Heaven forbid
God-given right to a happy sexual life

Mattbina
June 24, 2005
iranian.com

Shahlayeh Aziz,

I really enjoyed reading your article on virginity [So could we] and I just want to tell you how much I appreciated it. You have touched on a very important issue for all Iranians who have to consider this very fabric of our being.

Your bold view about your own virginity at the age of fourteen only reveals your curiosity at a very young age and yet the awareness of the external ideologies even during the liberal Shah's regime which was much more agreeable to such viewpoints. At the same time, when I talk to the older Iranian women from that era, they all have late failed marriages or very unhappy ones at best.

This makes me wonder and question as to the whys? It makes me wonder why would two people who have no compatibility of any sort live with each other for 50 years and yet still remain in such misery in the name of "marriage"?

After the failure of my very own marriage of 25 years, I have come to question the why would I stay in a marriage that made me feel miserable sexually and never satisfying. Even though we had dated and lived together for 3 years prior to our marriage.

I think that knowing who we are first is so much more important than who our mate should be and unfortunately they don’t teach or help in teaching us that at a young age. I also think that we don't look after our own interests in a relationship first and come to feel guilty to express our wants and desires. And as a result of this acceptance we violate all of our boundaries in an attempt to stay in a euphoric state of happiness.

I don't believe that the modern Iranian woman really knows herself anymore than old Iranian women did and certainly to a lesser degree our Iranian men; and heaven forbid if the women of Iran would try to mimic Iranian men in Iran! Their guilt driven ideology of sexual behavior masks true inner wants and desires. Coupled with a lack of opportunity, they never come to fulfill their God-given right to a happy and elated sexual life.

I agree with you when you say, “that the blatant cooption of a male sense of sexuality did not work either. Too many broken hearts, too many one-night stands without an orgasm” it is obvious that men are shallow and incapable of meaningful relationships when all they are taught to think is women on the covers of Playboy. You either use them to masturbate and then toss them in the wastebasket, or you sleep with them and then toss them in the same. And there is always the next month's issue!

How funny when you say, “they become engineers and doctors; they get nose jobs and make themselves up like prostitutes, but that hymen they never give up, unless it is for a marriage.” It is as if we don’t know who the hell we are! Are we prostitutes? Are we engineers and doctors? Or are we that needy for husbands? Sounds like as you said we have to put on our make-ups to mask and cover our undiscovered identities!

So really the central point of our argument here is not about virginity... it is about our identity. Hymens get sewn everyday in Tehran. Men do marry those girls with sewn hymens. So this can’t be about virginity when neither are virgin at the time of marriage! Is this what we call a beautiful reunion or holy matrimony? To me it’s everything but holy or beautiful!

And where is love in the midst of all this? They think they love one another. But wait until something hard hits them in the face... like the word “personal changes”... they will crumble just like a cookie! Why you ask? Because they don't know what love is; they don’t even understand who they are and what they want.

Codependency is the basis for such disastrous results that our society and our parents subject us to and then walk away and wash their hands from any roles that they may have played in all these failures. When we are not taught morality, our foundations are weak and upon easiest external force we break! Men or women -- it really makes no difference. In effect we raise our children to become miserable adults with failed marriages who live empty lives without any “lezzat”; women who tell you “pleasure is frivolous or not a priority” ... how sad is that?