This will give away how much lifetime tv I watched as a kid but I do not know how many of you watched the Golden Girls but Sophia the old lady on the show would always start out funny stories with “pictures it 1889” then something about her being in Italy would ensue. I will start my story the same way picture it 2011 I am standing in front a few hundred people about to give a speech as an expert on human sexuality. I guess I should first start this whole fiasco from the start because after all one does not just end up on stage without a few events unfolding. As a peace corps volunteer one of the most valuable lessons we learn in training is all about IRBING this is a term that refers to making as many possible contacts to work with on projects etc while in country. About 5 months into living at site my counter part who is also studying to be a DR in Phnom Penh at International University has me take the IU van in with him to help him with a project it is during this faithful day I meet some higher ups in the university who talk about wanting to work with me more. However at this time, I am overwhelmed with so many other things at site I just put the offer to work with the university on the back burner. It was not until the end of the rainy season when I remembed their offer that I was like hum it would be cool to do something with this university of potential Dr’s and Midwives but what I had no idea. What I had in my mind was setting something up for drs to do more volunteer work or help them with out reach education which I do not think is ever really taught to them. In the meeting, I have set up I go back and forth with the international director who deiced he wants to start a potential class on human sexuality that would be more encompassing than just std type of education because he felt it could help with long term patient care. I sit back and cant believe I am hearing right that in Cambodia they are willing to teach a class about gender sexuality everything (my draw drops). I soon think though how can I help you with this? Once again though more talk they would just like me to come up with a prototype if you will on what a human sexuality course could look like. I take on this challenge they give me a dead line of the end of oct however, in-between all of this I was visiting china so this gave me to two weeks to create the course the pressure was on. Well when I came back from china I had the power point slides ready and had a date set up to meet with the director again of course by Cambodian standards you can not make a meeting in the beginning of the month and have it stand as is by the end of the month. Yea so it got canceled not to worry he would call me to re schedule me sigh o well had other things to do anyways. It was one fateful morning when my whole house came crashing down on me, it went something like this “Eileen I am so very surprised I see your poster at school you will be presenting” me to hong “huh what are you talking about right now” hong to me “yes there is a big poster of you saying you will talk about the human sexuality” inside my head “what the fuck did they do and why did know one call me to ask” few mins later in my own head “how am I going to deal with this sigh I guess I have to call and figure this mess out”. After a call, im told pretty much nothing except could I meet him this Saturday upon meeting the next wtf moment occurred going on the website to get the street address to give to a tuk tuk I see my picture now I know I am in deep. At this meeting, which he showed up to an hour, late my time is just no valuable I guess they inform me that they made these posters of the presenters and I would not mind right umm yea I sort of do mind. Like most things in Cambodia I am always pushed to go to new lengths to be culturally sensitive with this situation they would have lost face (a big deal in Cambodia) if I backed out thus causing me to lose face. I suck it up and said I will do it however, this leaves me with another issues what do I tell peace corps? Well once anything could be media related which at this point I clearly had no idea if it would or would not be I had to call the director to sort of explain this situation out. Which went something like this me I am presenting a small lecture (I didn’t know the number of people) can you just tell me what I can and cant say if the press is their… huh what exactly are you talking about me well I am presenting on human sexuality but don’t worry the university has labeled me a research from the USA nothing about peace corps (most of you are under the notion that you must have a PhD to be considered a research, me to but in Cambodia turns out not!) the rest of the conversation in confession umm just don’t talk about Cambodian politics and you should be okay. So now we fast forward to the day of and were back on all these eyes on me and I must start a presentation on the history of human sexuality with an emphasis on Cambodian history no easy feat since there is little to nothing documented on the subject believe me, I spent weeks researching it! Now for those of you who don’t know me I have a big mouth and tend not to shut up however, big groups are not my things I do much better in small groups. In fact, I don’t think I have ever gotten a good grade in public speaking in my life in all the classes I have had on the subject, I pretty much get a B if I am lucky. I also have this issues where I speak 1000 miles a min and I cant stop my self for the most part it takes a lot of mental power to slow down however, when you know your audience 2nd la is eng you have to speak supper slow which I tried my best to do. Now Cambodia is pretty much in the dark ages when it comes to talking about sex in public with this in mind I did not go to extreme however, I thought since I was dealing with med students I should not be too worried. I was wrong the maturity level of people who are this close to dealing with patients was no better then a 12-year-old boy in the states it was sort of sad. On the other hand, the people who were interested seemed to learn a lot though no one except one person asked a question after the lecture more on that in a sec. the mic kept cutting out which was annoying which im sure made it hard for people to understand me but the two people who came with me Liz and Taylor said overall it was good that it was not the train rec they thought it could be. I know you think I missed the bullet on that one but wait it only became a train rec after… so that one person who asked a question was this old Khmer guy who was also a presenter about erectile dysfunction now my lecture was the history of human sexuality so I just kind played off his questions of that is another topics one I can cover at a different time but just stating I am wear of sexual dysfunction in both men and women. This kept him at bay for the time being however bc he was also a presenter we got brought to a special room with fruit I bought both my friends in with me thank god for what unfolds next would not be believed if I did not have other witness. Now keep in mind the whole situation was confusing and his line of questioning didn’t make senses but by the end, all I can tell you is that he wanted to correlate his ed with virgins. This whole situation was extremely sexist and if you don’t believe that patriarchy behavior is alive and well I am living proof so its 3 girls on one side of the table and all the men on the other side when all of a sudden I will call him ED guy starts to questions the hell out of me. Wants to know my approach to human sexuality and I was like I have a social sciences background but then he started to imply a social sciences background in it self was not good enough and then proceeds to ask me this is the terminology he used not me by the way, yea this guy is a dr “have I ever been inside a lady’s secret parts” umm me no I am not a gynecologist I am a social scientist with an interest in women’s rights and human sexuality. Then he starts to talk about virginity this is where it just got so sexist I did’t even know what to do Liz was turning bright red I thought she might punch him so I am trying to just keep my composure. He starts to question how do I view virginity as a good or bad thing now I did not want to state my option for I knew what he wanted to hear but I also wanted to make him see the fallacy in his logic so I did not say what he wanted to hear instead I asked a question with a question can you define what a virgin is to me? Naturally he could not bc virginity at best medically is defined by loss of hymen which most people lose in various activities that have nothing to do with sex. The way we think of virginity and sex is more socially/ culturally constructed then anything else. Then he keeps going on about Khmer women and the collapses of the moral system as far as not waiting till marriage and stating that its because they follow the west aka American where there is not such thing as a virgin now he was trying to call the 3 Americans sitting in front of him sluts or broken. I was getting frustrated liz was about to punch him when we ask him well what about a man virginity and he was like well he cant loss his hymen he does not have one so it does not matter if he has sex or not (nothing sexist their). Then he goes back to Erectile Dysfunction and is trying to figure out how can we know who has the problem and what can help. Well I am like you know there is medicine however, are you aware that statistically only like 30 percent of women are capable of achieving orgasm so if you are worried as a doctor about sex dysfunction maybe you should start their. That’s when he turns his ed issues into the thought that having sex with a virgin would cure him that’s when I just dropped my jaw and had nothing else to say to this man. I guess I can say I am glad I got to have my first lecturing experience in a country that is more relax with things such as this. Until next time peace out from the other side of the world.
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