“‘The second reason is her desire to find out what men are about and to put them all, sturdy and weak alike, to the test, simply in order to know, so that nothing about them may escape her. There are those too who suppose, given women’s firmly established belief that men have no interest in anything but flirting with and sweet-talking women, that their husbands will betray them at the first opportunity. Thinking so, any time she finds a means of leaving the strait and narrow, she hurries to seize it, imagining that she is taking revenge preemptively, which is to say before the time otherwise allotted for it—despite which women never lose their love for their husbands. On the contrary, any such straying may be conducive to an increase in love for them on their part.’
4.2.13
قلت لا متّعنى الله بحبٍ ناشى عن مدقميّة ولا ضمد * ولكن كيف يكون هذا التخليط ادعى الى زيادة الحبّ والمراة اذا ذاقت البكبك والعُجارم والقازح والكُباس لم تقتنع بعد ذلك بزوجها حالة كونه لا يحول عن الصفة التى فُطر عليها * وكذا الرجل ايضا اذا ذاق الرشوف والرصوف والحزنبل والعَضُوض والاكبس فانه يرى زوجته بعد ذلك ناقصة * فضحكت وقالت لو كانت هذه الصفات لازمة للمراة وكان عدم وجودها فيها نقصا لما كنت تراها فى افراد قليلة من النسآء * فان معظمهن على خلاف ذلك * فاما سبب زيادة المحبة فيما زعمن مع التخليط فهو ان الزوج لطول الفته بزوجته وضراوته عليها وحالة كون مسّ احدهما الاخر لا يحدث فى جسم الماسّ والممسوس هزة ولا رعشة ولا ربوخيّة * يمكن له معها المماتنة والامعان والوقوف * بخلاف الغريب فانه لشدة نهمه ودهشته او لفرط مراوحة المراة اياه على العمل * او لكون الحرام لا يسوغ دائما مساغ الحلال تفوته الصفتان المذكورتان *
“‘May God not send me a love that springs from nymphomania or infidelity!’ I said. ‘How, though, can this promiscuity be conducive to an increase in love35 when the woman, once she has sampled the thrusting prick, the strong prick, the hard prick, and the huge, mighty-headed prick, will never thereafter be able to limit herself to her husband, given that he can never escape the particular attribute with which he was created? And the man likewise, having once sampled women who are sweet-mouthed and dry-cunted, narrow-quimmed, high-twatted, tight-tunneled, and bulgy-beavered will find his wife ever after diminished.’ She laughed and said, ‘Were these attributes essential in order for a woman to be a woman and their diminution a defect, they wouldn’t be found only in a small number of individuals, for most women are not like that. The reason why affection increases, as women claim, with promiscuity is that the husband, given his long familiarity with and lascivious interest in his wife, and the fact that the touching of one of them by the other no longer produces in the body of either the toucher or the touched any shaking, trembling, or tendency to faint, is able to keep going longer, penetrate more deeply, and maintain a harder erection than the stranger. The two last characteristic abilities36 will elude the latter, either because of his voracity and discombobulation, or because the woman keeps going back to him after short breaks for more, or because what is forbidden is not always as appealing as what is permitted.
4.2.14
فاللذة معه جلّها ناشى عن التصور * اى عن تصور كونه غير زوجها * كما ان نغصها مع زوجها جلّه ناشى عن تصور كونه غير غريب * والّا فالواقع ان اللذة فى الحلال اقوى * غير ان التصور له موقع يقرب من الفعل * وبيانه لو اعتقد رجل مثلا ان امراة غير امراته تبيت معه ثم باتت معه امراته بعينها وهو لا يعلم ذلك كما جرى لسيدنا يعقوب عمٓ * لوجد امراته تلك الليلة متصفة بجميع الصفات التى تصورها فى غيرها * وكذا شان المراة * فبنآ على ما تقدم من اعتقاد المراة بان جميع ما فى الكون من الحسن والزينة والبهجه يناسبها كان تصورها صفات الحسن وتشاغلها به مطلقا عاما * غير انه اذا كان لها خاصّ قريبا منها تناولت ذلك الخاصّ متناول العام * حتى انه كثيرا ما يخطى فكرُها واحدا منهم بخصوصه * فيتجاذبه اثنان او ثلثة حتى تذهل عن الشاغل والاشغل * وهو فى الواقع تحوّف من اللذة كمن يريد ان يشرب من ثلث قلل يضعها على فيه فى وقت واحد * وقلت كلامك هذا ينظر الى قول الشاعر
| اذا بتّ مشغول الفواد بما ترى | من الغيد عينى والجمال مفرّق |
| اركّب فى وهمى محيّا يشوقنى | على قامة اولى به ثم اشبق |
ولكن قد نهيتنى آنفا فى التغزل عن تصوّر ذات بخصوصها وقلت انه حرام فهلّا قلت بحرميّة هذا ايضا * قالت انما حرميّة ذاك لكونه ذاهبا فى الكلام سدى وسرفا * على ان الغزل كله كيفما كان لا خير فيه ولا جدوى *
“‘The pleasure she gets from him derives largely from her conceptualization37 (meaning her conceptualization of him as other than her husband) just as her boredom with her husband derives largely from her conceptualization of him as something familiar. This aside, it is a fact that licit pleasure is more powerful. Conceptualization, however, is almost as important as performance. The proof of this is that if a man believes that a woman other than his wife is going to spend the night with him and then his own wife does so without his knowing, as happened with Our Master Yaʿqūb,38 peace be upon him, he’ll find that his wife, that night, possesses all the characteristics that he conceives of as being possessed by other women, and the same is true for a woman. Based then on what has been said above about the woman believing that every kind of beauty, adornment, and delight in