In most of Lebanon’s obstetrics and gynecology clinics, a single question, only allowing for one of two ostensibly unambiguous answers, is used to elicit a woman’s sexual history — married or single?
A seemingly benign question, it alienates scores of women for whom marriage is not necessarily a prerequisite for engaging in sexual activity — creating an uncomfortable clinical environment in which patients might feel incapable of being forthright with their doctors about their needs and concerns. For not even the Lebanese medical community is free of the stigma shrouding the public discussion of sex in the country. But a handful of professionals such as Sandrine Atallah, the country’s first sexologist, are trying to remedy the lack of sexual health awareness that this reluctance has facilitated, and which has bred detrimental misconceptions about sex.