The Turkmen word ‘hana’ means building or room. It shows up in ‘myhmanhana’ which means hotel (guest building) and ‘dermanhana’ which means pharmacy (medicine building). In talking with my site mate about her counterpart’s wedding, I learned that the Turkmen word for vagina is ‘jynshana’ (sex room). As my fellow volunteer, Shannon, said, what a perfect example of how Turkmen view women and what their purpose is.
In my advanced club, I had my students debate ‘marriage is good for a woman vs. marriage is not good for a woman.’ Someone from the ‘not good’ side said husbands cheat on their wives, to which the ‘good’ side (mostly girls) responded, “if the husband cheats it’s because the wife isn’t pleasing him.” I had to stop the debate and clarify that they really meant that if a man cheats on his wife, it is the wife’s fault. They said yes. If you’ve been reading my blogs from the beginning, you’ll remember this is not the first time I’ve come across this belief here. I then asked, “if a wife cheats on her husband, is it her husband’s fault for not pleasing her?” They stared at me in silence. So I continued, “you better say yes. Otherwise you’re saying a wife’s duty is to please her husband but the husband has no duty to his wife.”
The impossibly frustrating thing about this, besides the obvious, is that if a women are expected to please their husbands (and note that pleasing a husband is only sexual, not providing stimulating conversation, for example), you would think they would be taught a thing or two about sex in order to fulfill those expectations. But Turkmen sex ed is non-existent. I’ll talk about this more in my blog about weddings, but Lindsay in talking with her counterpart and counterpart’s friends learned that grown Turkmen women know next to nothing about sex before they are married. Most are basically raped on their wedding night because they don’t know what to expect. One friend of the counterpart didn’t know you could have sex any time of the day.