Well, why not?

The thing about Firsts is that they are instantly legendary. They might not pan out too well, depending on how prepared you were to indulge in something so new, but no matter what happens, you will not be able to forget it.

Your first Kiss, for example. There might have been some teeth grinding going on, and a little too much tongue, you might even have been poked in the eye or almost consumed whole, but no matter what transpired, or who it transpired with, you aren't about to forget it anytime soon, or ever.

First time one gets laid, is the same. Mostly disappointing (provided you have managed to find someone as 'pure' as yourself), but impossible to forget. More than a decade later, and I still remember the entire 15 minutes with such clarity that its actually rather embarrassing.

The first time you drive, is a major First, as firsts go. The sheer exhilaration of it, the sense of having departed from an incapacitated life is far more monumental than the first fuck. Its a true Hallelujah moment, I tell you, and one we tend to remember with fondness. Plus its one you can actually share when it happens for your kids, you can celebrate it with them unlike the other two mentioned before.

First time you lie... may have been at a very early age but you still remember it. At least i still do. First time you steal, first time you smoke up, get drunk, get the snot beaten out of your nose, beat the snot out of someone else's... the human experience is full of so many firsts that its incredible we manage to get bored.

First time at a strip club, for me, is one of my most memorable firsts. It may be because the excursion went off so well for me personally, but even if it hadn't, there is something celestial about being in a place where the women are running around naked without fear in their eyes. It maybe a morally reprehensible enterprise but from a purely male point of view, strip clubs provide an extremely kosher choice for men to get their fix of feminine charms without betraying anyone's trust or getting laid. Its totally innocent, considering the circumstances... in any other instance you would find yourself with a gorgeous women dancing as seductively as she can in the nude, you'd be unable to not fuck her. But at a strip club, your eyes alone are put to use and its surprisingly fulfilling.

Girlfriends and wives who bemoan the existence of strip clubs are stupid, in my opinion, they fail to understand the basic constitution of a man. Men are natural hedonists who have been nurtured into voyeurs because of the sensibilities of women who take offense to the expression of man's omnipresent sexual desires. We would, if we could, like very much to fuck every single woman between a certain age bracket on the planet who we are not related to by blood. We don't because:
A) its probably physically impossible,
B) We have unfortunately evolved into homosapiens and can no longer get off scott free on the 'oh, apes will be apes' argument, and
C) The women we love (there is indubitable one that is dearer than the rest) would in all likelihood dump us before we could even begin the conquest. This is the reason prostitution has existed since the inception of civilization and continues to thrive.Men crave women. Crave.

To put into context, imagine a very hungry wolf who stumbles upon your picnic spread. It's not gonna NOT eat everything in sight out of the goodness of his heart. He will even risk his life to get his fill because he understands that if he doesn't eat he's dead anyway. Men are hungry for women, all the freaking time. I mean it takes a lot to put a man off sex, so much in fact that a firgid man is as rare a phenomenon as a woman who drives well. So when we see a beautiful women, or even a not so beautiful one, that we are imagining us entwined is not a question as much as a fact. But since we understand that exposing our hungry wolf reality is bound to make you run we have become extremely conscious of the fact that the lady in our sights may not necessarily be interested in us jumping her with or without her consent, so we tend to go about it in a more rounabout way. Making eye contact, poite conversation, becoming friends, listening to you whine, holding up your hair while you projectile vomit all over the bathroom floor, even catching your bile in our cupped hands when the booze gets the better of you on the dance floor, these are all precursors to what we really want: Make love to you. All of you gorgeous, perfect creatures who entice us into starting wars and losing them, into writing lame songs and singing them, into cooking up elaborate lies and telling them. You don't supplement our existence, you bloody well define it!

But since women aren't programmed that way, alas, we must concede defeat to your idealism, lest we become rapists which frankly is too gross to contemplate with any real intent. So we will hold off on expressing our true intentions, we will bear blue balls just so you are not offended by our nature, we will simply feast with our eyes at a strip club rather than enact our fantasies with whoever is willing to play along.

So when a 'devout' muslim decided to frequent a strip club before being deployed to a war he wanted no part of, it makes eminent sense to me. In fact, its reported that the 9/11 culprits went to strip clubs in the days leading up to thier assault and again, its just so blatantly understandable that i'm surprised its being pointed out at all.

I mean, why wouldn't they? Willing women, unabashed, naked, expereinced and fragrant (trust me the au naturale scent of a woman maybe a turn on for apes, but us evolved men tend to breathe from the mouth when exploring your nether regions). That's the ultimate window shopping spree! No commitment, no regrets, no fall out whatsoever, nothing but pleasure! And considering how the muslim wife of a muslim man is highly unlikely to be willing or able to strip for him herself, what is a devout muslim man to do in order to experience one of the most rewarding forms of cross-gender interaction?

However, now that the association between muslim men and strip clubs is going to indubitably be linked to imminent terrorist attacks, strip clubs might become weary of letting muslim men in, or even worse, the strippers themselves might become apprehensive about performing for a man who may be on his way to a murderous rampage. Consider the lady in the article linked up there, i doubt she will be willing or able to perform for another Muslim-looking man who comes looking for a borderline halal sexual experience outside of wedlock, which might end up further exacerbating his frustrations and end up turning him hostile even though he had no such intentions.

Therefore, exploiting the Islamic connection with a man visiting a strip club, is a redundant and counter-productive exercise. It wasn't Nidal's being a Muslim that took him to a strip club, it was simply because he was a man. And like all men of all religions he wanted to have a naked woman dance for him. That's perfectly normal.

Killing a bunch of people a few days later, though, not so much.