Basically yes. One wonders what's in it for the women, but hey, they don't count.
Islam is not alone in using sex as a method of social control. If you can control this most basic urge, you can control anything about one's personal life.
Indeed the Quran does not seem as explicit in defining the after worldly rewards which are specific to women as it does for men, as do the other abrahamic religions I think.
I think that is due to both that old religions saw men as the main moving force of society and women rather more passive in nature. Also men seem to be more attached -more affected- by their carnal selves than women.
It is worth mentioning that the description of the rewards are general for people, individuals in general. And are psychological or intangible as they are tangible, the former maybe being more stressed than the latter. Specific descriptions of food, furniture or physical attributes of people in heaven(and the same for hell) are used to exemplify the state of existence those people will be in. A state of no fear, perfect state of mind and harmony between everyone, getting whatever you want yet never getting bored of it, etc of things which aren't really fully comprehensible. Personally the only way I see it will work is if we were rewired fully as not to resemble our current human self, but perhaps be able to relate to and remember it. Like adults remembering the children they once were.
But yes; I can't think of a mentioned tangible form of pleasure promised to women in the quran, sexual or otherwise. And, I can't think of something mentioned specifically for men other than the houri's, or virgins as everyone calls them. everything else is mentioned for both sexes.
As a matter of fact, what I just realized writing that last sentence, in conjunction with my planned reply for the second part of spider's post, plus a separate point I was gonna mention; yes actually, women have been promised things specific to them, although implicitly.
First the two separate points;
- Women are not excluded from the heaven and hell business, a lot of reward has been hanged on treating them well, granted the capacities they're mentioned in are those of mothers, daughters and family members in general, and not astronauts, secretaries or engineers, but that's another story. Heaven is said to be under the feet of mothers in one hadith. And in another the companionship of your mother is distinctively valued three times over the companionship of your father. So men may rule the islamic world but their mothers' voices have three times the bearing of their fathers', and their own voices to their children are outweighed 3:1 by their wives. A sad trick to tell women they have no value unless they sit home and hatch babies? maybe, but a bit irrelevant to this thread.
- I'm not sure how the paradise-native houris are "allocated" to the migrating male population, but I know that earthly couples remain as couples. What about those who married twice or loved more than one or are tangled in a love triangle or one way relationships where one loves and the other doesn't care? I don't know, but in a wonderland where all the rules are bent and fantasies become realities I can think of more than one way that it can work out, its "authenticity" may be challenged, but I see it fully possible.
Now in trying to navigate my way with the terminology here, specifically the term houri's vs. virgins, I realized that you may be missing the difference, houris are supposedly paradise natives, created there and have been there forever, never down to earth. On the other hand, everyone in heaven is a virgin, including earthly female wives, and are perpetually so. They are also in their physical and mental prime, both males and females, and never deteriorate.
From the second point you can see that the perfectly beautiful description of the females in heaven is actually a promised reward to muslim women as well, maybe because as much as its a male's tendency to desire it's the female's tendency to desire to be desired. Even in today's courtship, the male picks up the female, the male wants to get, the female wants to be got, and so perhaps in the perfectional description of females in paradise a reward to both.
IOW, if a woman were to choose between being granted the wish of never aging past her prettiest prime, or getting the sexiest man alive, which would satisfy her more?
On the other hand, would a man care less how bad he looks once he gets the hottest woman of his dreams?
I've just realized this while typing up this post. Beautiful.
Even though the Qur'an does not mention the number of virgins, it does say in verse 56:36[26] that Muslim men will be awarded with virgins in Paradise. The Qur'an describes their physical attributes, for example they will have large eyes (56:22) and big breasts (78:33)[19] and so on. The actual number of houri is thus a minor issue and 72 is the number of those houris confirmed in multiple hadith. The hadiths are a crucial part of Islam and certain Muslims ignore them because sometimes they contain uncomfortable details about Islam.
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/72_Virgins
True about the hadith.
I don't instantly recognise the part with the big eyes, but I know the "big breasts" one.
That is not actually what is said, the word used is actually qawa'ib, which refers to just-matured young women. The root of the word is qa'b, which can both mean the heel of a foot or a cube(I'm sure there are many others), in the form used in the quranic verse, it refers to the women's breasts forming/protruding, not necessarily being big. From the usage of the same word in many instances of medieval/pre-islmic arab poetry, it's clearly seen that the word is used to mean and age group, or a physiological phase in a woman's life. It's kinda like saying early/mid/late teen-girls but specifying a point in the physical development of a woman instead of how many years is her age.
The verse was saying that they were young, not that they had big breasts.
