Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why some of the vices we stand on the roof tops to discourage are the very ones we contentedly sit down to watch on TV (to our detriment, no doubt)?
We grin, laugh, smile and purse our lips when we watch steamy love scenes and passionate kissing courtesy of the manifold soap operas that grace our sets. What would prevent a teenager from experimenting with what they watch?
During the day we rebuke immorality, promiscuity and other such ‘vices’; In the evening it is served hot(on TV) for us to savour and join in the fray. Why this ambiguity? What message is being delivered to the multiple audience stake holders at the end of the day?
The soaps ‘teach’ us that having multiple sexual partners is alright as long as you have the money to keep the ‘relationship’ going. They also aim at making us believe that divorce is the sure-fire way of dealing with issues in marriage. Patience and perseverance in marriage are no-go zones according to these programmes that have taken Kenya by storm, of late.
Western mentality is being slid down our throats (without our noticing it) through these programmes. We open our arms to welcome their insidious notions and ideals. We try as much as we can not to miss watching them.
I know of a certain woman who sulks the whole evening if she is ‘disturbed’ as she watches her favourite soap. When her husband wants to talk to her or asks her for food or bath water she gives a thousand and one excuses just to make sure that she watches the soap without missing any action. Talk of disrespect and disregard!
Where are we headed if this is the status quo? I dare say, homes are crumbling and disintegrating thanks to the aforementioned. Though their story lines are very interesting and spellbinding, there is a dark abyss under their seemingly harmless façade.
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Friday, April 27, 2007
Friday, April 06, 2007
Virginity: Presence of the Hymen?
As I was preparing to post the virginity piece yesterday (Click here to read it), my loving wife happened to come by my desk to see what I was about to post. She read the first two sentences and decided to sit on the arm of my chair so that she could get the gist of the piece. All this while, my eyes were trained on her face. I was eager to know what she thought of the piece. She maintained a bland face and when she was through , she turned and faced me.
“Ritch, what would you have said if I had told you that I tore my hymen during sports in high school?” she asked me. “Would you not have raised a fuss?”
For once, I didn’t know what I would have done or even how I would have behaved. I smiled and brushed the question aside.
Today let us look at another angle of this shooting match. To some people, virginity and presence of the hymen are one and the same thing. In yesterday’s post I tried to discredit that notion for there are other known reasons that could cause a virgin to have no hymen and thus not produce blood on the wedding day (or rather during the first sexual experience).
Most of the time we forget that there are other ways of sexual experience apart from vaginal penetration. For instance, there is oral sex on the one hand and anal sex on the other. The question that’s racking my mind: Should a woman who has engaged in either oral or anal sex but, however, ‘produces’ blood on her wedding night, be considered to have been a virgin on her wedding day?
I am made to understand that there are so many young women and ladies who have resorted to this form of ‘chastity’ to preserve their ‘virginity’ in Zanzibar. They engage in high scale ‘anal’ sex with their ‘boyfriends’ and some of them still crave ‘it’ when they eventually get married. Thus, most of these kind of women would receive a ‘barrage’ of adulation from their families and the parents of their husbands for having presented themselves unadulterated to their sons. If only the dark of the night could talk; it would tell of the ‘amazing’ actions of people who are held in high esteem. Such hypocrisy would be smashed to smithereens.
A character in Norman Mailer’s novel Harlot’s Ghost states that in Italy, an unmarried woman had to be "a maiden before and a martyr behind," which implied that such women often resorted to anal sex, and anal sex was consistently painful (thus the usage of the word martyr).
“Ritch, what would you have said if I had told you that I tore my hymen during sports in high school?” she asked me. “Would you not have raised a fuss?”
For once, I didn’t know what I would have done or even how I would have behaved. I smiled and brushed the question aside.
Today let us look at another angle of this shooting match. To some people, virginity and presence of the hymen are one and the same thing. In yesterday’s post I tried to discredit that notion for there are other known reasons that could cause a virgin to have no hymen and thus not produce blood on the wedding day (or rather during the first sexual experience).
Most of the time we forget that there are other ways of sexual experience apart from vaginal penetration. For instance, there is oral sex on the one hand and anal sex on the other. The question that’s racking my mind: Should a woman who has engaged in either oral or anal sex but, however, ‘produces’ blood on her wedding night, be considered to have been a virgin on her wedding day?
I am made to understand that there are so many young women and ladies who have resorted to this form of ‘chastity’ to preserve their ‘virginity’ in Zanzibar. They engage in high scale ‘anal’ sex with their ‘boyfriends’ and some of them still crave ‘it’ when they eventually get married. Thus, most of these kind of women would receive a ‘barrage’ of adulation from their families and the parents of their husbands for having presented themselves unadulterated to their sons. If only the dark of the night could talk; it would tell of the ‘amazing’ actions of people who are held in high esteem. Such hypocrisy would be smashed to smithereens.
A character in Norman Mailer’s novel Harlot’s Ghost states that in Italy, an unmarried woman had to be "a maiden before and a martyr behind," which implied that such women often resorted to anal sex, and anal sex was consistently painful (thus the usage of the word martyr).
Thursday, April 05, 2007
What Some Communities Still Hold Onto (And Kill Many a Marriage and Relationship)
This is despite all other reasons that could give rise to such a state
“David, David! We are waiting for you and your wife in the sitting room. Don’t forget to come with the proof,” Mzee George, David’s father, said loudly outside the bedroom of his son.
Assembled in the sitting room were elders of the clan, uncles, aunts and David’s mother. The day before they had witnessed the colourful wedding of their son to Susan, a tall beautiful lady. This is the same one they were all gathered to ‘crown’ as their ‘new’ daughter. But first, “Had she passed the acid test?”
The people gathered in the sitting room were growing impatient. David’s mother broke the silence by mumbling something about David and his wife taking too long, and shuffled her feet towards her son’s bedroom to remind them of their critical obligation to the ‘clan’!
David, in response, asked to be given 2 minutes for they were still preparing themselves. “Mum, you know it has been a long night. We’ve hardly slept a wink.” Even in the heat of the moment, his mother understood, or so she thought, that that was a joke and laughed heartily, in spite of herself.
“Two minutes! We don’t have the whole day here. Your uncles and aunts have to travel back to their homes today. You know what I mean.”
Inside the room, David and his wife were confused. They didn’t know what to do. The white sheets they had been given the day before had no other ‘foreign’ colour on them. There were no stains of blood on them. That alone proved to David that Susan had not been a virgin when he married her. David did not know what to think. His heart was in turmoil. Anger, confusion and a feeling that he had been lied to were the ingredients of the turmoil.
“David, sure as I told you earlier, I have never had sex with any other man apart from you. You’ve got to believe me,” Susan implored.
David shouted out, despite himself, “You lied to me you were a virgin! How many other guys have you ever slept with? Tell me, eh.” He said this as he menacingly edged towards her. Then came the strident bang on the door.
“David, we are running out of patience,” Mzee George said, rather angrily.
Without thinking, and amid the gentle sobs of his wife, David took the sheets and stormed out of the room. When the people gathered in the sitting room saw him, they sat upright and expectantly waited for good news. But one look at his face, they sensed trouble. His father nudged the clan elder who was in attendance to take it from there.
“David, go and bring your wife with you,” he said.
When both David and his wife were in front of them, the elder of the clan took the sheets and spread them on the sitting room floor. All three sheets were as white as they had been the day before. David’s parents were as wide-eyed as the other people present in the room. They had expected to see blood on the sheets to prove that Susan had been a virgin on her wedding day.
After a lengthy deliberation, it was agreed that Susan was not worthy to be their son’s wife thus she had to go.
“Susan, we are a respected family and will not agree to be party to the dishonour that your acceptance into this family would have brought us. So pack your bags and leave our house and our son,” David’s father pronounced the harsh judgement.
Susan had to leave, after all. One tumultuous day was the number of days their marriage had lasted.
…………………………..
Such crude actions are driven by ignorance of the bare facts about what is ( and what is not) virginity. Virginity, in this context, is the state of having no sexual experience. Again, people wrongfully think that they can prove a lady’s virginity simply by ‘the production of blood during sexual intercourse’.
Even some of those who do not ‘produce’ blood during their ‘first’ sexual experiences are virgins. Here’s why I say so:-)
A hymen is the fold of skin partly closing the entrance to the sex organs of a virgin.
Thin Hymen: Most girls have a thin hymen with a hole of about 2 cm diameter. A man’s hard penis is 3 or 4 cm diameter, and so the hymen will stretch or break during first-sex. This may cause a little bleeding and pain.
No Hymen: Some girls are born without a hymen. So they have no bleeding during first sex.
Broken Hymen: Sometimes, a girl’s hymen breaks before marriage, and so she has no bleeding on her wedding night. There are two ways that a girl’s hymen can break:
a) Having sex
b) During sports such as horse riding or through the usage of menstrual tampons.
So, really, there is no need to raise a fuss (i.e. , of course, if you don’t have the facts!) if your newly wedded wife does not bleed on your first wedding night. She may have broken her hymen during sports or may not have been born with one in place.
“David, David! We are waiting for you and your wife in the sitting room. Don’t forget to come with the proof,” Mzee George, David’s father, said loudly outside the bedroom of his son.
Assembled in the sitting room were elders of the clan, uncles, aunts and David’s mother. The day before they had witnessed the colourful wedding of their son to Susan, a tall beautiful lady. This is the same one they were all gathered to ‘crown’ as their ‘new’ daughter. But first, “Had she passed the acid test?”
The people gathered in the sitting room were growing impatient. David’s mother broke the silence by mumbling something about David and his wife taking too long, and shuffled her feet towards her son’s bedroom to remind them of their critical obligation to the ‘clan’!
David, in response, asked to be given 2 minutes for they were still preparing themselves. “Mum, you know it has been a long night. We’ve hardly slept a wink.” Even in the heat of the moment, his mother understood, or so she thought, that that was a joke and laughed heartily, in spite of herself.
“Two minutes! We don’t have the whole day here. Your uncles and aunts have to travel back to their homes today. You know what I mean.”
Inside the room, David and his wife were confused. They didn’t know what to do. The white sheets they had been given the day before had no other ‘foreign’ colour on them. There were no stains of blood on them. That alone proved to David that Susan had not been a virgin when he married her. David did not know what to think. His heart was in turmoil. Anger, confusion and a feeling that he had been lied to were the ingredients of the turmoil.
“David, sure as I told you earlier, I have never had sex with any other man apart from you. You’ve got to believe me,” Susan implored.
David shouted out, despite himself, “You lied to me you were a virgin! How many other guys have you ever slept with? Tell me, eh.” He said this as he menacingly edged towards her. Then came the strident bang on the door.
“David, we are running out of patience,” Mzee George said, rather angrily.
Without thinking, and amid the gentle sobs of his wife, David took the sheets and stormed out of the room. When the people gathered in the sitting room saw him, they sat upright and expectantly waited for good news. But one look at his face, they sensed trouble. His father nudged the clan elder who was in attendance to take it from there.
“David, go and bring your wife with you,” he said.
When both David and his wife were in front of them, the elder of the clan took the sheets and spread them on the sitting room floor. All three sheets were as white as they had been the day before. David’s parents were as wide-eyed as the other people present in the room. They had expected to see blood on the sheets to prove that Susan had been a virgin on her wedding day.
After a lengthy deliberation, it was agreed that Susan was not worthy to be their son’s wife thus she had to go.
“Susan, we are a respected family and will not agree to be party to the dishonour that your acceptance into this family would have brought us. So pack your bags and leave our house and our son,” David’s father pronounced the harsh judgement.
Susan had to leave, after all. One tumultuous day was the number of days their marriage had lasted.
…………………………..
Such crude actions are driven by ignorance of the bare facts about what is ( and what is not) virginity. Virginity, in this context, is the state of having no sexual experience. Again, people wrongfully think that they can prove a lady’s virginity simply by ‘the production of blood during sexual intercourse’.
Even some of those who do not ‘produce’ blood during their ‘first’ sexual experiences are virgins. Here’s why I say so:-)
A hymen is the fold of skin partly closing the entrance to the sex organs of a virgin.
Thin Hymen: Most girls have a thin hymen with a hole of about 2 cm diameter. A man’s hard penis is 3 or 4 cm diameter, and so the hymen will stretch or break during first-sex. This may cause a little bleeding and pain.
No Hymen: Some girls are born without a hymen. So they have no bleeding during first sex.
Broken Hymen: Sometimes, a girl’s hymen breaks before marriage, and so she has no bleeding on her wedding night. There are two ways that a girl’s hymen can break:
a) Having sex
b) During sports such as horse riding or through the usage of menstrual tampons.
So, really, there is no need to raise a fuss (i.e. , of course, if you don’t have the facts!) if your newly wedded wife does not bleed on your first wedding night. She may have broken her hymen during sports or may not have been born with one in place.
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