History Headscratchers / TheHandmaidsTale

** I was actually wondering about this too, but then I learned more about christian fundamentalist culture in USA, and... Well, while Gilead is undoubtedly an exaggeration, it's not THAT far off from their StayInTheKitchen ideals. And while they are a minority even among the Christians in USA, one can easily imagine their ideas both radicalizing and going more mainstream in the event of a crisis. Many elements are also allegorical, like the distinction between Wives and Handmaids being representative of MadonnaWhoreDichotomy. The only thing that I find a bit off, I guess, is forbidding women from reading, even religious texts (if it's about information control, strict censorship should do the trick). Lastly, the use of cliterectomy makes a frightening amount of sense in context. Amputation as punishment is already used extensively in Gilead, and in this case it also limits the "criminal's" ability to commit the "crime" again...

** Women not being allowed to read / drive isn't an Islamic-specific thing; For the vast majority of US history before WW1 people believed that women couldn't take fast trains or cars. As for FGM, Said things are practiced in those countries because it's seen as an actual cultural rite. You can think of FGM as similar to foot-binding, said things are done by culture less to punish people and more because they're painful cultural rites. So, Gilead does said things out of punishment and less of culture.

** I mean...maybe, yeah? It seems Gilead's view is that men should feel attraction to women and vice-versa but should only act on it for the sake of siring children. Considering this is Gilead, it wouldn't be at all surprising that they would marry girls off during ovulation. If Eden was ovulating, and Nick did not act on the attraction he was supposed to have for her for the sake of children, then it's possible that's what led to Eden's belief that he was a gender traitor.

** There are varied beliefs on what lust is in Christian terms, and what constitutes as lust. Some believe that lust refers to immoral sexual desires (ie sexual desire for someone besides your spouse), others believe it refers to sexual addiction or idolatry of sex above other things, and others still believe any form of sexual desire (even in marriage) is sinful. It's not entirely clear what Gilead's views on it are (I mean, their entire system allows for sex outside of marriage, which is quite specifically condemned in the Bible) but it's possible that their views are that acting on sexual desire is okay as long as it's to conceive a child during marriage. So it seems Eden's mindset was, "This is the only time he's supposed to act on his sexual desire, so if he's not, does he not feel it for me?"

** Partly out of pride and desire to control the rest of the population (look how many older male celebrities marry women much younger than themselves, and immediately impregnate them, so they can trot their new trophy wife/baby combo out in front of onlookers, and prove to them that their penis still works. Many middle-aged men even get on testosterone supplements, specifically for this reason). Combine that with the fact that older are often a bit over-confident in their geriatric baby-making abilities (especially the ones who can’t afford testosterone supplements), if the number of 50+ men on dating apps claiming to want kids “someday, but not right now” is any indicator.

* What happened to infertile women who were married befire the takeover?\\

June gets in trouble for not reporting she knew Emily was a gender traitor -- not for knowing she committed a recent act of gender treachery under the new regime (she didn't know that), but for knowing she committed acts of gender treachery in the time before. Emily was married. The new government would have nullified her marriage. They would have had to have known she was attracted to women when they took over and made her a handmaid because of her two good ovaries. Why did the Guardian interrogating June act like this was new information she was obligated to report? Why didn't Junew tell them (true or not), "I didn't report it because I assumed you knew."?

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* Fred's arrest
** Why is it only now that he's being arrested? He went to Canada earlier, shouldn't he have been arrested then?

*** The stated purpose of sex, in Catholic Christianity's dogma, is for procreation inside marriage. To that end, ''any'' sex which isn't for procreation inside marriage is sinful. Gilead made an end-run around this to combat the plague of infertility with its warped interpretation of [[https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-30-4/ Genesis 30:4]] -- and to maintain the power of those who overthrew the previous government in the first place, ''obviously'' the coup leaders must be the ones who can propagate humanity. (Where this falls apart swiftly, beyond just the horrific situation of the Handmaids, is that it'll be very difficult to maintain the structure of serving Marthas given that A: they aren't having children to bring up in an oral tradition of how to cook and prepare food from scratch, and B: without the permission for the Marthas, or any woman, to write down or read recipes and cooking tips, the ruling caste will likely die of malnutrition eventually because they'll have no idea how to prepare food themselves.)

* Since sex for pleasure is forbidden and only to be done for the purpose of conceiving, shouldn't Nick have only been expected to have sex with Eden when she was ovulating? What, is part if the criteria for a girl being married off that she's ovulating at the time of the ceremony?
* Since Eden believed lust was a sin when she "got married", why didn't Nick get out of it by telling her, "It's a sin. We should do it as little as possible."? Shouldn't Eden have admired Nick's virtue by not wanting to have sex?

Real life homophobes deny that non-heterosexuals are naturally the way they are, that it's an intrinsic part of one's identity that can't be changed. But tue fact that June got in trouble for not reporting that Emily engaged in homosexual acts before the takeover implies that they don't consider merely engaging in homosexual acts to be a crime but being attracted to members of the opposite sex to be the crime, regardless of if you give into your desires and have sex with them or not. Their treatment of June for knowing about Emily's pre-takeover identity implies Emily wasn't punished for engaging in a homosexual act hug for being attracted to women, that she would have been punished for who she is regardless of whether she committed the act or not. So the regime is run by homophobes... who recognize that homosexuality is an inherent part of a person's identity and nature that doesn't change just because they stop having sex with the opposite gender... If Gilead was run by real life homophobes, there would gender traitor equivalents of the Red Center where gender traitors are taught that they've been evil and disgusting and trained on how to renounce that old way of life... just like places that really existed before and during the time the show was made! Why would Gilead abolish a practice so similar to their own? What's their argument for why gender treachery is evil if they recognize it's not something you can control?

* What happens to the law-abiding husband of an Econowife-made-a-handmaid? Is this an exception to the no-second-marriages rule? Or is he forbidden from ever having legal sex again despite the fertility crisis?