Sexuality...I understand a little more...I Think 8/2012

Ok, I'll only talk about the women, because I've never actually talked to a man about sex, sorry to say.

When women are unmarried, but hunting, dress western. They are cute, wear makeup, leave their long hair down, uncovered. In short, they look Western. This is a signal to men that they are on the hunt and available.

Western: Europe and America, includes for me East Europe, Australia, Russia, Canada, so on and so forth.

Women always have long hair, even when they are grandma. Not sure why? Not all women have long hair, some cut it, but I don't ever recall a Moroccan woman here with a really, really short hair cut. At shortest, it might fall down to their shoulders.

Once a woman is in an established relationship, ie she plans to marry the guy she's dating, she will start to cover up. She covers everything except her face, hands, and feet. In the summer, I've seen exceptions to this rule and women come out wearing a lot less because after all, it's hot! The reason why women cover their bodies is because men apparently are very jealous and don't want any other man to look at their woman. The insistence seems to come from men. However, a woman who covers herself is a woman who is well raised and chaste.

Women who are fortunate it enough to have more education and who have had the opportunity to travel, will embrace more western ways of dressing and are more likely to speak either French or sometimes even English to their children. Language is a social class differentiation. There is an unspoken caste system here in which people are born into. You can break out of it, but I've heard people mention more than once the idea of being born into a specific caste. There seem to be general feelings of rights of birth (and luck of birth.)

I am kind of confused about how sex drives work inside a marriage. For me, my drive increases when I feel sexy and am being flirted with or hit on by other men. It helps my sexuality in my own marriage. I figure it must be the same for men. Personally for me, to deny myself this "uplift," will most likely have a negative direct impact on my sex drive and thus on the frequency of my "marriage relations." The sexier I feel, the greater the frequency.

I think across the board, when people don't feel attractive, their sex drive decreases. This is true if they feel ugly or out of shape, beaten up from a boss who is bullying you at work, etc. I don't understand why this would be different for Morocco.

An expat told me that she lived in Saudi Arabia before. Mind you, I have yet to have the pleasure of visiting this country, I'm very curious. But she taught English in highschool. The women in Saudi Arabia are completely covered. She explained that often times, a woman's goal is just to get married because she wants a man to take care of her. That's it. Once a marriage has been established, she completely lets herself go. It's like the opposite of vanity. I cannot imagine thinking like that. In the west, sadly divorce is now pre-programmed in our brains. Half of us now come from divorced parents, so we see things a little differently. I always assume that my husband might leave me one day, so I think about how I'm going to support myself if that should ever come to pass. I don't think women in Saudi Arabia think this way. At least, not yet.

Equality in Sexuality seems to come in conjunction with equality in education and work.  Once a woman can financially support herself, she is in a better position to call some shots in her life and in the couple.
 
When I was a young sexually active unwed female, I wanted to find a man who had lots of sexual experience. I figured, let him learn on someone else. I wanted someone to come to the table with skills. It seems like men in the west want the same things from their spouses. This freedom of sexuality is actually shocking for MANY cultures. My Lebanese friend was shocked when she found out I wasn't a virgin when I married my husband. She asked, "didn't he mind?" I said, "I think he would have minded much more if I was still a virgin." She couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that in her culture men take their future brides to be inspected to make sure she's still "whole." After all, it's just sex. Why is there such a fuss?

I advise people regarding marriage: If you're going to eat out at the same restaurant for the rest of your life, you better check out a few restaurants first before making that decision. You don't want to wonder years later that you may be getting a bad meal.  It is an inopportune time to decide to change restaurants once  you're already married.