I’m exhausted, but today was very productive in terms of research. After yoga and my Nepali lesson, Susheila and I went to the Saathi women’s shelter. To my surprise, we ended up conducting 3 interviews with shelter residents. The last one wasn’t so great—she was extremely shy and didn’t answer half of the questions, but that’s okay. I’m getting a better sense of Nepali women’s sex lives through these interviews. Sex is clearly a man’s domain—women often don’t even know what it involves before their wedding night, at which time they are quickly educated. Men, however, are permitted to talk about it, are expected to know what to do, and pretty much call the shots when it comes to sexual relationships. The women I interviewed today have all been raped by their husbands, and none of
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