Enjoying 72...what?

Allow me to be religiously insensitive for a moment...

Every so often we hear about a female suicide bomber heading off to "martyr" herself in Israel by blowing herself up. Now, I know that young men are promised seventy-two virgins, among other things, but what do the women get? Even in modern, liberated America I don't think you'd find many women whose idea of fun would be seventy-two willing young men crowding around them. (To get myself into the same hot water as Larry Summers, unlike men, there's not a biological advantage for women in having large numbers of partners. The desire just isn't built in.) Maybe years of repression makes the idea of turning the tables more interesting, but really, I can't imagine that what these women are after is eternal group sex.

Insert standard disclaimer about not wanting to mock a great religion and all, but it's so easy when the most frequently discussed version of paradise sounds like the 17-year-old's dream.