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Men who ejaculate before their partners may be able to avoid the embarrassing situation thanks to a new but very pricey drug called Priligy that will be LAUNCHED tomorrow in the U.K.
The tablet, which prevents untimely ejaculation is ready to hit markets in Britain with the potency to do as much for men's sexual strength as Viagra.
It is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of British males suffer from premature ejaculation.
Priligy is already being sold in some European markets. There is no news regarding whether the drug will be COMING to the U.S., or other North American markets.
In clinical trials, Priligy prevented premature ejaculation. Reportedly, taking one tablet one, to three hours before sex helped men hold erections three times as long during sex – as much as three hours – and the effect lasted for 24 hours.
The pill can be taken by men 18 to 64 years old, according to the manufacture.
Priligy, which comes in 30 and 60 mg tablets, could even be more popular than the anti-impotency drug Viagra, which has been in the market for over 10 years.
Priligy costs a whopping $117 (£76) for a pack of three 30mg tablets.
Priligy contains the active ingredient dapoxetine, which regulates serotonin levels in the brain. This allows men to have greater control over sexual functioning, delaying the point of climax and enabling them to maintain erections longer.
Described by experts as a “fast acting SSRI” or a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, it is part of a group of medications used to treat anxiety and depression. As a result, doctors advise against using it if they are already undergoing any form of treatment for these conditions.
Possible side effects include dizziness and headaches. Nonetheless, Priligy must be taken with caution in certain circumstances. It isn't to be taken with alcohol, as this can worsen the potential side effects as well as lessen the effectiveness of the pill.
Experts are already predicting a huge increase in the demand for Priligy, as premature ejaculation is a remarkably common condition, affecting one in three men. Various factors can cause it; sometimes mental issues or anxieties are to blame.
In other cases it’s believed that premature ejaculation could be down to hereditary links. Whatever the cause, the impact can be detrimental for the sufferer. It can spiral into low self-esteem and even tear relationships apart, so treating this problem early and effectively is the key.
Males can get a private prescription for Priligy only after an online discussion at Lloyds-pharmacy.
Nitin Makadia, head of male sexual health at Lloyds-pharmacy, stated, "Priligy has the potential to do as much for men's sexual health as Viagra. It will give sufferers a chance to improve the quality of their relationships and their general wellbeing."
"It has been well received by men elsewhere in Europe and we are really pleased to be bringing this treatment to the UK. Some men are understandably reluctant to discuss the problem with their GP so we are removing this barrier to treatment," Makadia added.
Half of premature ejactulation sufferers wrongly believe they can't be helped. Local anaesthetic sprays and creams are on the market to help delay the moment. Other methods to control the problem include stop-start and squeeze techniques, condom use to reduce sensitivity and counselling. All have been shown to have only limited success. Unfortunately, sprays and cream can also reduce sensitivity during sex.
Male sexual dysfunction is an important if not vital concern for suffers and should be given appropriate research and attention. Any treatment that gives men more options, with little reported side effects, deserves to be a bestseller and should also be sold in this market.
My only concern is the price, which will not be covered by insurance. All men who would safely benefit from this drug should have access to this medication regardless of their economic circumstance.
— The Curator
There were more twists Friday in the laptop Web-cam scandal at Lower Merion High School in Pennsylvania.
Carol Cafiero, the district administrator who has come under fire because she had the ability to activate the webcams, has agreed to turn over her own personal computer to investigators, who reportedly want to know if she activated the software at home.
A preliminary investigation has turned up a whopping 56,000 Web-cam photos and screenshots taken remotely from student-issued laptops, including one that has been released of sleeping Harriton High School sophomore Blake Robbins, now 16, whose family brought the civil lawsuit that resulted in the shocking disclosures.
Cafiero had previously refused to give a deposition in that lawsuit asserting her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
School officials have said they activated the tracking system – which shot Web-cam photos, snapped an image of the laptop screen, and identified the machine's location through an Internet address – only when a school-issued laptop was lost, stolen, or, as in Robbins' case, taken home without payment of a required $55 insurance fee. They have said they activated the system 42 times during this school year and a number of times last year.
On Friday, school officials declined to elaborate on what District Board President David Ebby meant by "a substantial number" of photos being amassed, or to address Robbins' contention that the Web-cam on his school-issued laptop snapped at least one photo when he was partially undressed. The district's investigation is expected to conclude May 3.
"We do not feel it is appropriate for anyone other than the investigators to dictate the timing of the investigation and the release of complete findings," Ebby said. "As we have made clear since Day One, we are committed to providing all of the facts – good and bad – at the conclusion of the investigation."
In his latest motion, the Robbins family's attorney, Mark S. Haltzman, said that during two weeks in the fall, the tracking system on the Apple MacBook that Robbins took home captured more than 400 images of the then 15-year-old and his family members – including shots of Blake asleep in bed.
Cafiero (above) is one of two Lower Merion School District employees able to enable the remote tracking feature on the LANRev software. When activated, the software tracks a user's IP address and takes Web-cam photos and desktop screenshots from the computers.
But Cafiero says while she was the one who flipped the switch, there was never any spying.
"At no time did I ever independently, without authorization, turn on the Web-cam technology," Cafiero said. "At no time did I ever spy on students."
The information systems coordinator and her coworker, network technician Michael Perbix, would get direction from higher administrators to enable the software to find only lost and stolen machines, said Cafiero's attorney Charles Mandracchia.
"They didn't sit around for hours looking for pictures," he said. "They didn't sit around for seconds looking at pictures."
However, those recorded photos were able to be accessed by a number of staffers – even those not authorized to have the feature turned on, Mandracchia said.
In most of the cases, technicians turned on the system after a student or staffer reported a laptop missing and turned it off when the machine was found, the investigators determined.
But in at least five instances, school employees let the Web-cams keep clicking for days or weeks after students found their missing laptops, according to the review. Those computers – programmed to snap a photo and capture a screen shot every 15 minutes when the machine was on – fired nearly 13,000 images back to the school district servers.
The data, provided to the media last week by a school district lawyer, represents the most detailed account yet of how and when Lower Merion used the remote tracking system, a practice that has also sparked a FBI investigation and new federal legislation.
On Friday the district's attorney, Henry Hockeimer, declined to describe in detail any of the recovered Web-cam photos, or identify the people in them or their surroundings. He said none appeared to show "salacious or inappropriate" images but said that in no way justified the use of the program.
"The taking of these pictures without student consent in their homes was obviously wrong," Hockeimer said.
District officials have said that the 56,000 images were recorded from 80 of 1,800 school-issued notebook computers over a two-year period. The large majority of the images captured were ambient in nature, officials said. But there were as many as 68 photos that included students, Mandracchia said.
"I understand people should be very upset they took 56,000 images. That’s 56 and three zeros," Mandracchia said.
The attorney and his client pointed their fingers at the Lower Merion School District's poor management of the feature as a source for so much ire.
"The policy was loose and the policy should've been handled differently. But with that said the policy was not to spy on students," Mandracchia said.
Mandracchia said his client invoked her Fifth Amendment protections only because he had wanted her to answer questions from FBI agents before submitting to lawyers' queries in the civil suit. She met with the FBI agents last week.
"We wanted to determine exactly where the FBI was going," Mandracchia said. "Based on that interview, I feel confident that they're not looking at her because she did anything criminal."
The judge presiding over the civil case, U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois, on Friday denied a motion by Haltzman to have Cafiero's computer seized, but her lawyer agreed to provide it for analysis anyway. Mandracchia, said they're doing so because his client has nothing to hide.
In the motion, Haltzman argued that the now-disabled system had surreptitiously collected more than 400 photos of Robbins – including shots of him when he was shirtless and while he slept in his bed last fall – as well as thousands of images from other students' computers.
Also on Friday, U.S. Attorney Michael Levy sent a letter asking DuBois to allow FBI agents to start analyzing the district's computers and the photos that they had collected. Previously, the judge had ruled that only lawyers for Robbins and the school district should review the evidence.
Robbins alleges that the district watched him sleeping and partially dressed. Haltzman provided one of the photos alleged to have been snapped on the secret Web-cam software to the media last week, and is the image that appears directly above.
(Note: Specifically, the above photo of Robbins was allegedly taken surreptitiously by the Lower Merion School District through a laptop Web-camera while he was sleeping at home at 5 p.m. on Oct 26.)
The Robbins suit alleges that the district invaded his privacy, violated his civil rights, and broke wiretapping and other laws when it secretly activated the Web-cam.
Robbins and his parents, who are residents of Penn Valley, filed the suit in February. That suit first drew attention to the laptop-tracking system, and triggered an investigation by school officials – as well as a federal investigation into whether wiretap and privacy laws had been violated.
Recent legal motions in the civil case brought the case to the attention of the media.
Mandracchia said his client only used her home computer one time several years ago to deal with a situation involving stolen laptops with the district.
"She has not used her personal computer to access work stuff. She has a laptop computer that the district issued to her that she took home and the work that she did, she did off that laptop," Mandracchia said.
Meanwhile, wearied by the national and even international attention caused by the suit, a group of Lower Merion parents asked the judge Friday to ban lawyers and other parties in the case from giving interviews near district schools or students' homes.
"We and many other parents of Lower Merion School District are outraged by the substantial distraction that the recent media frenzy has visited upon our district and our community," the parents group wrote to DuBois.
In a motion, Haltzman wrote that Cafiero "may be a voyeur," and cited excerpts of e-mails between her and a school district technician in which both seemed to marvel over the new tracking technology. It was "like a little LMSD soap opera," the technician e-mailed Cafiero, who replied, "I know, I love it," according to the motion.
Haltzman's comments elicited strong and immediate responses from Cafiero and Mandracchia.
"I'm not a voyeur," Cafiero said. "The allegations made by Mr. Haltzman against me are completely false, outrageous and for the sole purpose of inflaming me to the public."
In fact, Cafiero said she will report Haltzman to the Pennsylvania Bar Association Disciplinary Board.
Mandracchia called Haltzman’s motion "a scandalous, malicious and abusive attack" on his client, claiming Cafiero never viewed any of the Web-cam photos from home, and had only turned the system on when asked or authorized to do so by other district officials. Mandracchia added that no photos were ever downloaded to Cafiero's hard drive.
Mandracchia also said the e-mail excerpts Haltzman cited were taken out of context and concerned legitimate efforts in September 2008 to track down six laptops stolen from the Harriton High gym.
Mandracchia said the e-mail exchange between Cafiero and the employee, Amanda Wuest, took place more than a year before the district activated the tracking system on Robbins' computer. The attorney provided the media with a copy of what he said was the entire exchange, dated Sept. 19, 2008.
The copy appears to show that the two women were responding to a report from four students that a laptop was missing from a Harriton High gym. Officials first checked surveillance cameras in the building but saw nothing suspicious, according to the e-mail.
Referring to the tracking program's tools, Wuest wrote back to Cafiero: "Hopefully, if they were taken, we'll get some screen captures/pictures over the weekend."
On Friday, DuBois rejected Haltzman's request for an order compelling Cafiero to turn over her computer or face sanctions. The two sides then struck their tentative deal. DuBois did not immediately rule on Friday’s request from the parents group.
Haltzman acknowledged an agreement had been reached but otherwise declined to discuss it.
According to Mandracchia, Cafiero will turn over her home computer to experts at L3, a computer-forensics firm hired by the district, who are to inspect it by Tuesday. Mandracchia said the experts and the judge would determine whether any of the computer's contents were relevant enough to turn over to Haltzman.
The district has put Cafiero and Perbix on paid leave while the internal investigation by L3 and lawyers from the firm Ballard Spahr L.L.P. is under way.
Also on Friday, Haltzman confirmed that Cafiero has now agreed to sit for another deposition, during which she plans to fully answer all questions.
Lower Merion began using the system after deciding to give each of its nearly 2,300 high school students their own laptop computer. The program started in 2008 at Harriton High School and expanded this school year to Lower Merion High.
In addition to the photos and screen shots, the technology also used the laptop's Internet address to pinpoint its location. The system was designed to automatically purge all the images after the tracking was deactivated.
Hockeimer said that attorneys from his firm, Ballard Spahr, and specialists from L3, a computer forensics firm, have used e-mails, voice mails and network data to piece together how often, when and why school officials used the technology.
The "vast majority" of instances, he said, represent cases in which the technology appeared to be used for the reasons the district first implemented it in 2008: to find a lost or stolen laptop or, in a few cases, whether a student took the computer without paying a required insurance fee.
About 38,500 images – or almost two-thirds of the total number retrieved so far – came from six laptops that were reported missing from the Harriton High School gymnasium in September 2008. The tracking system continued to store images from those computers for nearly six months, until police recovered them and charged a suspect with theft in March 2009.
The next biggest chunk of images stem from the five or so laptops where employees failed or forgot to turn off the tracking software even after the student recovered the computer.
In a few other cases, Hockeimer said, the team has been unable to recover images or photos stored by the tracking system.
And in about 15 activations, investigators have been unable to identify exactly why a student's laptop was being monitored.
Hockeimer said that the investigation found that administrators activated the tracking system for just one student this year who failed to pay the $55 insurance fee.
Robbins claims he is that student; Hockeimer declined to confirm or deny that.
But, Robbins has claimed that an assistant principal confronted him in November with a Web cam photo of him in his bedroom. Robbins said the photo shows him with a handful of Mike & Ike candies, but that the assistant principal thought they were drugs.
Haltzman, greeted the release of the numbers and break down of the Web-cam photographs skeptically.
"I wish the school district would have come clean earlier, as soon as they had this information and not waiting until something was filed in court revealing the extent of the spying," he said.
About 10 employees at the district and its two high schools had the authority to request the computer administrators to activate the tracking system on a student's laptop, Hockeimer said.
Hockeimer said the district investigators have no evidence to suggest either Cafiero or Perbix activated the system without being asked.
But the requests were loose and disorganized, he said, sometimes amounting to just a brief e-mail.
"The whole situation was riddled with the problem of not having any written policies and procedures in place," Hockeimer said. "And that impacted so much of what happened here."
In his strongest terms since the furor began, board president Ebby said district officials, "deeply regret the mistakes and misguided actions" that have given rise to the lawsuit, federal criminal inquiry, the call for new privacy legislation, and the wave of mounting publicity.
But Ebby alleged that Lower Merion's continuing internal investigation has found no evidence that its employees used the technology for "inappropriate" purposes."
"We are committed to disclosing fully what happened, correcting our mistakes, and making sure that they do not happen again," he said in a statement addressed to parents and guardians and posted on the district's Web site.
Ebby also said the school district planned to enlist Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Rueter to oversee the contacting of parents and showing them the photos.
"During that process, the privacy of all students will be strongly protected," the board president said in his statement.
---------------
Clearly, clearly, this ugly incident underscores how the uncontrolled use of technology can harm victims, regardless of an intent to do so. Privacy concerns based on the use of new technologies have been raised long before this incident came to light. The government MUST address these issues NOW. It is, afterall, the primary responsibility of government to protect its citizens. The outrageous violations of the privacy of JUVENILES by their own school district for heaven’s sake, should serve as a serious wake up call regarding this topic. Legislation limiting the use of this type of spying technology must be adopted – and as soon as possible!
— The Curator
In her first exclusive television interview, plus-size model Ashley Graham said she was shocked to learn ABC and FOX could not handle her bust in a new underwear commercial, banning the ad from the air.
"They told me it was too much skin," said the size-16 beauty.
Lane Bryant, the plus-size women's clothing retailer, released a statement through their blog "Inside Curve," accusing the networks of attempting to define beauty by denying the new commercial from airing freely.
Graham thinks prejudice against women with curves might be in the play.
"The Victoria's Secret girls can flaunt around their panties all day long, " she said. "But when there's a bigger woman with a little bit extra, they snipped it out immediately."
A source at Lane Bryant agreed: "The cleavage of the plus-size model, they said, was excessive, and we don't think that's the case. It certainly appears to be discrimination against full-sized women."
The 25 second ad shows curvy Graham striking a series of sexy poses in Lane Bryant underwear, including different color bras after she is shown texting a boyfriend, “CALL DAN FOR LUNCH.” She leaves the house apparently on the way to see lucky Dan wearing only the underwear and a long overcoat – and nothing more.
A voiceover says: "Mom always said beauty is skin deep. Somehow, I don't think this is what Mom had in mind."
The ad ends by voicing the company’s new catch phrase, “Nobody fits you like the new Lane Bryant.”
(Note: The above photographs are screen captures from the actual commercial.)
According to Lane Bryant, ABC refused to show the commercial during "Dancing with the Stars" without restricting their airtime to the final moments of the show, while Fox demanded excessive re-edits and rebuffed it three times before relenting to air it during the final 10 minutes of "American Idol."
"The majority of women in American are my size, 12, 14, 16," Graham said. "They want to see themselves on television."
"We knew the ads were sexy, but they are not salacious. Our new commercials represent the sensuality of the curvy woman who has more to show the world than the typical waif-like lingerie model,” a Lane Bryant spokesman said. "What we didn't know was that the networks, which regularly run Victoria's Secret and Playtex advertising on the very shows from which we're restricted, would object to a different view of beauty."
ABC reportedly denied any wrongdoing and said that they "were willing to accommodate them, but they chose to seek publicity.”
I think the only conclusion possible is that there is a definite double-standard in place. Plus size women are not viewed in the same way as thin or thinner women by the networks. It’s sad and infuriating. However, it will never change unless women speak out against this type of abject prejudice. Boycott networks, advertisers or any organizations that refuses to value all women, and to depict them more realistically and compassionately.
Watch the commercial and judge for yourself.
— The Curator
So typical.
While the rest of the country was losing homes and nest eggs, some of the government’s financial watchdogs were actually WATCH DAWGS eyeing porn on the Internet on the taxpayer’s dime instead of keeping an eye on our interests.
The following commentary is from today’s The Atlantic, business section, and is by Daniel Indiviglio:
“The above headline might seem like a joke. It isn't. Senior staffers at the Securities and Exchange Commission were surfing Internet pornography when they should have been policing the financial system. A deeply disturbing SEC memo to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) exposing this problem was reported Thursday night by ABC News. Here are some highlights via the Associated Press:
— A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.
— An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet, he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense and received a 14-day suspension.
— Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.
— The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008.
On one hand, two cases in 2007 means that either it wasn't that widespread of a problem or it hadn't yet been detected. On the other hand, the fact that this behavior seems to have been so prevalent among senior level employees is particularly troubling. They're the ones who should have been closely watching the financial industry and leading the way to help prevent the system from collapsing.
A few things should be concluded from this revelation. First, government computers must need better firewalls to block out this content. Second, this is a pretty grim verdict on the effectiveness of regulators. When on the verge of the most major economic crisis in around 80 years, they were watching porn instead of the financial system.
This certainly isn't the kind of publicity the SEC needs as it begins to prosecute its high-profile case against Goldman Sachs. This memo damages the credibility of the regulator. Though, it does begin to explain why it took the SEC more than three years to bring the complaint against Goldman: its employees had other things on their minds.”
This is one of those rare stories that actually leaves me speechless. No comment or analysis can truly do this one justice, folks, so I’m letting it speak for itself!
— The Curator
The incomparable Belle de Jour continued to tease with new excerpts from her upcoming book on relationships, a followup to her blockbuster “Guide to Men” from last year.
Happily, it will soon be the guy’s turn to hear her advice, in Belle de Jour’s Guide to Women, scheduled to be published in the UK.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with her, Belle de Jour had been the nom de plume of a celebrated British erotic author, who was also a London call girl for two years.
Last year, Belle revealed she is Dr. Brooke Magnanti, of Bristol, England, a noted scientist. Brooke’s specialist areas are developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology. She has a PhD in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science and is now working at the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health. She is currently part of a team researching the potential effects on babies of their mothers' exposure to toxic chemicals.
So fans, sit back and begin to learn a bit of what every man should know about dating and relationships. Here’s her current blog post in full. Read it here, or read it directly on Brooke’s award-winng blog:
“lundi, avril 19
Belle's Guide to Women... another installment in the very occasional series.
Now for some dating gobsmackers: screw the generalisations. I've compiled a short list of horrors from female friends who are actually there at the coal face of dating (plus dropped in a few memorable episodes of my own). Men, just don't do this:
1. Claim to be 30, only to turn up to meet your date sporting fully grey cornrows.
2. Chat with your mum on the phone throughout the date. If it's to do with something serious (she's dying in hospital), cancel the date, fool.
3. Set the meeting place at a pub without disclosing beforehand that you don't drink.
4. Invite a girl you just met to your dead sister's memorial service...
5. ...which your date's ex is also planning to attend.
6. Take your date unexpectedly to a swinger's club, and when she baulks, suggest picking up a hooker on the way home instead.
7. Offer your date a piece of food you picked up right after touching your feet.
8. Claim to be 6 inches taller than you actually are. Shoes won't help (sorry, Tom Cruise).
9. Compare her to your favourite (dead) pet.
10. Reveal halfway through the second date that you are:
- married, but
- since it was only a marriage of convenience, not actually married, though
- you're not divorced yet, and in fact still living together, added to which
- you can't actually get a divorce since you don't know where the marriage certificate is and can't be bothered to look for it. Oh, and you're not paying for this meal either, we did discuss that, right?
POSTED BY BELLE DE JOUR AT 7:08 AM”
In addition to Guide to Men and a great book entitled Belle’s Bits, her other books are: The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl, September 2005; The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl, May 2007; and Playing the Game, June 2009. All of her books are widely available across the pond at Amazon UK. You can go to the website, or use the Amazon UK “widget” at the bottom of this blog, which features all of Brooke’s wonderful titles.
Her writing has been so popular that it became the basis for the international hit TV series, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie Piper. It can be seen on Showtime in the U.S., and the first two seasons are available on DVD. The third season premiered this month, and was previewed by a special 30-minute interview of Brooke by Billie.
— The Curator
A United Arab Emirates appeals court judge in Dubai has upheld the verdict against a British couple caught kissing in public.
Unless the couple makes a second appeal within 30 days, the court's decision means authorities will jail the couple for a month and then deport them. They will also be fined $300 for drinking alcohol.
The couple, Ayman Najafi, 24, and Charlotte Adams, 25, claimed they had only kissed on the cheek at a restaurant while under the influence of alcohol.
The Dubai Misdemeanours Court had initially sentenced them for kissing and touching at a restaurant in Jumeirah Beach Residence. Presiding Judge Ebrahim Khalil Abu Shamma handed out the primary verdict.
The couple were arrested in November 2009, after an Emirati mother claimed her children “saw the man kiss the woman on her lips” around 2 a.m. in the restaurant and reported their behavior to police, the authorities said.
They were charged with kissing and touching each other intimately in public – violations of law against public indecency – and consuming alcohol.
When the defendants appeared in court they denied kissing on the lips and said they kissed each other on the cheek. However, they pleaded guilty to consuming alcohol.
Najafi is British but lives and works in Dubai, while Adams is a British tourist who was visiting the city-state at the time she was arrested.
The couple had been dining with friends at Bob's Easy Diner, one of a stretch of cafes on a popular strip behind the city's Jumeirah Beach. The foreign population has soared in Dubai in recent years as expatriates, courted by the country, flock to the booming emirate to work.
Now, expatriates outnumber locals by more than eight to one in the port city – one of seven emirates that make up the oil-rich Gulf nation.
But the population changes and the breakneck modernization of the sheikdom has also often caused friction with the deeply conservative social and religious identity of the locals.
In 2008, a British couple were sentenced to three-month jail terms for unmarried sex and public indecency, but those were suspended on appeal.
The two were arrested on a public beach shortly after midnight. Both denied they had intercourse.
Given the above, Sarah Jessica Parker should have known better.
It is being reported that the actress had a vision. The plot of her new film, Sex and the City 2, would be set in the emirate of Dubai. The sultry resort city would be the perfect getaway destination for the franchise's Manhattan-dwelling characters. Unfortunately for Parker, who executive-produced and starred in the film, Dubai wasn't as welcoming as she thought it would be.
According the films producers, they worked for half a year trying to gain shooting permits in Dubai but were denied because the film's title had the word "sex" in it. "Half the story was originally set around Dubai," a male producer said. "Ski Dubai was in, the Dubai Creek was in...it was all about Dubai. They wanted the girls to be in a rich, modern Arab city."
Parker, the movie's main star and its executive producer, was personally involved in advancing the request. In August, Dubai Studio City, the authority that grants filming permission, released a statement saying it, "referred the script to the relevant government authority to review the same by taking into consideration the multicultural fabric of the society and its perceptions." It added, "further to the recommendation of the government authority, the request for filming was declined."
The film's producers then went to Abu Dhabi as a replacement, and sensed they would be fine to shoot there. But Dubai urged Abu Dhabi to decline, said the filmmaker involved in the process, apparently because of embarrassment that Abu Dhabi might say yes when Dubai said no.
"There was a phone call from Dubai. It became political," the filmmaker said.
So instead the producers moved the film to Abu Dhabi but Dubai officials "urged Abu Dhabi to decline," said a filmmaker. They stuck out again. The film would eventually be shot in Morocco despite the plot's claim that they're in Abu Dhabi.
This report has garnered headlines today because the movie is about to hit theaters and multi-plexes on May 28.
To me, the message of both reports is NOT about the relative merits of sexual freedom within the Arab world, but OUR (and yes, sometimes Britian’s) continued arrogance to assume that the U.S.-U.K. way is the ONLY way. If our relationship with Muslim countries and elsewhere around the globe is ever going to improve, we need to work on our nation’s xenophobia. (I would suggest that the U.K. could also make a similar effort, but in general, I have found U.S. attitudes the more shocking.)
It’s really pretty simple: if you will be traveling abroad, research the customs (including religious practices) of the country you will be visiting. It is YOU who will be the guest in THEIR country, after all.
If we continue to fail to understand – or to even reject – the most basic cultural differences between countries, we will never begin to develop a true appreciation and respect for the people who live there.
— The Curator
Dubai — A mother of four from Saudi Arabia who recently shot to fame by using her poems to criticize religious extremism has failed to win the Arab world's biggest poetry competition, but instead captured third place and $800,000.
Wearing the Saudi traditional head-to-toe black abaya cloak, with a veil masking her face, Hissa Hillal recited her last poem in the contest, a defense of the freedom of thought.
The sole woman among five finalists, she rose to stardom after a series of poems blasting "evil" extremist fatwas (edicts) by Muslim clerics, a challenge which resulted in death threats being made against her on the internet.
Mrs. Hillal said that through her poems, she wants to "fight extremism, which has become a worrying phenomenon."
"A few years ago, society was more open. Now, things have become heavier. Some men do not even shake hands with female family members as they did in the past," she said.
In her poem entitled "The Chaos of Fatwas," which she has recited late last month during the popular televised competition putting her into last week’s finals, she boldly charged that the "evil comes from those fatwas."
She compared their authors to "monsters wearing belts," an apparent reference to explosive belts worn by suicide bombers.
The contest's panel praised Mrs. Hillal's courage for expressing her opinion "honestly and powerfully," giving her the highest score of at 47 out of 50.
The poem was seen as hitting out at Saudi cleric Abdul Rahman al-Barrak, who issued a fatwa in February calling for those promoting a mixing of the sexes in education and at the workplace to be put to death.
Mrs. Hillal said, however, that she was not referring to Barrak's fatwa in particular, but said that she was "against the idea of killing a human being because of his beliefs."
She considers the mixing of men and women at work "a necessity for daily life."
"We are always told: haram," or prohibited, she lamented. "This dangerous extremism is no longer limited to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but has spread to other countries like Egypt, Jordan and Syria."
Radical Saudi clerics were infuriated when the reform-minded King Abdullah inaugurated in September the kingdom's first mixed-gender university, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, on the Red Sea coast.
"Saudi Arabia has made great strides over the past five years" to improve women's status, Mrs. Hillal said, praising the "courage" of the Saudi monarch.
In an attempt to prove his commitment to improving the status of women, the king appointed Norah al-Fayez deputy minister of education for women's education in 2009, the first appointment of a woman to a ministerial post.
Women in Saudi Arabia must cover from head to toe in public. They are also forbidden to drive and can not travel without a male guardian, while segregation rules severely restrict work opportunities for women.
Mrs. Hillal is already challenging convention by being at once a journalist, in addition to her role as wife and mother.
Using a traditional verse form native to the Arab Peninsula's nomadic tribes, she writes critically about the country's hard-line Muslim clerics, calling them: "vicious in voice, barbaric, angry and blind."
Condemning the violence that she says lies beneath their religious messages, her poems speak of some of the clerics "wearing death as a robe cinched with a belt" – an apparent reference to suicide bombers' explosives belt.
Her poems rail against what she sees as a dangerous and excessively conservative shift in Arab society and mores, from within a country where women cannot travel without a male guardian and are forbidden from driving.
“Most of the people loved what I said, from their hearts”
Hissa Hillal
"What made me so angry is seeing the Arab society becoming more and more kept to itself, not like before – loving and caring and sharing and open and welcoming everyone," she said.
"Now, even if you want to be simple and nice with others, people are asking themselves whether it is haram [forbidden] to say hello to strangers," she said, adding: "I blame those who have led the people, and directed them this way."
Mrs. Hillal's words were delivered from beneath a spotlight and televised across the Arab world from the capital of UAE, Abu Dhabi, on The Million Poets.
She describes the experience of reaching the competition's final as "amazing," but her poetry has also sparked death threats on Arab websites, with some outraged commentators saying she is acting shamefully.
Her voice quiets when she describes how some have posted messages asking for her home address – with the underlying threat that they would track her down and kill her.
“ I know the world is a small village – from my heart I wish peace and love for everybody ”
Hissa Hillal
But, she says, many more have expressed support for her poems. She told the media that women especially have said they are rooting for her.
"Even old ladies, young ladies, they all said: 'You are our hope.'"
"Most of the people loved what I said, from their hearts. They think I am very brave to say so, and that I said what they feel in their hearts."
She explains the apparent contradiction in the fact that she advocates women's rights while wearing the full veil – which some suggest is a symbol of female oppression: "Covering my face is not because I am afraid of people. We live in a tribal society and otherwise my husband, my brother will be criticized by other men."
While her poetry is intended for a wide audience, the act of covering herself, she says, is out of understanding for her male relatives.
"I know they love me and they support me. It's a big sacrifice for them in such a society to let me go to the TV and talk to the media. I am hoping my daughters won't have to cover their faces and they'll live a better life," she said.
A published poet, Mrs. Hillal – who is reported not to have studied at university – held the position of poetry editor for the Arab daily newspaper, al-Hayat.
A fan of Victorian writer Charles Dickens and US author Ernest Hemingway, Mrs. Hillal says her fundamental message is one of peace and understanding: "I know the world is a small village. From my heart I wish peace and love for everybody."
Despite not winning the overall contest which concluded last Wednesday night to enormous ratings, analysts say Mrs. Hillal's participation in this year's The Million's Poet contest will continue to have an impact on the art form, which is increasingly being used to highlight social problems and inequalities.
Mrs. Hillal has been, without question, the biggest story of the televised tournament's fourth season.
In the weeks leading up to last Wednesday night's final she wrote and recited poetry condemning the strict laws in her country that separate men and women and also spoke out against Islamic clerics who issue hard-line religious decrees.
Her work was applauded by many who labeled her "brave," but it was also met with resentment from conservative members of Saudi society, some of whom issued death threats against her. Despite the dangers, Mrs. Hillal refused to back out of the tournament, saying she had a message to get across.
"I'm trying to say maybe poetry can do what other things couldn't do – to make people more close and to feel all over the world that we have to share and care and that to have a nice human relationship is the most important thing," Mrs. Hillal said.
Mrs. Hillal was the first woman to ever reach the final of the competition, which features five contestants. She said she hopes her experience will inspire others.
"I was famous for about 20 years and I was always a very strong poet, but when I came here the people saw it. It was direct from my heart to them," Mrs. Hillal said. "Maybe this is a new stage of Arabic life, especially for Arab women. Maybe it says something to the world."
The Million's Poet competition was launched in 2006 and was designed to promote the native poetry of the Arabian Peninsula, known an Nabati.
Broadcast live every Wednesday at 10 p.m. on Abu Dhabi TV, it blends the competitive tension, audience participation and big-money prizes of a western-style reality TV show with a culture and tradition that is uniquely Arab.
Contestants are judged using a mixture of jury votes, live audience votes via the in-theatre voting pods, and SMS voting by TV viewers. The show, which has been compared to the American Idol talent competition series in the United States, gets its name from the $1.3 million prize awarded to the winner.
The show, sponsored and produced by Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage presents 48 poets, carefully selected by a panel of experts on Nabati poetry (dialect poetry), from thousands of applicants after a six-week tour of the Arabian Gulf countries and Jordan with contestants from all over the Arab world.
Contestants are required to recite their own works of Nabati poetry, a native Bedouin style of poetry similar to the classical ode and recited in colloquial Arabic. The art dates to fourth-century Arabia, where poets were revered as people inspired by God who elevated their tribe's sense of pride.
The poets battle it out, seeking to impress the jury and the audience with their poetic skills, in the hope of making it through to the grand final.
The show, watched by more than 20 million each week, aims to revive one of the ancient forms of poetry known in the region fore thousand years.
This year, contestants came from 12 countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. One of the show's three judges, Sultan al-Amini, says it has been the most successful season to date.
"All the people: small people, young, women, men… you'll find all levels watch this program and they know even the smallest things in this program," Amimi said. "They follow it and ask about it."
This year's runner up, Falah al-Mowraqi from Kuwait, says the popularity of Million's Poet can be attributed to the fact that people in the Gulf region consider poetry a vital part of their culture.
"Poetry is very, very important in Kuwait or the Emirates or Saudi Arabia. In the Middle East it's very important," Mowraqi said.
The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research crowned the winners at Al Raha Beach Theater in the capital during last Wednesday night’s live broadcast.
The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage spokesman Eman Turki says tradition is shifting. And, she says the poems of Mrs. Hillal and Mowraqi, who touched on terrorism, prove this.
"You can see that the trend in poetry is changing. It's not anymore about praising officials or sheikhs or the pride of the country or belonging," Turki said. "Poets now are more interested in people's lives, in daily life issues, in social change, even in political life."
Thirty-year-old Nasser al-Ajami of Kuwait was named this year's Million's Poet champion, earning the $1.3 million prize.
Mowraqi secured $1 million for his second-place finish.
Note: I found this fascinating and extremely important. While researching what the event, I came upon a brilliant and insightful commentary by renowned doctor-author Qanta Ahmed, in the Huffington Post. I have reposted it in full below, or you can read it directly at the Huffington Post website.
Qanta Ahmed, MD
Huffington Post
Posted: March 29, 2010 12:12 PM
“Hissa Hillal is the voice for countless 'Invisible Women." She is the Saudi woman who has captured the Arab world's attention through her poetry on Abu Dhabi's televised poetry competition broadcast by Emirati. Watched by millions, analogies to American Idol readily follow. Her poetry focuses on the abuse of Islam as it is wielded by extremist clerics. Her public challenge to established theocracy has garnered breathtaking attention in the region where women like Hissa, Saudi Arabian stay-at-home moms, are usually neither seen nor heard.
There is however a far more arresting aspect to Hissa's accomplishment. By thrusting her powerful verses into orbit through satellite television, she has thrown dawn a gauntlet in a way that newspapers, bloggers or network media segments cannot begin to compete. Her public poetry contains the latent power that will ignite a new dimension of dialogue in the Arab and wider Muslim world, a power derived of an ancient cultural currency.
Poetry, which speaks to the Arabian Peninsula's heritage of oral poetry as a means of cultural dialogue, invites much more attention than news commentary or opinion editorials. Traditionally, the true forebears of the modern day Saudi Arabia recorded their history and tradition through the medium of poetry, largely unwritten, but instead committed to memory and recited with elaborate, ceremonial oratory. This was the medium through which they preserved feats of arms and celebrated events in their history. Similar oral poetic history is also evident elsewhere in the Middle East including Israel, where fears for the preservation of this fading culture are growing.
Considering the geographic environment and the sparse population comprising pre-Twentieth Century Arabia, preserving cultural memory through transmitted and treasured poetry makes perfect sense. Ornate poetry traveled across the sandstorm-swept nascent Saudi steppe, immortalizing cultural yearnings, history and opinion in a pulsing ebb and flow across barely inhabited land. Vital to the survival of this art across generations, over desiccated Wadis and desolate escarpments was the role of the poet: his dedication, his imagination and his willingness to dialogue with other poets.
I learned this not through extensive studies of central Najd poetry but rather while teaching class one day in the post graduate medical center of the King Abdul Aziz Medical Center in Riyadh, last winter. I was teaching a class on scientific medical writing to a group of animated Saudi men and women. Yes, it was a co-ed class and my students were physicians, surgeons and masters candidates enrolled in various degree programs (contrary to popular belief, postgraduate medicine in the Kingdom is desegregated). We were enjoying an intense debate on the use of references, citations and sources. During the hour we examined how to correctly attribute authorship following accepted rules concerning plagiarism as defined in Western academia. The topic was a surprisingly disturbing one for my accomplished Saudi students. The class discussion was growing heated and edgy. We had evidently touched a nerve. As I struggled to understand the implications, one of my class, a board certified gastroenterologist demystified our growing distress. Rising from the too-small classroom chair in his crisp white thobe, Abdullah gathered his portly figure and stood up to make his point. He spoke in soft, accented English.
"‘In our culture, an author is esteemed, as are his values and his creativity. Readers who want to cite an author here often believe they can only devalue his work, and dishonor the author, by rephrasing it into their own words. They simply don't believe their words do the author justice,’" my eyes widened in comprehension realizing why what is taken as bald plagiarism in Western academe might be interpreted here as according an author the highest honor.
"I am a poet, when I don't practice medicine, Doctora Qanta," he continued, "‘in fact, I have won several prizes for my skills in Arabic poetry, which is an ancient art form. To be truly appreciated and recognized as creative, one poet must dialogue with another. In the process of dialogue one poet incorporates another's words into his or her own poetry, to continue the conversation. We make new stanzas using each others words, and the poetry unfolds, back and forth in a rhythm between poets. So while you may think this is plagiarism – to take another poet's words and incorporate them into our own – this is an ancient and fundamental part of our culture.’"
Suddenly everything made sense. In a culture where a teacher is accorded high respect, and the written word, beginning with the revealed Quran has traditionally been preserved by rote repetition and painstaking memorization, the repetition of unattributed words did not constitute plagiarism. Of course, Abdullah was referring to non-scientific writing. (Saudi Arabia has a robust and rapidly evolving medical academe where standard rules guarding against scientific plagiarism are upheld). But Abdullah taught me something new: interacting culturally at the highest level involved listening astutely to the poet, and responding in kind.
This is why Hissa Hillal's poetry is such a colossal cultural moment: not merely because one Saudi woman has had the courage to speak out, but because of the cascading, tumultuous conversation this will certainly uncork. Like a gathering storm, a cloudburst of cultural rebellion is mounting. Seen in this light, a woman shrouded in store-bought polyester presents a brazen, dangerous agent provocateur to challenge the crumbling status quo. Her very 'everywoman' qualities – of being a homemaker, wife and mother in Saudi Arabia (one who evidently doesn't shop at Lamsa for a $500 Swarovski encrusted veil) – is precisely what makes her an unmistakable force. Nor did she have to attend a costly Chicago Dental School to say what Riyadh or Jeddah is thinking. This woman is the real deal. She is from within the world that we dumbly insist on characterizing as 'invisible' while every reality constantly reveals it is we, the viewers from here, who are truly unseeing.
Hissa's Nabati poetry, a genre particularly beloved to the Arab Gulf world, exposes witless, misogynistic and unIslamic fatwas in their true light: as crude tools for mass oppression exercised by an increasingly calcified theocratic autocracy on the irreversible threshold of rigor mortis.
The woman calls a spade a spade, as we like to say in England. Her breathtaking condemnation of the abuse and misuse of Islam as evil incarnate, expressed in the most ancient art form predating modern day petrochemical Wahabiism contains the power to free a world increasingly mired in Petronia, antiSemitism, Islamophobia and polarization. The key to such freedom is nothing other than authentic Islam.
She grabs the bull by the horns, as this line shows:
"I have seen evil in the eyes of fatwas, at a time when the permitted is being twisted into the forbidden."
Reading the above reminds me very much of a particular Hadith (saying attributed to the Prophet Mohamed). Let me share it with you. When the Prophet was leading prayer, a member of the congregation asked him what he feared for his people and followers.
After careful thought, the Prophet responded, revealing he feared most those who would come from within his flock and recite the Qu'ran but that the Qu'ran would go 'no further than their throats' (sparing their hearts and souls). Using the cover of religion, he foretold they would do the exact opposite of what Islam intended purely for their own gain while claiming to exalt God. These people, he predicted, would come from within us (the Muslim Ummah), filleting our community to the innards very much 'like an arrow passes through its quarry.'
I read this Hadith shortly after 9-11 and immediately recognized the references to modern day terrorism executed by imposter Muslims in pursuit of their sick fallacies of serving Islam, when they do exactly the opposite by desecrating everything sacred and humane.
But words are weapons too, and can slay whole societies and cultures. Hostile clerical theocrats can do just as much damage as a demented Mumbai bomber, 9-11 hijacker, or British-born 7-11 plotter.
Hissa becomes even more explicit. Her descriptions, which speak to suicide bombing, capture exactly how such seditious and deceptive rhetoric directly leads to bloodshed, and indeed the voices and forces inciting such destruction are exactly what the Prophet foretold. She writes these instigators of evil, in the form of distorted clerical leaders and suicide bombers:
"are vicious in voice, barbaric, angry and blind, wearing death as a robe cinched with a belt"
I thought of this as I caught today's GPS. Fareed Zakaria mentioned Hissa on his show this morning. Briefly he played tapes of Hissa reading her poetry as a panel looked on, noting she has reached further in the competition than any other woman ever. Some believe that she may perhaps even win. In my eyes she has won already, by articulating what countless Muslims fear expressing irrespective of the political environment within which they must function. Speaking negatively of a Muslim is detested in Islamic culture, yet if we are to be true, principled Muslims we must speak up in the exposure of injustices.This is what Hissa is doing and why she is so brave. She risks becoming pariah.
I was about to switch off when I caught Fareed's closing comment on the segment, which couldn't end without the de rigueur comment about Saudi Arabia where 'women cannot drive'. This remains true and certainly impedes womens' liberties, as well as the liberties of their men folk buckling under the economic pressure of providing a vehicle and chauffeur for every independent woman in the Kingdom. So while it may be ironic to Fareed that that a woman is taking on the rigors of the established and often punitive theocracy, his implication that men are absent from such dialogue and positive insurrection is myopic.
Certainly Hissa's womanhood – concealed and yet therefore for the same reason so extremely revealed – augments her power. Indeed, speaking at a Perspex podium in her traditional veiling of the niqab which covers her face and her stark, undecorated abbayah which covers her body is indeed intensely arresting – much more so than if a Saudi man was composing the same invective. Aye, I am with you on this Fareed.
But we must make an important, further deduction. For every Hissa objecting to the stultifying restrictions of a fundamentalist theocracy on women, lets not forget these restrictions weigh heavily on Saudi men too. Many, many Saudi men share the objections and pain that is expressed by her verse. In some ways, while one can easily construct a metaphor for Saudi womanhood to be invisible, in my experience, Saudi men are just as invisible and in the rising climate of scrutiny for all aspects of Saudi, and in fact Muslim, feminism, the male voice is even more often obliterated, quashed. Try reading about Islamic masculinities to understand this double-edged sword.
Behind Hissa are supportive male family members, a husband who is not emasculated by her intensely public stance and controversial views, and a growing number influential men (alongside influential women) who have helped her find a means of expression in a culture which vehemently shies away from individualism and the bald glare of public attention. She speaks for these men too. She assumes the role of leader. And agreed, while unlicensed to drive a stick shift, she does however, drive the charged climate for cultural change forward. She does so, in keeping with historical mores defining Islam at its birth.
If we look at early Islam, history records the first Muslim women to be strong, effective and indomitable advocates for social change, even during the lifetime of our beloved Prophet Mohamed. Islam gives women many rights: the right to choose one's life partner, and the right to divorce him, the right to hold wealth and property, the right to a valid vote so that a woman can be heard equally to any man. Muslim women are required to fulfill exactly the same obligations in religious duty as are Muslim men, and so too are their rights to earn equivalent blessings.
Hissa Hillal is merely exercising her right to voice what millions have feared to do so: the right to return to meaningful Islam, which is benevolent, just, honorable and devoid of compulsion and oppression. She does so at the grave risk of being accused of a particularly offensive moniker recently leveled at me: to speak out in criticism of Islamic poses the risk of being type cast as Islamophobic, as a critic prejudiced against Muslims, when in fact such actions of bravery are the very mettle of being a functioning Muslim.
While Hissa is heavily veiled, she has seized, and indeed very much owns, the spotlight. Once embodied by able horsewomen in the field of battle, now these Islamic feminist wage war in air-conditioned studios beaming into millions of households. Hissa emulates our first female forebears who lent their voice to justice for Muslim women, and men, through the centuries: her message is clear.
For Muslim women, and Muslim Men everywhere, Hissa demands Poetic Justice.
And, once demands begin, justice has a habit of following.”
Dr. Ahmed is currently an assistant professor of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and Assistant Director of the MUSC Sleep Disorders Laboratory. She is a quadruple boarded in internal medicine, pulmonary disease, critical care medicine, and sleep disorders medicine. She continues to practice intensive care medicine. She became a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, a Diplomat and member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
She is also the author of the acclaimed, In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, an award-winning and powerful memoir. I was extremely moved when I read this book, so I have included information about it below.
In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom
From Publisher’s Weekly:
This memoir is a journey into a complex world readers will find fascinating and at times repugnant. After being denied a visa to remain in the U.S., British-born Ahmed, a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin, takes advantage of an opportunity, before 9/11, to practice medicine in Saudi Arabia. She discovers her new environment is defined by schizophrenic contrasts that create an absurd clamorous clash of modern and medieval.... It never became less arresting to behold. Ahmed's introduction to her new environment is shocking. Her first patient is an elderly Bedouin woman. Though naked on the operating table, she still is required by custom to have her face concealed with a veil under which numerous hoses snake their way to hissing machines. Everyday life is laced with bizarre situations created by the rabid puritanical orthodoxy that among other requirements forbids women to wear seat belts because it results in their breasts being more defined, and oppresses Saudi men as much as women by its archaic rules. At times the narrative is burdened with Ahmed's descriptions of the physical characteristics of individuals and the luxurious adornments of their homes but this minor flaw is easily overlooked in exchange for the intimate introduction to a world most readers will never know.
Following Book Excerpt, © Reprinted by permission, All rights reserved:
“I returned to Khalaa Tarfa, my first patient in the Kingdom. She was a Bedouin Saudi well into her seventies, though no one could be sure of her age (female births were not certified in Saudi Arabia when she had been born). She was on a respirator for a pneumonia which had been slow to resolve. Comatose, she was oblivious to my studying gaze. A colleague prepared her for the placement of a central line (a major intravenous line into a deep vein).
Her torso was uncovered in anticipation.. Another physician sterilized the berry brown skin with swathes of iodine. A mundane procedure I had performed countless times, in Saudi Arabia it made for a starling scene. I looked up from the sterilized field which was quickly submerging the Bedouin body under a disposable sea of blue. Her face remained enshrouded in a black scarf, as if she was out in a market scurrying through a crowd of loitering men. I was astounded.
Behind the curtain, a family member hovered, the dutiful son. Intermittently, he peered at us . He was obviously worrying, I decided, as I watched his slim brown fingers rapidly manipulating a rosary. He was probably concerned about the insertion of the central line, I thought, just like any other caring family member.
Every now and again, he signaled vigorously, rapidly talking in Arabic to instruct the nurse. I wondered what he was asking about and how he could know if we were at a crucial step in the procedure. Everything was going smoothly; in fact soon the jugular would be cannulated. We were almost finished. What could be troubling him?
Through my dullness, eventually, I noticed a clue. Each time the physician's sleeve touched the patient's veil, and the veil slipped, the son burst out in a flurry of anxiety. Perhaps all of nineteen, the son was instructing the nurse to cover the patient's face, all the while painfully averting his uninitiated gaze away from his mother's fully exposed torso, revealing possibly the first breasts he may have seen.
I wondered about the lengths to which the son continued to veil his mother, even when she was gravely ill. Couldn't he see it was the least important thing for her now at this time, when her life could ebb away at any point? Didn't he know God was Merciful, tolerant and understanding and would never quibble over the wearing of a veil in such circumstances, or I doubted, any circumstances?
Somehow I assumed the veil was mandated by the son, but perhaps I was wrong about that as well. Already, I was finding myself wildly ignorant in this country. Perhaps the patient herself would be furious if her modesty was unveiled when she was powerless to resist. Nothing was clear to me other than veiling was essential, inescapable, even for a dying woman. This was the way of the new world in which I was now confined. For now, and the next two years, I would see many things I couldn't understand. I was now a stranger in the Kingdom.”
This wonderful book is available at Amazon in paperback, but is also available for it’s Kindle e-reader.
— The Curator
