for it", " a temptress". The latter takes us right back to the Garden of Eden. So if Eve represents womanhood, and we believe that story, all women are temptresses and carry out the devil's work.

Men have to take responsibility for their actions. Crying "it was her fault" won't wash.

Bestsellers and their movies

Browsing in a bookshop with my son's partner, a published novelist, in London recently, she told me I would probably be disappointed with The Da Vinci Code. But my curiosity won out and I bought the book.

She was right. I am not surprised that the book is a bestseller. Any idiot can read it. Sentences uttered by the protagonists, an American Harvard professor of religious symbology, who looks like Harrison Ford and a French, nubile, agent with the Cryptology Department of the French police are explained like thought bubbles in comics. Which is rather odd, since these people are meant to be intellectuals.

This is a book of fiction that only non-readers will enjoy, because it is riddled with clichés. Now I am not being elitist here, and I believe that a good writer should not use convoluted vocabulary and should reach a wide readership. But just like television programmes, which dumb down rather than stimulate intellectual thought, the same can be said for such bestsellers.

I believe that bar a few exceptions, most people can and do appreciate good literature and 'entertainment'. But unless they are mentally challenged they will settle for the easy option.

Anyway, to get back to the novel. The 'villain', an albino monk who murders several people, including a nun, is an Opus Dei member.

Obviously, Opus Dei does not emerge smelling of roses (incidentally, the rose plays an important symbolic part in the book's plot).

Opus Dei is a Catholic institution founded in 1928 in Spain by St José Maria Escrivá. It is currently established in 61 countries.

According to its Website, its mission is to help people turn their work and daily activities into occasions for growing closer to God, for serving others, and for improving society.

"Opus Dei complements the work of local churches by offering classes, talks, retreats and pastoral care that help people develop their personal spiritual life and apostolate... Membership involves a commitment to receive spiritual formation from Opus Dei and to participate in its mission."

But Opus Dei has drawn criticism because it demands blind obedience from its members and keeps a lot of material secret from the public. Critics also claim the spiritual formation is manipulative, and that Opus Dei has Fascist connections.

The book describes the albino monk as coming to terms with the murders he commits as doing what is best in the interests of Opus Dei. He also habitually flagellates himself, wears a barbed strap tied to his thigh and demonstrates blind obedience.

So it is not surprising that Opus Dei are unhappy with the story.

However, the part to attract the most controversy is not so much the less than Christian antics ascribed to Opus Dei, but (I am three-quarters through the book and it is only now that the real 'controversial' topic is surfacing) Mary Magdalene's role in Christ's life as his wife, her importance which has been hidden, and that she was not a prostitute, but that that description was used to discredit her.

Of course this story is nothing new, books on the subject have been published before, hence the author's plagiarism case, which he won. But whenever the story resurfaces, some within the Catholic Church want to bury it again.

Here in Malta a campaign is being waged against the film of the novel, to be released soon. However, the main thrust, on a Website promoting the campaign, is that the government allowed some of the scenes to be shot in Catholic Malta.

The site claims that Judas sold Christ for a few pieces of silver and Malta sold him for much more.

I spoke to Vince Marshall, who is spearheading the campaign here, he told me that he is organising the boycott "to heal the hurt of those pained over the film".

He said that Catholic Malta should never have allowed scenes like the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene to be shot here.

I asked him what he found "disgusting" about the novel, and the movie he has not seen, as reported by Ariadne Massa in The Times on Thursday.

"That Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and had a daughter", and that "He was not the Son of God", he told me.

I fail to see what is so "disgusting" about a man getting married and having a child, and I do not see why that should cast a negative hue on Christ's persona as a saviour, or his being the Son of God.

If Jesus were being portrayed as a warmonger, a murderer or a terrorist, I could understand the outrage. But he is being portrayed as a normal man with a wife and child.

No other person has had such an impact on humanity as Jesus has. That cannot be rubbed out by different theories regarding whether he got married and had a child or not. So I cannot see what the fuss is about. All that the ado will achieve is that more people will want to see the film out of curiosity, just as I fell for buying the book.

Non sequitur

John Dalli's persistence seems to be winning out, despite being snubbed by the Prime Minister and the top brass at the PN. Ever since Mr Dalli was forced to resign as Foreign Minister, because of allegations that he abused his position, he has been given the cold shoulder by the PM.

Mr Dalli had a long and successful career as Finance Minister for the Nationalist government until he lost the PN leadership bid to Lawrence Gonzi. He then refused the Finance Ministry and settled for Foreign Affairs.

An already shaky relationship crumbled when the allegations of Mr Dalli's intervention in a shipping deal in which members of his family would benefit, ended his ministerial career.

Suddenly there he is, on the front page of The Malta Independent on Thursday, in the front line with Lawrence Gonzi at Lufthansa Technik.

One can only speculate on whether The Malta Independent is pushing to have Mr Dalli back on the PN front line, especially since it had him on its front page again on Friday, in a report on his guest appearance with Manuel Micallef, who in turn has been snubbed by the General Workers Union, at the paper's Business Weekly breakfast on Thursday.

Or is the PM having a change of heart?