Free The Proof of the Honey by Salwa Al Neimi Page B

same evening I found myself surrounded by my male friends whose conversation revolved around that very topic. They were swapping stories about an Egyptian artist who tried some sort of Syrian Viagra. His member remained flaccid, while his head started to swell up. Terrified, the girl who was with him fled. He was scared, too, even more than she, but didn’t dare call the doctor. Instead he called a friend, who told him to wait a little, long enough for the unexpected symptoms to go away on their own, and not to do it again.
     
    In a study on sexual impotence among men in the Arab World, I read disturbing figures regarding the fantastic dollar amounts spent on Viagra and other love remedies, as they are called in the advertisements I get daily over the Internet. This brought to mind the characters in the last novel I read by Rashid al-Da‘if and how they take Viagra like aspirin.
    Why do they expect Viagra to rescue them from their misery? A collective sexual misery, present even in our relationship to our traditions. Why bother with Viagra! All one has to do is read those old manuals of Arab eroticism and apply their prescriptions. “Results guaranteed!” said the old authors. “Try these remedies and you’ll obtain miracles!” Arouse women and excite men. Lengthen and thicken your penis. Constrict the vagina and make it tastier. True, some of the ingredients, such as red bull’s pizzle, white cockerel’s brains, and wolf’s spleen, are difficult to obtain; but pepper, spikenard, musk, ginger, grape juice, and oil are available to everyone.
     
    Take lukewarm water and massage the penis with it until it turns red and becomes erect. Then take a piece of thin parchment and put hot tar on it and wrap it around the penis. If you do this frequently, it will grow larger and longer.
     
    Before undertaking such measures (and this is my personal advice), you’d better make sure you have the number of the nearest hospital handy.
     
    The publisher pulled out his cell phone and started reading a joke that had been sent to him by SMS, the latest technology to be put at the service of the lewd joke. I’ve already heard this particular joke, but I go ahead and laugh with the others. I knew a certain Elie, who, every day on his cell phone, got fresh jokes about Hayfaa Wahba and Nancy Ajram, our archetypical bimbos and the butt of many a saucy Arab joke. He’d learn them by heart to tell them later. The latest jokes generally reach me via the Internet. I read them and generally forget them, with the exception of those that include word play.
    I sat listening as the intellectuals of our society of dissimulation spoke, and mentally I took notes. The publisher was telling a new joke. He didn’t read it off the cell phone this time. He’d memorized it. They laughed and exchanged opinions. I didn’t say a lot. I was content, as usual, with laconic comments and expansive laughter.
    “Viagra has rescued us all,” said the Enumerator. “Both ourselves and our honor. God bless the people who discovered it and their lab assistants. They ought to be nominated for the Nobel Prize. They have performed a service to all humanity, women and men.”
    The Poet told another amusing story and they all laughed heartily.
    “Do you know why they classify Viagra now as a cosmetic and not as a medicine?” asked the publisher.
    I had heard the joke so I settled for polite laughter.
    “Because it restores our honor!”
    “I’ve never used it,” said the Enumerator, disapprovingly. “I’ve bought it for friends in Arab countries. Every time I ask one of them, ‘What do you want me to bring you from Paris?’ the answer is, ‘Viagra.’ Imported Viagra is very expensive over there, while the locally produced variety is cheap. And apparently it’s good, results guaranteed.”
    I listened to him detailing the prices of the different brands and their degrees of effectiveness.
    “You say you don’t use it yet you know all about it?” said