There are those who try to explain why teenage girls in the United States and Western Europe are joining ISIS by claiming it’s because they want the same things that teenage boys who join ISIS want, a strong sense of meaning and purpose. It is always possible these people are wrong, or perhaps they misread the teenage girl’s sense of meaning and purpose, which they assumes is a desire to embrace a rigid and all-consuming religion. I think it might be otherwise. A fifteen year old girl is not a girl at all, but a grown woman. Most American and European teenage boys are not grown men. I submit the fantasy of being the plaything of a hard, fully grown, unwashed, savage man has an allure all its own, and this is why teenage girls want to be with them. They are in love with the image. I spoke to a fifteen year old neighbor about this, and she said:

I love the way they show disdain for women
Their beards must feel delightful when they kiss
The shadows on their face as light is dimmin’
A woman couldn’t want much more than this
I love the robes they wear, the guns they carry
So masculine, so hard, so full of life
A man that every woman wants to marry
I’d love to be a good jihadi wife
I left her to her sighing and her daydreams
I knew she’d never go and join the fight
But sometimes one is overcome by play dreams
I saw her bags were packed and so she might
But if she does she may be disappointed
Her dream man may be not all that she thinks
The holy warrior Allah has anointed
May cause her to think God, this guy sure stinks