Requested: My friend is a Muslim man married to 3 wives. Ask him almost anything!
I am with my friend now, he has finally agreed to answer some of your questions. He's pretty outspoken and might seem like an asshole at times, but he is a pretty nice guy.
To give you a background on him: He is not a hardcore Muslim, but he believes in it and would probably disagree with anything that goes against it, most of the time. He drinks sometimes, when abroad the country, but only his really close friends know about it. He also doesn't mind the company of hookers from time to time, also when abroad.
Finally, to keep his identity, he would like to be known as "Bo Yacoub" which will be his pseudonym.
edit: I am translating everything he says, so the responses might sound weird because I am typing as he speaks. I'll try to edit anything that seems out of place.
edit: OK guys, I am gonna head out home its 6 am here, he has had fun answering your questions. If you have more, just leave your questions here and he'll be sure to answer them tomorrow.
edit: And He's back, to answer the first common question that was asked like 20 times: "Why are you friends so obsessed with having sex with more than woman at the same time? Tell them, no. As much as I like to dream about it sometimes, it has never happened and never will."
edit: sorry guys I didn't see him yesterday at night, but I will see him again tomorrow and I'll answer the remaining questions, sorry for the delay.
Posted Nov 28, 2009, 9:26 PM UTC · edited
[deleted]
In your opinion, are your wives happy? "My wives are very happy, as far as I can tell, they couldn't be any happier, there are sometimes when one or more of them seems less content, but that usually doesn't last for too long till they just forget and start to get along with one another."
Are you happy? "I consider my self to be a lucky man, considering I have the attention of 3 women every day who strive to please me when they can, especially if they want something. There are times where I wish I would rather no wives at all, but just like my wives, I tend to forget"
Why did you marry 3 wives? "Its complicated. I married the first one and we were very happy the first 4 years, till I realized she cannot have children. So she recommended that I get married to someone young so I can have a child. I was skeptical at first, but she insisted as she is a very traditional woman. So she picked my second wife for me. A couple of years later, my first wife had my first child at the same time my second wife had trouble with getting pregnant. Years later, I married my third and most favored, because she use to be the wife of a close friend of mine who passed away. I found it to be my duty to step in and give and her children a home."
For the love of everything that is holy, How do you manage? "Well, I will tell you its not easy at times. But you have to understand when to be the man of the house and say 'no' and when to be the loving gentle and caring husband. You have to set boundaries. Most of all you have to show them who is in charge. Because without a captain, a vessel wouldn't make it very far."
Preparing for feminist storm..
hahah I tried to explain to him that people with "western" views would be reading this, but he insisted.
I can captain my own ship thank you very much.
I agree to some degree. I think that the male/female relationship works best when the male is dominant, and the female is submissive. But the woman isn't worth any less, and her role isn't any less important. The woman feels security from her man, and the man gets support from the woman. I'm not saying that the man should have more of a say in any matter - it's purely a psychological dynamic with strong mutual respect. It just feels right, if anybody knows what I mean, and seems to work out very well when done right.
It seems natural for our species, as it is for many others.
EDIT: Christ.
I'm going to go ahead and guess that you just happen to be a member of the 'dominant' group?
If the man has no more say in any matter than a woman does, how the hell is he dominant?
Also, I completely disagree with the assertion that men need to be the dominant partner. However, I think that within any relationship, there is an equilibrium of give and take. Both parties need to work towards knowing when to get their way and knowing when to allow the other to have theirs. This process is independent of gender but dependent on personality types.
Ok. I disagree with you on a number of levels, let me explain why.
Let me first state that this is all my perspective, and explain where I am coming from. I am a white male (a member of the privileged class), with a formal education in Intercultural Communications.
What you're describing is your personal code of ethics. It seems that you feel that in order for a relationship to work, the male should be in a dominant role. Now this isn't very different from what most people think and how most relationships work. But instead of assuming that this is the right way, let's take into account other ways to approach this dilemma.
In my education experience, I've found that Gender Roles are adopted, accepted, and perpetuated by members of society. Usually the roles that members of each gender play, are determined by the dominant or privileged group (in this case males) for the benefit of that group and at the expense of freedoms that would normally be enjoyed by the submissive group (females).
Now this doesn't only work with gender roles, it falls under the ideology of Supremacism. Perhaps in your experiences you have found...
While this may be true in many cases, we can't ignore the fact that the model male/female relationship that you're describing may be learned behavior that you're mistaking for as you say a ...
So if we look at your argument now, I feel it's safe to say that you're making some presumptuous assumptions about the dynamics of relationships.
In response to a later post you made.. this line stuck out in my mind..
This is an assumption you're making based off stereotyping words and you really have no evidence of this division. Did you take into account trans-gender or bi-sexual relationships, where the individuals choose not to identify with defined Gender Roles or Sexualities? Where do they fall in your "Butch and Bitch" categories?
As a postmodernist and a member what I consider a progressive, open-minded generation, that should be working towards equality for all humans regardless of race, gender, etc.. there's really no way I can read something like this and let people like you get away with perpetuating and enforcing ideas of dominance and superiority.
Now I can see why the OP would see things this way, being raised in a different culture from our own, but seeing someone who is also another westerner perpetuate these ideas... Well... It makes me feel sick, and somewhat hopeless for the societal changes people like Martin Luther King, Elizabeth Stanton have fought and died for.
As a girl, I want to agree with you to a point. It's of course not true for all cases, and it's not, like you said, a total dominance of power by the man.
But it's true that a girl wants to feel security from a guy.
Aww look at the hungry troll.
i am not a feminist but ugh.
[deleted]
being a feminist just means you belive men and women should have equal rights. So you don't?