I'll Vouchsafe you a Vagina

No I won't. This will be a long post, so get some pocorn or a spew bucket:

I'm struggling through the learning of Tajik. Some things are simple and logical while others are crazy. If I need to speak with a Tajik, I prefer to send a text message so that I can use my dictionary to find the words I lack. I find the written language in the cyrillic script is much easier than having to decipher gibberish and formulate my own on the spot to spew back. It was while using my 1014 page Standard English-Tajik dictionary that I came upon the word vouchsafe and realized that the Tajik word for vagina was not in the book. I scanned through the 'P' section and also was dismayed to see that penis was also missing. If I get some sort of insect bite on my penis and have to tell the receptionist why I am at the doctor's office, I will now have to show rather than tell, a proposition that will surely get me arrested.

Other words that are in the book are: juvenescence, juxtaposition, semasiology, and titmouse. Of course I have come to the only possible conclusion: Vaginas and penises don't exist in Tajikistan. I want to take that a step further and suggest that these things don't exist in the Muslim world much like they didn't exist in the Catholic world of 50-100 years ago. Just as all things sexual were not discussed in the good, Christian family, so is it in the good, Muslim family. Now lest you become offended at my ensuing rant, let me assure you that it is meant for most religion in developing nations, and I will cease to use the words 'Muslim and Islam' though this world is my point of reference.

Women are the caretakers of the family, and whether or not this is nurture or nature, I'm not here to argue though I suspect it is a bit of both. There must be something innate in the females of most species who carry and bear the children or the eggs and are then emotionally attached to the progeny because of the process. In the past in all societies this was fine, as the men had their roles of killers of meat and men and couldn't be arsed to try and breast feed as well. In the MEDCs (More Economically Developed Countries (geography teacher, meh!)), the idea of the woman as the sole caretaker of the chiildren still exists, but is a choice more than a social more. This caretaking extends to immediate safety concerms as well, one of which is the security of the immortal soul, and it is usually left to the woman to make sure the kids get the proper religious brainwashing, and that all formalities are adhered to as much as possible. Men tend to not care as much, but if forced, will just kind of go along with it. I believe this idea of spiritual security is also innate and connected to the overall idea of caretaking, as misguided as religion might be. Are you with me? Good.

Let's take this over to the Middle East and Central Asia where we are innundated with LEDCs (Less Economically Developed Countries) who still adhere to the man as breadwinner and woman as complete caretaker, to include cooking, cleaning, religious indoctrination, and ritual and culture maintainence. They do all marriage preparation and the buying of anything school-related. In fact, the fathers are so uninvolved that the children rarely talk to them. In the meantime, the men spend a lot of their free time drinking with other men and see the occasional (weekly) prostitute, and it's ok. They even often surprise their wives by coming home with a second wife, something that is never appreciated, but always allowed  by religion.

How do I know about such things? My students tell me and men tell me. I have tried to become friends with perhaps 8 Kazakh men and 3 Tajik men. Once they think I am ok and they want to do more than just practice English with me, they always want to take the next step of getting drunk and seeing prostitutes together. Together? Yep. Just like Koreans do as well. It is a way for men to become friends. But, isn't that against the Holy Book you ask? No, not if it's justified like this: The men don't go see Muslim prostitutes. They find Russian girls because they are not Muslim and therefore, not exactly human according to their interpretation of the Good Book. As of now, I am no longer seeking Tajik male companionship.

Wow! This is a crazy world, right? No. It makes perfect sense that countries who don't talk about sex and who don't even have words for penis and vagina in their dictionaries, must have a way to get around a quite enjoyable and very natural human function that is considered taboo. Wives must be virgins when they marry, but men aren't expected to be. After they marry, they can safely say that they don't cheat on their wives because they are not cheating with other believers, so it doesn't count. It is much the same as in Saudi Arabia amd the Emirates where a preponderance of homosexual behavior goes on for both genders because unmarried men and women cannot be seen together in public, but it's OK for Rahim to spend the night at Achmed's house exploring same gender sexual contingencies. I am not against this at all. The problem is, those people doing these things are religiously against such activities but have changed the definitions so that they can no longer be defined by western terms. Denial isn't lying if such things are defined differently.

Where was I? Oh yeah, why does this continue? Here's the theory: For the men, life is good. Drinking and carousing is acceptable for them but not for the women who must be placed on a pedestal and maintained by the men. On top of this, when they die, they are given a passel of voluptuous virgins. Women, who are really the religious faithful and are responsible for passing such beliefs on to the children, know only these beliefs they have been taught, and to reject them would be a complete loss of that component of caretaking that deals with salvation, only they don't get any virgins when the die despite having to have been one when they got married. Why would men want to change this power structure?

There's still hope. I'm in the process of writing a letter to Abdusalom Mamadnazrov, Tajik/English dictionary writer extraordinaire,  asking him to put vagina and penis in the next edition of the dictionary. That ought to get the ball rolling. Wish me luck.