Our dual morality disorder
I was standing on a main road in Islamabad when I saw a big billboard depicting a woman provocatively posing in a nightgown. There, standing right below the billboard, hidden behind a face veil, was a woman who seemed to be a completely different specimen to the model above. Written on this billboard, in bold, was the word ‘Hidden.’ This might have been a brand name – I really don’t know what it stood for. However, to me it highlighted the hidden dual-morality disorder of the virtual and real world that is currently sweeping through our society. Let me explain what I mean ...
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Think you have gonorrhea? Call Rahnumma
At 23, I have only used condoms as water balloons. So when a friend of mine told me that she had some warts down there and wanted me to go with her to a gynecologist, I felt…quite awkward. The awkwardness stems from my first and only visit to the gynecologist – which was about six to seven years ago. My mother, who had been pregnant at the time, had miscarried and had to go for a follow up check-ups regularly. She took me with her once and I must say it was rather unpleasant. I could sense that we were ...
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How is ‘marital rape’ not rape?
“He abuses me but I cannot refuse him. My family told me that it was my religious duty to do as he demanded and if I refuse, the angels will curse me all night.” These are the words of a young Pakistani woman who contracted a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) when her husband, who had been engaged in several extramarital affairs, forced himself on her. When it comes to marital rape, women are often confused whether they have been raped or not. The scenario of a stranger raping a woman on the street is immediately identified as rape, where as forceful acts ...
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Sex, sleaze, and The Dirty Picture
Some people watch a movie for its elegance, good acting, and high production value. Others watch it for the sleaziness, skin display, and controversy. How often do you get both sides and leave the theatre satisfied, thinking “Wow, I got great value for my money”? In the words of Silk Smitha, a film works for three reasons; entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. This is exactly what Milan Luthria’s The Dirty Picture is – entertainment. Having said as much, I must admit that it is a movie for an adult audience who is mature enough to handle the kind of humour and exposure this movie has to ...
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Pakistan’s got AIDS patients
Acquired Immune Deficiency System (Aids) is taboo in Pakistan. Every time the topic comes up, the general attitude is one of denial with people saying that Aids does not exist in Pakistan. How could it? This is an Islamic country, and the ‘illegal, immoral’ activities generally associated with HIV/Aids are just not a part of our social fabric. According to the National Aids Control Program, about 100,000 Pakistanis are living with Aids. This number is most likely an underestimate as most patients with HIV don’t even know they are infected. One is compelled to wonder where all these cases are coming from. Like ...
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‘Holy’ castration…what’s next?
A recently published story in The Express Tribune titled ‘Pir processing: toddler castrated to free him for temptation,’ September 12, poses stark questions with regards to how sexual violence is rapidly increasing in Pakistan and how the public and authorities are choosing to deal with it. The story itself involved a pir in Gujranwala who castrated a two-year-old boy in order to ‘make him a malang’. The child’s mother was complicit in the act and told reporters that she had promised her son to pir Haider Ali, who she insisted had ‘helped her conceive’ after eight of her children died. ...
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Huma Abedin: Refusing to be humiliated
Generally, the world loves to side with famous women whose celebrity husbands’ extramarital escapades are chronicled by scandalous headlines. Judging by the smorgasbord of sympathetic magazine covers, TV chatter and internet buzz that supported the marital tribulations of Maria Shriver-Kennedy-Schwarznegger (her ‘Governorator’ husband’s affair with their housekeeper that resulted in a ten-year-old son), Elin Nordegren-Woods (whose golfer husband Tiger’d it out with countless prostitutes) and, of course, Jennifer Aniston-Pitt (who continues to get public sympathy six years after the Brangelina coupling), Huma Abedin-Weiner should be the public’s darling by now. Instead, she seems to be bearing the brunt of the ...
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Shame on us Muslims
I write this for one reason and one reason only. To say sorry for the shameful statement by Kuwaiti leader Salwa al Mutairi, for her suggestion that the purchase of female prisoners as sex slaves be legalized. “Go and buy those and sell them here in Kuwait. Better than to have our men engage in forbidden sexual relations” Her words have not only put the entire Muslim world to shame and deplorable pits of hatred but has reinforced the wrong perception held by the rest of the world that we, the Muslims are nothing but barbarians. This myopic, narrow minded and shallow ...
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The role of men in contraception
In a constitutionally Islamic country riddled with contrasts, far away from the welfare model, perpetually confused on nearly all critical issues ranging from foreign policy to population planning, infamous for low status of women and girls and their social exclusion, and characterised by the dramatic capture of power elites in politics and development fields both, one wonders — what does the male role or involvement in family planning mean to Pakistan? I tried to come up with a plausible definition of male involvement in family planning in 1999 after noticing its absence in the literature. It reads: Male involvement in Family ...
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Let’s talk about sex – II
Sex education has always been a point of conflict between public educators and conservative religious groups. In my last post, the purpose of highlighting the hypocrisy, double standards and bigotry in our country by focusing our attention to red light area and vulgar stage shows was not directed towards a connection between this and sex education. The only thing which I want us to ask ourselves is: Why are we hushing something that is important for our well being and confusing it with religion, morality and vague notions? It seems that misconstrued ‘religious’ rhetoric has proved to be an effective tool in ...
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