A few months ago, a family member asked me for advice and a reliable source of information. The advice was for a friend’s son who was to be wed. The soon to be groom asked his mother a simple question, “what do I do on my wedding night?” The mother didn’t know how to answer her son, who is in his early 30’s. Therefore, she sat out on a quest to find one.
I can’t say that the groom’s ignorance on matters of sexuality shocked me in anyway. It is a reality, which I am familiar with. I was once an Arab kid, Egypt to be more specific, who went through the educational system, both public and private, without gaining any knowledge of my sexuality or body. If memory serves me right, the first time I saw the full anatomy of both men and women in a book or anything of educational nature was while browsing through a dictionary at the age of 13. I remember a sense of excitement and shame. I was looking at something I was not supposed to look at.
That sense of shame quickly faded after I held the first “cultural” magazine in my hands. I was 14, and I was king among my friends. I had exposed them to the unseen, the unknown, and the forbidden. I sold them the pages of that magazine and many others; I made profit. My clients were of all different nationalities and religious backgrounds; I definitely didn’t discriminate. Pre internet and digital revolution, the trade business of “cultural” VHS and print material was a lucrative one. It was a rebellious year.
Prior to that rebellious year, I was the kid who didn’t know a thing about sex. I was also the kid that believed masturbation caused blindness and eternal punishment.
At 15, my reality changed, and I became an American high schooler. I took my first sexual education class. I was watching a woman give birth in class. The teacher was showing us condoms and explaining the dos and don’ts of using them. It was beyond fascinating; it was empowering.
In my earlier reality, both boys and girls were expected to learn about their bodies and sexuality through peers and life experiences, rather than formal education. That applied to me as well, and we had unrealistic expectations of ourselves, the self-abuse era. It was empowering to know the scientific facts, and not the “cultural” and unrealistic ones.
25 years later, I returned to my roots as a professional, selling sexual content once again. Yet this time, it was a totally different kind of content. It is the empowering and educational kind. And in this new journey, I am learning that sexual education is not part of the Arab world reality, except for Tunisia which launched its first comprehensive education course sometime in 2019.
In this regional reality, girls don’t learn a thing about their periods before hand, turning it into a traumatic experience rather than one of celebration. Without a sound explanation, boys and girls are forced into a code of abstinence for the sake of a divine code, because sex is a sin. 55% of Girls are subjected to genital mutilation to curb all sexual desires, and it is considered an act of purification. Children are sold into marriages to avoid financial burdens and many other reasons—one out of five girls is married before the age of 18.
It is also a reality where sex is one of the most searched words on the internet, and the consumption of “cultural” material is through the roof. You can ask google for that data, and you will be more than shocked.
However, on both personal and professional levels, I was more shocked by others’ reactions to the groom’s story. It reflected a major disconnect from the reality of sexual education on a global, regional, and country levels. On the other hand, I find myself hopeful. The fact that the groom built the courage to ask his mother for advice, and for his mother to reach out to someone else for answers until it reached me is a sign of progress. The taboo is becoming less of a taboo.
The groom may have asked his peers for advice, and they may have offered some blue pills or some local recipe that worked for a distant cousin. They may have offered a list of foods to eat to enhance his performance. I doubt there was any talk about mutual pleasure, consent, or anxieties.
We tend to view sex as one of the most basic human instincts, and with that view comes a few assumptions. One of those assumptions is that we’d know what to do with our body parts when the times comes.
Sex is a basic need and right, just like drinking, eating, sleeping, and breathing. Humans are social; we need the warmth; we need the interaction; we need those hugs and acts of affection. It doesn’t have to be a dirty topic of discussion.
As a writer and a content creator, I had many uncomfortable conversations with people from all walks of life and all parts of the globe. We talked about some of the most intimate details of life. And I can tell you that much, each household, village, town, city, country, etc. has its own unique set of expectations and practices.
We need to normalize conversations about sex as another topic of discussion. There are many ways to discuss the topic within the bounds of respect. Avoiding sex is as fruitless as avoiding politics and religions. We are simply allowing the problem to grow and fester.
The boy who watched “cultural” material grows believing that “real men” can perform for an hour or longer. He resorts to performance enhancement drugs in his 20’s. Those drugs rage through his veins leading to hundreds of intimate partner violence and rape because he truly believes that his wife or partner is his to do with as he pleases, and in most cases, she believes that too.
