- © 2007 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
A few years ago, when I was working in one of the Middle East countries …
It was a summer day, I was sitting in my office … waiting for the coming patient … somebody knocked the door. ... Come in, I said.
Hello, doc … He embarrassingly sat in front of me … moving his head to the ceiling, then to the floor for a minute … He wanted to say something.
Okay, Akram, how can I help? Obviously, you have some embarrassing thing … Just say it … No worries … I said that, trying to break the ice.
I don't know, doc, what to say. But I really need your help. … He forced himself ...
And said: My wife is cold.
I said, with a smile, I will prescribe to her a very good blanket …
He finally smiled. And laughed … No doc. She is cold in the bed … She is like a stone when we have sex.
I bent towards Akram. And asked him: How do you know this is abnormal? And what do you want her to do?
Doc, he said, I watched a porn movie for the first time and I saw what the woman can do during sex … I talked to my wife and she said, why I have to do these stuff … And from what she told me, I think she doesn't feel anything … Maybe she is sick.
Have you asked any one of your friends about their wives? I asked Akram, who obviously was frustrated and had discovered something new … for him.
No doc ... I can't ask. ... You know we can't talk about that.
We chatted for 10 minutes. … He explained to me what he saw in the movie. Which was interesting … not just for him, but also for me.
I asked Akram if he wanted me to see his wife.
He agreed and after a few days … both Akram and his wife were in my office.
I went with her through full past medical, ob–gyn, sexual, menstrual histories. All were normal.
Then I asked, have you ever had any surgery?
She tried to recall … then she said … only the tonsils.
Any surgery in your genital area, I asked … She answered, after a while … No doc, only the circumcision …
Which circumcision? I asked, curious and angry …
She answered … All girls in our village have circumcised …
I absorbed my shock and my fury … and said … ok, now everything becomes unveiled … AND there, right there, I started my trip in fighting this phenomenon.
Footnotes
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