July 10, 1996

For Egyptians, Something Sexy to Beat Their Gums About

By DOUGLAS JEHL

ANSURA, Egypt -- If it is true, as it is whispered here, that certain young women in this provincial capital have let their moral standards lapse, then no one wants to believe they fell prey to hormones alone. No, the cause -- the curse, it is said -- was ordinary-looking chewing gum laced with aphrodisiacs capable of transporting the most innocent female into a sexual frenzy.

The potion's source, it is firmly believed here, is an Israel bent on corrupting pure Egyptian youth.

Female virtue remains so highly prized in rural Egypt that the murder of a daughter can be justified as a crime of honor. And in Mansura, rife with talk about orgies said to have occurred at the local university campus, the specter of moral breakdown has created an atmosphere of crisis.

"It was a joke at first," said Doaa Mosalem, a 19-year-old student in the School of Engineering. "We began to hear rumors that a girl had sex with seven boys on campus and another had sex with several others in a car. But now I believe that something was really going on."

Exactly what happened at Mansura University is still elusive, even after weeks of reports in anti-Israeli newspapers and furious allegations by a member of Parliament, Fathy Mansour, who has accused Israel of "a huge scheme to ravage the young population of Egypt."

A laboratory analysis by Egypt's Ministry of Health found nothing in the brands of so-called Israeli gum, traced to smugglers in Gaza, that could stimulate sexual arousal, the health minister, Ismail Sallam, said in a news conference last week. And an investigation by the vice squad in al-Daqahlya province found nothing to back up reports that women driven to passion by the gum had carried out sexual attacks on their male classmates.

But in Mansura, a quiet, conservative city on the lush banks of the Nile, 81 miles northeast of Cairo, loudspeakers affixed high on the minarets of mosques blare warnings against chewing gum, announcements that have been a standard feature of recent Friday sermons.

Fathers warn daughters against sampling so much as a single piece. And nearly everyone interviewed over parts of two scorching summer days seemed convinced that the candy-coated squares of brightly colored gum, sold under the brands Aroma and Splay, had been the cause of much that was untoward. Some of the gum packets have the word "Spanish" on them, along with a picture of a fly.

"We are no longer safe," said Sayada Abdul Moneim, a 20-year-old high-school graduate who, like her friend Miss Mosalem, wore her hair veiled in a gesture of Islamic modesty. "Women should be more prudent. I now use a brand of gum that is made in Egypt. It is not very good quality, but at least it is safe."

In an interview, a university official at the Youth and Sports Affairs Department said several young women had confessed to her that they had had sex with male students after chewing the gum. "We women are very weak," said the official, who insisted on anonymity. "Anything like that gum could affect us."

A 21-year-old woman who asked to be identified only as Amira and who would be interviewed only over the telephone, said she had learned first-hand of the gum's powers.

"I lived the experience deeply and truly," she said, explaining that she had accepted a ride and then a piece of gum from two male classmates and then had begun to lose control. "At the beginning, I thought that this feeling was just because I was alone with them in the car," the woman said. "But gradually, I was beginning to wish inside that one of them was with me in the back seat. I was so easy. I found no resistance. You know the rest."

So deeply ingrained is the notion of female chastity within Islamic culture that doctors in Cairo specialize in hymen-restoration surgery to hide the consequences of premarital sex.

Except among the most Westernized, a bride known not to be a virgin may be the subject of great shame. And Israel, still regarded with suspicion by the vast majority of Egyptians even after 17 years of peace, has long been blamed as a source of corrupting influences including smuggled pornographic videos and the aphrodisiacs furtively peddled in Attaba Square in Cairo.

But rarely have the two taboos been so intertwined as in the alarm being voiced in Mansura and in newspaper headlines like one that appeared recently in Al-Arabi, the organ of a Nasserite party, that warned of "normalization with sexual bombs."

Even without evidence that the Israeli gum delivers anything more than fresh breath, authorities in Mansura have swept it from the streets, closing kiosks and arresting dealers for trafficking in smuggled goods.

And on the university campus, darker warnings are being whispered by young women like Amira, who said that she had been telling other women the tale of the chewing gum and what befell "a friend."

"It is a terror on campus," the young woman said. "Everybody is terrified."