A New Rite Of Passage For Women In Nepal

With no access to sex education, for NEPALESE WOMEN wedding nights are often filled with fear. Corinne Redfern reports on THE NEWLYWED PROJECT, a beauty-salon initiative offering SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT

- Corinne Redfern

‘I didn’t know what sex was until I did it,’ says Sajana Maharjan, 24. ‘Nobody had told me how it worked.’ She was so scared on her wedding night she made her older sister share the double bed in her new house – while her new spouse slept in another room. ‘We had sex a few days later, but it was a shock. I hadn’t realised it worked like that at all.’

Sajana’s husband, Bishowraj Lawot, 29, agrees that they were unprepared. Although he’s less red-faced when it comes to discussing it. ‘I wasn’t sure if we were doing it right,’ he says. ‘I was so nervous, I felt like I was falling off a cliff. But there was nobody I could ask to check, so we just had to work it out on our own.’ Neither had heard of The Newlywed Project, and they’re not alone.

In Nepal, sex is a secret. Sure, it takes place – sky-high birth rates are testimony to that. But female literacy is estimated at 46%, and Internet access is minimal, so discussions surrounding what happens behind bedroom doors are nonexistent. This would explain why more than 50% of all pregnancies in the country are unwanted* and data suggests over 300 000 abortions take place every year. Local health experts believe this is down to a total lack of knowledge about how reproduction works.

‘I genuinely believed I could get pregnant from kissing, until a couple of years ago,’ says student Smita Pokharel, 23. ‘There’s so much confusion about sex. This is probably the first time I’ve ever talked about it properly.’