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by Feki, Shereen El

  MEN ON TOP

  What men want is an interesting question. While there is a growing body of research on married women’s sexuality, husbands in the Arab region are more of a mystery when it comes to hard evidence on sexual attitudes and behaviors. This may seem a curious gap, given just how dominant men are in societies across the region; in Arabic, this masculine authority even has a name—qawama. But it is this very dominance that has, until recently, made married men a sideshow when it comes to research on sexuality. This work has tended to focus on problems—violence, disease, exploitation—in populations at risk. Framed this way, married men—pillars of the patriarchy—don’t exactly fit the mold of a vulnerable group. The very word for masculinity—rujuliyya—is a relatively new coinage in Arabic, and it is only in the past few years that masculinity studies, looking at how men define themselves and are defined in society, has started to take root in the Arab region.83

  The menfolk of Azza’s circle seem conflicted when it comes to sex—like so many of their countrymen, as emerging research shows. On the one hand, they are obviously keen to maintain their authority on the home front and see it as their manly role to lead their wives in intimate affairs. On the other hand, one or two of the husbands were quite clearly discouraged by their spouses’ sexual passivity—for its impact on her pleasure, as well as how it rebounds on their own. They described their struggles to talk through these issues with their wives—a communication gap that, on further probing, appeared to extend well beyond the bedroom. And yet, when a couple of the wives tried to close the distance by showing some sexual spark, their men found this disconcerting, some even describing it as shameful.

  Aside from notions of female virtue, this lukewarm response has its origins in a long-standing male concern: impotence. In Egypt, this sexual anxiety starts for many men on their wedding nights, with the fear that they will be markhi, or limp. Studies from across the region show that upward of 40 percent of older men may be suffering from some degree of erectile dysfunction, with younger ones also feeling the pinch.84 There are a number of reasons that men are failing to make the grade in the bedroom. Some are physical, among them complications arising from diabetes or hypertension and smoking, all frequent among Egyptian men. The fear of impotence has even been pressed into the service of public health: recent warnings on Egyptian cigarette packs show a picture of an upright cigarette wilting, its ash about to fall like an avalanche, accompanied by a sobering prediction: “Smoking over a long time weakens marital relations.”

  Other causes, some Egyptians believe, involve darker forces at play. There is a well-known phenomenon in Egypt called rabt, which makes men marbut. In English, marbut literally translates to “tied up,” but in Arabic it doesn’t mean “to be busy”; quite the contrary, in fact. Rabt renders a man unable to perform in bed because his brain is not sending the right signals to pump blood into the penis for an erection, so the thinking goes. While this might sound like a plausible hypothesis for a new erectile dysfunction drug, it’s the root cause of rabt that is a little more difficult to tackle in a test tube. According to local beliefs, rabt is caused by mischievous jinn, or spirits, summoned by someone with a grudge—a neglected first wife or ex-girlfriend, perhaps—that bewitch a man’s brain and put him out of action. (Women too can be affected by rabt, experiencing symptoms including a vice-like clamping of the legs preventing penetration, bleeding during intercourse, and, my favorite, missing-vagina syndrome, in which a husband cannot find his wife’s relevant parts.)85

  While they were happy to talk about relieving rabt, the traditional healers I met were reluctant to go into details about how it is cast in the first place. “It’s called suflii,” Zizi told me, referring to a type of “low,” or black, magic that causes harm to others—as opposed to the white magic she was practicing. “It’s very dangerous. I do not do this kind of thing,” she said. Zizi hinted that if I were in need of such dark arts, I might try a Coptic priest instead. “It’s done in the churches, not only for Christians but also for Muslims,” she whispered. Zizi’s advice is shaped by an enduring prejudice among Egyptian Muslims that shady practices are the preserve of their Christian cousins. This is a reflection of ongoing tensions between the two faiths, which have historically lived in relative harmony but have in recent years come into bloody conflict. Generally speaking, these clashes are fueled by power and politics, but are very often ignited by some sex-related incident, be it the alleged rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man (or vice versa) or the incendiary topic of intermarriage between the two faiths.

  Suflii aside, rather less mystical are findings from a handful of medical studies that show that most cases of honeymoon impotence are due to psychological factors, the majority of those related to “performance anxiety.”86 That men should be suffering a sort of sexual stage fright is perfectly understandable. Matters surely have not been helped by the economic, political, and social pressures building up during the long, sluggish years of the Mubarak regime, which have put men on the defensive—against women, against the government, against each other. Men too are carrying plenty of societal expectations. One male friend, in his early twenties, neatly summed it up: “Being a man is a privilege, but it’s also a terrific pressure.” Moreover, given how little formal sex education young Egyptians receive, how little practical experience they bring to marriage, and how keen they are to prove their manhood, it is a wonder they manage to consummate these unions at all.87

  Whatever the reason, the upshot is men with their tackle in a twist. Azza’s husband described how a discreet inquiry around the office revealed twenty of his colleagues with sexual difficulties, ranging from premature ejaculation to none at all. Some blamed it on the economy, others on pollution, but after much discussion they concluded it was a Western-Israeli plot. According to the office consensus, there are secret agents all over Cairo wearing special belts that emit some sort of spray or beam to neuter Egyptian men, thereby weakening the nation and reducing population growth. What’s protecting the agents themselves from such malign effects was not considered; perhaps they are women, or men kitted out in special Western-Zionist underpants to shield them from the blast?

  It’s easy to scoff at such notions, and impotence is indeed the butt of a thousand jokes. But for Egyptian men, this is no laughing matter. In Egypt’s patriarchal culture, male self-worth is bound up in the ability to provide for women—materially, but sexually too, which for many men is a straightforward affair: erection, then ejaculation. Failure in this department can have serious domestic consequences: in shari’a, impotence is grounds for divorce. Many Egyptians believe that when it comes to virility, the grass is greener across the class divide. Some educated women I know speak wistfully of the potency of lower-class men, though they are talking from stereotype, not personal experience. Yet poorer men generally think that the rich are better endowed in the virility stakes.

  A case in point is Mustafa, a small, balding forty-year-old taxi driver in Cairo. “I like doing it,” he volunteered during a ride home late one evening. He raised his hands to imaginary reins and started making the sort of tchk-tchk noises riders do to get the horses going—which was almost endearing, but for the fact that we were in a car, not a calèche, and racing down the Nile Corniche at seventy kilometers an hour with his hands off the wheel.

  It was clear that Mustafa was talking about sex, and he proceeded to elaborate on his habits: “Twice a day—once in the morning, once in the evening,” he said matter of factly. When I suggested that Egyptian men were struggling with impotence and needed Viagra, he was incensed. “No, no, I am natural, no Veeagra,” he shouted, knocking on the top of his metal-clad meter to give me a sense of just how nature had made him.

  Viagra is available from almost any pharmacy for around EGP 10 a tablet, without a prescription, prices having fallen precipitously after the uprising; it is also possible to pick up local generic versions with such imaginative names as Virecta and Vigorama. Viagra was initially banned in Egypt
in the late 1990s, but has become so much a part of the culture that it serves as an alternative currency in some circles. I know of one man who carries a pocketful of the real thing, picked up in America, for baksheesh; the pills are especially useful, he says, for bribing bureaucrats to finish paperwork on time. Whether the drop in price, as well as Egypt’s drive to root out corruption from the system in the wake of the uprising, will cut down on this gray—or rather, blue—trade remains to be seen. Quite aside from their transactional value, such drugs have also proved a popular wedding gift among male friends, even young ones.

  Viagra-free Mustafa was, nonetheless, looking for a little help. “I want another wife. I want sex, three times, four times [a day, presumably]. If I had more money, good food, then yes.” To his mind, money helps relieve the worries, but diet is key: Egyptians are convinced that the more protein men eat, the greater their potency. I was curious as to how his wife felt about all this. “Nothing, she can say nothing. No sex twice a day and I say, I will have ‘urfi marriage,” he explained, then turned round to me in the backseat. “Would you like to sit up here?”

  Mustafa’s faith in food is borne out by the freezer section at my local supermarket in Cairo. Come Thursday nights, the carts are lined up around the seafood, as middle-class, middle-aged couples snap up bags of frozen Malaysian prawns.88 Egypt imports several billion dollars’ worth of lobster and shrimp a year. I thought this was some passing crustacean craze until Azza explained to me that her husband insists on buying them every week in the belief that it will make him stronger in bed; no sign as yet, she said. Around the corner, a fast-food joint called Cook Door is selling “Viagra sandwiches,” whose active ingredients, such as they are, include crab-sticks and prawns. At Cook Door you can have your Viagra fried or, for the health conscious, grilled; I tried the latter and it was delicious, if not libidinous. This is only one of a number of “natural” remedies for sexual performance. Among the most popular is gargiir, or garden-variety arugula, which is the aphrodisiac of choice for poorer Egyptians outside the Viagra-popping, shrimp-scoffing classes. “If women knew the benefits of gargiir, they would plant it under their siriir [bed],” as the saying goes.

  In twenty-first-century Cairo, and across the Arab region, people still turn to herbalists and perfumers for sexual problems and receive much the same remedies as they have for centuries. One of the busiest purveyors is the Egyptian House of Perfumes, with branches across Cairo, including one bustling outlet downtown. Its sign proudly advertises an inventory of a thousand and five varieties, and on first inspection, that doesn’t seem far off the mark. It’s a tiny shop, covered ceiling to floor in jars, drawers, boxes, and bags, stuffed with herbs, roots, and mysteriously colored liquids, and erupting onto the pavement in barrels, bowls, and sacks of grains and powders. A thousand different odors blend into a sensory hum, a stray note of sandalwood or cumin breaking away from the olfactory noise like a single voice rising above the din of the street outside.

  On the Saturday morning I visited, the place was packed, money flying in and out of a drawer in a small cash desk in the corner. Young, old, rich, poor—they all come here: a twentysomething in a neat hijab asking for lemon oil shampoo; a middle-aged lady, her frazzled hair uncovered, looking for mughat, a root that stops postpartum bleeding; and an obviously affluent silver-haired man in a safari vest asking for “ah … the usual thing.” Muhammad, the manager, smiled, wiped his hands on his jeans, and handed the man his order.

  The “usual thing,” it turns out, is help for sexual dysfunction. Muhammad gets up to twenty people a day coming in for assistance. He’s worked in the shop for fourteen years, and the numbers looking for relief in sexual matters have risen, he says, men and women, young and old. And not just from Egypt either; the company gets orders from the Gulf as well, thanks to TV advertising.

  “May God help you,” Muhammad said to the man departing with his usual. Muhammad sees his job as spiritual as well as physical: “If God gave somebody knowledge and he kept it from people, God will punish him for that.” In Muhammad’s opinion, there’s nothing strange or sacrilegious about invoking a higher power when helping people with their sex lives, provided they meet certain criteria. Women who come in for gamagim (an abortifacient made from animal skulls that looks like dried truffle chips) have to bring their husbands or guardians or show a doctor’s prescription. And he asks those looking for sexual stimulants if they are truly married, though for grooms-to-be he makes an exception. In any case, Muhammad practices tiered pricing: the more devout you are, or at least appear to be, the less you pay, so munaqqabat—women who veil their faces—are in luck.

  With a university degree in commerce, Muhammad is an educated man, and he knows his history. The shop’s recipes are inspired by Medicine of the Prophet. This book, written in the fourteenth century by the Syrian theologian Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyah, is Islam’s premier guide to wellness, combining injunctions from the Qur’an and hadith with medical advice to promote both physical and spiritual health.89 On the sexual front, the House has two popular prescriptions. One consists of gilingan (galangal, a rhizome), along with dried alfalfa, arugula, and a few other ingredients to boost male performance. According to Muhammad, the advent of Viagra has made this item even more popular because “the chemicals in Viagra, if you use for ten years, it is too much. All Egyptians know this, which is why they come here because this you can use every day.” The second recipe combines palm tree and flower pollen (for energy), ginseng, ginger, cinnamon, and white pepper (to heat up the blood) and can be used by both men and women, one teaspoon twice a day.

  Muhammad offered to prepare the latter for me, and darted about the shop, opening drawers and climbing ladders, throwing in a scoop of brown powder here, a pinch of green powder there, and a dash of some yellow stuff. He then added the whole mixture to a pot of honey. Honey is key to most of these recipes for reasons clearly stated in the Qur’an, in a chapter called “The Bee”: “From their bellies comes a drink of different colors in which there is healing for people. There truly is a sign in this for those who think.”90 Some forms of honey, like that from Yemen, are considered aphrodisiacal in their own right and are popular wedding gifts in the Gulf.

  While Muhammad recited verses of the Qur’an, he stirred this concoction into a thick, gooey paste. He pulled a tiny amount away from the jar, like taffy, and offered me some with clear instructions: I had to say bismillah (in the name of God) before taking it. So I did, and it tasted like sweet, spicy halva. “God gives some people certain knowledge. This is built on the fact that if you pray to God, he will respond to you and you will get the cure through somebody like myself,” he explained. That may well be, but I doubt I have the stomach to take a spoonful of this stuff twice a day. No problem, though: Muhammad offers his customers a money-back guarantee.

  MEANS OF REPRODUCTION

  Impotence is just one of many reasons a married couple may fail to launch—that is, produce a baby by their first wedding anniversary. While there is a trend among educated, professional couples to put off having their first child for a couple of years after marriage, the majority of Egyptians try to have a baby immediately; less than 1 percent of married women use birth control before their first pregnancy.91 A mere month after my wedding, several Egyptian friends asked whether I was expecting. Aside from the fact that Egyptians generally adore children, such solicitude is also pragmatic; many women will tell you that having a child—two to three is now considered optimal by young couples—is important for keeping a husband from taking another wife.92 As my grandmother used to say, “Clip your bird or it will fly the coop.”

  Roughly one in eight Egyptian couples is infertile, on par with the global average.93 Yet in Egypt, as in most of the Arab world, when couples run into problems conceiving, suspicion almost always falls on wives. And so it was that Iman, our lady of the lurid lingerie, was sitting on my sofa, shyly examining a vibrating cock ring. A year into marriage, Iman was still not pregnant—a rising source
of concern for the whole family. She was hoping a little more excitement in the bedroom might make intercourse more productive. Iman had already consulted a number of doctors, who immediately put her on fertility treatment, contrary to best medical practice, given that she’s still in her twenties and that the new couple was just warming up. Iman had been pricked, probed, and pumped up with hormones before anyone thought to check out her husband.

  Siring a child is important to men in Egyptian society, and chinks in the armor of fertility are hard to admit. “When I started here eight years ago, I could not have imagined how much male factor infertility there is,” says Amira Badr al-Din Mehany, head of the embryo lab at the assisted reproduction unit of Al-Azhar University. Al-Azhar is one of the world’s oldest universities, established in the tenth century, and is associated with the famous mosque of the same name; on its doorstep is Khan al-Khalili, Cairo’s famous souk. Outside the university gates are winding alleys and shaded caravansaries, where from tiny stalls wares have been peddled for more than a millennium. Step inside the unit’s surgical wing, however, and you hurtle through the centuries to the cutting edge of fertility treatment.

  Gowned and gloved, Mehany and I were talking through surgical masks in a sterile lab, looking through a window at an operating theater, where a surgeon was extracting eggs from a patient. We watched as tubes of straw-colored fluid were passed through a hatch into the lab, decanted into a petri dish, and whipped under a microscope. A technician peered down its lens and rattled off numbers. “Three here,” she shouted. “Five more here,” she announced, counting eggs in the harvest.

  Al-Azhar’s infertility unit specializes in ICSI, or intracytoplasmic sperm injection. This technique helps give sperm not quite fit for purpose a microscopic push into an egg. Across the lab, another technician was turning dials and manipulating two probes under a microscope, one holding the egg in place and the other injecting it with sperm. Mehany offered to let me watch, and tried to attach a tiny Panasonic TV to the microscope so I could see the moment of conception on-screen. Unfortunately, the connection wasn’t working; the only thing we could get on the TV was a fuzzy rerun of Noor, a hugely popular Turkish soap opera from 2008 that had women across the Arab world swooning at its handsome leading man and longing for the romance and companionship generally lacking in their own marriages.94