the vagina monologues in KTM

---

Day 1 of the first wave of my intervention was incredibly successful! No one showed up until 10:15 (it started at 10am) in true Nepali style, but at that point 8 young women streamed into the auditorium room at Fulbright. They were all Deepti’s cousin’s friends from school—ages 19-22. A couple more women also showed up later.

The first day of the intervention was going over the informed consent, filling out the baseline survey, a tea and cookies break, and then discussion about why it’s important for women to learn about sex. Only one participant was married, so supposedly the rest of them are virgins (although I have my suspicions about one based on the questions she was asking). They all agreed that women should know about sex in order to “avoid being exploited by men,” as one put it. We talked about how being educated about one’s sexuality allows women to take control of their sex lives and makes it easier to protect themselves from diseases and things like exploitation.

I then opened it up for questions, and specifically asked what it is they want to talk about in the program. That’s when the real fun began! They asked questions about orgasms and masturbation, and before I knew it I was drawing diagrams of the vagina and clitoris on the whiteboard and explaining the different stages of an orgasm. They asked me questions such as:

How do women go about masturbating?
Is it harmful for a woman to masturbate?
What is normal for the number of times a woman masturbates?
Is it okay for a woman to masturbate after marriage?
If you’ve never had sex but don’t bleed the first time, are you still a virgin?
If you have sex but the hymen does not break, are you still a virgin?
Is it safe for a woman to have sex when she is pregnant?
How do you know when a man has an orgasm?
Can a man tell if you are not a virgin by how your body looks or how tight your vagina is?

And then they asked me if I masturbate. I was prepared for such questions since occasionally these things came up in the interviews I did with women during the formative stage of my research, but I was surprised at their openness. Nepali women are typically very shy when it comes to talking about sex, and more “traditional”, conservative women do not talk about it at all. But these women are young, educated, and modern by Nepali standards, so they want to know it all and are not afraid to ask. What fun for me!

And hurray for the fact that I thought to bring a vibrator back from the U.S. Tomorrow I am going to introduce them to the toy many American women use to get off.

I’m already satisfied by the fact that I am providing a sexual education to these women, and I think the program will ultimately be a success. I am only looking to test it with 50 women total, and if it continues to be a success, I will have no problem. They all seem very excited to be a part of it, so hopefully they will send their friends to the next waves.

Now I am sitting in the U.S. Embassy’s cafeteria. I came here to use the ATM, since my card doesn’t seem to be working anywhere else. All I had to do was flash my Embassy badge and the Nepali staff let me in without evening scanning my bags. Lucky for them I’m not an angry American looking to blow up the place. The doors in here are so heavy with their explosion-proof structure that I have a hard time opening any of them. And I was greeted by the photos of the 3 stooges on the way in, but I have to admit, it is nice to be in a place with Western style bathrooms and to order a chicken Caesar wrap. I’m already sick of dhal bhaat and tarkari again.

I would like to give a shout out to the State Department, though, for funding this research. I wonder what Bushie would say if he knew his State Department was funding me to teach Nepali women about orgasms?

---