CAIRO: When Aida, 45 (not her real name), who has been happily married for 24 years found some red underwear in her husband's drawer, she never imagined that it belonged to him. After following him like a private eye for days, she got the shock of her life. "I caught him in the red underwear . with another man, Aida recalls. "I had to face it: my husband likes men, she said sobbingly. "With two sons and a daughter who is about to get married, I didn't know how to react. Forty-year-old Hanan's story was even more tragic. On her third marriage following two previous divorces because she couldn't have children, Hanan soon learned that her husband was homosexual. "Because my first two marriages failed because I couldn't bear children, I was a catch for him, Hanan said. Though he was 45 but never married before, Hanan and her family never suspected this. "When the bitter reality dawned on me, he simply said that he married me to conform to social norms. But what shocked me the most was his willingness to give me the freedom to be with other men whenever I liked as long as I kept quiet about his homosexuality. A stranger case, however, is that of Laila and Khaled, a married couple in their 40s. Khaled had to break up their marriage of 13 years, to be with a lesbian who will look the other way when he fulfills his own homosexual fantasies. "This was shocking because we were deeply in love, she says. But a wife with a homosexual spouse is no longer uncommon judging by the frequency of such cases and the scores of Arabic websites, including religion-based ones like IslamOnline, that discuss the issue openly. Many specialists prefer to discuss the subject of homosexuality within the privacy of their clinics fearing it would wreak havoc among married couples, making wives unnecessarily question the behavior of their spouses. Many men with undeclared homosexual tendencies decide to get married at a certain age, succumbing to social pressure and the demands of conservative families who don't want their son to look odd. M.B, 50, who related his story on El Hesn El Nafsi blog, said that even though he got married at 44 to please his mother who wanted to see his children before she died, he still fantasizes online with homosexual men and declares that his sex life in marriage is only a kind of duty. Dr Hamed Abdulla, a gynecologist and the Ministry of Justice's Medical Consultant for Sexual Disorders, told Daily News Egypt that generally homosexual men are of two types: "The first is the declared type who is incapable of having sexual relations with a woman. The second, hidden type is the bisexual who can sustain a relationship with a woman, but has stronger tendencies towards the same sex, said Abdulla, who has attended to several such cases. But Dr Olfen Cooper of Stanford University in the US, says that the bisexuality of some men shouldn't necessarily dampen their desire to associate with women and lead a normal life. While some specialists believe that marriage is the best "cure for homosexual men who seek help, others stress that, on the contrary, before they take this step, they should seek the right therapy. "The therapy would depend on what type of homosexual the patient is and the degree of his homosexuality, said Osama Shaeer, an andrologist at Cairo University's Faculty of Medicine. "From a psychiatric viewpoint, there is the 'ego-dystonic' type who rejects his abnormal tendencies and the 'ego-syntonic' type who doesn't wish to change. "As andrologists we take little interest in their psychological makeup as that remains the domain of the psychiatrist, said Shaeer. "But we could interfere mostly with the passive 'ego-dystonic' by providing him with an 'erectile implant' that's surgically planted within the penis to help him achieve a proper erection because some of the 'ego-dystonics' - active or passive - do experience erectile dysfunction as they start the act with a woman. But I'd like to note that the role played by the wife is always important. Dr Ghada Al Khouly, assistant professor of psychology at Ain Shams University said: "That some wives only come to discover their husbands' homosexuality after many years of marriage shows a lack of awareness on the part of these women. "That kind of disorder can easily be noticed in certain kinds of behavior such as the desire for anal intercourse, wanting to watch pornography prior to love-making, or the permanent reluctance to foreplay. She added that the wife's role depends on how ready she is to face the situation. "She should understand that her husband is a patient and behave accordingly. She shouldn't listen to the depreciatory remarks of family and friends who usually advise her in such a case to ask for a divorce. She also has to adapt their sexual practices to the new situation. Abdulla explained that the wife's attitude is usually based on how strong and deep their relationship is prior to the revelation. "If they love each other and share lots of responsibilities, she supports him and her feelings of rejection will turn into tolerance and forgiveness with time, said Abdulla. Such a revelation can trigger guilt with some of the patients and help them develop apathy towards their homosexuality, he said. "Others, however, manage to get over it with the force of will and determination. But note that some ego-dystonics, even without being exposed to their wives, search for treatment of their free will. While Abdulla underlines the futility of psychotherapy in the majority of such cases, he commends the results of behavioral therapy which consists of reversing the patients' sexual obsessions through conditioning to trigger orgasm through pornography in the presence of a woman. Some experts also attribute delayed treatment to the absence of sex education, a channel that could be used to alter homosexual behavior at an earlier stage. "In spite of fact that some discover these tendencies during their teenage years, they opt for marriage instead of treatment, thinking it would cure it, said Abdulla. Religious observance also makes some teens shun the company of girls for fear of committing the sin of having sex outside of marriage, not knowing that by doing so they nurture their inclination towards their own sex. Other specialists explain that homosexuality is not necessarily a sexual disorder but could just be a whim. By the time a wife is involved, the crisis is certainly compounded.
