I Have Iraq in My Shoe by Gretchen Berg Page B

the women who didn’t have their lady flowers brutally maimed? I had serious doubts that they even enjoyed sex. Did conservative Muslim men go down on their wives?
    I had too much free time (when would classes start?!), much of which I spent scouring Google, typing in phrases like “oral sex and the Koran.” I’m sure this was sacrilege, but Islam dictates all areas of life for the Muslim, and my curiosity was killing me.
    The first link I clicked on said that oral sex is permitted, according to the Koran. But then it had this paragraph about women and “their courses,” with an opening quote from the Koran.
    They ask thee concerning women’s courses. Say: They are a hurt and a pollution: So keep away from women in their courses, and do not approach them until they are clean. But when they have purified themselves, ye may approach them in any manner, time, or place ordained for you by God. For God loves those who turn to Him constantly and He loves those who keep themselves pure and clean. (The Noble Quran, 2:222)…
    It is obvious from the Noble Verse that intercourse is prohibited during the woman’s period. Oral sex is also prohibited because the vagina would contain germs in it, and any physical contact with it, whether through the penis, tongue or finger, will not only bring pain to the woman, but also could and would hurt the man through the harmful bacteria. Allah Almighty in Noble Verse 2:222 clearly ordered men to stay away from any physical contact with the women’s vaginas during the monthly period.
    This was fascinating, not to mention valuable information. I didn’t need a handgun, or mace, or pepper spray, or even that fancy granite chastity belt to protect myself here. All I had to do was tell any potential attacker that I was experiencing the diabolic menses and they’d go screaming into the woods, a la Scooby Doo when faced with an evil, wax-faced villain. I would be smug in the knowledge that the diabolic menses was just my highly efficient self-cleaning uterus, and that the wax-faced villain was really just Old Man Murphy trying to protect his property from those meddlesome kids.

    *  Adam was not to become the Love of my Life—in case you were thinking about that Tish Durkin article. He was engaged to a really adorable girl back in Canada, and I just wouldn’t want you reading too much into our interactions. Adam was absolutely hilarious and fun to be around, though. Warren was the brother I never wanted, and Adam was the awesome brother I never had.

Chapter Eleven
    Assimilation Speed Bumps
    Two weeks had passed. I was working on my assimilation, but it was still a very strange, unfamiliar place. When one finds oneself in a very strange, unfamiliar place, and one is female, in a female-unfriendly region, one is not terribly inclined to open one’s door should one’s doorbell ring at 10:30 p.m.
    My doorbell rang at 10:30 p.m., and it stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly, I was Scarlett again, sitting alone in the living room knitting (watching TV) while menacing Union soldiers pounded on the door. The doorbell startled me into a state of wide-eyed paralysis. I mentally ran through my new, standard defensive opener, “I am totally having my period right now!” The doorbell rang again, and I was finally able to mobilize myself, and crept to the stairwell and yelled, “ADAM?” A muffled voice from behind the door answered, “No, it’s Tom Pappas from the university.”
    Who?
    I opened the door to find one middle-aged, bespectacled American man, one short Kurdish man smoking a cigarette, and one short Kurdish Buddy Hackett bodyguard (who had escorted me to immigration and now stood outside my front door with a rolling suitcase). I was one startled, bespectacled girl, and I was in my pajamas.
    Bespectacled American Man held out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Tom Pappas, you must be Gretchen.” I had no idea who Tom Pappas was, why he knew who I was, or, most importantly, why he had brought