Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

entire family.
    Feeling confident in my newly found female
wiles, I tartly replied that he best consider his mother’s
advice.
    Kareem whispered that I was the girl of his
dreams: a royal cousin, bright, and of good humor. He declared he
could not abide the women his mother wanted him to wed; they sat
fixed like stones and he knew they tried to anticipate his every
wish. He liked a woman with spunk; he would be bored with the
ordinary. He added, in a sexy murmur, that I made his eyes
happy.
    Kareem then brought up a puzzling subject; he
asked if I had been circumcised. I told him I would have to ask
Father. He cautioned me, “No, do not ask. If you do not know, then
that means you were not.” He seemed pleased with my reply.
    In my innocence, I blurted out the question
of circumcision at the dinner table. It was Father’s turn with his
third wife on that particular evening, so Ali was sitting at the
head of the table. Aghast at my question, he put his glass down
with a thump and looked to Sara for comment. I continued to scoop
my bread into the dish of hommous, and for a moment failed to see
the anxiety in the eyes of my sisters. When I looked up, I saw that
everyone was ill at ease.
    Ali, thinking himself the leader of the
family, banged his fist on the table and demanded to know where I
had heard the word. Realizing something was amiss, I remembered
Kareem’s warning and said I had overheard some of the servants
talking. Ali dismissed my ignorance with a glare in my direction
and curtly told Sara to call Nura in the morning and have her speak
to “this child.”
    With our mother now dead, Nura, as the
eldest, was responsible for my knowledge of such subjects. She
arrived at the villa before ten o’clock the next morning and came
directly to my room. She had been summoned by Ali. She made a wry
face when she said that Ali had informed her that her performance
as eldest daughter was sadly lacking. He, Ali, intended to notify
Father of his observations and displeasure.
    Nura sat on the edge of the bed and asked me
in a kind voice what I knew of the relations between a man and a
woman. I replied confidently that I knew all there was to know.
    My sister smiled as she spoke. “I fear that
your tongue is your master, little sister. Perhaps you do not know
all of life.”
    As she discovered, I knew plenty about the
act of sex.
    In Saudi Arabia, as in much of the Arab
world, the subject of sex is considered taboo. As a result, women
talk of little else. Discussions regarding sex, men, and children
dominate all female gatherings.
    In my country, with so few activities to
soothe women’s minds, the main occupation for women is to gather in
each other’s palaces. It is not uncommon to attend a women’s party
each day of the week, excluding Fridays, which is our religious
day. We gather, drink coffee and tea, eat sweets, lounge on
overstuffed sofas, and gossip. Once a woman begins to veil, she is
automatically included in these functions.
    Since my veiling, I had listened in
fascination as young brides told of their wedding night; no detail
was too intimate to reveal. Some of the young women shocked the
female gatherings by declaring that they enjoyed sex. Others said
they pretended to enjoy their husbands’ advances, to keep them from
taking another wife. Then there were those women who so despised
sex that they kept their eyes closed and endured the assaults of
their husbands with dread and repulsion. Significantly, there were
a few that remained silent during such discussions and shied away
from the topic; those were the women who were dealt with in a cruel
manner by the men in their lives, much in the same way that Sara
had been brutalized.
    Nura, convinced that I understood the
implications of marital life, added little to my awareness. She did
disclose that it was my duty, as a wife, to be available to Kareem
at all times, no matter my feelings at the moment. I proclaimed
that I would do as I willed, that Kareem could not force me against
my inclinations. Nura shook her head no. Neither Kareem nor any
other man would accept refusal. The marriage bed was his right. I
stated that Kareem would be different. He would never use force.
Nura said that no man was understanding about such matters. I
should not expect it, or I would be crushed with
disappointment.
    To change the subject, I asked my sister
about circumcision. Her voice thin and low, Nura told me that
although our first king had long ago banned the rite,