** This post is not suitable for children

Double standard in dealing with male and female sexuality is practiced all over the world. Living in a male dominant world, women had to fight in order to get their sexuality acknowledged. While women in the west have achieved a kind of acknowledgment and respect to their own sexuality, women in the Arab world, and in Jordan in particular are still lagging behind.

Now that the news of women sexuality hit the media all over the world, where any half educated man can no longer deny it, people in the Arab world found themselves in a dilemma of how to deal with the new discovered truth. Being forced to stick to the set of traditional teachings and religious views, we came to acknowledge women sexuality but with restricting it to marriage.

With some social changes in the past few years, triggered by the evolution of telecommunication and media, Jordanian unmarried women found themselves in a situation where having a boyfriend is acceptable and in fact a must among their peers! Boyfriends, having no real restrictions on their sexuality by the eyes of society, do not accept having a girl friend without any extra sexual benefits. Being in a dilemma of how much to give is a major concern to every single girl in a relationship outside the marriage boundaries in order to keep her man. Virginity still a red line in Jordan where more and more women practice sex secretly while holding to the fig leaf of virginity that is like a visa stamp towards their journey to marriage.

While having sex with a partner is still no acceptable for women before marriage. Having sex with oneself is also a shame in the eyes of society. For men, it is not a problem. I started hearing about male masturbation since I was 10 years old. Men likes to share their new found secret habit with each other and inherit it to the next generation at school and streets. It is not a shame for a man at his teenage to masturbate, in the contrary; it is a shame for him not to.

For women, the situation is different. Both genders share the same need for sex. When a man goes a couple of days without sex, he becomes very horny where he has to get his loads out. If he didn’t do that with a partner, nor by himself, it comes out at night, in wet dreams. Women are not different. Their bodies as well, build a state for sex readiness. It also builds more fluids that need to take care of. They also become horny and in a need of taking care of. If they don’t do it with a partner because it isn’t accepted, they must do it by themselves.

Female masturbation is still shameful. Women, unlike men, don’t share their secret habit with each other. They don’t inherit this knowledge from the past generation. In the contrary, they inherit a lot of myths and shameful feelings about masturbation. Instead of acknowledging the scientific fact of the benefits of masturbation for women, they talk about lies of how unhealthy is it and how much damage it can cause!

Masturbation can help ease the tension of many women who can’t have sex with a partner. There is no need to feel guilt about it. There is no need to feel shame. It is a biological need that should be taken care of. Women might find comfort in knowing that others do it secretly.

Women who would like to comment and feel shy about it can do that under an anonymous id. Just admitting it can help others, so please comment.

He sighted in boredom, moaning to his master to give him some work to do. The young 12 years old child was sitting on a chair next to mine under the shade at the mechanic’s garage while holding a pepsi can that he seems to refuse to let it go with this hot weather.

He caught my attention with the way he talks. I didn’t expect this kind of language to come out from this little thin body. It was obvious that this little boy is trying to live an age older than his, trying to mock up grown ups in a tough environment where even the tone of your voice is an indication of how manly you are.

I wasn’t aware of the role of this boy in a mechanic garage. While trying to ease my anger of having to wait for hours till they fix my car, I sat there under the shade trying to avoid touvhing anything that would dirt or harm me. The sight of the boy and the insight I felt of his tough life, initiated a feeling of unease in my gut, a mixed feeling of guilt and relief, injustice and blessfulness, sympathy and protectivness. Comparing my attitude to this man in a child disguise, I felt being a child myself.

My washing machine worked fast, and soon, my bad feeling faded away as I got more familiar with the scene at hand and the expressions on the face of the boy. He didn’t seem to me that he is really suffering that way I assumed from the little glimpse on his life. Maybe it was his own washing machine that has been working to ensure a sense of accpetance for his situation and adaptation to this kind of life.

The vulgar sexually explicit language is what really bothered me about the whole situation. Living in an ivory world, watching the hype of the media about childhood and the risks of exposing children to sexual materials hit reality at the sight of this boy who seemed to be doing *fine* to me, and holding himself and his sanity better than millions who live in castles and kill themselves out of bordeom!

The whole situation made me wonder how fragile/immune we really are as children. How legitemate is all the hype generated by the media of exposing children to sexually oriented materials? and how much we have to work in order to help those kids? Does over protecting result in a more fragile or more immune person?

The other day, and on boston legal, the popular law American TV show, a case was presented of a law suit issued by an American mother on a company who produces dolls with emplicitly sexual gesture. Both of the attorneys from the defense and offense sides did their job in defending their client’s stand. The defensive side highlighted how much sex is really incorproted in our daily lives and how the kid of that mother is already exposed to other sexually oriented materials at the very sight and hear of his mother. From music, internet, video games and people’s clothes or behaviour, kids around the globe are exposed to sexuality more than we imagine. No kid is protected as much as we think he is.

Our bodies matures faster than our minds. While a 12 years old kid can be fully developed physically and is ready – actually in need – for sex. His mind might be still immature to handle the sequences of such an intense operation.

In our side of the world, it wasn’t an uncommon practice before 50 years for young people in their early teenage years to get married. My grandmother became a mother herself for a twin at the age of 14. While hearing about it now sounds to be odd and unfair, she herself doesn’t seem to suffer from that. In the contrary, she seems to live a happy life.

The other day as well, on Dr. Phil show, they showed this 25 years old female teacher who fall in love with a 17 years old boy whom she used to teach. She was on trial. She has lost her respect among her community, lost her job, and at the risks of spending a lot of years in jail.

I am not sure how much this teacher really used this boy, and how much damage she could have implicitly caused him, and I don’t know how would I feel as a parent if such a thing ever happens to my child, but I am also looking it from his own perspective and how much it means for a teenager to have sex with his teacher which was a common fantasy among my peers at school.

Did she really harm him or granted him something that maybe have added to his self confidence and fullfilled his dreams?

The topic of pedophility is a red line. They call them sexual predators in the US. People who have sex with children end up in jail for very long. I am not sure how much different the verdict is if the sex incident happens with the consent of the child or not, and I am not going to defend pedophiles here because it is a risky topic that I am not sure where I even stand with it, but I wonder about the truth behind our behaviour and sexuality.

المهبيل والاغبياء كثر يا لكم من مخنثين،بعد ماتاجرتوا بدم الشعب الفلسطيني
وقبطوامليارات من الدولارات هسا الشعب الفلسطيني صار عاله عليكم,من 1920 وال هاشم
بقبظوا علي أحساب ومصير هذا الشعب،ولكوا أصحوا من الغيبوبه ألي عايشين فيها وبكفي
خيانات

I have always read/heard with wonderment from different sources of how a co federal state between Jordan and Palestine is a threat to Jordan national security. I can’t recall anyone bringing it up or stating the benefits of such confederation, but I have always read articles quoting Jordanian authority voices which deny any plan for a confederation and claiming people suggesting it to be traitors who conspire against both the Jordanian and Palestinian people.

It seems that there is an unanimous agreement between Jordanian intellectuals, columns writers and government authorities against the idea where it seems like one of the red lines that even thinking of writing about does scare me, not just from the expected rage and attacks from the readers of this blog, but also in terms of the level of freedom of speech we are allowed to have in Jordan.

The major flag raised in rejecting the idea is losing any hope of an independent Palestinian state which we have been fighting to achieve for more than 50 years now. While the independent Palestinian state is a dream to every Arab – including me – I don’t think that having one under the current conditions and only in the West bank and Ghaza would help Palestinians living in those territories. If Palestine can’t manage to help its people to survive and nourish, then why have it?

The second major flag at the Jordanian side is the flood of people who would be carrying the Jordanian nationality. Jordanian tribal system helps in protecting the power of the Jordanian tribes who originally inhabited this country. The arrival of many Palestinian refugees in the past and their acquiring of the Jordanian nationality have created a sense of competitiveness between Jordanians from Palestinian origins and those Jordanians with Jordanian origins. Once being the dominant majority and main player in forming the political/economical and social scene in Jordan, Jordanians with Jordanian origin found themselves competing on their own land and natural resources with those new comers.

With the threat of another millions of Palestinians potential carrying of the Jordanian nationality, those with Jordanian origins which were once a majority would find themselves a minority.

Although I am aware of the complications of the tribal system in Jordan and the power struggle to ensure the safety of each party rights, I believe that Jordan is moving on to be a modern country, a country with associations and law where each individual holding the same passport with the J0rdanian nationality should be – and in fact is treated – in the same way, with equality in obligations and rights.

The toll of poverty in the West bank and Ghaza is another concern that should be addressed if a serious talk about confederation ever took place. We have achieved a lot in this country in the past couple of years where it is risky to jeopardize the momentum of our economic growth by acquiring new under developed areas. Maybe with the help of the world wide funding schema and support in rebuilding those areas, it can help improving the lives of both parties on the east and west sides of the bank.

I am not saying that a confederation would be a magic solution to the entire problem, but I am appalled of how everyone rushes in dismissing the idea without even studding its potentials, if there is a benefit for both parties, then why not?

I was so excited when Laura Haddad contacted me through this blog and asked me to write an article for Viva’s June issue under His View section.

After some excellent editting from their part, here is the final version for you to read 🙂

Not that kind of man

One of the things that ate away at my popularity in school was trying to avoid getting into fistfights. The reason is simple: I’ve always been the kind of guy who thinks before he acts, someone who doesn’t like to imitate and doesn’t really abide by what others expect unless he’s convinced. Or maybe it was due to my mother’s overprotective nature. Being the good kid that I was, I would never think of upsetting her. Or maybe the real reason was just me not having enough courage – fearing humiliation if I were to lose.

While I was spared physical injury all those years in school, I didn’t get off that easily. Just one fight would’ve initiated me fully into the world of men. Without it, doubts about my manhood and masculinity ate at me when I entered university.

But then judgement day came during my second year at the University of Jordan, where I had my first fistfight with a guy who went on a rage after I complained to our physics professor about his singing in class. He followed me after class and asked to meet in the science faculty parking lot, where the fight would take place. I felt my masculinity confirmed. It wasn’t that I needed to show it to the world; I needed to prove to myself that I was man enough.

Even in 21st-century Jordan, men face rigid constraints. If one doesn’t fit the norm, he is ridiculed. From a young age, boys are shamed into fitting into a mould of masculinity. They are bullied if they don’t conform to this cultural norm, which robs them of developing into their true selves.

Boys are told not to be vulnerable, not to cry, not to express fear and to act tough, be in control and dominate others. Picking a fight or facing up to one’s aggressor is all part of the deal.

The major concern for young men these days isn’t their homework. It’s not fulfilling their sexual desires, as most of us think. It is in fact their own manhood, and their struggle to fit into the narrow ‘blueprint’ of masculinity that society has created. The sudden surge of teenage gym addicts didn’t spring from the blue. In an era where the moustache is no longer a sign of masculinity, the obsession with muscles that an increasing number of young men are developing has more to do with power.

In our culture, where dispute resolution through dialogue is still not fully realised, it’s only natural for men to resort to physical force to resolve conflict. We have little faith in our justice system, and no one seems all that interested in going to court to claim his rights. Yes, many people are ignorant about their rights, but a big part of it is our tradition of using power to claim them. Solving matters by hand is commonly favoured.

Young men gather in gangs. During their school years, those gangs are based on belonging to a certain class or school. At university, they’re formed based on family name or place of origin. Many fights are also fought for women, with their male relatives or boyfriends resorting to physical violence against their harassers.

The world is rapidly changing, and technological advancements are leaving little room for men to show their physical strength. Still, our society’s mentality suggests that physical strength is what makes a man stand out among his peers. As a result, men between the ages of 15 and 25 are in constant fear of not being able to prove their ‘manhood’.

Masculinity is a relative concept. What is considered masculine today might not be tomorrow. Having a stronger, bigger body doesn’t make you more or less of a man, but maybe having compassion and more insight on life do.

Have I heard the news right?

Palestinians from Gaza are fleeing towards Israel after Hamas taking on control!

Have I ever dreamt of the day where Palestinians run to Israel out of fear of their follow brothers prosecuting them?!

What kind of a misrable situation we have reached!

I never thought we would ever reach this low! and we did! I wonder if there can be anything worse!

What a bad luck I had on my birthday!

I know that it sounds childish, but even at my 29 years old age, I look forward for my birthday. I do like the feeling of being special on that day where people who love me celebrate my birth.

Unfortunatly, this year, I had a terrible day. Although, my family and friends worked hard to make me happy, still no one could change the bad luck I had on 15th of June. I guess that I should have read Maggie Farah book for this specific day in order to try to avoid what happened!

I had the first sign early in the morning at 8:00 AM with a message from Fastlink informing me that my mobile phone is disconnected because I surpassed my limit for this month! The bad luck is all connected. Two days before that I called to check for Paulo Coelho event signing in Amman. I didn’t know that they charge 1$ per minute, and I was disappointed later on to know that he has cancelled his trip to Jordan because of this. Which was the first bad sign (I should start listening when such things happen).

Anyway, the plan was to go to the dead sea with my friends. Everything went smoothly and we had a good time swimming. I was happy except for the my phone being disconnected where I couldnt reply to people sendinf me text wishes. I even forgot about my phone on our way back home where suddenly I felt something wrong with the car. I thought it was the tire or the gear. I stopped it aside to check things up. The tires were okay, and the gear was okay as well. I tried to switch it on again but it didn’t work. I picked up my cell phone to call my father but I realized it is disconnected! Thank God I had friends with me in the car. I used my friend cell phone. My father suggest for me to wait till the car cool down. I did that but it didn’t happen.

A couple of guys came to my rescue. One of them figured out what is the problem. Obviously it was *e2shat el seder* (I have no idea what it is in english). There was no way to move the car except to bring a winch to pull it to Amman. I couldn’t leave it there because it was a dark area where thieves would steal it. The guys contacted a winch driver who asked for 70 jd! I thought it is too much, and tried to figure out my options. As I lost hope and wanted to call him back, another winch crossed by us like a gift being sent from the sky! We stopped him and asked him to pull the car to byader wadi el seer. He asked to 35 jd. I had no choice but to accept.

Me and my friend stayed in the car on the top of the winch during the ride to Amman! It was a weird experience! When we reached Amman, we parked the car infront of the mechanic shop. Next day I stayed for 6 hours in the mechanice shop till he fixed it! It costed me 90 jd! What a happy birthday I had!

Fortunatly the day before my birthday and the day after it kind of made it up for me. I had two celebrations, one on thursday night, and another surprise party on saturday night. I got a perfume, vodka bottle, a painting case, painting training book, ‘Blink’ book and a Swatch watch.

And I got a lot of gifts and birdthday wishes on facebook.

Thank you all for making my birthday special.

Wish the zodic were with me! :S. Go saturn go! I hate you!

They have always compared me to him in terms of goodness, calmness and love to other people. His image has always hunted me, with him not only passing his blood and morals to me, but also even after years of him passing away, still appearing in my dreams as if in my subconscious I refuse to believe that he has gone.

I always see him alive and healthy in spite of his last days of struggling with Cancer. He always sits there on the sofa he used to sit on in their living room, but this time with silence as if he is only there to watch my grandma whom he loved the most and spent most of his life taking care of – Refusing to leave her even now on his after life as well.

Cancer was only a tiny portion of the hardship he had to face in his life. My mother, in tears, likes to remember her father’s hard life and lists the hardest moments he had to go through.

While he was a child, fate decided to steal his mother, leaving him and his siblings with a tough father whom after a short period of time decided to marry again, bringing them a bad step-mother who didn’t just used to treat them badly, and lie about their behavior for their father to punish them, but also was able to deliver some other kids which they gave a special treat at the expense of my grandfather and his sibling from his original mother.

I can remember the tears on his eyes whenever he hears the song of Dured Lahham “Yamo yamo, ya set el habayeb yamo” (Mother, mother, the queen of the loved ones). The pain of loosing his mother has companioned him through his whole life.

Loosing his mother as a child was not enough. Fate decided to strip him from his father as well leaving him alone in this world where the only choice left for him to survive is to live in an orphanage house. A house where strict Christian nuns were responsible of taking care of him, teaching him Christianity and French!

At 18, he had to leave his orphanage house and join the army. It was 1948 battle where he fought with his fellow young Palestinians to protect their land. He used to remember in bitterness the type of cheap retarded weapons the British army provided them with in comparison to the advanced ones the Israeli gangs used to have.

The war ended, and he became a refuge. I am not sure if at that time he was already married to my grandma or not. But I know that he had later on to struggle with poverty in order to support his family over the years.

Because of his honesty and rejecting anything that would contradict with his strict moral system that were inject in him by the nuns at the orphanage house, he had never been able to stick to a job. Even if it meant that he and his family had to starve.

At one of his job he was a supervisor on some workers, the higher management were using those workers without paying them what they deserve. He objected and fought for their rights in order to be loyal to what he believes in. He won himself, but lost his job.

Later on, he moved to work in Libya, and while he was able to make good money there, he couldn’t stay more than a year because of his love for his wife and kids. He couldn’t stay away from them, and so he decided to come back. With the money he saved working abroad, he went into a partnership with a friend of him and opened a cafeteria that didn’t last for long because his friend betrayed his trust, stole from him, and ran off!

Beside his struggle with Cancer on his last days, He has faced other serious health problems in his life. Once while working in Aqaba, he felt a pain in his eye, and so he went to the Dr. to check it out. The dr. diagnosed it to be a cancer and recommend that he removes it so that the cancer won’t spread. And so, that is what he did, only to find out after he lost his eye, that it wasn’t a cancer! It was only a small congestion of blood in his eye that was formed because of a hit he got at childhood.

On another accident, he was working on a machine where it broke and hit his ear, cutting it from his head, where he had to take it with him and run to the hospital for them to put it back.

His smoking habit didn’t spare him from a run to the hospital as well because of a stroke that attacked him leaving him helpless to a heart surgery where he knew that he had to stop smoking.

With all those problems, I have never seen any bitterness in him for life. He has always had a good spirit. He has always showed his love to people around him. He has always believed in goodness no matter how much evil he had to go through.

We usually compare him to Prophet Job (Ayyoob). No one had to be patient in his life like him.

May his soul rest in peace…

It puzzles me how much people are willing to go in order to maintain their outer figure to comply with what the majority of other people think to be attractive. Things get even more complicated when they are related to masculinity/femininity and their role in forming society expectations while at the same time being rules by those expectations.

While it hasn’t been easy for me going to the gym a couple of days per week and doing the hard work of lifting weights in order to build muscles that would add to my masculinity and attractiveness to myself and to most of the people I know. I find it even harder for women who have to go through much more hectic in order to highlight their femininity and pump their attractiveness.

Weight lifting is not part of what society expects from women in terms of the outer appearance. I guess that they would wish it was instead of all the things they have to do that can be even more painful than an hour at the gym.

From their early childhood, they are subjected to piercing their ears in order to be able to apply some accessories around their head when they grow up. As they get older, they learn to put makeup on their faces which can add to their beauty but at the same time causing them much hectic having to wear such a mask that in a lot of cases doesn’t only require time and money, but also would harm their face skin and inner ego of not being good enough without a mask.

As they mature, they got surprised with a painful technique that are required to be applied on their bodies each month in order to remove their body hair! Then they learn to wear painful shoes with high heels to adhere with what society expects of beauty to be with being taller!

I wonder at some point humans felt it isn’t good enough to stick to what nature gives us of differences between the two sexes. Why do we have to empathies on those differences and highlight them putting a burden on each individual of us in order to comply with the rules we have built? Maybe nature isn’t good enough to differentiate us the way we like to be differentiated.

I am not sure whether what we do is just a natural innate need of emphasizing our masculinity/femininity or is it a blind follow up of what others expect us to be?

It isn’t even easy to figure out thinking of myself. Where I forced to pump up those muscles at the gym to comply with people’s expectation and high regards of muscular men, or is it something my masculinity called for where I would still like to have those muscles even if other people don’t like it?

Would women still go through the pain of removing their body hair if there are men who don’t care about it? or is it the some men who don’t care fear to admit it, just to adhere with what others think is better?

If I was a woman, I would look at society and sigh with wonder of how in the hell things got messed up in order to impose such constraints on me to comply with their expectations.

why in the hell women have to go through such painful measures to satisfy expectations and still keep silent about it where every single woman follows the guidelines of an abstract beauty that we defined with ignorance of its natural rule of being relative?