I just came back from school, it was a long walk, the streets had refreshing, greeneries along. It made me wonder a little bit about nature. On the way back home, I felt this little nudge from inside to write what I’m going to write now. I have no sex life, and my life suffers from love drain to no love at all, it is like a flat, white plain picture, pure, totally virgin. I’m good looking, female, smart and funny, and 22, now that is going to sound like those dating ads but it isn’t. Yes, I’ll repeat it I’m good looking, smart, funny and very young, and on top of that caring and loving and I have nothing to do with arrogance, actually when I come to philosophize about good looks and intelligence I think of them as gifts that our nature has given to us. I believe we should be humble when we have such attributes but I described myself as good looking and smart for you dear readers because that is how most of you evaluate the worth of people. I’m not just exactly what I said but deep inside, I’m ambitious and would like to help my people, the Iraqi people, wait a second didn’t I just imply that I’m from an Iraqi background!!!!

Yes, my background, later my culture, contains one of the main reasons why my love life is lonely, gloomy and sad. I’m told from my parents and the Iraqi “community” (if there is any community) that I can’t bond in a committed relationship with a man of a different religion from mine. I’m told that I shouldn’t have sex before marriage. I’m told to be good, and moral. I’m told that most girls would regret having sex before marriage. I’m told that girls have less sex drive than males. I’m told to wait until Mister Charming comes along and asks for my hand. Also, I’m bombarded with stories about hymen repair, Iraqi pimps, and girls in Hijab giving blowjobs.

But nothing has to do with my human inside? And nothing they say really has a remedy of how I feel?

How come I kept myself so good and moral and yet I had no chance for finding one of my essential needs as a human, my right to be loved and cared about.

Since I come from an Iraqi, Muslim background, my choice of men would drastically become limited. For example, I sit in my class and the vast majority are non-Muslims, non-Arabs/Iraqis. So basically, I have to say No, even though they are humans like me, and I did like some and some liked me and even though I define myself as a rebel against the status quo of the Iraqi Arabic culture, the hope of finding my right guy from the same background as I am, isn't dead, as I can't tolerate myself being impatient, and it would feel more comfortable to be with someone that has the same culture or cultural intermix as I do. I’m an advocate of Iraqi girls marrying non-Iraqis, and I don’t think it is fair to waste a lifetime waiting for the Iraqi mister right!

Also, guys at my age usually don’t look forward to having a real, committed relationship. Not to forget to mention that males in the early twenties need lots of maturing to do, and the older guys will be wanting settlement and kids which is something I can not give since I want to explore the world, travel, and then later chain myself with responsibilities such as crying babies; it is my right to live my age!  Also, one of the prevalent phenomena that one can notice about our youth today is the extremism. It is hard to find youth that can balance between the western and the eastern culture, they are either too traditional, waiting for their moms’ to find their match or too religious, rejecting girls with no Hijab, or the one that you see talking about how he got so wasted last night, and would be appalled to the idea of anything related to eastern or Arabic girls hence the term inferior complex. Some of those "night loving" guys would actually avoid being around girls with Hijab on, it racks their nerve system! Guys that are balanced, that take what is good from the east and the west with an open, rational mind are hard to find.

So basically it is a dead case. How can I fulfill my human need? Masturbating, I have no idea how to practice it and it already sounds sick, and sad to me.

How about casual sex, I live in the west, people are sexually liberated, oh well, but then I’ll be the non-virgin and I’ll give my parents a heart attack and they will know definitely if I was not a virgin, because there is something about me that is I can not lie. I can’t sweep it under the carpet, I can’t do the vagina maintenance, I can’t be dishonest if I ever meet my dream man, I want to be free in what I do and in what I say with respect to people.

Why am I chained down then? Why can’t I sell the moral values that my parents ingrained in me? Why I can’t go and phuck?  Why am I waiting but I know I cannot hold it any more?  Why can’t I go astray and celebrate my youth like everyone else like me at this age? Why am I stranded in the world of moral values whilst my Arabian knights are drinking their booze in the delight of their freedom?  I wonder.

In the end all I can say, that Iraqi arrogance should be dropped in the garbage, male and female should start caring about the other, to make this two nations, one nation, secured psychologically and emotionally, so probably we can think about other important things like building and helping Iraq, or promoting our good things about our culture, we are dissolving in a very extreme way. Sex is a right, and love is a must, there is no way it could be denied to us because of the money, the archaic double standards, or any other social illness.   The Iraqi youth should start thinking creatively. This hypocrisy, double standards, and sweeping under the carpet should end.  Our sexuality is us, if we can’t practice it, our moral decay is the end!