Nour*, 26, is proud to be a virgin to honor her faith. For a very long time, she believed that most Lebanese women were like her. Until she started  to work and met women who openly talk about sex. 
Here is her story.

“ I was raised to protect my honor, my virginity. My parents emphasized the fact that I had to be a good girl, and preserve the reputation of my family. 

I grew up bound by a lot of rules. I didn’t have the right to wear clothes that were too revealing, I couldn’t sleep at a friend’s house; and of course having a boyfriend was out of the question. Even when I talked innocently with a boy, my father would glare at me. 

Despite it all, I fought back to do what I liked. For example, when I was 14, I got bored of hanging out with my girlfriends. I  wanted to play football, so I started hanging out with a group of 5 boys. My father wasn’t happy about it. He used to tell me: “What will the people in the village say ?” I didn’t care, because I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I made sure my community got used to this idea, and it worked: when you do something many times in front of people, even when it’s unusual, they end up getting used to it.

Bearing that in mind, it wasn’t because society excepted me to be a virgin that I decided to not have sex before my marriage. If that was the case, I would’ve done it in secret like all Lebanese girls do. There are so many ways to keep your husband from knowing that you’ve had sex with other men! Having surgery, adding small squirts of blood under the sheets, or even getting your husband drunk on your wedding night !

I don’t care what society says, but I do fear God. There are limits I will never cross, like committing a  murder or having sex before marriage.

I met Ahmad, my first boyfriend, during my last year of university, I was 23. He played drums and took drugs, and he had long hair:  I always had a soft spot for men with long hair. The first time I met him, he told me “I love you”. I answered, “How can you love me, we just met!”. He said that it was love at first sight. I explained to him that I don’t go out with boys, so we stayed friends for a year.

Back then, we had a Druze professor teaching us a philosophy class. He taught us about religion, about great philosophers like Aristotle, Socrates and how a society operates. I became even more religious than before.

One day, the professor discussed physical contact. He said it was better not to touch the opposite sex to greet them because it might be dangerous. It made sense to me, so I decided to stop touching Ahmad. Him only, and not anyone else.  Because I knew we were attracted to each other, and I was afraid that if I let him touch me, maybe he would develop even more feelings for me? I didn’t want that to happen because I was trying very hard to be a “good girl”. 

One month down the line, he broke down and  begged me for a hug. To me, hugging was no trivial matter,  so I suggested we hide in the garden of the university to do it. 

When we hugged, our hearts were beating so strongly that I could feel them through our chests, as if they were magnets attracted to each other. 

It was so intense that I instantly fell in love with him. And I decided I would never follow again the rule of not touching the opposite sex. It is so beautiful, I didn’t want to get deprived of it. 

A few months later, we officially became a couple, after our first kiss. We were sitting on the roof of a building at uni, I was freezing. He kissed my cheek to warm me up, then veered towards my lips. I let him do it. He gave me a French kiss! 

I loved our kiss, but at the same time I felt so guilty.
A kiss for me is inherently sexual. I shouted at him: “You ruined me, I’m a good girl, I don’t do this type of things!” He felt bad, so he apologized profusely.  

At that time, I didn’t know how important it was to kiss your boyfriend to make sure that you are physically attracted to him. 

I understood it later, with my third boyfriend. I loved him, but I hated kissing him, it disgusted me. I had to break up with him. 

So sometimes, I’m afraid that the same thing applies to sex. Maybe you have to have sex with someone to make sure you’re compatible with them? What would I do if I get married and discover after the wedding that I hate to make love to my husband? 

I also wonder if my past boyfriends with whom we never had sex ever cheated on me. Because I have a friend who’s engaged; he told me about his sexual adventures with other girls. He doesn’t consider it cheating, as they are not married yet with his fiance, and he claims to have “physical needs”. But his fiance is not aware of his actions. How is that not cheating? I felt so angry when he told me about this. 

Despite it all, I still believe that it’s better to wait to get married to have sex. For a long time, I thought most Lebanese people were like me. At university for example, even if we didn’t talk about sex because it’s taboo, it was obvious to me that my girlfriends were like me. But when I started working, I met people who talked about sex very openly. At first, I was shocked, then I got used to it, you get used to everything. I realized that actually everybody does it! I’m the odd one. 

Anyway, I waited all these years, so I can wait a bit more, can’t I?

I also believe that sleeping with a man is something that might affect me for life, that’s why I’d rather do it with my husband, because I know he won’t hurt me.” 

*The name has been changed

This article is part of our series on sexuality in Lebanon, #LFonsexuality

Reporting and writing: Soraya Hamdan
Translation: Nour Chidiac
Illustration: Eva Besse/ photo by Max Rovensky on Unsplash
Editing: MJ Daoud