THE SCENE: Two Arabian women discuss which type of lover is better – a bearded man, or a fresh faced youth.
THE TEXT: Said one of them: “Sister, how can you bear the roughness of your lover’s beard when you kiss him? Surely it must scratch your breasts, and the points of his moustaches stick into your lips and cheeks? How can you prevent yourself being cruelly cut to pieces each time? Take my advice, change lovers and do as I do; find some boy whose checks are downy and desirable as a fruit, whose delicate flesh melts in the mouth under your kisses! As Allah lives, you will discover many savoury things about him to console you for the beard.”
The other answered: “My sister, you are a fool; you have neither intelligence nor taste. Do you not know that a tree is only beautiful when it has leaves, and a cucumber only savoury when it is coarse and pimpled on the outside? Is there anything more ugly in the world than a man beardless and bald as an artichoke? A beard and moustaches are to a man what long hair is to a woman. This is a fact so evident that Allah (glorify Him!) appointed one angel in Heaven with no other work than to praise the Creator for having given beards to men and long hair to women. And yet you tell me to choose a beardless boy for my lover! Do you think that I would ever stretch myself out for love below a youth who, hardly mounted, thinks of dismounting; who, hardly stretched, thinks of relaxing; who, hardly knotted, thinks of unknotting; who, hardly arrived, thinks of going away; who, hardly stiffened, thinks of melting; who, hardly risen, thinks of falling; who, hardly laced, thinks of unlacing; who, hardly stuck, thinks of unsticking; and who, as soon as he has fired, thinks of retiring? Undeceive yourself, poor sister! I will never leave a man who enlaces as soon as he sniffs, who stays when he is in, who fills himself when he is empty, who begins again when he has finished, whose moving is an excellence, whose jerking is a gift, who is generous when he gives and, when he pushes, pierces!”
Hearing such wisdom, the lover of the beardless boy exclaimed: “By the Master of the holy Kaabah, my sister, you make me inclined to taste a bearded man!”
– One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, 15th Century AD
