Lebanese Women’s Sexuality in Lebanon and Canada: Culture, Meaning, and Mental Health

Abstract

Sexuality is a central part of being human throughout one’s life. Sexual health is a sexual right, with sexual pleasure being central for both sexual health and overall wellbeing. Honour culture, which Lebanon ascribes to, is a patriarchal system where women’s honour is associated with her sexual purity and chastity. Under this belief system, unmarried women are to remain celibate and virgins, a position that goes against their human and sexual rights and wellbeing, if they would desire to be sexually active. This study’s purpose is to explore the sexual experiences of young unmarried Lebanese women (18 to 25 years old) in relation to culture, meaning, and mental health. This study also aims to compare the experiences of young Lebanese women living in Lebanon and those living in Canada. Participants (N = 30) completed an online questionnaire that evaluated their experiences about their sexuality and sexual activities. Quantitative findings suggest, as expected, an association between honour culture beliefs and sexual permissiveness, with sexual guilt fully mediating the relation between honour culture beliefs and sexual permissiveness. Misalignment between beliefs and behaviour regarding sexuality as well as sexual guilt beliefs both predicted mental health. Further, meaning mindset directly mediated the relationship between misalignment in honour beliefs and permissive practices and mental health. Qualitative results ( N = 19) supported these findings. In addition to reporting feeling sexual guilt, the large majority of women also qualitatively reported feeling sexual shame and other painful emotions as well as engaging in secrecy and pretense due to cultural norms. However, qualitative results also indicate that unmarried women who participated in this study are resisting sexual cultural norms that they perceive as discriminatory against women’s sexual rights and the majority are embracing their sexuality and acting to fulfill their sexual needs. Qualitative results have shown that each woman acted with agency within the safety of her abilities and her environment at the time. Some unmarried women chose not to engage in sexual activities, others chose to engage in sexual acts without vaginal penetration to keep their hymen intact, while the largest proportion chose to engage in sexual activities that included vaginal penetration. Religion and religiosity played a role in sexual practicing: for example, unmarried Muslim women engaged less than Christian and Druze women in sexual activities, and unmarried non-religious women engaged in sexual activity that included vaginal penetration. There was an uneven number of participants between the Lebanon and Canada; thus information comparing the two countries was obtained from qualitative data only. For participants, the degree of acculturation, as measured by number of years living in Canada, was perceived to influence unmarried women’s feelings of sexual guilt. Lebanese women in this study who grew up in Canada did not report feelings of sexual guilt. Also, compared to unmarried women in Lebanon, participants in Canada reported experiencing their sexuality with more liberation including cohabitating with partner. Using definitions of sexuality and sexual health by the WHO, this research aims to advocate for women’s sexual rights and health, and to help policy-makers and physical and mental health providers better understand and cater for the needs of Lebanese women in Lebanon and in Canada.