4.2.11
“‘Know then,’ she said, ‘that there are two reasons why some women feel no qualms about making love to men other than their husbands. The first is their failure to get from the latter their established due, for men accustom them at the beginning to what they are incapable of giving them at the end, and it’s no secret that there are, among women,325 the nymphomaniac, who “devours everything,” the sworn virgin, who “abstains completely from intercourse,”326 the two-timer, who “takes two lovers,” the prick teaser, who “incites without making herself available,” and the bluestocking, who “loves the conversation of men but does not fornicate” (which is the way I am)…’” The Fāriyāq continued, saying, “‘Thank God for that!’ said I, and she said, ‘… and the ball-breaker, “who flirts with you but doesn’t avail you of herself.”
4.2.12
“‘The second reason is her desire to find out what men are about and to put them all, sturdy and weak alike, to the test, simply in order to know, so that nothing about them may escape her. There are those too who suppose, given women’s firmly established belief that men have no interest in anything but flirting with and sweet-talking women, that their husbands will betray them at the first opportunity. Thinking so, any time she finds a means of leaving the strait and narrow, she hurries to seize it, imagining that she is taking revenge preemptively, which is to say before the time otherwise allotted for it — despite which women never lose their love for their husbands. On the contrary, any such straying may be conducive to an increase in love for them on their part.’
4.2.13
“‘May God not send me a love that springs from nymphomania or infidelity!’ I said. ‘How, though, can this promiscuity be conducive to an increase in love327 when the woman, once she has sampled the thrusting prick, the strong prick, the hard prick, and the huge, mighty-headed prick, will never thereafter be able to limit herself to her husband, given that he can never escape the particular attribute with which he was created? And the man likewise, having once sampled women who are sweet-mouthed and dry-cunted, narrow-quimmed, high-twatted, tight-tunneled, and bulgy-beavered will find his wife ever after diminished.’ She laughed and said, ‘Were these attributes essential in order for a woman to be a woman and their diminution a defect, they wouldn’t be found only in a small number of individuals, for most women are not like that. The reason why affection increases, as women claim, with promiscuity is that the husband, given his long familiarity with and lascivious interest in his wife, and the fact that the touching of one of them by the other no longer produces in the body of either the toucher or the touched any shaking, trembling, or tendency to faint, is able to keep going longer, penetrate more deeply, and maintain a harder erection than the stranger. The two last characteristic abilities328 will elude the latter, either because of his voracity and discombobulation, or because the woman keeps going back to him after short breaks for more, or because what is forbidden is not always as appealing as what is permitted.
4.2.14
“‘The pleasure she gets from him derives largely from her conceptualization329 (meaning her conceptualization of him as other than her husband) just as her boredom with her husband derives largely from her conceptualization of him as something familiar. This aside, it is a fact that licit pleasure is more powerful. Conceptualization, however, is almost as important as performance. The proof of this is that if a man believes that a woman other than his wife is going to spend the night with him and then his own wife does so without his knowing, as happened with Our Master Yaʿqūb,330 peace be upon him, he’ll find that his wife, that night, possesses all the characteristics that he conceives of as being possessed by other women, and the same is true for a woman. Based then on what has been said above about the woman believing that every kind of beauty, adornment, and delight in the universe is most appropriately hers, she will conceptualize, and preoccupy herself with, the attributes of beauty as though they were a universal absolute. Should there, therefore, be a particular example close by, she will deal with it as she would with the universal, to the degree that her thoughts will often go on beyond any one man in his particularity, two or three men pulling them this way and that until she is reduced to a tizzy in her attempts to decide between the beguiling and the yet more beguiling, which amounts in reality to her being surrounded on all sides by sensual pleasure, like someone who wants to drink from three water pitchers and puts them all to his mouth at the same time.’ ‘Your words,’ I said, ‘put one in mind of the lines of the poet that go
If my heart’s distracted by the young ladies
My eye beholds, and whose beauty’s divided, a little to each,
I mount in my fancy a face that attracts me
On a body that suits it and then feel the itch.
“‘Earlier, however, you forbade me to visualize any particular woman when celebrating women’s bodies in verse and said it was a sin, so wouldn’t you agree that what you’re suggesting is sinful too?’ ‘The former,’ she replied, ‘is sinful because it constitutes a pointless and excessive use of language. Words of dalliance have, in fact, no value and are worthless however used.
4.2.15
“‘As far as the act, on the other hand, is concerned, women view it as determining the comeliness of their children and this explains why you will find a child with a nose like Zayd’s, a mouth like ʿAmr’s, and eyes like Bakr’s;331 this is also a riposte to those who claim that it is in the wife’s interest for her husband to see lots of other women because on his return his libido will have been increased by his contact with them.332 It is different, however, when the woman goes out, for her libido is contained within her. Those idiots who claim that what a man visualizes has an effect on the shaping of the fetus in the womb should look at no women whatsoever other than their wives, lest their offspring turn out to be all females, or at least hermaphrodites, the reason being the discrepancy in the different ways in which the father and the mother visualize.333 Indeed, a woman who exchanges her husband for another in thought and visualization should be nothing less than all men’s object of praise and her husband should think of none but her.’ I said, ‘The necessary implication of your words is that women who are shielded from seeing the generality of men will find no pleasure in one particular man.’ She replied, ‘As for the woman who sees the generality of men, that is so. However, it is not so in the case of the woman who sees none at all, for water, no matter how hot, puts out fire.’ ‘That is true,’ I said, ‘and so it is if read backward, meaning that fire, no matter how cool, heats water.’ ‘It is true,’ she replied, ‘if read backward, but frontward is better.’334
4.2.16
“‘Into how many divisions may pleasure be divided?’ I asked. ‘Into five,’ she responded. ‘The first is visualization of it before its occurrence. The second is discussion of it before the same. The third is its actual realization accompanied by these two essential elements. The fourth is the visualization of it after the act. The fifth is discussion of it afterward. Whether the pleasure of visualizing it is greater before it takes place or afterward is a matter of debate. Some believe the first is greater because when it hasn’t yet happened one’s thoughts about it roam more widely, delve more deeply, and do not stop at any limit. Others claim that the actual occurrence provides one’s thoughts with a known shape and a specific form as a benchmark against which to measure any replay or repetition. Similarly, there is disagreement over the times of its visualization, as also of its discussion, though the crucial point is the clearness of the visualization and the foulness of the tongue. The best time for it is the summer in women’s opinion and the winter in men’s. As to the number of times, some people are Unitarians, some Dualists, and some Trinitarians.’ ‘And some,’ I said, ‘Muʿtazilites and some Muʿaṭṭilites.’335 ‘The last,’ she said, ‘are without redeeming qualities and are unworthy to be counted among mankind.’336