But listen to me here: let him be in control.
There’s no yes or no.
Here, women don’t talk about these things.
You must only do as he says.

“Are you a virgin?”
She lied and said that she wasn’t.
Just so they’d let her marry a friend of hers.
She didn’t love him, but they’re friends.
He understands her situation,
And wants to help her move out of her parents’ house.

I don’t have the right to ask about your past.
But I think it’s important to talk about this.
There’s no such thing as a woman’s virginity.
There’s no difference between a man and a woman’s virginity.

All girls are born with something and it’s taken by their husbands.
You were destined to get married since the day you were born.
This thing you have, he is going to take it today.

I remember I went to visit my aunt the morning after her wedding.
Everyone was in the bedroom talking about it.
Everyone would enter and look at the great wonder.

I invented something called “The red lines”,
And I imagined them drawn on my body.
So that I could mark the boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.

Mr. Khairy asked me to come sit with you for a bit.
Who asked Mr. Khairy about the [Quranic] verse
that speaks of the Guarding of private parts?
Who?!

It was an ordinary day in the life of a 16-year-old girl in high school, going out with friends for lunch and a movie. My phone rang; it was Hassan, my cousin.

When I was little
My mother told me that a girl’s private parts are called a box of pearls
When I got older and we learned about reproduction
I asked my mother
and she told me the same thing that our teacher Mr. Mahmoud told me

He took me, and said,
“Don’t worry. People in love do this.”
He gave me a pill, which made me dizzy.
I didn’t feel a thing.