In the past few years, a new and unusual phenomenon has been spreading among girls in public schools, universities, colleges, and sometimes among teachers or between teachers and students. These women develop a feeling of admiration toward each other until they form a platonic relationship. These relationships often evolve into serious and dangerous associations not only emotionally but also physically.
Having this sort of relationships between Saudi girls coming to light lately doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist before. It only indicates that freedom of publicly showing interest among girls is permitted now. History reveals that such relationships among women were present in the Abbasid era but it remained highly secretive.
In our modern world, being exposed and learning from other cultures trying to understand their relationships, values and specifically this type of sexual relations made our girls open to getting attached to individuals from the same gender. There are many factors that cause and create this type of attraction toward the same sex; some of these factors are genetic, some are environmental related to how the girl was brought up socially and psychologically.
Some people believe that separating the two genders is the main cause for such relationships keeping in mind that sexual energy is an instinctive natural desire that each and every person has. And because there are no boys available to interact with these girls and make them experience these feelings, girls end up searching for other girls. However, I don’t totally agree with this theory. The Saudi woman still admits that man is her only way to release her sexual energy even if she had made some attempts with her girlfriend to try and explore it, but this is only considered “childish behavior.
I would like to clarify that sex is not an obsessive topic women talk about in a society like ours, but how is it that love and affection between girls is increasing to an unacceptable degree just like what’s happening now? To me it seems that the nature of the woman — any woman no matter what her status — and her need to feel love boosts her self-confidence, her femininity, and her sexual abilities. These feelings are born easily and very quickly as soon as a student praises her peer’s good looks, personality or character in an unusual way. Then the same student would follow up with a sensational letter that declares her feelings of friendship and sexual desire toward the other girl. What happens is that when the other girl receives the letter and starts reading the compliments and likes it, she starts feeling special and that she’s worthy of love and care. Not to lose these beautiful positive feelings, she agrees to interact using the same language. A strong relationship is then born between the two where the first girl dominates the other. It’s all because she is in need of someone to fulfill her psychological and emotional needs either because she’s lonely, disturbed, or has no confidence in herself. So she seeks someone to be so close to her and listens to her problems. And the relationship is welcomed by the other girl who becomes ecstatic on hearing, on a regular basis, how beautiful and sexy she is!
This is what happens when girls admire and like each other. But there are some who might cross this line and start taking the relationship to a physical level. Their feelings change because of lack of parental care or love or perhaps they lack religious moorings. Having certain traditions where our society prefers to keep girls away from boys, these relationships are socially safe and could be practiced easily.
An intermediate student told me that there are girls in her school who offer their desire to start a relationship with another girl as if it was a marriage proposal. When the student asks the other and the latter agrees, they get “married” spiritually. They start to appear together everywhere and even when they go to the bathroom. No one could be friends with any of the two girls, sit next to her, or talk to her. Any girl who tries to approach any of the two arouses jealousy in the other. If problems develop between them, they end up divorcing each other spiritually and go on a mission to search for other companions to hurt the other.
A girl who is in her first college years talks about her girlfriend in high school who used to smell her hands and tell her, “I wish I was a man so I could marry you.” Another girl talks about her roommate in college who tried to kiss her. Others admit that they feel strange attractions toward girls with strong personality or who have stronger physical appearances. And the more the girl’s features are similar to a man’s, the more she is found the best girlfriend.
The disgusting part of these sexual relationships is that some teachers like their students and vice-versa. In spite of being their behavioral and educational mentors and role models, teachers become active entities in spreading this sort of education in schools.
I believe that teachers with this attitude and unprofessional behavior lack self-esteem. In fact, such relationships give the teacher the chance to search for beauty spots in her so she could love herself. Teachers being entertained by and having fun with teenagers is not a new thing. It’s been happening for years now and not only in big cities, but it also exists in villages and small towns.
We could point out that the social and cultural class has nothing to do with this kind of relationships. But as we all know, adolescence is a phase where girls like to discover themselves. It’s also the phase of sexual maturity and an increase in sexual desire would occur if the parents didn’t enlighten, educate and psychologically and emotionally look after these girls. Teenagers might end up making the wrong choices.
If we examine a straight girl — who is free of certain problems that make her like other girls — in her teenage years, she normally starts to day dream and fancy having someone else to share her emotional life with that her parents fail to provide. Therefore, it’s only normal the she starts to seek a girlfriend who can share her misery and listen to her problems that most girls in her age undergo. This emotional behavior is considered a normal thing if we realize that the girl imagines everyone is against her and she’s deprived of love or in need of having someone to understand her needs and appreciate her interests. The girl’s intensity might increase in this age to cross the normal limits if she is the victim of the media that glorifies sex and love among the same sex.
It’s important that we admit that these things are not confined to our society. We must also never feel ashamed to probe critical matters and try to find solutions for them. It’s rather pivotal knowing that parents observe the changes in their children’s’ behavior and bring them up feeling loved, cared for, and appreciated. It’s important that the mother becomes friends with her daughter and gets acquainted more with her interests. Most importantly, she must be aware of her daughter’s friends inside and outside the school.
In the end, keeping your eyes open and watching your daughter isn’t the best way to prevent such relationships from happening as long as the girl is not convinced she’s doing something wrong. On the other hand, parents must find a healthy way to fulfill their girls’ emotional and psychological needs.
My message to all mothers who are reading my article is: Most of the girls who prefer to have relationships with other girls are experiencing problems with their mothers and are feeling emotionally drained inside their homes. They fear their future; they, therefore, look for peace and love somewhere else and they don’t tell their mothers what they do believing that the mother is their worst and biggest enemy.
— Dr. Maha Al-Hujailan is a medical researcher at King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh.
